Half way

I will get to the Salamanca entry eventually... probably a much later eventually... I just wanted to mention that today is exactly the halfway point of my trip. I've been here 73 days and i leave in 73 days.

Salamanca Pictures!

I'll elaborate later. Right now its almost 11 and I'm going to go take a shower. And I have 430 more pages of Don Quijote to read by Monday. Oh my.

Salamanca was amazing.
Photos here:
Salamanca 1
Salamnca 2

Happy Birthday Chile! (and me!)

Well, I'm 20 now!
And Chile celebrated the 197th anniversary of its first step towards an independent government.
I had a fantastic day... talked to my family at home, got presents, walked to Mass, had a cook-out, went to see the beginning of the sunset, etc. The weather was amazing! So weird having a birthday in spring!


On my walk, I collected flowers! Click here for the album. I also collected flags the day before, album here.


My cake!


My host mom and dad dancing cueca, the Chilean national dance!


So beautiful!



Me attempting to blow out my single candle. I tried not to blow the coconut stuff all over the table, and as a result, I didn't blow the candle out. lol. (mom, notice what skirt I'm wearing? :-) The one I got for my birthday 2 months ago!)

And for the rest of the pictures from yesterday:
http://pitt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2141757&l=e86de&id=14218621

Well, I'm heading off for a relaxing trip to Salamanca, which is about 5 hours north of here by bus, this afternoon. So my internet time will be limited if any while I'm there. If you email me or anything I might not get back to you until Sunday evening or Monday.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes/cards/facebook messages/emails!

Flojos

I found an interesting news article online this morning and thought I'd share (although I should be working on homework). If you can read Spanish, you can find it here.

It says that 55.5% of Chileans considered Chileans to be flojos (lazy) rather than trabajadores (workers)(44%). Hahaha. I'd have to say this is true. Its not so much a I'm-going-to-sit-around-all-day-and-do-nothing sort of laziness, more of a thats-not-so-important-right-now laziness. Like sitting around for an hour chatting after lunch is over, for example. They just take their time more. If you get up earlier than you need to, its odd. Things are more slow-paced here.

The survey also found:
65.7% think that solidarity prevails over individualism; I would agree with this one also- it seems to be more of a united group of people than the US.
61.5% see Chileans as brave, courageous
Chileans are
traditional (according to 78.8% of Chileans)
conservative (according to 64.2%)
pessimists (63.5%)
liars (76%)

Hahaha. I would definitely agree with the traditional and conservative. I haven't particularly noticed pessimism, and in fact my host mom was talking today about the importance of looking on the bright side of things. And liars? Well, if they are, I must get fooled a lot because I haven't especially noticed that either.

The survey also found that Chileans have a lot of pride in the Andes and in the national figures of Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral (Nobel prize winners).

About 67% know what is commemorated on September 18th, which I'm afraid might be pretty good compared to the US. In case you're wondering, it is the date of the first junta of government, basically the first government that Chile set up independent of Spain, even though the country later came under Spanish power again.

Anyway, just some info on the country. Hope I didn't bore you!

Picnic en la playa!

Yesterday we had a picnic! on the beach! With a TON of food- two kinds of bread, turkey, salami, avacado, tomato, mayo, cheese, peanut butter, strawberry jam, apricot jam, apples, bananas, clementines, juice, and cake! Yummmmm.



Lots of food!



Cake! Don't be fooled by appearences, it wasn't really as good as it looks. lol. It wasn't bad, but Chileans seem to have lost something in translation when they got the recipe for cheesecake from the Americans (or whoever invented it... it wasn't anyone Spanish-speaking because in the store it said "cheesecake"). It was drier, and really cake-y as opposed to cheesecake-y, and the cherries on top were weird. Oh well. They try. haha.




Lauren, Jen, Maria, Zan.

And if you follow the link below to the same album as last time, the last 15 pictures are so are the rest of the picnic photos, I already uploaded them :-)

Album

More from the sunset, jazz club, church concert, and a bunch of my little brother:
http://pitt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2140056&l=a636e&id=14218621

September 11

So today is September 11. That means a lot in the US, but in Chile, I think it really means even more. September 11, 1973 was the date of the military coup that overthrew the government, killed president Allende, and eventually put Pinochet in power. It meant he end to the rise of communism in Chile, but the beginning of the imprisonment, torture, and murder of thousands of people at the hands of the new government. It means that the police were out in the streets today in full force because even now there is the chance of riots and such. There were demonstrations in Santiago today in memory of Allende, as well as a Mass for those killed in the coup attended by relatives of Pinochet- which shows how divided the country still is over the whole situation. And its kind of funny that its just one week before their independence day, when the whole country goes all out in celebration of Chile. I don't know how my family feels about Pinochet; its not something I want to just randomly bring up, since some people here feel so strongly one way or another.

Anyway, on a lighter note, my tests went well this week. Not the most fun, since both tests were two essay questions. Thats a lot of writing, and its always harder to guess how you did on an essay test.

Love,
Katie

p.s. I think it looks really weird to write September 11. I'm already getting used to the date-month, "11 September", way! haha!

Beautiful Sunday

So I was tired of sitting around all weekend, studying and not studying by having the computer nearby, so I walked down to that park again. I bought kuchen (an apple-pie-ish pastry) and went and studied for about an hour and then did the prayer activity for the Taller de Oracion (Prayer workshop) that I've been going to and then watched the sunset. The first complete sunset I have watched, actually, despite all the pictures of almost-sunset time. It was really nice. I've been working on acknowledging every Sunday as a mini-Easter, a celebration of the Resurrection, especially since this past Lent, and I would say today that was definitely a success.



And juuuusssst in case you're afaid I'm not seeing enough beautiful here... this is the road I go down almost every day, whenever I go to Valpo. (And the above-mentioned park is at the end of it)I think its one of my favorite things- starting the day with this <3

Music, tests, and other things

So I finally feel like I'm seriously in school... two tests this week (Monday and Tuesday morning) and a small project due Tuesday afternoon. So I'm spending the day today studying, with a-bit-too-frequent breaks to check football scores, upload pictures, etc. But oh well. I have all tomorrow afternoon too, and all Monday afternoon for the Tuesday stuff. The main problem is that I have not read all of the books I need to read for my lit class... as in, I'm about 1.9 books behind! But I think it will be fine. First of all, we never talked about these 2 yet, so I'm not entirely sure they will be on the test. Second of all, its going to be half-in class and half-take home, so probably the later stuff will be take home. Finally, she said if the exchange students don't finish reading, we can just note it on the test. The problem is that the book that I've read a little bit of is (from an English description online) the most "linguistically complex" of the genre and includes all sorts of plays on words and double meanings and such... yikes!!

In other news... this week was much nicer weather-wise in the middle of the week- probably in the 70s. Its colder again now because its the third cloudy day in a row, but these warm days are a good sign of whats to come :-) On Wednesday I walked down to a park somewhat near my house with an incredible view, and worked on some homework there. That might become a more common occurence...

View of Valpo from the park:



On Thursday evening (after I went to Pastoral), my friends Jen and Zan (short for Alexandra) and I went out to eat and then to a Jazz club in Valpo. It was pretty cool. I drank legally :-) (a Pisco Sour, which is like Mike's Hard Lemonade, only a bit harder) This is the band that played.


It was a very musical week... last night Jen and Maria and I went to a church in downtown Vina to see Coro (choir) Mozart. They performed a variety of religious music, from Mozart and Italian church music to traditional Christian Folkloric songs from when Christianity was first brought to the Americas. Just before the folkloric songs were 2 "Negro Espirituales" (me: "What? Did they just say Negro Spirituals?!?" and yep they did... the first song was "Swing Low Sweet Chariot"!... talk about random... a Mozart Choir in Chile singing "Swing Low Sweet Chariot")


After the concert we walked to the ocean and just stood on the short concrete ledge edging the sidewalk and watched the waves crashing on the rocks below us and talked for probably an hour. It was nice.

This is from on the way back, the picture turned out orange-er than reality but oh well. This is from the same bridge where I have that reflection picture from around sunset time, looking the other direction.


Other interesting happenings: the students at the Universidad de Santa Maria are on strike. They are upset about some poor administration and mis-management of money, from what I gather. Mostly they're just not going to classes, but on Thursday there was a demonstration. I just happened to be walking home on Thursday and walking right past (across the highway) the university during the height of it... The police were there, and spraying high powered hoses at the students, who kept ducking behind the stone railing on the platform of the steps up to the university. Finally, the police threw out tear gas! Crazy how things work in Chile...

Well, this coming week is somewhat busy but the week after will be super-slow. There are no classes the 17th-19th for the Fiestas Patrias (Patriotic holidays), and probably a lot of profesors, at least for the exchange students, won't have class the rest of the week either, because a lot of people are leaving to travel. I might go with Sarai and our tenant Alejandro to visit his family for a few days after the 18th, they live a couple hours north of here and I guess in a really beautiful area. Not sure on those plans yet, though- we still haven't bought tickets. A lot of people are doing really big trips- there are some people going up to the desert in Northern Chile and then on to Peru and Bolivia. It sounds pretty awesome. I'm a little jealous of all the trips people are planning sometimes... Macchu Picchu in Peru, the glaciers in the south... but hopefully in the end I'll be glad that I decided to save money and only take one or 2 small trips (I plan to go to Mendoza, in Argentina, its pretty cheap by bus).

Anyway... I do have some plans for the week off. My birthday, obviously, is Chile's big holiday and so I'll spend that probably just with my host family. They always have a big barbecue here with relatives and family friends and such. The weekend before some friends and I are planning a picnic on the beach which should be fun. And I'll be able to do some more exploring. And, of course, read more don Quijote. lol.

Sorry for such a long post... I really need to work on more small stuff throughout the week!!

Love, Katie

More photo albums

La Sebastiana and Open-Air Museum (the last 25 or so photos in the album)
http://pitt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2131578&l=13bf2&id=14218621

More of the museum, and then the walking tour from the next day
http://pitt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2137372&l=ea4f8&id=14218621

Isla Negra y Pomaire
http://pitt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2137387&l=96c21&id=14218621

Pomaire y Isla Negra

Yesterday we had another excursion, to Pomaire, a small artisan's village (mostly pottery), and to Isla Negra, Pablo Neruda's favorite house. It was a nice day. The village was really cool, the main street just had all sorts of pottery all the way down the street. Really cheap too- for example, you could get a decent sized painted flower pot for 80 cents! They had all sorts of things... lots of pots and vases, bowls, pichers, bottles, nativities, giant rosaries, plates, teacups, piggy banks, etc., plain, glazed, painted, etc. I would have bought a lot more, but I never would have been able to get it home! If I decide to ship some things back to the states, I may go back to Pomaire- it wasn't too far and I'm sure there are buses running out there from Valparaiso often. Anyway, it was sunny and warm there yesterday and we had two hours just to wander around, shop, eat lunch. The village is also famous for their one-kilo (2.2 pounds)empanadas! I had a much smaller one.



Pablo Neruda's house was located right by this rocky beach about an hour from Pomaire and an hour and a half from Vina del Mar(and notice, it was cloudy and cold there!) The beach was great... beautiful, and you should have seen how huge the waves were! I would have been fine with just staying at the beach for a couple hours and skipping the tour of his house, to be honest. (Although, I would say this one ended up my favorite of his 3 houses)


Isla Negra, looking up from the beach.


Among other things (ship parts, seashells, insects, butterflies, ships-in-bottles, etc) Pablo Neruda loved collecting glass- here mostly clear, but his house is full of colored glasses and bottles and vases. Once again we couldn't take pictures inside the house, so this will have to do.