Last Week!

Monday, we were back to class in Santiago. We had one class in the morning and had a generous 7 hours to spend as free time at the university that we could use to get our journals done, start on other papers, or just hang out. I spent a couple of hours in the sun before I went inside and completed my last 2 journals, then waited around until the bus picked us up. Everyone was tired from the day of heat and computers, so it was a slow night. I had some wine, then was off to bed.

Tuesday was another long day, only this time we were constantly on the move. We started off at Ohio National, an insurance company. After that, we had lunch and went to the U.S. Embassy. The presentation there was interesting because it was a husband and wife; the wife was clearly nervous speaking in front of us (her job started the day of Obama’s inauguration last Tuesday), and her husband was a fantastic speaker. She seemed as if she was unsure about living in Chile, and he seemed fine with it. While he spoke, she danced around behind him trying to get the overhead projector to work with the remote. It was incredibly distracting, and I couldn’t focus on what the guy wanted to say, so I ended up only retaining their personal story about how they got to Chile and their adjustment. It was interesting, at least. Finally, we went to Procter and Gamble of Chile. We were all so exhausted by this point, and I know we all were really looking forward to this presentation. The information was interesting and I was glad that the first speaker asked for our participation, and that I finally got to hear about marketing rather than more financial statistics of the country, which seemed to be every other presentation. Hannah McKee (I hope that’s how her name is spelled, at least!) attended UC and got accepted as an intern a few years ago, and now is an Assistant Brand Manager for the company. She walked us through the company structure and all about her job, as well as her adjustment to living in the city as well. The whole presentation lasted just a little too long though, and we were all relieved to head back to the Kolping House. It was still probably one of my favorite presentations of the trip because it was the first that I felt was even remotely relevant to my career path.

Wednesday was a fun day. We had a company visit at MADECO, a copper factory, and took a tour of the plant. I like watching factory processes because I feel like all the time I ask myself, “how do they make this?” and then you get to see for yourself. While I haven’t thought much about how they make different copper components, it was still interesting to watch. However, I wish they would have warned us how long we would be in there--we were HOT and needed water! After MADECO, we had lunch at a mall and then headed to La Casa de Fran, a center for underprivileged kids. We all set up little stations for these kids, age (I’m guessing) 5-12, and played with them for several hours. My station was face painting, though I gave up on it pretty quickly. The smallest little girl there had me paint a bunny on her face, and I was thrilled that we were speaking Spanish back and forth to each other. She was my little buddy the rest of the time there, though I quickly began to understand almost NOTHING she was saying other than “I’m hungry, when are we eating??” She drew me a picture of herself among the typical flowers and butterflies, then I asked her, in Spanish, if she wanted to paint my face now. I was surprised that she understood because I didn’t know if I’d even spoken it correctly at all, but she got up, pulled two chairs together, grabbed paint and a paintbrush, and asked what to paint. I said “un Corazon” and she drew a giant heart on my cheek, then gave it a face and hair. It was adorable. When she had to go home, she gave me a really big hug and said “chao, tia!”… about 3 separate times. Finally, we left, our lungs all filled with dust from the play area outside where water balloon fights and soccer were played earlier, and with giant crayon drawings in hand from the kids.

That night, we had our goodbye dinner. It was really just Enrique making tons of steaks, chicken breasts, and sausages on the grill while everyone had a little to drink. Again, I had wine, after becoming attached to the cheapest wine at the grocery store called “Gato”. (The worst part is, we ended up just buying it in the box…) Everyone had a lot of fun just being at the Kolping House one last night, and we all went to bed at a ridiculous hour.

Eight a.m. the final morning of the trip, we were off to San Antonio to visit Puerto San Antonio. I hate to admit it, but the tour was pointless… nothing was happening, so we didn’t really know what to look at. We spent about 20 minutes on the tour, then went to Pablo Neruda’s house. He was a famous Chilean poet, and even though it was irrelevant to business, I’m really glad we went on the tour. His house was something out of a fantasyland, with all kinds of poetic twists to it. He collected nearly everything, and giant mast heads were all over the house. It was a bit creepy, but neat. The windows were all giant and opened up to a beautiful view of the waves crashing against the rocks on the coast…so peaceful. Even his bedroom had two walls of windows that met so he kept his bed at an angle to see out both of them. I wish I could have taken pictures of it, but was only allowed to take pictures of the views out of the window. After we finally finished all 3 tours, we went to Vina again to spend only a couple of hours. We laid on the beach, and it was strange to be back there ending the trip where it began. The group of 19 that were spending their last weekend in Vina got dropped off at their apartment and hostel, while the last 5 of us that wanted to just go home got to go back to Kolping.

So yesterday, I spent a somewhat lonely day at the Kolping House, just getting sun and puttering around to keep myself busy until the taxi came at 6. Now I’m sitting at the Toronto airport, waiting for my flight home and wishing that the weather was just as good at home than it was in Chile!

Pucon and Back to Santiago

So I haven't been keeping this updated very well, so I'll try to remember what happened...

Thursday afternoon, we arrived in Pucon at our "rustic cabins". We were all lead to believe that these would be some form of primitive-living huts in which we would be "lucky to have electricity". Instead, they turned out to be beautiful little apartment-style cabins, with full bathrooms and cute, cozy decor. We even had a little pet dog and kitten that would wander around. The dog would even come in our living rooms and lay on our couches for attention. Made me feel like I was home...

After we settled in, we were taken downtown to either eat, grocery shop, or explore. We did all three, and just walked through markets after eating shrimp pasta at a little place on the street. We found the beach, got some groceries, and got back onto the bus to go home.

I had a near-death experience back in the cabins when we got there.... All 4 of us girls were getting ready for bed, and I was on the bottom bunk of the one bunk bed in our room. I had been sitting there awhile when I got up to plug in my camera battery charger, and all the sudden I heard an enormous crash in our room. Dr. Leonard and I went running to find the top bunk had fallen down onto the bottom bunk when Chelsea tried to get on the bed. I was so grateful that I had just stood up because I'm almost positive that would have ended in a trip to the hospital... we all got a good laugh about it anyway though.

The next day, the girls laid out on the "beach" by the lake across the street, but it was made up of volcanic rock, which was very painful to walk on. We got on the bus at noon to go downtown, where we got to shop some more. I bought ridiculous, colorful woolen socks with alpacas (or llamas, or something...) on them, plus some leaf-shaped copper earrings (copper is the biggest export here, so a lot of jewelry is made of it), and some other things. The rest of the day was filled with stops to look at amazing waterfalls and the clearest, bluest waters in random areas throughout the city. Our last stop was at the hot springs, which we all thought would be a natural body of water that happened to be warm, steaming into the air... instead, it was like a spa with a series of hot tubs of different temperatures.

Most of the group went to do the 6 zip lines that were set up throughout the mountains and trees before they got in the springs, while the rest of us got a sandwich at the restaurant. There was also a mud bath that four of us girls hopped into, which was the most terribly disgusting thing I have ever felt. This wasn't smooth clay mud, this was like... mud, mulch, and sticks that reaked and soaked into our suits for the rest of the day. The pictures were fun though!

We all met back up and got in the hot tubs until the bus took us back for the night, where we had another slow night back at the cabins.

Friday morning, people had all planned to take an all-day excursion to climb a volcano, or go white-water rafting. It would be the most exciting day in Pucon because of the adventurous sports, the main reason Pucon is normally the most loved part of the trip. But when we woke up, we saw dark skies and pouring rains. Dr. Leonard called to have the bus meet us at 11:30 to go back to Santiago instead of taking the bus that night, so we left without any of our adventures... but at the same time, we were all happy that we didn't have to spend the night on the bus, wet from the rain and rafting.

We haven't done much at all the last few days except spend a day on the bus, yesterday was spent laying out and swimming, and today we had one class then spent the rest of the time (7 hours) in a computer lab to work on journals and our papers. Now we are thinking about going to another salsa dancing club for the night.

Last Day in Concepcion

This morning, we had a lecture on the fishing industry and then we took a tour to see the forestry plants. We were dropped off and a bus picked us up to take us on the tour, then we got out to look at the enormous nursery they have for the beginning plants which are planted for the man-made plantations. It was extremely hot though so it was hard to pay attention... We came back home and Ify and I were picked up by Jorge, our host brother. He took us to the grocery store where we bought flowers for his Mom as well as some Nestle Manjar (caramel spread) that we fell in love with when it was served for breakfast at our house. When we got home, we surprised her and Yoyi (Yolanda's nickname) with the flowers, a book of Ohio, some giant Hershey chocolate bars, and a big jar candle. We took pictures, and then had an amazing dinner of beef strips marinated in wine and mashed potatoes out of a box, which reminded me of home. Jorge and I went outside and played with their dogs, one of which is giant and the other is small and hyper. I hated saying goodbye to them the next day!

Later on that night, we went to a club that was only a block away. I was excited and ready to be out, but I had one Pisco Sour (the most popular Chilean drink) and the sourness was too much. After a few hours, I was bored and like most of the rest of the Cincy group, the smoke was really getting to me. I tried to ignore it, tried to dance, but when 3:00 rolled around I just asked Yoyi to walk me home. I was glad to be in bed then.

Tuesday... Fish!

Even though class didn't start till late today, I was so tired. Michelle was dropped off at our house early to have breakfast with us and take the city bus to school since her buddy had to go to work. We listened to a class on forestry, which we will get to see tomorrow, but then hopped on the bus to take a look at the fishing industry. We could smell the El Golfo plant from far away, and it was so strong once we got off the bus. I didn't really mind though because I just breathed through my nose and took pictures of the crazy amounts of seagulls circling outside. Everyone ran for cover so they didn't get dropped on, then we went inside for a presentation of the company. The tour afterward was somewhat interesting and cleaner that I would have expected, and we saw a lot of dead fish get fileted at speeds that would have had my fingers cut off. The bus took us to a fishing boat afterwards, where we got to see them working and the seagulls try to steal what they could every time they pulled up a load of fresh fish. Another long day, we took the bus back to UDD.

Yolanda met us back there and we went with her brother, Jorge, and her mom back to get ice cream. Stuffed from two lunches that day, I had only coffee (which turned out to be complicated because they poured me a full-to-the-brim cup of hot coffee and left me no room to put my Nescafe into, so I was very confused and my family only made it more confusing. We got a good laugh out of it though). We went back to change out of our fishy-smelling clothes and headed to a market downtown. I didn't find anything there, but Ify did. We came back to the house, then waited for Michelle's buddy to come (she came about a half hour late while we sat on the couch waiting, and then watching the inaugeration of Obama on some of the channels we found). We went to our host family dinner, which was pretty nice but I couldn't eat too much. I had empanadas (bite-sized), steak, some tomatos from the salads, and a sopapilla. I skipped desert. I have eaten way too much today. We stuck around for some time afterward so I floated around to talk to people, then came home early to stay in for the night with Ify so I could catch up on here and get some sleep. Tomorrow we are visiting the forestry industry and going dancing, then we will be leaving for Pucon on Thursday.

Concepcion and a New Family

Yesterday we left for Concepcion around noon and had a six hour bus drive. I just slept the whole time and tried to catch up on reading. Around 7:00 we arrived in a neighborhood here in Concepcion where our families were waiting. Ify Bell and I found our student, Yolanda, and drove back to their house before dinner. It's a very comfortable house in a safe neighborhood where her brother also lives. They have two dogs, Bruna and Joe, which I love to come back and give at least a little attention to when I can. I miss my dogs back in Dayton! We had a quick dinner of bread and pasta with homemade meat sauce. I was glad that I felt comfortable and that dinner was informal. We had ice cream, then watched some TV and got to know Yolanda a little bit more as well as her dad when he stopped by. Ify went to bed after talking to her kids, and I stayed up and chatted some more before going to a neighbor's house to celebrate his birthday with friends. It was a lot of listening to Spanish and I picked up very little, but it was good to do that I think. I didn't speak at all, but I should have. We came back and I was in bed by 1:00.

Today, we started classes at the UDD campus here. We had two speakers and then had a giant cafeteria lunch of rice and chicken, plus a million sides, then a few of us took a walk around the block until the bus came to pick us up to take us to the mines. We got to wear hard hats with the little lights, much to our amusement, and took about ten thousand pictures. We then set off for the mines, which haven't been actually used in over a decade (it's now just a tourist attraction. I think they said that the mine we saw was a fake mine that they rebuilt for the tours, but I could be wrong. Either way, they were very realistic). It started with a little tiny cage that four of us squeezed into, then we were brought down under sea level. It was chilly, but a relief from the hot weather! We spent over an hour under there walking around while an ex-miner talked about what was done and the hardships and dangers of having such a career. We could tell that they were much shorter than us, like him, because half the time we were ducking. We even had to crouch down to about 3 feet at one point in a little wet tunnel, and by that time we were all ready to be done. It was very interesting, but never have I been so grateful to be back on the bus!

Afterwards, we drove past the old houses that were provided for miners and their families. We were just distracted because there was this GIANT barrelling forest fire literally right outside of our bus! Our tour guide was saying something like "on your left, you will find...." but the entire group was piled against the right side with cameras flashing. I got a few good pictures, with people standing around nonchalantly. I guess they are used to these fires because people set them in the summers intentionally (a speaker said that sometimes kids set them because they like to see the firetrucks and helicopters, and also sometimes a person will be angry that they weren't allowed to be sold the land for farming, so they will set fire to it). We got to the mining museum and were greeted by the smell of smoke and ashes floating down when we got off the bus. Some people were complaining, but I was just amused that no one else other than us paid any attention to the fact that this fire was occuring within arm's reach.

After the museum, we went to a gorgeous park right on the same street. There was a view of the fishing boats on the coast, mixed with the smokey air; it made a great picture. I mainly took pictures of all the flowers, so those will explain the rest of what we saw in the park.

We got home late, and Yolanda and her dad took Ify and I out for some really good pizza. I practiced some Spanish words while we were waiting on our food, so that made me feel a little better since I haven't been speaking. We then went to Tina's home stay condo to have a get-together with a majority of the other students and their buddies. There were drinks and I didn't have much, but everyone had a good time. One guy on our trip tried to catch a ping-pong ball but slid on the floor and smashed his hand on broken glass on the floor, then bled everywhere. He was fine, but we were concerned at the time that he would need stitches. We left around 1 and I was so happy to see my bed waiting for me back at "home".

End of the first week of classes

On Friday, we had our last Spanish class and then another one before we left to go trekking in the mountains. It was actually a really neat little hike with plenty of amazing views (I think we stopped and got pictures at each one of them) with wooden swinging bridges, two waterfalls, and dogs that followed us the whole way. (Apparently one of the dogs only follows Americans and never with the Chileans, something I found interesting...maybe we give them more attention?) I didn't get in the water at the waterfalls because I just didn't want to be soggy the rest of the way and on the long bus ride.

When we got home, we slowly got ready to go out to a salsa club. Most of our group went and Enrique taught me how to dance, but I just laughed hysterically out of embarrassment and my flip-flops didn't really help either. I never really got the hang of it, but it was fun to try and learn anyway. We got back at 4 am.

This morning, I went with Michelle and a group of girls from another room to go to this nice park to lay out at a pool and go to a market. We took a sky cap ski-lift sort of thing up to the halfway point of the mountain, then paid a ridiculous 5000 pesos to use the pool area, laid out until it got cloudy, then walked up the roads (more amazing views!) until we finally got to the top of the mountain. There, we found more steps up to this giant statue and a cute stray dog that I became a little attached to. It followed us up so many flights of stairs and sat at the base of the statue while we took pictures. When we headed down, I whistled and it was right there with us again. It ended up finally getting distracted though and then it was gone.

We took a little train thing back down and got in a cab, then came back to the hostel where I hunted down my vestido that was in the laundry so it would be clean for dinner. When I finally found that, I got ready and we all went out to Los Buenos Muchachos, a dinner and show place. The show was neat and you could dance afterward, but we were so disappointed in the cost of it and the food we got. We had three choices of meat, which came alone with no sauce (I had a steak that was too well done) and a pile of fries. So American. Then they brought us ketchup packets. We have been disappointed with the lack of Chilean meals so far I think, and feel like most of what we eat can be found easily at home.

After dinner, I didn't really dance. We got our bus back home and I talked to Greg for the rest of the night on Skype, and now it's super early in the morning. We are leaving for Concepcion and Pucon tomorrow, so I finally get to meat my homestay family.

Not much to report from the last two days... we just started classes on Monday. We had three yesterday and three today, but today was definitely more interesting. Other than classes yesterday, all we did was go out to get drinks with Enrique and his friends, and some went dancing, but then some of us got a taxi home so we could get some sleep. Today after classes, we went to a vineyard and got to do a wine tasting. It was really neat and the land around the winery was beautiful, really great for pictures! I passed out on the bus back home, and then took a nap until dinner

When I woke up, I realized how tender the cut on my foot is and I showed one of the professors. He said that it's really infected and if I don't get it open (there's sand stuck inside) then I'll need to go to the clinic and get it lanced.... not fun. Kat and Jeremy helped me soak it and Jeremy tried to squeeze it to see if any sand or anything else came out. No luck. We got iodine, cotton, and tape and he wrapped my foot up for the night. We'll have to see how it looks tomorrow, but we are going trekking on Friday and I need it to feel better by then!