After my parents left, I slept and have been slowly reinserting myself into Stanford life in the past week. And to the Chilean-ness. Waking up after my feverish stupor, I wrote and wrote and wrote for Spanish and then went to a giant festival concert with Aubrey and Kevin. We saw Low Bunkers, Jorge Gonzalez, Dividios and I caught the beginning of Los Tres before deciding to head home again (if you want to check out some Latino rock groups). Keane was also headlining the festival, which was aptly named ¡Vivo Latino! because the UK is part of Latin America too.
On a side note, I was so excited to discover Los Bunkers when I was looking at a mix that my daddy had brought me and he had put Los Bunkers on the playlist. Sad panda moment for Julia.
Not a lot happened last week aside from a classical concert, a yoga class and my thesis proposal. Oh and I got my ear pierced, again, but in a different place. Then on Friday, we were all flown to La Serena for the weekend, courtesy of the Bings. La Serena is a 50 minute plane ride and a 5 hour bus ride north of Santiago and is known as the beach town where all the beautiful Argentineans from Mendoza go. Inland from La Serena is Valle de Elqui, where a whole bunch of hippies, crazies and astronomers live. Fabia went a little New Age-y on us and started preaching about auras and the flow of our spirits and all such happy-goodness but she calmed down once we left the Valle and the energies didn’t effect her as much. Per usual, the Bings kept us well fed. There was lots of food and per usual, lots of Stanford students complained about every minute of the trip, while the Bings provided free transportation and sustenance wherever we were. I’m glad people realize how many resources and opportunities they have.
I’m also glad I’m not the Bings (really, really glad). But I’m also really, really glad the Bings are around to take me to crazy places. In any case, I gave myself a day off of Stanford on Sunday and took off, first walking down the beach in La Serena. I decided that there were no waves so went off in search of some. Bummed a ride to the bus station and then to Coquimbo, the smaller port town next to La Serena, it’s like Viña and Valpariso. In any case, Coquimbo was amazing, and filled with stray dogs, but still gorgeous, there were pelicans everywhere and the people were so friendly. Had an empanada at the fish market with these hilarious women who worked there (though still not as good as Picheliemu) and then caught the bus to Totorallilo. I had been told that Totorallilo was a beachtown where I could get a board and had good waves that broke in both directions. However, when the bus let me off on the highway off ramp. I realized that Totorallilo was a little smaller than a beach town. It was more like a cluster of beach houses, with a manmade beach island down in the water, which was so blue and green against the yellow, golden-y landscape of the desert that crept up to the water. The ocean was also as flat as a soda that’s been open for three days so no matter if there was a board the surfing was out. I decided the manmade beach was also not a legit place to lounge so I crawled over some rocks to find one large and isolated enough to feel private and then I read and watched the ocean.
When it was time to leave, I headed back to the highway on ramp and waited and waited for a bus to stop. One eventually did and I headed back home to La Serena, showered, talked to my sorority girl roomy (only for the weekend) and spaced out for three or four hours, tried to cheer up a friend by searching for karaoke but ended up teaching a “bartender” how to make White Russians and Tom Collins (we realized when we saw everyone drinking Brahma or Coke that we were in the wrong place for these kind of drinks but it was too late by then). And slept.
Today, I got back to school and am finally ready for the quarter to start. Got home around 6,30 and played with my host brothers. And now it is time to get back to the crazy work. I’m back off to Buenos Aires this weekend and that should be so relaxing and wonderful.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
Ahhhh, I'm back...
Ahhh! Time has been seeming to go by so quickly. Mainly I’ve been freaking out about what to do when my family comes and about writing my thesis proposal. But I guess in terms of all things foreign, stuff down in Santiago has been a little bit crazy of late as well. This past week there were two protests filled with tear gas and protesting youth. The first was about… well it was a day of commemoration for these two kids who got brutally killed by the cops in 1985 for being communist. But, as my waiter that night described to me, some people commemorated and some people abused. As in, stuff was destroyed, cops were beaten, and tear gas was sprayed, streets were shut down, businesses closed at three in the afternoon and everyone went home. The second was a Pinguinos revival. The Pinguinos are the high school students here in Santiago who were black jumpers and white oxford shirts and travel everywhere in groups and therefore look like penguins, duh. In any case, last year they protested against the public education system by locking themselves inside the schools, surviving off of substance provided by parents and teachers, and demanded better education for the students, which the government agreed to. This year, the Pinguinos, like everyone in Santiago, decided to protest TranSantiago, so they all skipped school for the day and marched down some street that Fabia warned us all not to go to because it was being doused in tear gas and torn apart by enraged fourteen year olds. Okay not really, but kind of. In any case, it makes a better story this way. Aside from these two days, in which the entire city kind of shut down, Santiago has been like Santiago always is. Only it seems more smoggy.
In terms of Stanford, the new kids seem very different. But that may just be my second-quarter perspective looking back on how I felt at the beginning of last quarter and all that happy-goodness. It’ll be interesting to see how things play out. I’ve been trying to get Stephen Funk (and his middle name is Eagle!) to give me his opinions on everyone, but he has been holding out for a while. And our discussions instead revolve around what would happen if the blue parts of the US secede from the red and deciding that, despite all, this could never be feasible. Things are also different this quarter in terms of Stanford in that the Bings have decided to give us all our special treats early on. First we had the Bing dinner (so much better than last quarter!) and then we had Cole Porter Jazz by a bunch of eighty-somethings who were from New Zealand and just really enjoyed Cole Porter. And then we all got to go to Isla Negra (where Pablo Neruda had his favorite house) and have lunch and a poetry reading. And then next week we go to La Serena, the number one city to live in in Chile. I feel like I’m going to OD on Bing gluttony.
Which has only been supplemented by the visit from the family. So much foodie goodness! And family time! Yay! No one can do the floss dance quite like my father, or charm any Spanish-speaking person quite like my mother, or pretend I’m deaf, blind and dumb quite like my sister (Rock on Helen Keller!). Sadly, as I realized when they were leaving, I didn’t spend quite as much time with them as I should have. Stupid school.
And today I will spend writing my Spanish essay and doing my Spanish homework and listening to Spanish music, or Latin American music and Keane (what is Keane doing here). Oh what also happened in the past two weeks was a game of ultimate with some crazy Chileans (most of them are), a giant mass in Plaza Italia with Los Javias (yay!), and some awesome times with the host family, and lots of work on my thesis proposal, but more on that later. Okay, that’s that for now.
In terms of Stanford, the new kids seem very different. But that may just be my second-quarter perspective looking back on how I felt at the beginning of last quarter and all that happy-goodness. It’ll be interesting to see how things play out. I’ve been trying to get Stephen Funk (and his middle name is Eagle!) to give me his opinions on everyone, but he has been holding out for a while. And our discussions instead revolve around what would happen if the blue parts of the US secede from the red and deciding that, despite all, this could never be feasible. Things are also different this quarter in terms of Stanford in that the Bings have decided to give us all our special treats early on. First we had the Bing dinner (so much better than last quarter!) and then we had Cole Porter Jazz by a bunch of eighty-somethings who were from New Zealand and just really enjoyed Cole Porter. And then we all got to go to Isla Negra (where Pablo Neruda had his favorite house) and have lunch and a poetry reading. And then next week we go to La Serena, the number one city to live in in Chile. I feel like I’m going to OD on Bing gluttony.
Which has only been supplemented by the visit from the family. So much foodie goodness! And family time! Yay! No one can do the floss dance quite like my father, or charm any Spanish-speaking person quite like my mother, or pretend I’m deaf, blind and dumb quite like my sister (Rock on Helen Keller!). Sadly, as I realized when they were leaving, I didn’t spend quite as much time with them as I should have. Stupid school.
And today I will spend writing my Spanish essay and doing my Spanish homework and listening to Spanish music, or Latin American music and Keane (what is Keane doing here). Oh what also happened in the past two weeks was a game of ultimate with some crazy Chileans (most of them are), a giant mass in Plaza Italia with Los Javias (yay!), and some awesome times with the host family, and lots of work on my thesis proposal, but more on that later. Okay, that’s that for now.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Team Super Awesome wins again
Torres del Paine is the most intense landscape that I have ever seen. If you had to compare it something, I guess you could say it’s like walking through Lord of Rings only ten times more beautiful. To start at the beginning, I dropped my stuff off at my new host family’s house. I had an interesting chat with the cabbie about music, he like folk music or more specifically “La Nueva Canción Chilena,” which is all that war protest-y Bob Dylan/Joan Baez-y sounding stuff. Shortly after dropping my stuff off I ran into my host mom (the old one) in the metro station (this is going to get confusing) and we had a nice chat. Then I headed down to Kara’s house and we caught TransVip (pronounced VEEP!) to the airport where we caught a plane to Punta Arenas, a bus to Puerto Natales and another bus to the actual park and then a boat to the beginning of the hike. There was much moding of transportation. Okay, backtrack time.
Puerto Natales feels like its in the end of the world. The wind races through the town, the streets are smaller and the ouses huddle up next to each other like they’re trying to share body heat. Our hostel owner was this funny lady with her funny poodle and their funny family . They rented us all our equipment and told us how we should hike Torres. (for clarification: there are two main trails in Torres: the circuit and the W. We were hiking the W, which looks surprising like a W if you were a condor.) Shortly thereafter, we met a roommate of Micah’s who had hiked the circuit in 5 days when the recommended amount is ten. Aside from being superintense about hiking, she recommended a superintense pizza place where we met the first of many British men who had been laid off and decided to come on holiday in South America. After dinner, we prepared to set off at 7:10 the next morning by making hot chocolate and packing. We had breakfast with some guys from Fargo and Texas the next morning and then hopped on the bus to the park.
Seeing Torres for the first time, it looked like it had blasted up out of the ground: this ginormos rocky formation surrounded by a sea of hills. In other words, it dominated. We had a little bit of trouble deciding whether to go see the Torres on our first day or not as they were only slightly covered by clouds. But we decided to take our chances. Therefore our basic itinerary is as follows:
Day 1: bus to boat to glacier to campsite. Day 2: campsite (lake location) to campsite (crazy parkguards location) to Curnos to campsite (same crazy parkguards). Day 3: campsite (CPG) to campsite (Torres base) Day 4: torres!! Day 5: relaxation and basic inability to move.
People we met: Dominic! (crazy German LARPer), the hot Irish guy, the two Welsh girls, the crazy park guards, the crazy Israelis!, the nice campsite guy with no teeth, and one of the TAs from my freshman year geo class. A good time was had by all, but I think that in the end, we decided that there were too many potatoes and not enough pita bread.
In Santiago, it’s easy to forget how much the world rocks. But Torres was the most real and unreal experience I think I have ever had. It was hard to imagine that such a place exists and that you can actually go there and be in it. I’d never dreamt of so many stars or ice so blue or rivers that were that huge or towers that high and mountains so massive. I don’t know, I can’t describe it. All I can say is buy your plane ticket now.
Puerto Natales feels like its in the end of the world. The wind races through the town, the streets are smaller and the ouses huddle up next to each other like they’re trying to share body heat. Our hostel owner was this funny lady with her funny poodle and their funny family . They rented us all our equipment and told us how we should hike Torres. (for clarification: there are two main trails in Torres: the circuit and the W. We were hiking the W, which looks surprising like a W if you were a condor.) Shortly thereafter, we met a roommate of Micah’s who had hiked the circuit in 5 days when the recommended amount is ten. Aside from being superintense about hiking, she recommended a superintense pizza place where we met the first of many British men who had been laid off and decided to come on holiday in South America. After dinner, we prepared to set off at 7:10 the next morning by making hot chocolate and packing. We had breakfast with some guys from Fargo and Texas the next morning and then hopped on the bus to the park.
Seeing Torres for the first time, it looked like it had blasted up out of the ground: this ginormos rocky formation surrounded by a sea of hills. In other words, it dominated. We had a little bit of trouble deciding whether to go see the Torres on our first day or not as they were only slightly covered by clouds. But we decided to take our chances. Therefore our basic itinerary is as follows:
Day 1: bus to boat to glacier to campsite. Day 2: campsite (lake location) to campsite (crazy parkguards location) to Curnos to campsite (same crazy parkguards). Day 3: campsite (CPG) to campsite (Torres base) Day 4: torres!! Day 5: relaxation and basic inability to move.
People we met: Dominic! (crazy German LARPer), the hot Irish guy, the two Welsh girls, the crazy park guards, the crazy Israelis!, the nice campsite guy with no teeth, and one of the TAs from my freshman year geo class. A good time was had by all, but I think that in the end, we decided that there were too many potatoes and not enough pita bread.
In Santiago, it’s easy to forget how much the world rocks. But Torres was the most real and unreal experience I think I have ever had. It was hard to imagine that such a place exists and that you can actually go there and be in it. I’d never dreamt of so many stars or ice so blue or rivers that were that huge or towers that high and mountains so massive. I don’t know, I can’t describe it. All I can say is buy your plane ticket now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)