I'm off to Machu Picchu this Monday on a 10 day trip through Chile and Peru, to Machu Picchu, and back! I'm going with 5 of my girl friends from Orientation and we're taking buses the whole way. I'm not sure exactly how many hours we'll be on it but the longest leg is about 30 hours.... YIKES. Lots of bonding time for us.
We're going:
Santiago to Arica (city on Chilean border with Peru where they have beaches and Atacama mummies)
Arica to Arequipa (cool Peruvian town)
Arequipa to Cusco, from which we go to Machu Picchu
Cusco to Lake Titikaka (the town we're going to is called Puno)
Lake Titikaka to Arequipa, and then back to Arica, and finally back down to Santiago
It should be quite the grand adventure!
I just moved in with my host family and they are awesome! They're really nice and funny, and basically the perfect family. I mean, I've only been here for a day but it seems like it. I have a host mom, dad, sister (18), and brother (15). I have my own room, which is so great after having lived in the same room as 5 other girls, each with enough luggage for six months, while in the hostel. They also have really great WiFi which RULES. Things are looking pretty good.
Something important that I forgot to say in an earlier blog: MULLETS ARE COOL HERE!!!! Yeah, i mean exactly that - there is a huge trend of boys who have what Americans would view as hilarious outdated mullets but are actually considered really cool by some people here. They call them "Chocos", and I tried to explain to my host siblings how hilarious this is, but the mullet in America carries a lot of connotations that I couldn't explain in English. I showed a picture of Joe Dirt, but then I had to try to explain what "redneck" is, and then also how it was popular in the 80s, and I didn't know how to say "the 80s" in Spanish and have it mean the same thing so I just gave up. Moral of the story: "Chocos" are everywhere, as is the occasional rat tail (sometimes a dread tail) and I find them very entertaining.
I'll have a lengthy post about my Andean adventure when I get back in 11 days, please don't adopt the Chilean Choco trend in my absence. TTFN (tah tah for now)
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Maxi-Pads Only
End of Week 1/Beginning of Week 2 in Santiago
(Photo: Santiago from Cerro San Cristobal - Cerro = hill)
The past six days have been filled with ridiculously long orientation days and lots of lectures - sort of l
ame. Tufts wants us to get to know Santiago really well so the week has been a crash course in Chilean politics, history, economics, etc. blah blah blah. We have a lot of people come in and they'll speak to us one after another in this little classroom for 6 hours straight sometimes. We've been doing that since last Monday everyday, even on Saturday and Sunday. It's interesting (some speakers more than others) but it's really easy to zone out when they're speaking Chilean Spanish really quickly and I have no idea what they're saying. I actually understand people pretty well and can converse easily but it takes a lot more effort than English (duh).
We've had a few amazing day trips despite the long classroom time. Last Thursday we had a man come in to talk to us about human rights abuses during the Pinochet dictatorship, specifically about this one horrifying torture facility called the Villa Grimauldi. About 30 minutes after he started talking he told us that he was actually a prisoner in this facility for more than a year and that we were going to get on a bus and visit the site. The place has been turned into a monument now but it still has some of the original cells and torture buildings. He gave us a tour would stand by the different areas and tell stories about what happened to him there. He said he can now sleep on command no matter where he is or what noise is being made because that was the only way he could shut out the screams of the other people being tortured in the prison. It was really really intense and sad, and I would equate it to getting a tour from a Holocaust survivor at Auschwitz or something but I've never been there so I won't make that comparison... but that's sort of the idea.
On to lighter topics... half the reason that the lectures have seemed so boring is because we went out late almost every night to bars last week and couldn't stay awake the next morning in class. On Thursday night we went out this awesome salsa club with a live band and lots of hilarious Latin men gyrating their hips like I've never seen. They were WINDING IT UP and it looked like Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (for anyone who has seen that critically acclaimed film). I actually did learn the basics of salsa and all of the guys there were very polite because apparently that's how Latin dance etiquette goes. We were all so tired by Friday and Saturday night that we didn’t go out during the actual weekend.
In other news, Chilean food is not very good and I am very disappointed. Everything is pretty greasy, the juice is wayyy too sweet and colorful (we’re talking hot pink or bright red like some nasty kind of kool-aid and then it tastes like melted popsicle), the yogurt is the consistency of heavy cream, and the sandwiches are pretty gross. A lot of people have been getting stomach bugs from just adjusting to new not-so-great food. Maybe I’ve had bad experiences since we’ve been living at the hostel but I'm moving in with my host family this Saturday so I'll keep my fingers crossed for better cuisine.
Also, the most horrifying discovery of my trip is that women here do not use tampons, and therefore they basically don't sell them anywhere. A few of my friends found some at a pharmacy the other day and everyone gave them really dirty looks when they were standing in line to pay. I think the female audience of this blog can understand the gravity of this situation - just imagine an entire country of women only ever wearing maxi-pads. All I can say is that's gross.
And with that thought, I will leave you all. I'm in the midst of planning a trip to Machu Picchu and Lake Titikaka with my friends here for next week, but it's sort of short notice so we'll see if we can pull it together. Ciao amigos.
(Photo: Santiago from Cerro San Cristobal - Cerro = hill)
The past six days have been filled with ridiculously long orientation days and lots of lectures - sort of l
ame. Tufts wants us to get to know Santiago really well so the week has been a crash course in Chilean politics, history, economics, etc. blah blah blah. We have a lot of people come in and they'll speak to us one after another in this little classroom for 6 hours straight sometimes. We've been doing that since last Monday everyday, even on Saturday and Sunday. It's interesting (some speakers more than others) but it's really easy to zone out when they're speaking Chilean Spanish really quickly and I have no idea what they're saying. I actually understand people pretty well and can converse easily but it takes a lot more effort than English (duh).We've had a few amazing day trips despite the long classroom time. Last Thursday we had a man come in to talk to us about human rights abuses during the Pinochet dictatorship, specifically about this one horrifying torture facility called the Villa Grimauldi. About 30 minutes after he started talking he told us that he was actually a prisoner in this facility for more than a year and that we were going to get on a bus and visit the site. The place has been turned into a monument now but it still has some of the original cells and torture buildings. He gave us a tour would stand by the different areas and tell stories about what happened to him there. He said he can now sleep on command no matter where he is or what noise is being made because that was the only way he could shut out the screams of the other people being tortured in the prison. It was really really intense and sad, and I would equate it to getting a tour from a Holocaust survivor at Auschwitz or something but I've never been there so I won't make that comparison... but that's sort of the idea.
On to lighter topics... half the reason that the lectures have seemed so boring is because we went out late almost every night to bars last week and couldn't stay awake the next morning in class. On Thursday night we went out this awesome salsa club with a live band and lots of hilarious Latin men gyrating their hips like I've never seen. They were WINDING IT UP and it looked like Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (for anyone who has seen that critically acclaimed film). I actually did learn the basics of salsa and all of the guys there were very polite because apparently that's how Latin dance etiquette goes. We were all so tired by Friday and Saturday night that we didn’t go out during the actual weekend.
In other news, Chilean food is not very good and I am very disappointed. Everything is pretty greasy, the juice is wayyy too sweet and colorful (we’re talking hot pink or bright red like some nasty kind of kool-aid and then it tastes like melted popsicle), the yogurt is the consistency of heavy cream, and the sandwiches are pretty gross. A lot of people have been getting stomach bugs from just adjusting to new not-so-great food. Maybe I’ve had bad experiences since we’ve been living at the hostel but I'm moving in with my host family this Saturday so I'll keep my fingers crossed for better cuisine.
Also, the most horrifying discovery of my trip is that women here do not use tampons, and therefore they basically don't sell them anywhere. A few of my friends found some at a pharmacy the other day and everyone gave them really dirty looks when they were standing in line to pay. I think the female audience of this blog can understand the gravity of this situation - just imagine an entire country of women only ever wearing maxi-pads. All I can say is that's gross.
And with that thought, I will leave you all. I'm in the midst of planning a trip to Machu Picchu and Lake Titikaka with my friends here for next week, but it's sort of short notice so we'll see if we can pull it together. Ciao amigos.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Estoy aqui, cachai?
Day 4 (cuatro) en Santiago -
Cachai = "get it?" everyone says it lots
I made it here alive! It was actually a really easy trip. I flew into Atlanta airport (and now have a burning desire to visit the Dirty South at some point, maybe I can stay at the Frumkin household) and then had to wait for the connecting flight to Santiago for a long time because the plane we were supposed to take hit a bird on the way in and was therefore delayed... must have been a really big bird. Anyway, the flight to Santiago was pretty easy because I just took Tylenol PM and slept for 6 of the 9 hours and then arrived around 8:30am. We got through customs no problem and then took a bus to the Hostel we're staying at for 2 weeks during orientation. I move in with my host family on July 26 I think. Zach and Hoopes: I saw Aconcagua on the way in and it's INCREDIBLE.
There are lots of really interesting people staying here so I've had some good conversations with random people. On the first night I hung out with three Brazilian guys and one British guy (all of which had definitely been snorting coke) with my friend Laura. Our group has also sort of adopted this Spanish guy named Arndt Hemmingberg (he's half German) and we go out with him every night. He's really good at ballroom dancing so we exchanged Soulja Boy dance lessons for Salsa lessons. Despite the technical diffuculty and elegance of Crank That he doesn't understand the phenomenon.
It's really difficult to understand the average Chilean's Spanish accent, but the academic people who have been giving us lectures everyday and the people we meet from other Spanish speaking countries are pretty intelligible. We've been trying to get passes to do this 4 day hike on the Inca Trail up to Machu Picchu in September but they're all sold out which SUCKS! But then Laura and I met a Peruvian guy last night at the hostel who said his sister is a guide on that trail (you have to have one to do it) so he can hook us up... hopefully that works.
Everyone on our trip is so cool! We all are really getting along and are having fun together. There are 12 girls and only 6 boys but we all hang out together and it's all good. The spectrum of ethnicities in Chile is really narrow and people are either pale, brown hair, with brown eyes, or sort of Mapuche Indian looking, or somewhere in between. No one has blonde hair and people get so excited when they see my blonde friend. We now just call her "La Rubia" now ("the blonde") because people actually gape at her. They just stare at her and when we walk by guys will look at her, click their tongues, and creepily/spanishly say "byou-ti-ful". Everyone also shamelessly stares at my friend who looks sort of black and has really curly hair, since there are apparently no black people here. Now we're all keeping count of the natural blondes and black people to see which group has more, and so far the blondes are losing big time. It's also really uncommon for people to have blue or green eyes so people get excited about that too.
There are stray dogs EVERYWHERE!! No cats, just dogs. And obviously the fattest ones are the huge husky dogs because they probably eat all the smaller dogs for breakfast. Also, the air is really smoggy and you can barely even see the Andes mountains surrounding the city (which are incredible) since it's so thick. It makes my lungs burn and when i got off the plane i felt like I was smoking. That's probably really healthy for me.
I don't have too many crazy stories yet since we've just been doing orientation stuff. We've had lectures the past two days (sort of boring and EVERYONE falls asleep) for the whole day which sucks, and then we go out to dinner at night and go out to bars or whatever. I am SO glad I'm studying abroad in South American and not in Europe because everything is super cheap here. I bought 2 bananas and 2 big rolls today for 50 cents at the supermarket. 1.5 liters of box wine (vino tinto) is only $3. The exchange rate is 500 chilean pesos for one dollar haha. But that also means that prices are in hundreds of thousands of pesos which is annoying to calculate. OK well I'm off to go get ready to go out salsa dancing with some of the others in our group but I will write again soon. Ciao (they say "ciao" here instead of "adios")
Cachai = "get it?" everyone says it lots
I made it here alive! It was actually a really easy trip. I flew into Atlanta airport (and now have a burning desire to visit the Dirty South at some point, maybe I can stay at the Frumkin household) and then had to wait for the connecting flight to Santiago for a long time because the plane we were supposed to take hit a bird on the way in and was therefore delayed... must have been a really big bird. Anyway, the flight to Santiago was pretty easy because I just took Tylenol PM and slept for 6 of the 9 hours and then arrived around 8:30am. We got through customs no problem and then took a bus to the Hostel we're staying at for 2 weeks during orientation. I move in with my host family on July 26 I think. Zach and Hoopes: I saw Aconcagua on the way in and it's INCREDIBLE.
There are lots of really interesting people staying here so I've had some good conversations with random people. On the first night I hung out with three Brazilian guys and one British guy (all of which had definitely been snorting coke) with my friend Laura. Our group has also sort of adopted this Spanish guy named Arndt Hemmingberg (he's half German) and we go out with him every night. He's really good at ballroom dancing so we exchanged Soulja Boy dance lessons for Salsa lessons. Despite the technical diffuculty and elegance of Crank That he doesn't understand the phenomenon.
It's really difficult to understand the average Chilean's Spanish accent, but the academic people who have been giving us lectures everyday and the people we meet from other Spanish speaking countries are pretty intelligible. We've been trying to get passes to do this 4 day hike on the Inca Trail up to Machu Picchu in September but they're all sold out which SUCKS! But then Laura and I met a Peruvian guy last night at the hostel who said his sister is a guide on that trail (you have to have one to do it) so he can hook us up... hopefully that works.
Everyone on our trip is so cool! We all are really getting along and are having fun together. There are 12 girls and only 6 boys but we all hang out together and it's all good. The spectrum of ethnicities in Chile is really narrow and people are either pale, brown hair, with brown eyes, or sort of Mapuche Indian looking, or somewhere in between. No one has blonde hair and people get so excited when they see my blonde friend. We now just call her "La Rubia" now ("the blonde") because people actually gape at her. They just stare at her and when we walk by guys will look at her, click their tongues, and creepily/spanishly say "byou-ti-ful". Everyone also shamelessly stares at my friend who looks sort of black and has really curly hair, since there are apparently no black people here. Now we're all keeping count of the natural blondes and black people to see which group has more, and so far the blondes are losing big time. It's also really uncommon for people to have blue or green eyes so people get excited about that too.
There are stray dogs EVERYWHERE!! No cats, just dogs. And obviously the fattest ones are the huge husky dogs because they probably eat all the smaller dogs for breakfast. Also, the air is really smoggy and you can barely even see the Andes mountains surrounding the city (which are incredible) since it's so thick. It makes my lungs burn and when i got off the plane i felt like I was smoking. That's probably really healthy for me.
I don't have too many crazy stories yet since we've just been doing orientation stuff. We've had lectures the past two days (sort of boring and EVERYONE falls asleep) for the whole day which sucks, and then we go out to dinner at night and go out to bars or whatever. I am SO glad I'm studying abroad in South American and not in Europe because everything is super cheap here. I bought 2 bananas and 2 big rolls today for 50 cents at the supermarket. 1.5 liters of box wine (vino tinto) is only $3. The exchange rate is 500 chilean pesos for one dollar haha. But that also means that prices are in hundreds of thousands of pesos which is annoying to calculate. OK well I'm off to go get ready to go out salsa dancing with some of the others in our group but I will write again soon. Ciao (they say "ciao" here instead of "adios")
Thursday, July 10, 2008
On my way...
Hi all,
I'm leaving tomorrow morning and should get into Santiago on Saturday morning (Seattle-Atlanta and then Altanta-Santiago). I'm making this blog so anyone who wants can check up on little Tenley running around in Chile - should be quite the adventure. I'm going to miss everyone from home and school, but I'll see you when I get back! Good luck if you're off on your own adventures in foreign places. I am about to go finish packing and I update when I am successfully in Santiago. Hasta luego!
I'm leaving tomorrow morning and should get into Santiago on Saturday morning (Seattle-Atlanta and then Altanta-Santiago). I'm making this blog so anyone who wants can check up on little Tenley running around in Chile - should be quite the adventure. I'm going to miss everyone from home and school, but I'll see you when I get back! Good luck if you're off on your own adventures in foreign places. I am about to go finish packing and I update when I am successfully in Santiago. Hasta luego!
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