Skiing and Snowboarding in the Andes Mountains

Yes, you did read that title correctly. And yes, this is my real life. Skiing the Andes was one of those experiences that made me feel so incredibly fortunate to be spending 5 months in this country.

There is a company here in Viña del Mar called Ski Portillo that will be so kind as to take you up to the Portillo ski resort (about a 3 hour drive through some of the wildest switch backs I've come across), give you equipment, a lift ticket, and lessons, if you feel so inclined, for the low, low price of $45,000 CHP (approximately $90 USD). So, one chilly Friday morning we gathered at 5:00 in the morning to head up.

Portillo Ski Resort is, in a word, incredible. Incredible doesn't even begin to do it justice, and I can't list all of the synonyms for incredible because those won't truly serve either. The resort is situated around a beautiful alpine lake that will actually take your breath away...

If you ever need a dose of humility and appreciation for the world's natural wonders, go to the Andes

A Chilean Cumpleaños

That blessed day rolls around but once a year, bringing joy to all--well, mostly me. Yes, I am talking about my birthday, and this year I was lucky enough to celebrate it right here, in Viña del Mar, Chile! It fell on a Sunday right after the epic Isla Negra, Pomaire, Casas del Bosque excursion, which was followed by a night of tearing up the dance floor in Valpo, so I rolled into Sunday morning as one happy camper.

My familia Chilena was wonderful enough to prepare a delicious asado and invite the whole gang over to celebrate. So, with Sihua, Rachel, and all of my wonderful Chilean relatives we partook in much food, drink and merriment--it definitely made my 20th birthday one to remember!!

You may all now admire, and envy, my birthday crown for the day

Pablo Neruda, Artesenal Pig Figurines, and Wine Tastings Make for One Marvelous Excursion

My program, IFSA-Butler, arranges excursions throughout our 5 months here, and we had our first grand excursion on September 1^st! At 9:00 a.m. we met to head an hour and a half South to Isla Negra, which is actually not an island, so don’t be confused. Isla Negra is, in fact, the primary home of the beloved poet, and arguably the most famous Chilean figure, Pablo Neruda. Chileans are divided on many things—sports, politics, religion, which beach is best—but it seems to be nationally decided that Pablo Neruda is one of the best things to ever come out of Chile. 

Hiking La Campana

In between Santiago and Viña del Mar, there lies a national park by the name of La Campana. In this national park there sits Cerro Campana (Cerro meaning hill, which is an extremely loose use of the word, if you were to ask me). In order to climb said “hill”, you are looking at a 7 kilometer hike up (approximately 4 miles) and a 7 kilometer hike down. Not too terrible, right? Once you factor in the 1,600 meter elevation gain (5,250 feet), you’re looking at quite the hike! I considered doing the math to figure out the angle of the climb, but that just sounded tiring.

My climbing partner!

That's Not My Name...

What’s the first thing you do when you come across someone you haven’t met before? That’s right, you shake hands—or in Chilean culture, kiss cheeks—and offer up your name. Seems simple enough. That is, until you have a name that is spelled, and sounds, completely foreign to those Spanish speakers around you. Then it becomes a back and forth game of repeating your name a minimum of seven times until you gradually inch towards something that sounds close enough. Most introductions go something like this:

Get on Your Bikes and Ride!

Last Friday, my Chilean buddy Simon was nice enough to take Megan, Rachel, and I on a bike tour of the Viña del Mar and Reñaca area! You should know that Simon bikes a lot, and not just street riding, but tricks and other such fancy things. Therefore, I was sure to tell him 16 times that I don’t have the muscles to bike through the hills of Viña (I still can’t figure out how one would say “I am not in shape enough to bike the hills of Viña”) because, let’s be honest, I don’t know that I will ever be in shape enough to bike the hills of Viña. He was also nice enough to loan Rachel and I bikes, and upon seeing my bike, which was covered in rust, I almost backed out. But then I saw that it had a bell, and I hopped right on. The story is best told through the following photos:

Gringas out for a bike ride! Megan on the left, Rachel in the middle, and yours truly on the right

A Brief Geography Lesson

I’m sure that you, as a knowledgeable world citizen, know what the country of Chile looks like. If not, however, it’s something like this:

Is It Raining Out There? It's Raining In Here, Too.

Taking a break from all of my retroactive blog posts, I would actually like to talk about something that is happening right here, right now—shocking, I know, but try to contain your gasps, I can practically hear them in Chile. It is, once again, pouring here. When Mother Nature decides that she wants it to rain in Valparaíso and Viña del Mar, she means that she wants it to pour. And not just for a couple of hours, but for the entire day, and possibly the day after that, and half the day after that. Let’s just say that when I heard my alarm go off at 6:30 this morning for my 8:15 class, and I saw the rain coming down outside, the only thing that got me out of bed was the fact that this class had not met for the past two weeks—it was tough.

I know, Luke Bryan, rain makes corn and corn makes whiskey, and it's a good thing and all...

The Quirks of the Chilean Household

Living with a Chilean host family is absolutely one of the best parts of this experience, and with a Chilean host family, comes a Chilean house with all of its quirks and wonders. I am lucky to live in a house in the Recreo neighborhood, which bridges Viña del Mar and Valparaíso. It’s almost like a little town within the city, and the streets are filled with brightly colored houses and lots of friendly faces—I say friendly because that’s how they appear to me, but the facial expressions could also be something akin to “aw look at that lost gringa”. Either way, the smiles are nice. My host mom has told me that even if she was rolling in money, she would still choose to live in Recreo because it is extremely diverse and friendly—sounds like Austin, eh? I may be biased, but I think that I have one of the most fantastic living situations a girl could ask for. Recreo is a bit far from the center of Viña del Mar, and thus a bit farther from most of the other students in my program, but closer to school, so the compromise works out nicely.

That's about right--and that's about the same facial expression that I have every day I am here

Orient Yourself in Beautiful Olmue

Rachel and I took a cab back to the airport to meet our IFSA group with the loveliest of drivers who taught us about Chilean relationships--you really never know when you're going to learn some valuable cultural information. Once we got all of our luggage out of the cab, we watched as it was loaded onto a cart by a friendly, older Chilean airport worker. A note on airport safety--never let your luggage be loaded onto a cart and taken by anyone, even friendly, older Chilean gentlemen, because it’s very easy for anyone to dress up like a Chilean airport employee and wander off with your luggage. Luckily, this particular old man was legitimate, but spoke so quickly and with an accent so strong that there was no way we could understand him. However, by this time we had mastered the “smile and nod” technique and after twenty minutes of arguing, met up with our group.

Hostel, a Only Slightly Milder Version of the Movie

The check-in desk

Having never stayed in a hostel, I had this romantic notion of sitting and drinking tea, carrying on a boisterous conversation in perfect Chilean Spanish with people from all over the world late into the night. Unfortunately, rolling into a hostel in Santiago, Chile at 9:30 a.m. after a ten hour international flight, with only shaky Spanish skills at best, does not make for a notion come true. Rachel and I booked ourselves a two person suite with a shared bathroom (for around 19,800 pesos, or $40—not bad) in the Bellavista Hostel located in the Providencia barrio (or neighborhood) of Santiago. The hostel is a hipster’s paradise, with brightly painted walls, a purple exterior, tons of art, and more graffiti than wall space—with surprisingly few genitalia, if you can believe it.

Flying High

I am so grateful to have the Cherrington Global ScholarsProgram--the study abroad program at DU that allows students to study abroad at no additional cost to their regular Denver tuition, meaning all financial aid carries over and extra expenses, like visa fees, are covered by the school. This also means that DU will spring for your round trip plane ticket, but unfortunately they will not spring for you to fly first class—trust me, I tried.

Student Visas, A Lesson in Bureaucracy

To study abroad in Chile, you need a student visa. To get a student visa, you are going to need to:

1. Go to Denver police headquarters and obtain fingerprints from a scary woman while trying to avoid eye contact with the girl handcuffed to the bench next to you. Also, avoid filling out your fingerprint form at the table under the giant sign that says “Sex Offender Registration”
2. Use obtained fingerprints to apply for FBI Background Check—find that it is not as CSI like as expected
3. Wait. And get used to waiting.
4. Call the nearest consulate—Houston—several times to try and understand exactly what they need from you. Then call again to double check. 

Goodbye Northern Hemisphere

Here is the scene:

It is the night before my grand departure to Chile and I am sitting in a sea of my own clothes, mixed with toiletries, electronics, and multiple nonsensical items that I can’t imagine spending five months without. What am I doing here? Let me explain:

To put it simply, I am heading off to Valparaiso, Chile to study abroad for five months. I will be there until December 18^th as part of the Institute for Study Abroad-Butler’s Chilean Universities Program,Valparaiso, and in that time I will attend classes at the Chilean university Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso (PUCV), or at the Universidad de Santa Maria (USM). The other 17 students and I will stay with different host families in the town just outside of Valparaiso called Viña del Mar.

So, You Have Decided to Keep a Blog

Having never before kept a personal blog, this is going to be an experiment for my communication skills, which are, admittedly, pretty poor. So, I turned to my good friend Google for advice, and went to where you can find all the best, original tips: page 10 and beyond (you forgot that there were results after the first page, didn’t you?). Here are some sound words of wisdom from tried and true bloggers: