Up and Down

I took these photos last week on Wednesday during our final day of orientation classes with CIEE. We had an hour or so to wander around the Plaza de Armas, a local plaza surrounded by government buildings in the center of Santiago, for an assignment. It was quite great getting to just observe and soak everything in.

Anyway, after a week of relative hell due to errands and registration and so on, and after still not picking out classes until two or three more days of leafing through endless catalogs and schedules and evaluations, I finally arrived at this weekend and I was about dead. We had orientations for La Chile and La Catolica and then came Friday, which was the absolute worst. It was raining, I messed up the train schedule, arriving late to register my visa and I ended up waiting around for about four hours in this horrible government building that far too closely resembles the DMV.

In my time there, I decided that if hell is a real place this is what it would be like: Sitting in an overcrowded DMV, with an incredibly high number, no food, no bathroom, no space. Right as it's about to hit your number, the counter starts repeating over and over and over.

So that gives you a good picture of where my mind was on Friday. There was definitely a moment, right after I realized I'd messed up the trains, where I was waiting for the stupid metro to come and I was looking at a sign and all I wanted was for it to be in English. Anyway, I finally got home and I couldn't drag myself to leave the house again so I decided to watch Gossip Girl. I hate to admit it, but I really needed some reminder of home. Terrible, but it was actually really comforting in a strange way. Maggie came over and we attempted to watch a Chilean movie but failed miserably since we were both so exhausted.

I took this photo the next morning from my street corner. With the smog cleared from the horizon because of the rain the day before, we set out to explore Cerro Santo Lucia, a hill with winding pathways and gorgeous views of the city and the Andes right in the heart of Santiago. We walk past it every day but we just hadn't ever gotten the chance to go up it. On our way to climb the Cerro, we stopped into a random little cafe on the street. The owner saw us looking at the menu and beckoned us inside where he was sitting with Felipe, a friend of his who also happens to be an American exchange student. We chatted with them for a while and then Felipe decided spur of the moment to join us on our expedition.

These are just a few views from the top of the Cerro.

It turns out Felipe's family is Chilean so he has tons of friends here already, including the originally Italian cafe owner. Not only did he invite us to his aunt's apartment in Viña del Mar, a seaside mountain town right next to Valparaiso, but Felipe also invited us to the secret basement part of the cafe where tons of Italians and Brasilians and Chileans and people from all over hang out if they're friends with the owners. Suddenly we were invited to this very exclusive little bohemia. Having just stumbled into this quaint Italian cafe, met this interesting Chilean-American and hiked up this gorgeous, sun-soaked hill overlooking the city, it was a very study abroad moment. Guatemala taught me a lot about spontaneity and this was just another reminder...

So things were looking up...I ran home for a bit to have lunch with the family before rejoining Maggie at her house for her host sister's birthday party. We made sushi again (I'm getting to be quite the expert!) and drank pisco sours and danced salsa and chatted the night away with some of the people we'd already met (including one Chilean that Maggie and I had gone out with on Thursday night) and tons of new people and ended up staying up until 5 AM. It was great fun and I ate too much and talked until I couldn't remember if I was speaking in English or Spanish.

The only downside (which is arguably an upside) is that we had to get up 3 hours later to go to Valparaiso, a seaside city west of Santiago, with Maggie's host family. We went to meet the widow of Santos Chavez, a famous Chilean artist, to see some of his works in person. It ended up being a private meeting in her home, the five of us and the widow, and she showed us TONS of his works up close and personal. It was incredible, even if I was running on next to no sleep. If anyone is interested in Chilean art, you must check out Santos Chavez.

Then lunch at a beachside restaurant before driving back to Santiago. Then, with only ten minutes to spare, we rushed off to an Inti Illimani and Napale, two AMAZING Chilean folk bands. No joke I think it was one of the best concerts I've ever been to in my life. Ever. The level of talent was absurd. Every single person not only sang but also played at least three or four instruments, sometimes more than one at once. GREAT music.

But despite the packed weekend, I was still having some adjustment issues. So thank god for today. It was my first day of classes, and while I skipped my first one to sleep in (which I really needed for my own sanity), I went to the La Catolica campus at around 11 to catch my second class, Geodemography. The prof didnt show, which isnt that rare here, but it was for the better since Maggie and I ended up meeting two students, one from Mexico and one from Italy, who are studying similar things and we hung with them and had coffee and made quite an international group when a few of our Chilean friends joined in and some of their Finnish and British and German friends joined in. We went with them to the next class, Urban Development, and then parted ways until Wednesday. It was another study abroad moment. And it made me feel so so so much better.

Maggie and I had a bit of time to kill so we explored the campus, which is huge and stunning and surrounded by the snowy peaks of the Andes. We camped out on a bench hanging over a pond and took in some sun before checking out our last class and heading home.

Tomorrow is another full day of window-shopping (I don't have to finalize anything until next week or so)...

I hope (I know) there are more study abroad moments in store for me.