so i went skiing last weekend, here are some pics from the trip...
view of the mountains from Santiago
getting closer,
and closer...
almost there!!
I think I could get used to this
SUPER BIEN
yay snow!!
the Andes are beautiful.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Skiing In September
This past weekend was awesome, I got to go skiing and visit a different part of Chile for the first time this semester!
Saturday I woke up really early, at about 4:30 to go to Santiago with a couple friends. In Santiago we caught a shuttle bus up to a ski area called Valle Nevado (which is actually a sister ski area of Big Sky in Montana...) The skiing was absolutely amazing! It was super warm and probably some of the best spring skiing I've had in years. It was textbook corn snow (I had trouble explaining how good it was to the chilean fam because corn snow doesn't sound nearly as cool if you don't know what it is) and the conditions only got better as the day went on.
The Andes are HUGE, way different from any mountains I've ever been around before. Where as the Rockies are pointy and dynamic these things are just gigantic. They rise up really fast from the coast, we were able to go from sea level in Valparaiso to over 9,500 feet in about 2.5 hours! But more importantly they are just plain big. They stretch on for miles and miles and the snow covered peaks end impressively way above tree line.
After a great day of skiing we met some new friends on the bus ride back to Santiago, one guy was really friendly and we spent most of the ride talking about language and cultural differences. He was pretty much fluent in Spanish and English so he gave us the low down on some more Chileanismos. We learned that foreigners should probably never say hueon - a word that can mean both dude and asshole - because we'll probably use it wrong even if we can speak fluent spanish... it's something about cultural understanding). We were all completely wiped when we got back to Santiago though and so we booked it to the hostel that our friend Laura recommended called La Chimba which was pretty sweet and definitely a nice place to finish our day. For dinner we just went across the street to this Peruvian place that was recommended by the hostel. While it was slightly lacking in atmosphere, there were lots of odd Chinese decorations and the waiter was a little overly attentive, the food was absolutely amazing. Peru has a fair amount of Chinese/Asian influence we learned and this was definitely apparent in the dishes we ordered (lots of rice and some yummy sauces).
The next day some of the group stayed in Santiago to attend a human rights march with Danko (one of our program leaders), while Peter and I chose to go back to Valparaiso. The march sounded really interesting but I was a little stressed about the amount of work I had to do for Monday and I was also pretty tired. Unfortunately when I got home instead of doing my homework I somehow ended up at a BBQ with my family and about 6 other families that lasted for most of the afternoon. I'm not sure exactly when I agreed to go to this thing but my brother left specifically to come pick me up so I didn't really feel like I could say no... It was really fun though, much better than doing homework so I guess I can't complain too much!
That's all for now though, I'm tired and I'll post pictures as soon as I get a chance to download them from my camera...
Saturday I woke up really early, at about 4:30 to go to Santiago with a couple friends. In Santiago we caught a shuttle bus up to a ski area called Valle Nevado (which is actually a sister ski area of Big Sky in Montana...) The skiing was absolutely amazing! It was super warm and probably some of the best spring skiing I've had in years. It was textbook corn snow (I had trouble explaining how good it was to the chilean fam because corn snow doesn't sound nearly as cool if you don't know what it is) and the conditions only got better as the day went on.
The Andes are HUGE, way different from any mountains I've ever been around before. Where as the Rockies are pointy and dynamic these things are just gigantic. They rise up really fast from the coast, we were able to go from sea level in Valparaiso to over 9,500 feet in about 2.5 hours! But more importantly they are just plain big. They stretch on for miles and miles and the snow covered peaks end impressively way above tree line.
After a great day of skiing we met some new friends on the bus ride back to Santiago, one guy was really friendly and we spent most of the ride talking about language and cultural differences. He was pretty much fluent in Spanish and English so he gave us the low down on some more Chileanismos. We learned that foreigners should probably never say hueon - a word that can mean both dude and asshole - because we'll probably use it wrong even if we can speak fluent spanish... it's something about cultural understanding). We were all completely wiped when we got back to Santiago though and so we booked it to the hostel that our friend Laura recommended called La Chimba which was pretty sweet and definitely a nice place to finish our day. For dinner we just went across the street to this Peruvian place that was recommended by the hostel. While it was slightly lacking in atmosphere, there were lots of odd Chinese decorations and the waiter was a little overly attentive, the food was absolutely amazing. Peru has a fair amount of Chinese/Asian influence we learned and this was definitely apparent in the dishes we ordered (lots of rice and some yummy sauces).
The next day some of the group stayed in Santiago to attend a human rights march with Danko (one of our program leaders), while Peter and I chose to go back to Valparaiso. The march sounded really interesting but I was a little stressed about the amount of work I had to do for Monday and I was also pretty tired. Unfortunately when I got home instead of doing my homework I somehow ended up at a BBQ with my family and about 6 other families that lasted for most of the afternoon. I'm not sure exactly when I agreed to go to this thing but my brother left specifically to come pick me up so I didn't really feel like I could say no... It was really fun though, much better than doing homework so I guess I can't complain too much!
That's all for now though, I'm tired and I'll post pictures as soon as I get a chance to download them from my camera...
Monday, September 14, 2009
Sept. 11th
September 11th has a completely different meaning here in Chile. 9/11/1973 is the day that a junta forced a military coup and placed General Pinochet in power. This dictatorship lasted almost 20 years and affected every aspect of Chilean society. During Pinochet's reign there were many human rights crimes committed and hundreds of thousands of people were detained or tortured under the excuse of 'state security', or for no apparent reason at all. Because of this long history during which they were denied a voice Chileans now remember Sept. 11 with human rights demonstrations and other forms of protest. It was very interesting to learn about and experience a completely different tragedy that just happened to occur on the same day. It made me realize how different experiences and events can effect our perceptions of the world and what we consider to be important.
On Friday to remember the coup we watched a really good movie about the friendship of two boys during the last months of Allende's reign and the coup. It was called Machuca and I definitely recommend it if you can find it!
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Mi Familia
Well, I LOVE my family here. I'm sure that this is due in part to the "honeymoon" period of culture shock that we learned about during orientation, but it's also just because they are awesome. They are super caring and very welcoming. My mom's name is Rosa, but everyone calls her Rosy (very similar to Roxy) and my dad's name is Ulises. They have two kids but neither one lives at home any more. The son, also named Ulises, is very nice though. He lives in Santiago but comes home every weekend... My mom makes me lunch every day which I usually eat at school or if it's nice out I take it somewhere to eat. I'm extremely well fed here but the upside is that I live 4 blocks from the sea and it's a great place to run and they have a BIKE PATH, that's right a bike path. Chile is actually very advanced, they have bike paths all over Santiago too, but you have to be careful because lots of cars use them as an extra lane.
This evening I went to yoga with my mama, it was kinda funny and not at all like the yoga classes I've been to in the states but it was really fun to do that with my mama. There are tons of ways to be athletic if you want but that doesn't mean that I've been all that motivated, there are a couple of other people on the program who like working out too though so that helps a little!
Classes started on Tuesday, I'm in a spanish class with 6 other kids from the program and we have classes with 2 different teachers, for 2 hours or so each with a break in between. My teachers are really nice and so far the classes have gone pretty fast. Today during the second spanish class we went on an excursión with our teacher and we had to talk to people in stores and on the streets to figure out about the history of the place we went, it was kind of scary at first but everyone is really nice and willing to help if you make an effort to talk in spanish. The other day, for example, my homework was to talk to my family about Chilean perceptions of the US and also Chilean perceptions of other Chileans. My papa and I had a huge discussion about the way in which the as a whole US is seen to be like a powerful bully who abuses its power, but he was also careful to qualify this by saying that it's interesting because all of the individuals from the states that he's met were really nice and helpful. Our conversation ended with a long debate about the education systems of our two countries and while I'm not totally sure of all that was said, by me or him, it was really interesting.
I'll post more pics soon but my camera is kinda a pain so it's not going to happen tonight!
Ciao
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
