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!  

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

some Photos

here are some photos...

el ascensor

un gato

sunset

(one of) my schools!

"seawolf"

Address

My address for this semester is:


Roxy Pierson

c/o SIT Study Abroad

Bellavista #1263, Recreo

Casilla Postal 8009, Viña 2 

Viña del Mar 

Chile

I'm not sure if this means that it will go to a PO box or the street address because I was kinda tuned out when Danko explained it but this is what they put in our handbook.  Cards/packages would be super fun to get and I'll try to write some post cards too!

Valpo and Vina

Just thought I'd let you know how things are going...  Orientation is fun so far but VERY thorough, I think we're all kinda wishing that we could be a little more independent and start a "normal" schedule.  Still I guess it's good to help us out and create a support network.  We've been staying in Vina del Mar at a neat little hotel pretty close to the downtown area.  Yesterday we went into Valparaiso for the first time and we took a boat tour through the harbor which was an awesome way to orient ourselves to the two cities.  

Valpo and Vina are much closer together than I thought they would be the dividing line is relatively ambiguous and la Casa SIT is right on the 'border' between the two which will be nice.  While I haven't met my host family yet I got the address and it looks like I'm living about 4 blocks from the beach in Vina, pretty close to where we've been spending our time during orientation.  It's a little disappointing not to be in Valpo, especially now that we've seen Valpo because Vina is definitely more modern and not anywhere near as pretty, but getting back and forth seems like it will be easy enough and they split the group pretty evenly between the two cities so it's not like I'm alone.

Today we had a drop off which was basically an assignment where we had to go and learn about a place, a food and a couple chilean words that they gave us.  We were split up into groups of two and I got to go with Laura (who is also my roommate for this first weeks which was fun).

We found the place really easily it was the Ascensor El Peral which is actually a funicular like the ones in Barcelona, only older. We got to ride it up to the top for 100 pesos which is about 20 cents which is really great because we got to feel totally touristy for almost no money.  Valpo is known for its Acensores (there are 15, but only 8 are currently in operation) and it's neat because they are definitely used for transportation as well as tourism. Some have been in operation since the beginning of the century and they still use basically the same technology although they run on electricity instead of being powered by animals. Valpo/Vina del Mar has a really good public transportation system and I'm excited to get more familiar with it. 

Chile? Chile!!

I made it to Chile!!! The flight went great, I love flying when there aren't any problems.  A ton of people were wearing masks in the Atlanta airport which was a bit surreal to see though.  Also, there was this one guy on my flight who was super ridiculous he was the most obnoxious OCDer I've seen in a while.  As I'm waiting to get to my seat someone goes to put a bag in the overhead and he's all... WATCH THE COAT MAN and I'm like seriously it's not even that cool and who do you think you are some posh dresser hello, you're flying coach buddy. He proceeded to drink lots of red wine and stay up really late laughing loudly at the movie 17 Again (definitely a super cool gentleman).

Anyways so now I'm in Chile, I met up with the group first thing this morning off of my redeye flight into Santiago, soooo tired. We drove from Santiago to Vina del Mar and the rest of the day was a mixture of trying to meet everyone, wandering around, and sleeping. The city is great but totally overwhelming. I'm hoping that after we finish orientation and settle into our homestays I'll start to feel a bit more confident about the whole living in a city thing, until then I get to feel like a fish out of water with a bunch of city folk for classmates. Good news though, my spanish isn't as bad as I previously thought and I might actually get better, also there are a couple of other people who have expressed interest in going SKIING!!!! not that that is what I'm here for but I figure when else will I get the chance to go skiing in August (ok so maybe it's possible in Colorado but I've never don it...) It's dinner time now and I'm still not sure how I feel about this whole blog thing so that's all for now, maybe next time I'll post pictures?!