Appreciating Life

This is Jose Miguel, from Brazil. We both went on Friday's Spanish student excursion. He is happy and genuine and carries around a picture of his cat. We even took a picture with the cat. I asked him if he likes cats more than dogs. He told me didn't like either until he had a massive heart attack. His doctor told him he should get a pet to help relieve stress. A friend gave him a cat, which he didn't want. Now he loves it. He lives alone, just him and his cat. He said since nearly dying he tries to life live fully, travel, and learn as much as possible.

I learned more than Spanish that afternoon.

American Brunch

Yester my friend Leti and I went to Cafe Melba in a neighborhood called Las Condes.

It was THAT amazing! The cream with the pancakes tasted like a heavenly cloud. I still can't get over it. The potatoes were just like those at the best American diner. The caramelized onions were sweet and so good I might ask for a side plate of just them next time. Under the sausages were mushrooms and beans. The only thing that would've made this a true American brunch would be if the pancakes were as big as the plate, instead of three medallion-sized ones. Alas, portion control.

On the walk from the metro to the cafe we remarked how different Las Condes is from Providencia, where we both live. Las Condes is newer and has a more industrial feel. In Providencia the buildings are unique and old. Everyone has balconies and many are covered in plants.

I love my neighborhood and couldn't imagine living anywhere else, but as my dad says, "Different strokes for different folks."

A City Excursion

I take Spanish classes for an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My teacher (or profe, which is the affectionate term here) is Marisol. She is nice and talkative and isn't shy about telling me all sorts of things. Everything from her divorce to why Chilean people stare to the surgery she has on her eyes.

Yesterday I went on an excursion for Spanish students. It was just me and another student, Jose Miguel, from Brazil. This was literally his first week studying Spanish but he could get by, I think, because of the similarities between Portuguese and Spanish.

We went to the Plaza de Armas. Mile Zero in Chile begins there. It's where all distances in Chile are calculated from.

To the left is the main post office. The yellow building is museum, and the white one is a government building.

This is inside the post office. I learned that chandeliers are called lamparas arañas, which means spider lamps.

This is inside the cathedral. It easily could've been a cathedral in Spain or Italy. Jose Miguel asked me if we have cathedrals like this in the U.S. I said that no, we don't really. Maybe the National Cathedral in D.C. is like this? I never made it there while I was living in D.C.

This is one of the first Chilean flags. We saw it at the National History Museum.

A scene from Chile's past. The people in the center with the white handkerchiefs are dancing a form of the national dance, the cueca. 

Making Empanadas

While I was in Talca this past weekend, my friend's mom taught me how to make empanadas. Well, half way. I don't know how to make the filling or the dough, but I sure can roll them out and stuff them. Empanadas are sort of like little individual meat or cheese pies. You can fry or bake them.

Rolling out the dough for fried empanadas.

 This reminded me of rolling out pie crust dough with Grandma Shea. I know my way around a rolling pin thanks to her.

 This filling is made of chicken and diced, fried onions.

Generally, you add a segment of hard boiled egg and an olive to the empanada.

We had both fried and baked empanadas. I love them both, but maybe the fried a little more!

Chilean Independence Day

 I left Santiago for the first time this weekend. It was a holiday weekend. One of my Chilean coworkers, Bernarditta, told me that everyone leaves Santiago for El Dieciocho (18th of Sept) and that it would be boring if I stayed in Santiago. She invited me to spend the weekend with her at her family's house in Talca, about three hours south of the city. Talca has about 200,000 people. On Friday afternoon we took a little drive up the hill above the city. People were parked out, flying kites and having barbecues.

 We walked up to the see the Virgin Mary statue that overlooks the city. I wonder if most cities in Chile have a statue like this on the nearest hill.

 My friend asked me if my family was Protestant. I told her that my grandparents are Catholic but my immediate family isn't affiliated with any church. Bernarditta say, "Oh, there are few Catholics in the U.S., right?" I had never thought about it like that before.

 Everything looks quiet in this photo, but there were a lot of people around. There were vendors lining the side of the road selling food, like empanadas, churros, and grilled meat skewers.

 And still there is the imposing view of the Andes. The view of the mountains followed us all the back to Santiago today. I think this country should be nicked named the Land of a Million Million-Dollar Views.

After the hill, we went back towards town and stopped at a fair along the river. Some men dressed in traditional cowboy attire. They tethered their horses along this funky wall while they walked among the food stands and a few carnival rides.

Earthquake Number One

I was teaching a private class when my student looked up and said, "It is an earthquake." I didn't know what was happening before she said anything. For a second I might have thought people were causing a ruckus in the hall, but literally after a second there was no mistaking it for an earthquake. Seconds ticked by and I asked my student what we should do. We were on the second floor and she said we could go downstairs but we needed to do it slowly and calmly. I think the quake lasted a good 30 seconds. Long enough for my student's son to call her during it. We ended class early and I walked home. Some people were hanging out on the sidewalks but not many. My roommate told me, "Welcome to Chile" when I got home. We watched the news and had a drink and felt a few aftershocks hours afterward.

Under the Big Top

The circus came to town. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings I teach an English class at a pharmaceutical company. This is what I saw when I got up from the metro station.

Last week it was just an empty parking lot, which I liked better because I had an unobstructed view of the Andes. I can usually see a nice chunk of the range from here. I'm always the only one ogling; everyone else bustles in and out of the metro station. It feels strange to me when this beautiful vista is blocked by man-made objects.

What's more, I don't really like circuses or zoos for the obvious reasons. Check out this cool story about a zoo in Chile that rescues circus animals--and puts visitors in cages.

Knitting

Knitting seems to be quite popular here. How popular?

THIS popular! I came across this telephone pole on Saturday as I was taking a long, meandering walk to a literary cafe. On my first day in Santiago, I went out looking for a place to have lunch and in the process found a yarn shop. Since then I've seen a woman knitting on the metro. And the other morning, the woman who works in the newspaper stand on my corner was crocheting an elaborate tablecloth. 

My friend Elaina is the princess of knitting. She would fit right in down here.

A Different Side of Santiago

Today I went to Bio Bio Market. My friend Magda suggested we go. I took the metro farther than I have before. The market sprawls over many streets. There is vendor for everything. If you can't find what you're looking for at this market you probably don't want it anyway.

Incidentally, I wasn't looking for anything because I really don't want to buy anything here in Chile. I prefer to save my money for traveling. But if I had been in the market to buy something, anything, I could've bought an antique lion statue, that useful/useless kitchen gadget, (bootlegged?) dvds, soccer jerseys, a colorful sofa, and an animal-head shaped toothbrush holder.

The variety of stuff isn't what struck my friend and I. Rather it was how different, very different this area of the city felt. It felt like the Latin America I've experience in other countries--the brightly colored buildings and loud music and good street food alongside the graffiti and stray dogs in the dusty street.

One of Magda's roommates told her the market was very dangerous and she probably shouldn't even go. But we saw no evidence to warrant this stern warning. We were the only gringas but no one harassed us or even stared at us. Everyone around us seemed to be families, out on a Sunday afternoon.

We walked through a few neighborhoods to arrive at O'Higgins Park, where there is a futbol stadium and an amusement park and a huge area for roller blade-ing. I took the metro home and again marveled at the contrast.

My neighborhood, Providencia, feels European. It's beautiful, quiet and clean. I told one of my friends that Bio Bio Market is like real Latin America. But I shouldn't say that. Maybe real Latin America is about the contrasts, none of which is better or more authentic. All beautiful.

Feliz Cumpleaños a Mi

My birthday was on Thursday. Birthdays are nice. While it made me happy to celebrate mine here, I loved all the emails and messages I got from family and friends back home. It means so much to have people think of me, miss me.

I had my private Spanish class in the morning and my teacher wished me a very sweet happy birthday and gave me Toberlone. If it's not Swiss, it's not chocolate, according to her.While teaching my second class of the day, my students sang happy birthday to me in English and gave me hugs and besos.

I took a lovely little nap before my friend Leti came over early to help me get ready for my party. We walked her bike to the grocery store so we could load up the basket with our purchases--wine is heavy! Thankfully, I found brie at the store because as I'm know to say around D.C.: it's not a party without brie. I went to the frozen food section and saw that there are exactly two choices of frozen pizza. I bought two of each. There is, however, a whole aisle of Chilean wines, as there should be. Leti and I made our choices based on how pretty the labels are. Shhhhh, don't tell any Chileans that.

We ate an entire pizza ourselves while waiting for friends to come. We had a great little international group consisting of Americans, a Brit, a Venezuelan, a Chilean, and a Polish (what is the word for one person from Poland?) We played a game that's a cross between charades and Taboo. I nearly died laughing. I had a carmely, flakey cake and they sang to me in a mix of English and Spanish.

A Ding to My Confidence

I experienced a small, but not a crushing, blow to my confidence yesterday. The afternoon started off well. I went to the movies to see The 33, which is based on the true story of 33 Chilean miners who were trapped underground for a couple months. I liked the movie, though it was a little long. One strange part though is that the actors are Spanish-speakers but the movie is in English. And it is a Chilean story, and I was watching it in Chile with Spanish subtitles. I know the company shot the film in English so that it would appeal to a wider audience and earn more money, but it makes me feel a little bad for the Chileans--that it's not in their own language. Getting the miners out was a monumental thing for the country.

Anyway, this is not the upsetting thing that happened. That came after the movies, when I went to a cellphone shop. I thought the man selling me the SIM card said was dos mil (two thousand) pesos but he really said doce mil (twelve thousand) pesos. (One US dollar is about 700 pesos.) When I got back to my apartment, my roommate told me that I paid way too much and that I could get SIM card for much cheaper. Then I activated my phone, and the recording said that I had to use the data and minutes within 30 days, but the man who sold me the card never told me that, and I did't ask.

I suddenly very frustrated with myself for not understanding better and asking more questions. I was also angry because I thought the man in the store took advantage of the fact that I am a foreigner, or gringa as they call it here. And I felt bad because this type of thing would never happen to me in the US. I always get the best deal and ask the right questions and no one can pull the wool over my eyes.

I think too that I was overtired. When I'm overtired a little thing can seem like a big deal. (And when I'm hungry a little thing is a catastrophe.) But these little set backs come with the territory of living in a different country and learning a new language.

Actually, I was reminded of a scene from the movie I had just watched. The miners start going stir crazy and one man puts a knife to another's throat over an ipod. The man who breaks up the fight, holds up the ipod and says, "You were going to kill another man over this piece of crap?" He smashes it to the ground.

It made me think to myself. "I'm going to feel bad and almost cry because of $20?" No! And, "I'm going to feel bad about not speaking another language perfectly?" No! It's freaking hard to learn another language. My students tell me that everyday. I should be happy I was even able to buy a SIM card.

I don't feel so bad anymore.

This is What Recycling Looks Like

This is one truck, on one street, in one city. I just can't fathom how much plastic we consume.

I was surprised to see this truck on the street today because recycling doesn't seem like a hugely popular thing in Chile. In my building, we have to bring our recycling to containers in a park nearby. My roommate wants the apartment to be green, though. For example, when I came to look at the place, he offered me a glass of water. I didn't finish it all and was going to pour it down the sink. He stopped me and said he'd water the plants with it. And I knew we'd get along.

Dawn

This morning, while drinking a cup of mint tea, I saw the sun rise over the Andes. This was pretty easy to do since the sun doesn't rise here until almost 8. When I leave for my Tues/Thurs morning class, it is pitch dark. It's an odd sensation to go to work in the dark. But then again it is light until about 8 p.m. so I guess that is the trade off. I remember in the depths of December last year leaving work in the dark at 5:30 p.m.

This year Chile opted out of daylight savings. A couple of Chileans have told me they think the government chose the wrong time to stick to and they think they will change it next year.

I just finished dinner at the very Chilean time of 9 p.m. I made a picnic-size potato salad, my first ever. It's pretty good, but I still miss Mom's.

Ricardo Strikes Again

Ricardo, my student who called me "classmother" last week, entertained me again during class. I am learning what a character he is. Today my students were writing a few practice sentences and he saw another student glance at his paper. Then he covered it with his hands and arms like he was a second grader taking a spelling quiz. We laughed and he told me that his is a "lown." I stared and blinked for a second and he told me the word in Spanish. OH, clown. Yeah, he is one. We proceeded with the lesson about the names of the months. He started singing "Do you remember?" from September by Earth, Wind, and Fire. I asked him if he dances to this song at the discoteque, because he told me last class that he goes dancing every Saturday. He answered in the affirmative. He's about 60 years old.