Ketchup

Don't worry friends, I have not forgotten about you.  The last two weeks have been busy because I finally got to take my free Spanish classes!  Woo hoo!  I am actually going to really miss having class, despite the fact that it was a slightly higher level than what I tested at, and therefore, a little challenging at times.  It was however, lots of fun.  I now know how to use the pluscuamperfecto and the subjuntivo (kind of...).  My friend and I decided to keep practicing, so once a week we will get together with our books and be nerds practicing our Spanish.

The other thing that has kept me busy this weekend is Clea leaving :(  I am sad to see her go, but I will get to see her again in March!  Horrays!   We had dancing on Friday night, music and move sharing on Saturday, and we went to the airport with her today.  It was like watching my first empanada get fried.  So sweet and emotional.

I went back to Valpo (and Viña del Mar) last weekend, and nobody got robbed!  Horray!  It was actually tons of fun.  They have these big bubbles on the beach in Viña that you get into and play on a pool of water.  Here are my friends having fun in the balls:

It was a lot of fun watching them until it started to rain, so we headed to the bus station to come back to Santiago.

I also got to experience Halloween here, and I learned that Halloween is really an American holiday.  Like, seriously.  There were hardly any decorations out or candy displays in the supermarket.  However, it is becoming more popular.  I went to two parties, and I saw some interesting costumes.  There was Freddy Kruger, a ghost, Blues Brothers, grapes, Chilean miners, a pink unicorn, crabs, vampires, the Joker, and a Chilean.  (Keep in mind that most of these people were gringos, or at least friends with lots of gringos.  There were very few Chileans out and about dressed in costume.)  It was really fun seeing some of the things people came up with, especially the poor teachers trying to find a costume on a budget, and the non-Americans that weren't quite sure what was going on.

Speaking of non-Americans wanting to see what all the hype about holidays... Thanksgiving is coming up, and we are going to have a delicious potluck/pool party!  I am sooo excited!  Thanksgiving might be my favorite holiday because I love mashed potatoes and green bean casserole.  Neither is quite as good without cheddar cheese though. 

Tonight I get to enjoy some Chilean theatre, and tomorrow I get to stand in line for hours at the Extrajeria to get my visa stamp.  Luckily, my friend also has to wait in line, so I will have a buddy.  Expect to hear some great stories about that.

Peace and Love

Stray in Viña del Mar

Wind Me and Grind Me Valparaíso

I really wish I could make the title of this blog a picture because I found this awesome painting with Valparaíso's name, and I think it would be a great title for this blog entry.

Valparaíso

 

The reason it is so perfect for the blog entry, you ask?  Simple, I found it wandering the curvy a swervey streets of a city covered in graffiti.  Beyond that, the city had so many colorful houses to go along with the colorful graffiti.  It is really a city full of color.  (And colorful characters that will rob you.)


Yesh and I spent much of the afternoon wandering around, taking pictures, and letting fate decide where we ended up.  Of the endless graffiti we saw, I think this was my favorite. 

Graffiti Girl

Some of the graffiti had a message.  Like this one.

The Pope

I think one of the coolest things about the graffiti is that it is actually good.  It is not just gangs marking their turf, but there is actually a lot of quality in most of it; it is actual art. 

When we left Santiago, it was really dreary out, but I told Yesh it was going to be like when we went to Cajon de Maipo and the sun would shine as soon as we go to Valparaíso.  I was right, which just made everything so much more colorful!  Besides the graffiti being so colorful, the houses were as well. 

This picture has a lot of browns in it, but you can see that there are some colorful houses.  You can also see how damn hilly it is.  For those of you from Iowa, think of an intensified Dubuque.  It's crazy.  And the streets are a hot mess of winding around.  The city was actually pretty big and well established before it every actually became a city, so there weren't any rules or planning for the streets. 


I have been trying to find a picture that demonstrates the rich/poor gap living side by side.  You know, those images you think of when you think of Chile.  Friends from back home have also been asking me to try to find pictures of this juxtaposition of income.  I kind of found one when I was in Valpo.

Colorful Homes of Valparaíso

You can see the house in the foreground is literally falling down.  And right next to it (across the street, behind the tree) is a nice blue house lookin' mighty fine in the sunshine.  When I see some of the houses here I can't believe some people live in them.  I am amazed. 

But then, I also see literal shacks made of cardboard and people sitting in open fields next to a fire with a blanket, and I am even more amazed.  It acts as a reminder that I am a very privileged person.  Even though I am really poor right now, I mean that in the sense that I have had to use a lot of my savings, and I still have a few thousand dollars worth of credit to fall back on.  I actually have a lot.  Like food and shelter.  Every time I leave the city, I go by these reminders. 

Despite the fact that I got robbed, I still liked it there, and I would go back.  There were interesting things to see around every corner, and there was so much character! 

Peace and Love

Current Tunes: My iTunes literally just switched from Norah Jones to Notorious BIG... Norah Jones was great to blog about Valpo to, and Biggie is great to think about supper and cook to.  Perfect.

Que Será, Será

I think yesterday when I was robbed proved to make the quote I have in my blog truer than ever.  My body literally collided with the the earth.  Yesh and I bore witness.  We grappled with the limitless kindness and the bottomless cruelty of humankind. 

Let's start at the beginning.  Yesh and I went to Valparaíso for the day because neither of us had class, and neither of us had been there yet.  We had been walking the winding streets enjoying the graffiti, scenery, and colorful houses all afternoon when we decided that we wanted to sit down for a minute on a bench at a park.  I took off my backpack and put it on my lap with my arms over it. We were sitting there not even for 5 minutes when a man came up, pushed down, and yanked the bag out of my arms.  I stood up and took about two steps, slipped, and fell.  Thank you Tom's Shoes, for not having the least bit of tread.  This is the part where my body collided with the earth, we bore witness, and we grappled with the bottomless cruelty of humankind.

And then we grappled with the limitless kindness of humankind.  Not two seconds after the man stole my bag, there was a woman on the phone with the police.  When she got off the phone with the police, she waited with us.  Her daughters picked us flowers to cheer us up.  When she saw police walking by on the sidewalk about a minute later, she ran over and got them.  She told them what happened and they went to see if they could find the guy (obviously in vain).  She waited with us while the police went to look for the guy and made small talk (who says Chileans can't do it?!). 

When the police came back, they obviously said they didn't find him.  They asked me what I had in my bag and how much things were worth.  There wasn't really anything of great value.  The backpack itself was even getting pretty beat up.  There were small holes starting in the bottom.  Here is the complete list of what was stolen:

Black Old Navy Zip-up Hoodie from Megan
35mm camera
Bip card (with about 300 pesos on it, so not enough for a ride anywhere)
My phone (with about 100 pesos on it, so no enough to make a call)
Pomegranate Burt's Bees lip balm
Rice with veggies
Home made honey roasted peanuts
Blue and black scarf from Spain (at least it wasn't the black and yellow one!)
Wallet with about 1000 pesos in change and my credit card
Bracelet I bought in Pomaire (which you can find everywhere here)
Return ticket to get back to Santiago


The police told me a couple of things.  First, since I didn't claim anything when I came into the country, they couldn't really do anything about getting my stuff back.  (I wasn't expecting them to be able to do anything anyway, but that is a dumb rule to have.)  Second, it would take about 6-8 months to process a report if I wanted to file one.  Neither of these things was that big of a deal because I was not expecting to be able to do anything. 

I at least got to practice my Spanish hardcore trying to talk to the police about all of this.

Yesh decided that we needed to have a drink, so we found a nice little pub and had a few drinks.  I asked one of the bartenders if we could pay with a credit card (Yesh was not robbed, and thus picked up the tab).  He could not understand me.  He asked me to repeat myself about 3 times before he asked another bartender if he could understand me.  He understood me the first time.  I have never had problems with someone understanding me like that.  And it wasn't because what I was saying was wrong.

We make our way to the bus terminal stopping to buy empanadas and sopapillas, and stocking up on Super 8s and corte americano chips for the ride back to Santiago.  Once we made it back to Santiago, I called to cancel my credit card, and they said it hadn't been used yet.  Amazing.   Then, we obviously had to keep drinking.  So more drinks and dancing it was. 

All in all, things could have been so much worse.  I am just glad I didn't have anything of great value on me, and everything is replaceable.  Yesh was also very supportive, and once I got back into Santiago, my friends were all very helpful and supportive.  Thank you all!

Peace
Allison