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.