Just living, and stuff.

(It’s super late.  I’m writing this in my bed and I’ve got the window open because I love the sound of the rain.  The smell of woodstove smoke coming in isn’t half bad, either.) 

So I joined Anna’s competition because no matter how resolute I am I give in and speak the mother tongue.  I have so much access to English speakers, and I’m weak.   I’m here to learn Spanish!  She came up with the obvious solution of berlins (those caramel filled doughnut things).  They’re probably the answer to everything.  She started a one-week, “no-English” contest between us:  winner buys loser a berlin.  I spoke a lot less English, but she still won...

The film festival was neat-o.  There were so many people in town.  The venues were scattered all over the city, and at any given time there were 3 or 4 things going on.  I watched a few documentaries that I really liked.  I also went to a few artsy films that I didn’t really understand, and I think the problem was more than just the language barrier.  And speaking of things I don’t understand, the weather has been wacko this week.  Rain.  Sun.  Rain.  Torrential rain.  Clouds.  Sunny rain.  And so on.  (This means not much Frisbee.)

What else?   Felipe made crudos the other day.  (You should know that “crudo” means “raw.”)  They consist of ground up raw meat spread on thin white bread.  Then you squeeze lemon juice onto it and top it with this yummy cilantro/onion/ homemade mayonnaise sauce.  I had a little trouble with the concept but the taste really was fantastic.   Before coming here I decided I was going to get off my high horse and eat all the things that everyone else was eating.  Since arriving in Valdivia I have eaten meat almost every single day (generally cooked, though).  I have actually sincerely enjoyed scrambled eggs.   I have actually requested bananas.  (However, I still am sticking to my guns with mushrooms and chewy seafood.)

The other day there was a surprise birthday party for Paola (my older sister here).  She is 100% hilarious; unpredictable and always laughing.  So that, of course, was fun.  Host family experiences are fun and confusing, I’m deciding.  I want to be involved in the family and basically follow them all around like a puppy.  Sometimes I get worried, though because I remember that they can’t really escape from me.   What if they might possibly want a break?  I’m kind of this weird mutt of a daughter/sister/friend/strange foreign host girl who’s like, “Ta-da!  Here I am…. let me come to all your family functions and be sitting on your couch every time you come in the door.  Welcome home!”  It’s a funny thing.

 I met two lovely ladies, Luz and Cami.  They’re studying to be English teachers (their English is great!) so it’s been fun[ny] to find new cafes and bakeries and restaurants and just sit there and listen to each other.  Also, they let me come to this English club going on at the university, and I met some hilarious kids who told me I have a funny accent.  That day was a Halloween party so I was in charge of a cakewalk and they also bobbed for apples and did other autumn-ish things (which is funny because it's definitely springtime).  I went to Niebla the other day with Pipe and Lacey!  It’s maybe about 20 minutes away by micro?  We tried to play Frisbee on the beach but Señor Pulgas The Friendly Stray was having none of it.  (The stray dog population doesn’t seem to be decreasing.) We walked over to an old Spanish fort, too… that was fun, but I’m still perplexed about why they were playing “Chariots of Fire” in the museum part. 

This is too long.
JacLyn

Where's the spring?  Right in front of your face...

Hot chocolate with the culture professor (and Laura & Co.).

Just so many flowers.

The beach at Niebla:  Lacey, Señor Pulgas y Pipe. 

View from the old Spanish fort, those things pointing at the agua are cannons.

English club: First experience bobbing for apples, super funny.

Extreme Frisbee with Jeff & Jahni.

And there they are... crudos.

Primavera, cont'd.

Crazy Pao makes her birthday wishes...

Chueca, trufas y "el colectivo".

I went back to Pucón! This time with all the gringos.  We drove the big ol’ bus out to a bridge and took a very picturesque walk along the river to a Mapuche community.   There we had the fantastic volcano as a backdrop and lots and lots of sunshine.   We played an extreme game of “chueca” or “palín”… basically field hockey with sticks and a wooden ball.  I learned that being goalie is alternately super boring and super stressful.   We ate some delicious things (and some weird things).  There was some horseback riding, some lasso practice, some dancing.  I met some cute Mapuche kids, Nacho and Kevin.  Back in Pucón I went out for ice cream with the ladies and bought a Frisbee, since they don’t seem to exist in Valdivia.

That night we went to Los Pozones (nearby hot springs).  It was a super clear night and we just laid around for a few hours, playing with the sand under our toes and considering the southern constellations above us.  In the morning we went to El Cañi, a beautiful hike near Pucón.  It really was gorgeous and actually kind of strenuous.  We started out by leisurely passing pastures of baby animals playing in the sunshine, but pretty soon found a fierce incline and ultimately met up with some snow close to the top.  At our destination we found a big pond, mostly frozen over.  (The boys, of course, went swimming in it.) Coming back down was a heck of lot faster.  On the bus ride home Anna and I got a lesson on Chilean slang.  Really, the whole Pucón trip was perfect.

So, back to Valdivia.  Lots of sunshine and flowers lately.  I live on Isla Teja, which is part of the city that happens to be completely surrounded by rivers.  That means the only access is a big bridge, which sometimes produces a bit of “taco” at rush hour.  Here on “the island” we have two principal points of interest: the university campus and my recent discovery:  trufas.   Oh golly, trufas.   They’re like balls of mellow, approachable, chocolate dough covered in more chocolate.  I just learned about them and there’s this cute little place called Café Donde La Negra that has been my dealer.

In other news, I tried to take a colectivo.  They’re like taxis except that they have a flat fee and they have this little colored wedge on the top that says the name of some place (for instance “Isla Teja”).  You flag one down that’s headed the right direction, get in with all the people, and the driver just drops you all off in order of convenience.  I was out buying the ingredients to make smores for my family (they’d never heard of them), it got late, I was pretty far away and I decided to try my luck with a colectivo.   

First off, it took a long time to find one with a yellow Isla Teja wedge on top.  I finally got one, got in, said my holas and away we went.  The old man to my left was silent, the younger guy in the passenger seat was silent, and the driver drove on.  Soon we picked up another lady and we were now three in the back.  About this time I noticed he had not taken the right road.  I thought to myself, “maybe it’s because of all these crazy one-ways, I’ll just wait it out.”  A few minutes later—and a few minutes gets you pretty far in Valdivia—I was positive we were headed in the opposite direction of Isla Teja.  Into the solemn, crowded silence I said, “I have a secret.”  (I think I can safely say I had complete attention at this point.)  “I… have never taken a colectivo before, and I don’t really understand what’s happening, but are we going to Isla Teja?  Because I think it’s the other direction.”  My backseat friends burst out laughing, the passenger seat guy was shaking his head and the driver said, “Out.”  I ended up taking a regular taxi with some guy just in from Santiago for a dental convention, and we all lived happily ever after.

As for my Spanish.  Well, now.  I have had small victories.  The other day I was writing an e-mail to my parents and three of four times I noticed I had written a few sentences in Spanish.  (Which they do not speak so well.)  I still don’t think that I’m actually thinking in Spanish but every now and then I’ll be speaking English and a little exclamation or quick question will pop out in Spanish.  It’s frustrating for me how slow I feel like it’s going, but I can’t deny progress.  It’s all kind of exciting.  I'm struggling along through the Spanish version of Pride & Prejudice right now.  Classes are going just fine. I'm still always pretty lost in Literature, but otherwise I honestly look forward to going to classes. Some of the teachers are kind of quirky, and I like it.

But folks, now I’m off to go watch some "cortos"…  that is, short films.  There’s a big international film festival that started yesterday!  I bought a pass and there are some documentaries and artsy films that I’m looking forward to, I’ll report back next time.

May the force be with you,
Jac



Meet Nacho and Kevin.



Pretty walk along the river.  Yes, that's a volcano.

a

I can't remember what this thing is called.

This is also something traditional, but I'm not quite sure what.

A ruca... traditional Mapuche home.

The lake in Pucón.



(It was a pretty lake.)



There's good ol' Villarrica.

El Cañi view.



The end of a long, gorgeous hike.



Las vacaciones.

Oh boy.  I did a lot.

So, first order of business:  the Fiestas Patrias, which I will translate as “homeland parties.”   It’s not really celebrating independence day but more like the day when Chile really started getting the ball rolling towards independence.  It’s kind of a big deal around here and this year is the 200^th anniversary.   The stores are filled with red, white and blue.  There are cueca performances galore.  I went to one at my sister’s school, and those dancers were good.  Then there are these things called “ramadas.”  The closest thing I can equate them to is the county fair: sketchy carnival games, delicious deep-fried things for sale (empanadas, sopaipillas…), carnival rides, music, more cueca performances and cute booths selling their hand-crafted wares.  At the ramadas (and everywhere else in town) you’ll also find “fondas,” which are festive little temporary venues that have your standard Fiestas Patrias food, drink and dance.

The whole month of September is kind of a party, but the 18^th (Dieciocho) is “the big day.”  I think it’s like Thanksgiving for us; it’s a big deal and there’s lots of traditional food, lots of hanging out and lots of laughing. I was staying with my host family in a cabaña on a lake near Pucón (a ski town a few hours from Valdivia) with some of their friends.   It was mellow and perfect, with lots and lots of eating and minimal doing.  Cool town, too; I saw some volcanoes and lakes and stuff.

I had the week off from school so from Pucón I took a bus to Santiago (12 hours, yo) where I met up with friends and caught another bus to Viña del Mar, where a few of us rented an apartment.  Our days were unscheduled and wonderful.   I spent my mornings in trendy coffeeshops drinking hot chocolate and reading magazines in Spanish… so posh.  One day we went to the dunes: big city on one side, giant ocean on the other.  I tried a little sandboarding and I’m still finding sand in strange places.  We spent some time on the beach and the purse of a friend got stolen (now I feel like I’m truly traveling).  My friend Anna went out to play bingo with me one night.  It’s not the same here, by the way, and also it's kind of chaotic in a different language but now I can check South American bingo off the ol’ bucket list.  We all made dinner together every night (6 people in a baby apartment = cozy) and watched the sunset on the city from 19 stories up.

Valparaíso is the exciting port town next door, and I took a micro (bus) over there a few days to just wander around.  It is super artsy, and a really fun place to take pictures.   It’s made up of a million hills which are filled with all these curious, bright-colored houses.  There are tons of funiculars you can ride to get up to different neighborhoods.  There is also TONS of sincerely incredible street art.  I went to one of Pablo Neruda’s houses.  I also found this crazy flea market thing.  I stumbled across a giant art project in progress—they’re covering a park in tile mosaic hearts—and I spent a couple hours making my contribution.  Honestly, I was 100% content to just walk around the city and look without a destination, which is pretty good news because I was usually really lost.

I made friends with a couple shop owners, also some guy name Esteban, and a few local dogs and cats.  A few times while I was talking to people I was mistaken for a native speaker.  That would last for all of 3 sentences, but the surprise on their faces when I made my first grave grammatical error was about the most rewarding thing I have ever experienced.  I still am so lost so often, but things are getting better and I can actually tell.

Guys, I fell in love on this trip.  We had met in Valdivia, but after spending time together on this trip I just stopped fighting it and realized we are perfect for each other.  :-)  So sweet!  They’re called berlins, and they’re these big, deep-fried doughnut things dusted with powdered sugar and filled with manjar.  Manjar = this extremely popular dulce de leche/caramelly business.  (One might ask, “what ISN’T filled with manjar here?”) We’ll just say that on our trip I had “more than one” berlin.  A day.

Now I’m back to business here in Valdivia.  It turned into spring while I was gone.  There are flowers all over the place!   I experienced my first earthquake.  This is kind of anti-climactic, but I just thought my chair was moving.  Also the Mapuche hunger strike is approaching 80 days.  The other day I was downtown and looked up to find an enormous Mapuche flag being hung from the bridge. The Mapuche (“people of the land”) are an indigenous group of folks here in Chile, and to make a very long story very short, as I understand it they’re trying to bring attention to the way the Chilean government is criminalizing their efforts (which I believe, to be fair, has included burning down houses and cars) to reclaim ancestral land. These things are always complicated, no?  So that’s going on. Never a dull moment.  In conclusion, I imagine you’re all dying to know about the popcorn balls. In short, we had to improvise a lot but Vale and I were victorious and now my family knows of popcorn balls.  El fin.

Peace out.
JacLyn

Dancing, folclórico style.

The lake where I spent el Dieciocho, near Pucón.

Another [basically] Pucón sky.

Jahni in the dunes. 

Also in the dunes (Jeff getting ready to do something extreme, I imagine).



Viña del Mar beach day.



Our apartment view of Viña (19th floor).



View from inside my first ascensor!




Valparaíso view.



More Valpo.

Streets of Valpo...

Street art was everywhere.

Really, all over the place.

We met some guy named Esteban (yellow shirt), and he showed us around.

Some castle in Viña.

Back for some more Valpo.

Another streetside work of art.

Valpo cityscape.