Family Vacation 2009

My mom has always said that one of the perks of having her kids travel is that she gets to travel to go see them! Well, my Chilean adventure proved to be the perfect family trip for 2009! I was going through serious family withdrawals. (If you know me very well, you're aware of the fact that I either call or text one or both of my parents at least 3 times a day with the most random of information.) So after waiting all day at the airport after their flight got delayed, then rerouted to Lima, then delayed again (8 hours at the Santiago airport...) my family FINALLY arrived! A flurry of crying and waving through the glass ensued, followed by trying to find bags, stumbling over the language and more tears by both my mother and me. Typical. We got settled into the hotel and headed back to my apartment, starting an unforgettable adventure!
The trip started out with a splendid acrobatic show by PJ when he "fought a bum" out on the street. What really happened was that he fell in a hole up to his knee and cut up his leg, but we felt that the bum-fighting story would look better for his work buddies. (Hi, guys!) I got to show my family all the ins and outs of shopping at the local pharmacy, and Alex got to practice asking for things in Spanish. I would say the whole experience was a positive, but PJ might disagree. We continued the tour through downtown Santiago through Mercado Central and La Vega, after a delicious seafood lunch. For dinner that night we went to El Hoyo, a famous Chilean restaurant which Anthony Bourdain visited on his trip to Chile. I introduced the family to terremotos, which I seemed to like more than anyone else, and after mentioning the show to the waiter he took us on a tour of the restaurant to show us the pictures of Anthony Bourdain.
The next day we explored more of Santiago, including Cerro San Cristobal (See picture above) and visited the nativity scene. It was a beautiful wooden nativity scene, but there was no Baby Jesus. Mom and I asked, "Where is Jesus?" The security guard just looked at me like, Oh silly little girl, and replied, "He hasn't been born yet." Duh. It was December 21. We toured Pablo Neruda's house, went to the artisan market, and ate a quick dinner before we took an overnight bus to the island of Chiloe...12 hours! Sound unpleasant? For some, maybe. But honestly, the seats are more comfortable than an airplane, the ride is smoother than any Airbus you'll ever take, and unlike any US airline, they serve breakfast!
We arrived in Puerto Montt the next morning and immediately got depressed and grumpy. Okay, well I was grumpy because I'm always grumpy when I wake up, but when we arrived in Puerto Montt we were greeted by a small monsoon, and our thoughts of an exotic Christmas in Chile were dashed. Luckily we got on another bus to go to Chiloe, where we were greeted with mild sunshine! 15.5 hours on a bus...we were more than ready to get out! We rented a small cabin because everything closes on Christmas, including all restaurants. We explored the town including the palafitos, which are houses built up on stilts. Mom had quite a bit of trouble with these, although she tried. "Jody, what are these called? Peelafatos?" "Palafitos." "Right, pilafeetos." Not quite, but she got much closer at the end of the trip. We had a great dinner at Sacho's, where they gave us Christmas ornaments after our meal! Southern hospitality is true in Chile too! Christmas Eve was spent in the national park, hiking to the beach (Mom and I were quite happy) and marvelling at the "wild" horses. We attended a Catholic mass that evening, which was completely different than what we were expecting. Very informal, kids running all over, and dogs wandering in and out of the sanctuary. I also taught Dad the "ghetto shopping cart" dance. He's quite good. Ask him to show you. I haven't seen him laugh that hard in a while.
Christams Day was when the rains came, and so we had a very quiet day in our little cabin. Santa came in the morning, and we had delicous pastries bought the day before. We took a walk (just to get out of the damn cabin after a while) and encountered the only thing in all of town that was open: the liquor store. That's also where we met Buddy, our loveable four-legged friend that followed us all the way back to our cabin, somehow got through the gate, and slept on our porch and we periodically gave him food. That night Mom made what I think was my favorite meal on the whole trip: ossu buco. It was delicious!
The next day we headed to Punta Arenas...the end of the Earth! The town itself was meh, but the activities around the town were great! We went to Isla Magdalena and viewd 69,000 pairs of penguins! I fell in love, and seriously considered the consequences of slipping one into Dad's man-purse, but thought better of it. Penguins choose one partner for life, and they are the most protective animals parents. So cute! Despite the fact that the island was one of the coldest places I have been (we were next to Antarctica...what was I expecting? Honestly...) it was one of the coolest things I have seen. Penguins walked right in front of us as they crossed the path, waddling down to the water and back up to their caves. I'm sure I thoroughly embarrassed my family as I waddled around the island. We spent the next day hiking through part of Punta Arenas and going to see the fort, the first settlement in Punta Arenas. Our tourguide was very informative, telling us 1.)People from Punta Arenas don't want to be Chilean. In fact, the region has its own flag and is called the Independent Republic of Magellan. and 2.) That Chilean leaders must have been smoking crak when they claimed to own part of Antarctica.
The next day we were up VERY early to fly back to Santiago. After a short stopover at my apartment to trade our winter clothes for our swimmers we headed off to Valparaiso. Whew! I'm tired just writing about the whole thing. We arrived in the afternoon, explored the city and had delicious tapas for dinner. The next day we headed to Reñaca beach outside Viña del Mar. (Please, did you seriously think we wouldn't take advantage of the reverse seasons down here and skip the beach?) We all experienced the stronger than normal South American sun (ask to see the pictures of poor Alex after the beach) and headed back to Valparaiso for a delicious dinner at a new tucked-away restaurant. We had our fair share of short "road-trips" through the windy streets of Valpo, and by the next day we were ready to hang out for a while before the fam had to catch their flight back to Winter Wonderland. It was a great trip, and I honestly wish it hadn't ended. But, alas, Alex had to head off to Spain and I have to get ready for Brazil...oh what a tough life it is....

¡Brasil!

Now that work here in Chile is over I'm off on my next big adventure: a trip with two great friends to Brazil! Alexandria, my oldest and dearest friend, and Allegra, my roommate here in Chile, are meeting me down in Rio where we'll start what will be a month of beaches, jungle and caipirinhas. Ahhh....what a life!
We start in Rio and spend about a week there, visiting the tourist sights, and above all else, the beach :) Then we fly to Iguazu Falls. Thanks to the Brazil AirPass, we get to fly around the ENORMOUS country of Brazil, which lets us see a lot more! We are planning to see Iguazu from both the Brazil side and the Argentinian side, and hang out around the falls for a few days. Then from Iguazu we turn in our shorts and tank tops for long pants, high socks, and very fasionable mosquito net hats. (Thanks, Mom.) We are off to Manaus to do a 6 day, 5 night ecotourism trek through the Amazon jungle! We get to sleep in hammocks, fish for piranhas and canoe down the Amazon river. Along with this I plan on finding both El Dorado (The City of Gold) and the Fountain of Youth. That is, if I don't get Dengue Fever first.
After our trek through the jungle we fly over to Recife for what will most likely be some much needed time in the sun. We plan to do a bit of exploring the town, leaving lots of time to hit the beach. After 2 days in Recife we continue down the coast to Salvador, where we explore more beaches. Are you noticing a trend? With our safely tanned skin (I have 3 full bottles of sunscreen) and our bellys full of caipirinhas (the national drink) we head back to Rio by bus, stopping whereever we darn well please :) It's going to be epic!
So I've got my big yellow backpack almost all packed, a few Reals stored safely in my oh-so-fashionable money belt, and I'm ready to head out and meet up with my girls! Now to learn some Portuguese...

Elections in Chile

Presidential elections are coming up here in Chile, and, just like back home, the streets are full of signs, people are passing out leaflets and pamphlets, and TV is full of ads for different candidates. There are some interesting differences, though, between Chile and the US in terms of the elections.
The elections are scheduled for Sunday, December 13. Elections are held on a Sunday so that people that work won't miss the opportunity to vote. This is really important because here in Chile, if you are registered to vote but don't vote, you are fined. For this reason, many of my students don't even sign up to vote. The president serves 4 years, and can serve as many terms as they want, but not consecutively.
There are 4 main candidates running in this election:
Sebastian Piñera represents the Alianza por Chile (Alliance for Chile) which is a center-right winged party. Piñera is one of the most wealthy businessmen in Chile, and holds part or full ownership of several major companies, such as LAN airlines and Chilevisión.
Eduardo Frei represents the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia (Concert of Parties for Democracy), the center-left party. Frei was president of Chile from 1994-2000.
The Socialist party chose Jorge Arrate as their candidate, an economist and lawyer who studied at Harvard.
Marco Enriquez-Ominami is running as an independent. He was part of the Socialist party, but resigned earlier this year.
The streets are full of huge posters, signs and people handing out material about each candidate. The candidates are out and about in different parts of Santiago and other cities doing the obligatory meet-and-greets and public appearances. A debate was just shown on TV a few days ago, but unfortunately my background in Chilean political issues isn't strong enough that I could understand everything that was going on. One thing I think is interesting is every night this last week Chilean public television (currently the only thing I watch because I don't have cable.) has played a 20 minute program, on EVERY channel in which each candidate has 5 minutes to put together an advertisement. They are shown one-by-one with the presidential candidates along with the senators and regional representatives. There is a huge campaign to try to get more people involved in the election process. Many people aren't really interested in politics because now that the Pinochet dictatorship is done, people don't really care about the politics. As one of my teachers put it, "We don't really care anymore because any one of these candidates is better than the dictatorship." Not a great attitude, but understandable seeing as the dictatorship ended in 1989, not all that long ago.
I still don't know enough about the candidates to know who I would vote for, but I'm sure as the elections get even closer I will learn more!

Summer time and the livin´s easy...

A recap of this weekend:

Friday: Morning run in the sun. Afternoon meeting. Sunbathing on the roof with my current read, Isabel Allende's Ciudad de las Bestias.

Saturday: Morning seminar at work, walked home in the sun. Sunbathed on the roof with beers and bestie, Allegra. Evening bbq on the rooftop.

Sunday: Long morning run in the sunshine. Drawing and reading on the grass in the park. Evening walk through the neighborhood to the fruit stand.

Monday morning: Walked to work in the sun.

I LOVE SUMMER IN NOVEMBER :)

¡Feliz Cumpleaños a Mi!

I've always been a huge birthday person -like, annoyingly so. I just think there's nothing better to celebrate than another year of living, exploring, traveling, seeing the world and sharing with other people. Going into this birthday, however, I was a little bummed not to celebrate it with my family and friends from back home. All my best birthday memories include loved ones that have known me for years who can share stories and memories rather than gifts. Here in Chile I have great friends whom I love dearly, but I still felt a little twinge of homesickness at not being with my family on my birthday. But once the day arrived, I realized that I have a whole new family here, and they made my birthday spectacular. I worked all day on my birthday, which to some would be a drag, but it actually made my day! I walked into work and was immediately greeted by several teachers wishing me happy birthday! Only one or two people knew, but I think they spread the word. My first class lined up to give me hugs and kisses as they left, and practiced their English by singing Happy Birthday to me. I was slightly annoyed to start my next class because 15 mintues after class started there were only 3 people. As I was wondering where all my students were, all of a sudden they walk into class together, holding a birthday cake with candles, balloons and confetti and started singing Happy Birthday Miss Jody. I was really taken aback! These are students that save their pesos to be able to make photocopies at school, or take the metro home 1 hour instead of a bus which takes twice the time. For them to save money and all contribute to a cake and soda for the class was really touching. We spent the class talking about our favorite birthday memories, traditions, and got absolutely nothing else done. It was perfect.
That night was the anniversary dinner for my school. Teachers, secretaries, custodial staff and security got all dolled up and headed to the military country club, which overlooked the entire city, to have a huge soiree celebrating the hard work everyone puts into our school to make it run (or sometimes run. Sometimes it's more like a limp, but it's at least moving.) My coworkers must have mentioned something to my boss, because as the campus director made his welcome speech, he announced that there was a birthday, and made me stand up to be recognized. Ahh! A little overwhelming! Throughout the night other professors came to give me hugs and kisses and flowers (from the centerpieces, but hey) and little gifts. I had never met some of these people, and for them to stop by my table and congratulate me really meant a lot. It was a great night of good food, good company and great dancing. Definitely a birthday not to be forgotten! Pictures to come soon!

Algarrobo: Fun in the Shade

The weather has started to get really nice here in Santiago, so some friends and I thought it would be great to hit up the beach! We met up early Saturday morning, got our towels, bikinis, sunscreen and cameras and headed off to Algarrobo, a quiet beach town with less tourists and pizzaz than Viña del Mar, and more beach area. We left Santiago by bus and were super excited to get some time in the sun. After the typical shinnanigans of Friday night we all fell asleep on the hour bus ride. We woke up to a very unwelcome surprise: the weather on the other side of the mountains was not warm and sunny like Santiago, but rather cold, overcast and very breezy. So there we were, 4 gringas and 1 Chilena wearing flip-flops, bikinis and t-shirts heading to the beach in the 50° weather. We stood out...just a little bit. But

being the optimists that we are (and realizing the next bus didn't leave until that afternoon) we made the most of our day! We ate at a fabulous seafood restaurant where I ordered a creamy fresh crab casserole that was just as delicious as it was artery-clogging. Then we headed to the beach! We examined the creatures in the tide pools, marvelled at the views, and buried ourselves in the sand. Yes, I said it, we buried ourselves in the sand. Nevermind that we are 23 (woo hoo!) year old professionals. And it didn't stop there. We completely revisited our childhood, including giggling at the anatomically correct mermaid I was made into. It was a really fun day, and after we recovered from the cold front, we all had a great time. How could you not when you're at the beach?!

September 18: Fiestas Patrias

September 18 is Chilean Independence Day, celebrating the day that Chile became an independent nation under Spanish monarchy. The 18th is celebrated much like we celebrate 4th of July, only on a much bigger scale. The city starts setting up and decorating for the holiday near the end of August, and people often take an entire 2 weeks off work for the holiday. All stores are closed starting the afternoon of the 17th until the 19th, and it's impossible not to notice the red, white and blue splashed on every light pole, store front and bus stop.

I was really lucky to get to spend the 18th with some Chilean friends and their families, so I got to see how the holiday is traditionally celebrated. Scott flew in that morning, so he got to experience everything too! Scott, Allegra and I went to our friend's house out in the country, in a town called Melipilla. The landscape was beautiful: rolling hills, huge plots of land and absolutely no smog. We arrived at Babi's house, which was actually more like an estate, and immediately started celebrating. There were traditional Chilean games, the names of which completely escape me, along with other games like ping-pong and foosball, or taca-taca. There was also cueca dancing and of course, tons of food!

We were welcomed by Babi's entire family with food and drinks in hand. We ate an amazing lunch, drank chicha, the traditional liquor, and danced cueca. After hearing that Scott plays soccer, the men invited him to play in their soccer game. Then as we were eating lunch they called Scott up to the front of the table and gave him a Colo-Colo jersey, one of Chile's professional teams. He was thrilled, and later exchanged a Sounders jersey with them. Scott played in the soccer game while Allegra and I danced cueca. As the sun started to go down the music changed from cueca to salsa and reggaeton, and a dance party followed. It was awesome!