Curacaví

For our first, real group activity this past weekend the EAP program traveled to Curacaví, a little town about halfway between Santiago and the beach. When I told my host family where I was going their reaction was surprising. They were of the opinion that while Curacaví was fine, they weren't sure why the program had chosen it since there are so many more beautiful and cooler spots in Chile. Because of this I was a little disheartened. Our director, Isaac, really hadn't told us much about the trip. In fact, all we were told was to bring a swim suit and hiking boots and supplies for two nights. I had a vision of an Outdoor Ed situation where we were squashed into bunk beds in cabins out in the wilderness and there was a lake or something nearby. So to be honest, as we loaded the buses, I was less than enthusiastic.

The bus we got on was huge with air conditioning, which put me in a good mood. About ten minutes into the trip Isaac walked to the back of the bus where we were and people started bombarding him with questions. It was revealed that we were in fact not staying in cabins but a 4-star hotel in the middle of nowhere. He said that we had the whole hotel to ourselves because we had rented our every room and that we would be served three meals a day, with a big asado (barbecue) on the last day. Alright, this sounds cool.

The drive wasn't scenic, it actually just sort of looked like northern California. But he wasn't kidding when he said we wouldn't be near anything. We turned down about 6 increasingly smaller dirt roads and after taking about 45 minutes to drive 10 miles we finally arrived. 4 stars in Chile doesn't mean quite what it does in the states but it was still a very cute, nice, clean hotel with air conditioning!!! Thank God. We had about 2 hours before our first meeting so everyone immediately hit the pool. The cool thing about this group is that it's comprised of a certain kind of person, specifically the kind of person who has the cajones and enthusiasm to travel to a foreign country and immerse themselves in it. It turns out that almost everyone in the group is nice and outgoing and interesting. We all started to bond over a game of sharks and minnows and went from there. At 6pm we had an introductory meeting about Chile, ie. how to be safe, how to stay healthy, etc. The UC Study center team has not disappointed me at all. Everyone from past programs said they were incredibly helpful and supportive and it's true. We are in very good hands over here.

Dinner was great. It seemed like there was a lot of traditional Chilean food. Some of it was great, like the strips of steak, and some of it was weird like the little cones of ham filled with corn. During dinner, a tarantula found its way into the dining room. That's what you get in the sticks of South America. After dinner mostly everyone congregated in someone's room and we played some rousing rounds of a few drinking games. It was a lot of fun, the people in the program are terrific. After the games we went outside for some salsa dancing and then it was off to bed.

The next morning after breakfast we had another meeting that was a review of our student guide. It was pretty basic stuff, but I'm glad to have it. It makes living in a new country a little less daunting. After the meeting we had lunch, then hit the pool again, then the La Chile students had their meeting. This was when one of our Cultural Monitors (the Chilean students who are helping us along, they're so great!) did a presentation about the school, and then the UC Study center told us how to go about signing up for classes. It looks as though they're going to hold our hands through it, which I'm excited about because I have some pretty specific requirements I need to take care of. I'm optimistic that I should be fine.

Dinner was good, and then we had some more time for partying, which included karaoke. We got one of the monitors, Juanfra, really drunk and had him teach us Chilean slang and dance moves for about four hours. We reciprocated too! We taught him a bunch of English slang. He's so much fun and so nice.

We had the whole next day free, so we woke up pretty late. A lot of people went for hikes, some swam, and then we had a delicious barbecue and cocktails to cap of the trip. We ate with Paulina, the other cultural monitors, so I spoke Spanish through most of the meal. After this weekend I can already tell my Spanish has improved. The barbecue was leisurely and we got back in the buses to go home around 4pm. All in all a very informative and fun weekend.

Fotos!

Our hostel.
Dinner at Cafe Patagonia in Bellas Artes.
Tiendas.
Popsicle and cold water on a hot day. Heaven.
La Virgen, a la cumbre del Cerro San Cristobal.
Me and the city.
The city of Santiago!

Cerro San Cristobal

Day 2 in Chile is almost over, and it was such an awesome one!!!

We woke up pretty late, still recovering from our journey. We had lunch at a little cafe near the hostel, there are literally hundreds of them! Their lunch special was lasagna, a salad, fruit juice and coffee for 2.990 pesos (about $6). The salad was kind of gross (from a spoiled California standpoint) but the lasagna was good and the fruit juice was pineapple.

After lunch, we started walking to something called Cerro San Cristobal which Brittany and I both knew about, vaguely. Someone had described it to me as "a hill" and she had heard about "eggs" that you could sit in on a monorail and see all of Santiago. As it turns out, it's a huge park, kind of like Chile's Golden Gate park. They have a zoo, swimming pools, picnic areas, and something called "funicular" which is a tram that pulls you all the way up the incredibly steep hill to "la cumbre" (the summit.) Once we got up there, it was the most incredible view. We really could see all of Santiago which is an enormous, sprawling city. We could even catch a glimpse of the Andes (although they were mostly shrouded in mist and smog). By the way, it's summer here and we were sweating buckets by now.

We walked up a pretty serious flight of stairs to get all the way to the statue of "La Virgen" where the view was even more spectacular. There seemed to be an outdoor church that looked like it would be really cool to go to. After a while, we headed back down and got some water a popsicles. They were selling "huesillos" which appeared to be caramel sorbet over rice krispies. We didn't try them...yet.

We took the funicular back down and walked back through Bellavista to get back to our hostel. Its a really cool neighborhood with tons of bars and cafes. We'll have to head back there soon.

Our next mission was to find hairdryers. First, we found giant bottles of water that we bought because it is blazing hot here and the tap water is no good. It took a while but we found hair dryers and got Brittany's phone activated. For now, we'll probably figure out dinner and probably just lay low tonight. Tomorrow's the big day where we finally get to meet our host families and the other members of the operation. Very exciting. Chau for now!

Estamos Aqui :-)

So we finally made it to Chile. It was quite a journey. Let me tell you about it.

My parents and I left Napa around 6:30PM on Friday night in order to get me to my 11:30 flight to Miami on time. I was way early, as we always are, and I settled into the gate. Around 9:30 my traveling buddy Brittany arrived and we started talking about the holidays and how excited we were about the upcoming events. Suddenly, to my dismay, Brittany pulled out two documents she had received at the Visa Consulate and asked me about them. I had a minor panic attack. I didn't have the documents. I had left them at home. They were documents supposedly essential to my entry into the country. Oh. No.

I called my parents and told them of my situation. My mom quickly located the documents but it soon became clear that I would not be leaving California with them in my possession. I started to panic, unsure if I would be able to enter Chile without them. My parents tried to see what they could do with Fed Ex while I frantically emailed EAP for some assistance. There wasn't much to do except sit and wait. My parents scanned the documents and sent me images of them and it seemed that maybe that was the best we could do. I had no choice but to just sit back and set my sights on the 4.5 hour red-eye flight ahead of me.

The flight was, for lack of a better word, miserable. My legs are entirely too long for a long plane ride like that. I was claustrophobic and uncomfortable for the entire duration and as a result got almost no sleep. We arrived in Miami at about 5:30 AM eastern time, just in time for our eight hour layover.

After breakfast and sitting around for about two hours, the Avianca terminal finally opened and Brittany and I were able to get boarding passes for our next flight to Bogotá, Colombia. This was the first instance where we really began to realize the magnitude of our endeavor. No one around us was speaking English, and the people at the terminal addressed us in Spanish. I finally began to understand: I am moving to a Spanish speaking country. It was overwhelming, but also very cool.

The massive layover wasn't bad. I corresponded with my parents, who said that the documents I needed were being FedExed and would arrive in Chile two days after I did. I also talked to our correspondent in Chile and he seemed to think that the problem could be worked out which gave me some hope. The flight to Bogotá was by far the best one. I watched Inglorious Basterds. It was very good.

We had a short layover in Bogotá and by this time Brittany and I were reaching delerium. We had been wearing the same clothes for about 24 hours and hadn't slept or eaten a proper meal in some time. The final flight to Santiago was another red-eye in which I got about 2 hours of sleep. I did talk to the older woman sitting next to me in Spanish for a while, which was cool.

We got to Santiago at about 5AM their time, which is 4 hours ahead of California. This was the moment I'd been dreading, the moment where I had to go through and get into the country without the proper documentation. I approached the woman with extreme fear and told her I didn't have the papers. She said "Don't worry about it." and processed me. I asked her what I should do once the papers arrived and again she said "Don't worry about it." so, currently, I don't actually know what to do with the papers.

Amazingly, all our bags made it to Santiago and came out early. Then it was a quick trip through customs and a taxi hire. We arrived at our youth hostel at about 6:30 AM and were informed that we couldn't check in until 2. We decided to walk around the city for a while, getting to know it while it was still empty and sleeping. This was my first experience with the fact that I am a tall blonde in a country of short brunettes. Literally every man we passed stared at us until we were out of sight. Cars, even BUSES slowed down as they passed us. We got whistled at, honked at, yelled at, and some stray dogs even followed us for about half an hour. We got back to the hostel around 9 and proceeded to fall asleep on the couch. We were awoken an hour or so later by everyone in the hostel running around and yelling. Apparently, someone had come in while the front desk was busy and run out with two backpacks of people checking out. They chased him and got one of the bags back. It was all sort of a blur.

Finally, at 2 we got checked into our room where we promptly showered and fell asleep for about three hours. After that, we went to dinner at a restaurant called Patagonia. I had fish and a strawberry fruit juice. It was beautiful out, so we ate outside, and our waiter was very nice. I've heard bad things about Chilean food, but this meal was great!

After dinner we found a bar called El Diablito and had Escudo (Chilean beer) and Pisco (Chilean liquor.) Then we had another beer at a cafe near our hostel and met some Chilean guys to whom we spoke, in Spanish, for over an hour. Now, I'm back at the hostel, in bed. Can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring! Pictures coming soon!

¡HOY!

Today is the day! Today, I leave for six months abroad in Chile and I couldn't be more excited. I thought I'd be a lot more anxious and nervous but actually I'm quite calm. I think it helps that preparing for this whole thing was almost like a part time job last year. Between all the hours of Spanish class to the dozens of emails between myself and the EAP program to get ready and get my visa I feel like this leg of the journey might be the easiest. The only real concern I have is getting off the ground, but I've got confirmation numbers and emails at my disposal so I don't expect it to be a major problem. I don't have much else to say, other than, hooray! Also, I have my contact info for anyone who wants to send me anything or get in touch with me at any time.

Email: melanie_dyer@umail.ucsb.edu

Phone #: 011-56-2-95166926 (I know the 8 digits looks goofy, but that's the right number!)

If you want to send me something (letter, package, etc.) DON'T send it to my address (whatever that ends up being). Please send it to the UC Study Center

Programa Universidad de California

PUC-CHILE Campus Oriente Ave.

Jaime Guzmán 3300

Nuñoa Santiago, Chile

You can also call the UC Center at 011-56-2-354-5160

Okay, everybody! The next time you hear from me, I'll be in Chile! Que les vayan bien!!!