After about an hour and a half in the thermal pools, we dried off and wandered along the quiet streets of Pica where there were food markets set up. We bought some alfojores (cracker like cake things with honey and coconut) and chumbeques (a sweet that has sweet bread and guayava layered together). Before buying them I talked to the vendors and made sure they didn´t have milk or eggs in them, and they didn´t. Chumbeques are a traditional food specific to the Iquique / Tarapaca region. They are sooo good and come in other fruit flavors too.

On the way back to La Tirana, where my host cousin´s girlfriend´s family has a house, we stopped at this dinosaur park, which had giant sculptures of a T Rex and a Stegosaurus. It was kind of funny seeing these dinosaurs there so we got out of the car and took some pictures.

Back at Daniela´s house, we unloaded the car, changed into normal clothes, and set up the picnic table and grill outside. La Tirana is a dusty, quiet town, but it´s in the desert and there are INCREDIBLE views of the stars. I don´t think I´ve ever been outside at night and seen as many stars as I saw last night. The only one I could identify was the southern cross.

We grilled some potatoes for me and steaks and hot dogs for everyone else...and I´d also brought some rice, squash, and salad. We mixed up rum and cokes. Manuel and Santiago set up the projector and the laptop and we sang karaoke for a while (I sang Evanescence and Aerosmith because they were in English and I didn´t know any of the Spanish songs they had) before watching From Paris With Love in English with Spanish subtitles. The night there was cold so we were all bundled up. I put on two sweatshirts, my winter coat, hat, scarf, and two pairs of pajama pants. They did a really crappy job translating the movie into subtitles. My host brother and I were the only ones who caught on (the other four don´t speak enough if any English to know what the spoken lines meant) and were laughing about it because every time someone said a cuss word in the movie, the subtitles said something less offensive.

This morning we got up and went back to the main square of La Tirana. I wandered around some artesan markets and bought some earrings for my sister that are made out of shells and dried flowers. I bought a cup of mote con huesillo, a traditional Chilean food. Mote is kind of like oatmeal / rice and it´s sweet, and huesillo is a kind of fruit similar to a peach or apricot. It is served cold with huesillo juice poured over the top. I really liked it! Weirdly, some of the best food I´ve tried in Chile has not come from restaurants, but street vendors:) There are also warm, round type of bread served with super spicy salsa called aji, which is great, and there are all sorts of places that sell warm, honey roasted nuts...yum. I have yet to try the Chilean version of churros, but I need to make sure I can eat it first and that there isn´t milk, eggs, or butter in it.

After leaving La Tirana, we drove to Cerro Unita where there is the largest representation of a human ever made, the Gigante de la Atacama, which is a large geoglyph on the side of a hill. No one knows who made it or why it was made, but they estimate that it was made in the 900´s AD (here it is DC--despues Cristo) in reaction to a series of 3 total solar eclipses that occurred in Chile within 30 years, which is pretty frequent. Scholars think the ancient Atacameños carved it on the hill to scare away the spirits that were causing weird happenings in the sky.

We then drove to Humberstone, a ghost town that used to be a flourishing mining town where they mined salitre (nitrate). That was pretty cool walking around. I learned a little about the mining process and the role mining used to and still does have in Chilean society. After all of the minerals were extracted from the earth in Humberstone, everyone just moved away. Now the entire town is like a giant, town version of a museum.

After that we returned home and I went on a long two hour run while it was still light out and just starting to get dark. My family doesn´t like it when I run by myself at night, but if I go during the day they don´t mind. I guess that´s one of the minor changes I´ve had to make here, but it isn´t a huge deal.

Now I need to finish preparing things for tomorrow´s classes. I´ll post more later:)

written by  Sara Florecita on August 15, 2010 from La Tirana, Chile
from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)
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I´m excited about having my own classroom and decorating it. It´s on the 3rd floor in the older part of the building right next to the choir/ band room. It still smells of fresh paint, but there are worse smells in the world. The walls are off-white and the floor is a burnt-reddish color. I thought it was kind of strange that they painted the floor. There are also yellow curtains hanging on the windows. I opened them (I love sunlight) but for some reason the students keep closing the curtains. I might just take them down because I love the Iquique sun so much. I´m just glad I wasn`t the one who had to drag all those desks upstairs!! My room still looks pretty plain. Last night I made a blue poster with red and yellow letters that says ´Welcome to English Class!´ Tonight I´m going to make more posters to hang up in my class so the learning environment looks a bit more stimulating to the senses. The down side of my classroom is that the room directly below my room is a kindergarten classroom, so it is really noisy in my room, even when my own class is being quiet.

My 7th graders are very squirrely...having them first thing in the morning on Tuesdays definitely wakes you up! Today I played Simon Says with them because they were learning verbs (such as stand up, sit down, pick it up, get up, fall down, etc). One of my kids actually told my host teacher that my class is more fun than hers, and she got mad and said I´m not allowed to play games or do anything fun with the kids, because class is not supposed to be fun! I couldn´t believe it. I want them to learn, and it´s obvious that they´ll learn more if they can have fun learning.

Today the cafeteria staff made me vegan soy protein with vegetables. It was great to have a hot lunch for once! The cafeteria ladies are so nice, and I´m really fortunate they respect the fact that I´m vegan and go out of their way to prepare lunches for me.

Actually, my entire day was great. After school I started working on a banner to hang up in my classroom that says ¨Speak English¨in blue, white, and yellow with olde english style writing. It´s going to take longer to make than anticipated, but it will definitely look great once it´s done. At about 10pm my host cousin came home and we decided to go running. He has pretty good endurance because he´s a football (soccer) player. I kept feeling like I was making him run further than he wanted, but he kept up easily and said he didn´t mind. We ran along the beach and then the boardwalk. It was dark and almost no one was out. It was a very tranquil run and I returned to the house in a great mood. I´m glad my cousin likes to run, and it´s nice having a running buddy.

Okay...back to the poster now and then sleep. Chao!

written by  Sara Florecita on August 10, 2010 from Iquique, Chile
from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)
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My family is really worried even though I told them it wasn´t a big deal, and with the meds I should be better soon. I´m not used to having people be concerned about me. My family here is really nice but sometimes I wish they would not worry so much. Like tonight I went running by myself and they were all concerned even though it isn´t a bad part of town, but it was dark. I don´t want them to worry but I also want to do things (such as running in the evening) that are normal for me and that I am used to doing on an every day basis. When we are walking around downtown, my brothers won`t let me walk on the side of the sidewalk closest to the street because if a car veers off the road, they don´t want it to hit me. It is sort of nice in some ways, but at the same time, I´m not used to it at all.

I know they mean well, and that doesn´t bother me, but the whole situation with me being sick made me feel really uncomfortable. I guess I´d forgotten what it feels like to live as part of a family since it´s been a while since I moved out of my parents´place. I´ve only been here a week and don´t want my family thinking I´m helpless or sickly, especially since this is the first time in ages I´ve been sick.

The other thing that made the conversation with my host mom difficult is that she doesn´t speak English, and I have a REALLY hard time understanding her because she talks so fast! She started crying in the middle of the conversation today because she thought I was sad when I really just didn´t feel good. She was asking if I was happy here with their family and I kept telling her I really like her family here in Iquique. Then she felt bad because she thought her cooking had made me sick, but she´s a great cook! I just am not used to the water yet and was trying to explain, but she couldn´t understand anything I was saying and then I felt really crappy because I´ve studied Spanish and am trying so hard to learn more, and she didn´t seem to understand me at all. I was starting to feel really stupid and frustrated with myself. Then Santiago, one of the brothers, came and told me that my host mother is deaf in one ear and can´t hear very well, that it isn´t me and not to feel bad. He said that everyone else usually understands a lot of what I´m saying, and learning a language is hard. After that I felt a lot better about things and he helped translate to my host mom what was going on.

I really like Iquique (except for all the pollution here) but just felt annoyed with myself because I hate being sick, waited on, and just sitting around doing nothing when there is so much out there to DO!!!! I guess I need to work on being more patient:)

For a little bit this afternoon, Artemio, my host mom, and I went to El Centro (downtown) because I needed to buy some more formal clothes for teaching. It turns out the khaki dress pants I brought with don´t fit at all anymore, so I needed a second pair of dress pants. Either I haven´t had to dress business casual in a while, or the combination of veganism and more running is making me slim down a little more. I´m not sure, because I´m still eating pretty well. I found a pair of brown dress pants and a black suit jacket. I should have brought one of the ones from back home, but the program said I could wear polo shirts and jeans to class, and then I ended up in a techical/ prep school where teachers HAVE to dress formally every day. Mondays are ´formal´dress, aka black pants, black shoes, collared shirt, and suit jacket. The rest of the week we can wear black,brown, or khaki pants and a regular shirt. At least now I have school attire. It was kind of fun shopping w my host family bc my host mom wanted me to try on everything and have her make sure it looked okay. My host mom also loves shoe shopping!!! It was fun trying shoes on, but I didn´t buy any due to limited space in my suitcase for when I eventually go back home. After shopping I went running. I ran from the house to school and back, and it took a shade over an hour.

A part of me wonders if I´ll eat cheese again when I return to the US. I will kind of miss the raviolis and kyle sandwiches (especially the ones with pepper jack), but then again, they don´t have those things in Chile, so I can´t really miss them. Pizza without cheese is pretty good actually. I like the whole veganism thing so far. Except for this weekend, I´ve felt a lot healthier and including this weekend, still have more energy. There have been times I wanted cheese, mainly bc it would be easier to find food I can eat. Plus, I LIKE cheese... But I really like the idea of not eating or using animal products. And except for yesterday and today, I haven´t had to deal with problems of stomachaches from eating too much cheese. Grr. stupid water...I thought that only happened in Mexico...

On Friday morning I had to go to this conference for English teachers at la Universidad Arturo Prat from 9am until 1. It was pretty boring although it was nice meeting some of the other English teachers. I kind of wish I´d been able to sleep in for once, but no such luck. After the conference I wanted to take a nap but decided that since the sun was shining and the skies were bright blue, I might as well enjoy the sun and go running along the beaches.

Then Artemio, Santiago, and I went hiking / climbing up this giant hill-slash-sand dune called Cerro Dragón, which is only a few blocks up the hill from our house. It was really pretty seeing the city lights from up there. We climbed to the top and enjoyed the views of Iquique. Going at night was a good idea.

Yesterday morning I wasn´t feeling well again but just lounged around the house most of the day. By the evening I felt a lot better and joined Santiago and Manuel for drinks at this bar called Ron y Tequila on Paseo Baquedano. Two of their friends, Daniela and Jorge, were there. Both of them seemed really nice. We´d planned on going to the casino, but the lines were really long and none of us felt like waiting. Later that night my host dad asked what I´d ordered to drink. When I told him I ordered mango sours, he started laughing and predicted that I will stay in Iquique for a long time because it´s a drink typical of Iquique. I wonder if that´ll be true, or how long I will really be in Iquique for.

written by  Sara Florecita on August 8, 2010 from Iquique, Chile
from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)
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The hard part is narrowing it down to just a few songs. I am trying to get things ready with the choir because in 2 weeks we´re going to Santiago for a week long music conference. There is still so much music to teach them! I taught them ´Amazing Grace´ today and got them to learn it in four parts. Next week I´m going to teach them either ´Down to the River to Pray´or ´Battle Hymn of the Republic.´ The choir director also wants to teach them ´Swing Low Sweet Chariot.´

My students seem to like singing in English so far. It´s sort of a problem bc there are 17 kids in the choir, all girls except for 2 boys who sing tenor and bass. However, the two boys that do come are good and can each hold their own parts. I just need to either recruit more boys or find a way to make things sound more balanced. I´ve also had to teach pronunciation of the song and sing along with the altos, who have troubles holding their part if I´m not singing with them. By the end of the rehearsal they were able to sing their parts without me, but I need to build their confidence because I can barely hear them. I think part of the problem is only a few students in the choir know how to read music. Hopefully I can work on this with them, but as for now, teaching them music is helping them improve their English and be motivated about it.

After choir, Artemio and I walked down Paseo Baquedano, which is a pedestrians-only street (hence the term paseo). We looked in a few shops, an art gallery of indigenous-inspired art, and the main plaza which is called Plaza Prat. There is a big clock tower, theater, and a bunch of sidewalk cafe type of places there. There is also a market where I bought a necklace, a ring, and some more earrings. I also bought a pair of green and yellow striped handmade pants which are traditional clothing in Chile. Artemio and I walked around the corner from the plaza where my host mom works as a chef at La Cioccolata. We ordered fresh fruit juice and enjoyed that. Back at home, my mom had prepared asparagus soup. I love asparagus! Then I read my book about Chile and made a list of places I want to visit for weekend trips, and I made a few things for my classroom. Today was nice because I got to see more of the city. For the first time in many days I get to sleep in tomorrow!

written by  Sara Florecita on August 5, 2010 from Iquique, Chile
from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)
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Besides that, school is going well. My 7th graders are pretty rowdy. I really love my high school seniors, especially the poorly behaved ones...My host teacher has problems handling them (it´s a metallurgy class at the trade school and their vocab focuses on metalworking - mining related words, the class is mostly boys). I´m supposed to be observing this week but my host teacher asked if i felt like `dealing with them,` (aka teaching the class), so i did...and I didnt have any major problems!! After those students left, she was happy because I actually got them to participate. It sounds weird but if you act goofy and act out all the verbs and vocab words, they find it amusing. They also like it when you can laugh at yourself and when I ask them to tell me what the word is in Spanish, so then they feel useful and more likely to particpate. My high school kids can speak English well but have poor attitudes and don`t want to do anything. They are also afraid of making mistakes but I try to be encouraging and focus on what they can do and let some of the small mistakes go as long as I can still understand them. I also have an English class for seniors focusing on accounting, one on business, one for students who are mostly girls who are going to be secretaries, and one for students learning electrical work.

Iquique is great. I haven´t seen a whole lot of it bc my host family lives on the outskirts of the city and it´s a 20 min bus ride to the downtown area. I only teach on Mon, Tue,Wed, and Thurs, which is good because I have time to take weekend trips to different places. This weekend my host brothers and I are hiking / climbing to the top of Cerro Dragon, this big hill / mountain right by Iquique, and going to the downtown area to see different places. Next weekend we are driving out to Pica where there are aguas termales where we can go, and on the way we´re going to see geoglyphs such as El Gigante de Atacama. Pica is about 2 hrs away but my host cousin, Manuel, who lives with us has a car.

It´s nice having a set routine that´s the same Monday through Thursday. I leave for school at 8am, and the school day ends at 4:30. On Tuesday and Thursday I have to stay later for choir rehearsal unti 6:30. I am now Colegio Inglés´s assistant choir director. The songs I´ll teach them are in English, but they have to be religious songs bc my school is a Methodist school. The last week in August my choir, which has 20 students, will be going on a week long choir tour trip to Santiago, Coquimbo, and LaSerena. It´ll be fun bc the choir kids are overall good kids w-out behavior issues. The music director in my school, Cristián Villaruel, is really nice too. I have to speak in Spanish w him bc he only knows a little bit of English. Tue and Thurs are long days but they are fun. I love this school and my role here bc I´m involved w- music, i´m working with middle / high school kids, I am actually using my business administration and accounting backgrounds to teach my classes, and I get to use Spanish every day!

My host mom brought me rice and vegetable soup for lunch. I ate with my host teacher, who always eats alone in her classroom, while we discussed details for my classes I´m going to be teaching. Tomorrow I´m going to eat in the teachers´lounge and meet more of my co-workers. I kind of wish I didn´t have to spend the rest of the week observing because I feel like I´m well-prepared to teach my own classes.

After school I went running along Playa Brava in the sand. It´s definitely pretty running here, and I think I should get used to the sand. I can´t wait for it to warm up a little more so I can start taking surfing lessons.

written by  Sara Florecita on August 4, 2010 from Iquique, Chile
from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)
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My host dad drove Artemio and me to my school, which is called Colegio Inglés. CI is the oldest school in Iquique, and it used to be a governor´s mansion. No one knows exactly when it was built because it used to be on Peruvian territory before the war. Here, they start teaching kids English at a younger age than what is considered normal in Chile.

Colegio Inglés itself is nice. It´s very different than most American schools. The building is four stories tall and arranged in a rectangular shape around an open courtyard with tarps over it to block out the bright sun. The buildings are a salmon-pink sort of color, and instead of hallways, there are balconies / patios that connect all of the classrooms. The large concrete filled courtyard serves as the gym, where students go for phys ed and recreo (recess). Their lunch tables are also outside. At first I was shocked that gym classes, lunch, and recreo are always outside, but it never rains in Iquique, and right now (mid 60´s F) is winter. Literally, there are many parts of northern Chile that has no recorded history of rainfall EVER. It´s pretty cool how the school is, but the one drawback is having to walk through the courtyard to go to any other part of the school. This means that it is only my first day and I´ve already been nearly trampled by screaming little kids (CI is a preschool through 12th grade Methodist school), hit by soccer balls, and so forth. I kind of wish there weren´t any really little kids here because anything under 7th grade I generally consider to be annoying. I´m just thankful that my students will all be either 7th graders or high school seniors.

The first half of the day I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I had been told I´d be working with one host teacher; when I arrived at the school, I found out in reality I´m going to be working with three. The first class period I shadowed Lilia´s class, which was fine, but I can´t wait to have my own class and teach them myself, because my teaching style is very different than hers.

During second period, Lilia gave me copies of her schedule as well as those of the other two teachers. She told me to go to the library and choose classes from those three schedules that I wanted, and to write down my schedule. When I did that, she started complaining about the classes I´d chosen, and she wasn´t very nice about it. By the end of the day she made me change the schedule three more times. I was getting very frustrated...if you tell me to do something how I want, don´t complain about me doing what you told me to do. Anyway, I figured she was just stressed out or something. I´d heard from numerous people that the program isn´t the most organized, so I kind of just shrugged it off.

Lunch was pretty good. My host mom had dropped off a salad for me at the school. Starting on Thursday I will be eating food that the school prepares for me for free as part of the program. I spoke with the cafeteria staff, who are all very nice. I explained to them that I´m vegan and what I can and can´t eat. The one girl who works in the cafeteria writes my name as Zára instead of Sarah, but that is fine with me because I´ve never really liked my real name anyway. There are way too many Sarahs out there, and I´d rather have a more unique name.

After school I went on a run along the beaches. My host brother Artemio wanted to come with, so we both ended up going. We ran along Playa Brava and Playa Cavancha, and it was really pretty. I enjoyed listening to the tides washing up on the shore, and realized that running through sand is going to make me stronger. Part of the way through Playa Cavancha, Artemio got tired so I kept running. When I turned around and came back I´d been running for an hour and fifteen minutes (pretty normal for me), but he was tired and ended up calling his dad to come pick us up. It was nice running with him, but I´m not used to running with other people. For me it´s more of a solitary, peaceful kind of experience, and I hate just stopping in the middle of a run. But I realized he isn´t used to running longer distances. And his family doesn´t want me to go running alone because they worry. I hope this doesn´t become a problem because running is important to me, and it isn´t realistic to ask someone else to run with me just so I don´t have to go alone, since most people are not accustomed to going the distances I enjoy.

After we arrived back at the house, I enjoyed some vegetable soup with squash, zucchini, and potatoes that my host mom had prepared. She is such a great cook, and I´m very fortunate to have someone who respects the fact that I´m vegan.

After dinner I tried to catch up on some emails and start planning things for my classroom. Next Monday I will have my own classroom, and I´m looking forward to it a lot. Observing other teachers is okay, but I´m my own person, and if I tried to teach a class the way they do, it wouldn´t work at all. It was good seeing what some of my students are like, but it was equally frustrating. One of the teachers has major discipline issues in her class because she´s very softspoken one minute and yells at the students the next, and she doesn´t enforce any rules. Another teacher is really disorganized and wastes a lot of class time getting things ready that should have been ready before class. The other teacher is really mean to the students and nitpicks every single mistake they make, and honestly if I was a kid in her class, I don´t think I´d want to participate or listen to her either. I am excited for when the students become my students and I can wipe the slate clean and start on the right foot with them, mostly by being strict, enforcing rules, and encouraging them to speak English and not tearing them apart when they do speak outloud in class. One of the classes that is greatly complained about by teachers (and which I will ´inherit´next week) is nothing compared to what I´m used to dealing with at my job back in the US. These kids aren´t delinquents--they are just normal kids, and I´m really excited to start teaching them.

written by  Sara Florecita on August 3, 2010 from Iquique, Chile
from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)
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We arrived at the airport, got our tickets, and waited around for what seemed like a long time before boarding the plane. Near our terminal I found a Starbucks, but didn´t want to wait in such a long line. The flight itself was okay. I briefly fell asleep on the way to Antofagasta, and after taking off for the second time I read a newspaper in Spanish.

It was around 11am when we arrived in warm, sunny Iquique. Our regional coordinators, Paula and Mariangeli, picked us up at the airport. Paula doesn´t speak English at all, but I did my best trying to talk to her. They dropped me off at my host family´s house, and said that in an hour I had to be at the Ministry of Education building for orientation and lunch. No one had told us about having orientation until then, especially since we´d already had a long and tiring day.

When I arrived at my house, my host dad and host brother (Santiago, who is 21) were there. They were a bit surprised to see me because the Ministry had told them I´d be arriving at 6pm that night, and here it was almost 12 noon. Their house is on Pasaje Playa Chauca, and it has views of the ocean. It´s completely beautiful, and I love the views already. Both of them seemed very friendly, and all of a sudden I felt nervous speaking Spanish. I felt like I should be much better at it after all the classes I´d taken and effort I´d put into learning it, but I felt limited by my own lack of vocabulary. For some reason I felt like they were expecting me to know more Spanish than I actually knew. They asked if I wanted to take a nap or rest, but I had less than an hour before I had to be at the Ministry. I decided to unpack some of my things, dig out my sunglasses (which I hadn´t really needed much in Santiago), and go back downstairs to talk to my family and get to know them a bit more. Santiago talked about his job as a deejay, his college, his family, and what kind of music he liked. Before I knew it, it was time to go to the Ministry.

On the way there, Santiago pointed out various sites and told me a little bit about Iquique. At the Ministry building he said his family would pick me up arund 6:30pm, and I went inside to meet with the regional coordinators, and Eric and Elisabeth, two other volunteers in Iquique. After a short introduction, we walked to Bavaria, a restaurant where we had lunch. I ate some bread and spicy salsa, a salad, and french fries (that were cooked in vegetable oil). After lunch we had another long and boring session of orientation to sit through. At one point I felt myself nodding off a bit. I don´t think they were too happy about that, but when I explained I´d had to wake up at 4am, they seemed a lot more understanding. I met my host teacher. It turns out she had another volunteer last term, and she was rather critical of her when first describing her. It was strange because by the end of the conversation, she was saying how I should do everything the same way as the other volunteer. It was confusing and kind of made me wonder what this lady is going to say about me after I leave Iquique. At the end of the session they gave us our boxes of school supplies for our classrooms.

My host family (my mom, dad, and two brothers) arrived to pick me up. My host mother, Sonia, works as a chef in a restaurant called La Cioccolata. She´s very sweet and doesn´t speak a whole lot of English. Her Spanish is so fast and hard to understand. Hopefully I´ll be able to become more fluent and develop better comprehension skills while I´m here. My other brother, Artemio, is 18 and will be one of my students. He speaks English very well and studied in Virginia for three months last year. He is interested in everything relating to English speaking countries and their culture.

At home, Sonia prepared dinner for me (sauteed vegetables, bread and avocados, and tea), and more of the family came over. Their cousin, Manuel, also lives in our house so I got to meet him too. He´s 23 and a college student. I met some of their aunts, uncles, and extended family. It was a bit confusing trying to keep everybody straight and remember names, but I´m sure I´ll get used to it all eventually. After the extended family left I got more of my things unpacked and showed pictures of my family and boyfriend to my Chilean family.

Tomorrow I´m going to Colegio Inglés, my host school, to start my week of observation. I´m really looking forward to seeing my school and meeting my students. I really hope I like teaching.

written by  Sara Florecita on August 2, 2010 from Iquique, Chile
from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)
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Instead I decided to go on a tour of a vineyard about an hour and a half from Santiago in the Maipo Valley. I took the Metro to the last stop and then looked for the bus to take me to La Viñeda Concha y Toro. The bus wasn´t where the girl at the hostel had said it would be, so I asked some of the carabineros who were able to explain where the bus stop was. I got on the old, sputtering, exhaust-smelling local bus and was on my way to the vineyard.

Once there I bought my ticket and decided to take the tour in Spanish. Even if I didn´t understand anything, I´m not going to learn any more by hearing people speak English all the time. There were only two other people who went on the tour with me. Both were from Sao Paolo, Brazil and could speak Spanish. The tour itself was very interesting and informative. The tour guide spoke clearly and was mostly understandable. I learned a lot about the wine making process and Chilean wine. We got to try a glass of cabernet blanc and another of cabernet sauvignon. They gave us each a complimentary wine glass with their logo on it. The tour guide showed us the vineyards, the founders´house, and the cellars full of aging wine in barrels. On average there are four categories of wine, based on the quality and type of grapes. This region of Chile is very conducive to growing premium quality grapes because of the climate. The wine has to stay in the barrel between 9 and 14 months, usually 14, and each type has to stay at a specific temperature. The tour guide explained how the type of wood of the barrels affects the taste and aroma of the wine. Before drinking the glasses of wine he explained how to pour the wine, how to let it sit for about half an hour to let the flavors settle, and how to properly hold a wine glass so the heat of your hand won´t change the temperature of the wine. And then you should swirl the wine and smell it. Now I can feel more classy when drinking wine! He also explained which types of food go best with each type of wine. The red wine was really good but I am still more of a white wine person (even though you´re supposed to drink white wine with seafood and I´m vegan...)

After the tour was over, Amanda and Rodrigo and I took a taxi back to the Metro station. We started talking about all sorts of things. They were very cheerful and interesting people to talk to, and I felt it was easier to understand them than most of the Chileans I´d met so far. They were planning on going to Mercado Central for lunch and invited me with. I had bread, salsa, and a great salad, and we ordered a bottle of Casilla del Diablo, which is a white wine that Concha y Toro produces.

After lunch it was pouring rain and I walked back to the hostel where I changed into dry clothes, read, and caught up on some emails. Then I stuffed all of my things back into my suitcase, hung out with some other volunteers for a while, and went running. I´m really going to miss all these awesome long runs through this city at night.

I´m going to miss all the towering buildings, sprawling parks, olive-clad carabineros on almost every street, and being encircled by snow-capped mountains. I´m going to miss the friendly people and the crisp, dry air. I´m going to miss the psychedelic fountain whose mist would cool me off halfway through running, and being in a city where you can actually look up at night and see the stars. But the amazing thing is, at some point I will come back here.

written by  Sara Florecita on August 1, 2010 from Pirque, Chile
from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)
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After standing around outside the hostel and talking for a while, we walked to El Centro where we found a place to have lunch. We ate on the second floor of this seafood place they wanted to go. I ordered a salad and juice, and the two of them ordered fish. I was a little disturbed because the scales and fins were still on the fish, and I tried not to look at it.

After lunch we walked around some more and went to El Museo de las Bellas Artes. There were so many beautiful sculptures there, both classical and modern styles. We wandered around the museum for a few hours before going back to the hostel. On the way we stopped in a store and I bought some mixed nuts for protein.

The two of them went to Vanessa´s home and I went out on another long run. I ran from the hostel past Los Leones and eventually turned around. Later I calculated it to be about 14 Miles! During my run, some Chilean teenagers who were visiting from the south stopped me to ask for directions to la Plaza Italia, and I was actually able to explain it to them!

Then I went to the fruit and vegetable market to find something for a light dinner. After dinner Les and I went to a French restaurant / bar where I ordered mango sours and vegan pizza, which was really good! I have always been a cheese lover, but there is still so much flavor to enjoy in cheeseless pizza! I didn´t stay out too late because tomorrow I´m going skiing!!! Hopefully I´ll learn quickly and not fall down a whole lot! We´ll have to see...

written by  Sara Florecita on July 31, 2010 from Santiago, Chile
from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)
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After orientation I ran from the hostel all the way out to Los Leones and back. I seriously felt like I was flying. It´s funny because runner´s high used to be a rare occurrence for me, but this whole week it´s been happening. It´s one of the most incredible feelings ever. I ran for almost two hours straight and didn´t want to go back to the hostel because I wanted to keep running forever, but I didn´t want to overdo it again. When I got back to the hostel I stayed in the shower for a long time and my back kept cracking, which also felt great.

I got this crazy but awesome idea that I really want to do. I think I´m going to cancel my return flight and get my money refunded, and when I decide to head back to the States, I´ll take a bus from one city to the next, spending a day or two in places that interest me along the way. I packed light, so this is entirely possible. I´d get to experience more countries and see more places that way. I don´t mind long bus rides, in fact, they´re actually kind of fun. I could get a glimpse of other Spanish speaking countries and their cultures on my long way home. That is, if I decide to go home after all...

I meandered downstairs with my notebook with the intentions of writing, but that didn´t happen because I ran into more people, and as usual for me, started talking. I ended up drinking wine with the hostel staff and some of their friends, one of whom was being really cheesy about my blue eyes. I don´t think a day has passed here where someone has not said something about my eyes. It was a lot of fun talking to the hostel staff and their friends, as well as Les, Sebastian, Igor, and Dave. I didn´t go to bed until after 4am, but it wasn´t a big deal because it´s a Friday night and I get to sleep in tomorrow. I just hope I can tame my inner night owl in a few days when I start working 8 to 4 at the school. But for now, I am enjoying every moment here.

written by  Sara Florecita on July 30, 2010 from Santiago, Chile
from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)
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