¡Adelante, vamos!

"¡Adelante, vamos! ¡Izquierda atrás! ¡Alto!" These yells are still going through my head after river rafting through the Andes last weekend. Our guide, Roberto (nicknamed ‘Pelado’, or the-bald-one) screamed out these orders for three hours as a group of 6 gringos (Sam-chico , Alisa, Kim, Cristal, Terry and me) paddled through the Río Maipo winding through the Andes Mountains, through the city military dictator Augusto Pinochet once lived, and finishing up in the city of San José de Maipo. Overall, the weekend in Cajón del Maipo was one of the best weekends I’ve had in recent memory. We met at the metro station at 7AM Saturday morning, took it an hour south to the town of La Florida, and took a bus for two hours into the canyon. As soon as we got there, we could feel the relaxation start to set in. We were staying at a resort (I think that’s the best word to use for it…although it wasn’t an expensive one) that overlooked the river, was surrounded by mountains, and was overall a great place to stay. The six of us had a cabin to stay in, and Sam and I (the 2 boys) had a loft above one of the bedrooms that was maybe 4 feet tall and 7 feet wide.

 After we arrived Saturday morning we took a short hike up to a few waterfalls that are near the resort along with our guide, Daniel. He took us up to the waterfalls and, while we were at the top taking pictures, showed us pictures on his camera of UFOs. We tried to, as nicely as we could, tell him that we didn’t believe in UFOs, but when that didn’t go over so well, we just nodded and smiled. In his opinion, the area attracted UFOs because of its high mineral content and safe water…So maybe he belongs in Roswell, but he was incredibly nice and made the hike very fun and informative. In fact, all of the staff there were very hospitable people and treated us as friends, not guests. I’ve noticed that a lot in Chile—the people here are incredibly hospitable. They really want to get to know us ‘gringos’ as friends, not tourists. It’s a very welcoming society, in my opinion, and the hospitality of the Chileans was one of the main reasons I decided to come here for the spring and not Madrid, where I felt like I’d be a tourist. Here, I can really feel like I’m becoming a part of the Chilean culture because Chileans are so welcoming, willing to talk to you as a friend, and happy to show you their family, culture, and friends. Anyways, back to Cajon. After the hike, it was on to spend the afternoon river rafting! We suited up in wetsuits and joined Pelado as he taught us the commands, safety measures, and told us a bit about the area. The rafting itself was great—not as big of rapids as I’ve been on in the past—but fun nonetheless. 

The scenery was breathtaking, the water was freezing, and it’s just great being able to say, “Yeah, I went rafting through the Andes. No big deal.” We bonded quite a bit with Pelado throughout our trip. He says he can always pick out the person who’s going to fall out by their face, and he picked a girl from our group, Kim, as that one. After she didn’t fall out for the first hour, he spend the next 2 hours maneuvering the raft to make sure she got the biggest rapids coming right at her, but to no avail. Even though he spent most of the journey trying to get Kim to fall out (all in good fun, of course), it was really fun getting to spend a few hours on the raft talking to him in Spanish. 

He’s actually the lawyer for the resort as well, and his dad owns the place. Actually, it’s very much a family business—the other guide was his cousin, his brother is the manager, and the entire family pretty much works there on weekends and lives in Santiago during the week. He invited us to a club that night (the restaurant at the resort turns into a club on weekends), so we had a good few hours hanging out with him, speaking to him in Spanish, meeting his family, and just talking. We may be going back in a few weeks to a big rafting festival they’re going to have. A lot of them are part of the Chilean rafting team, so I think it’s going to be some sort of fundraiser to help them get money for their upcoming trip to the World Championships in Bosnia.

So overall, it was great getting to know Pelado, and he gave us some hiking tips for the next day. He said to nix the recommended guide and to just go up the mountain trails ourselves, and he lent us his key that would get us across the bridge. We followed his advice, and made our way up the mountains, hoping to go to a large plateau and then to a place called ‘Tres Nogales’. We hiked, on a very steep trail, for about 45 minutes when it flattened out and we reached the plateau. We didn’t really know what to expect when we got there, but as the trail leveled out we could see a field in the distance. We walked further along the trail and saw that it was a farm with goats, horses, pigs, and sheep. It couldn’t have been a more beautiful setting—a plateau, level with the lower mountains of the Andes, and with a panoramic view of everything. There was a small house and a barn next to it, and we walked around for an hour or so—petting the horses, exploring the farm, and talking to the farmer who lived there. There was something very surreal and special about the farm, probably because any form of civilization up there was completely unexpected. It was a complete surprise to see the field, and the impeccable setting just added to the beauty of it. I’m not exactly sure why it had such a surreal feeling to it, but there was something mysterious and special about that farm on a plateau so high up in the Andes that gave it such a strong feeling.

We spent the next few hours exploring the trails trying to find Tres Nogales from the directions the farmer gave us, but to no avail. We did, however, find a nice creek with some pools to swim in and relax around, where we stayed for an hour or so before heading back down the mountain. So yeah, this weekend, I:  tried to convince my guide that the UFOs in his pictures may not be real, went rafting through the Andes, jumped off a 20 foot cliff into the Maipo river (don’t worry, Mom, the guides said it was deep enough), sang ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ at the resort club karaoke night, got lost in the Andes, befriended Pelado, and had an amazing time. It was a wonderful break from the city that the beach just didn’t compare to. The canyons, the river, the hospitality of the resort, the good food, and the exciting hiking and rafting just had us beaming the entire time. I’m not even sure what was so special about it. Maybe it was the excitement of the rafting, or the beauty of the canyons. Or the fact that it was the first time we had seen starts in 3 and a half weeks and that the sky was clear enough to see the Milky Way. Or maybe it was the fact that we were completely smog and noise free. I’m not sure what it was about Cajón, but all 6 of us were unanimous in saying that it was the best weekend we’ve had in a very long time, and that we’re definitely going back the next free weekend we have.

Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if this next weekend rivals it. I’m leaving in a few hours to take an overnight bus to Pucón, a city in the south of Chile, that is supposed to be an amazing outdoors spot. We’ll go hiking up a volcano, through the Andes, and we may go rafting, biking, and do lots of other stuff. To save some money, we have the standard bus seats (as opposed to the buses with chairs that fully recline) so I’m not expecting to sleep very much tonight. Or on Sunday night, when we have an all-night train back. Well, Stanford’s gotten me used to working on very little sleep, so I’m sure I’ll be fine.

I’m getting to know my language partner, Israel, better, and we met once this week when the Stanford center taught us and the rest of the students to dance salsa. Israel’s in his last year studying journalism at the Universidad de Chile, is engaged, and lives on the outskirts of town. He’s great to talk to, and says he’ll be having people over to his or his girlfriend’s house a few times this term, so that will be really fun. As far as salsa goes, I’m actually better than I thought I’d be, but that really doesn’t say much. Israel, on the other hand, couldn’t stop talking about how much he loves to dance and how good of a dancer he is, and he was just rotating the girls around every few minutes after they would tire out. It was quite fun to watch, and we’ll be getting together with our language partners next week as well.

So ends my fourth week here. It has so far been an incredible experience. I still have so much more I need to accomplish while I’m here, though, but I know I’ll get around to all of it sooner or later. Still to do: become fluent in Spanish (I’m improving a lot, but still not there), become able to understand Chileans when they speak at their normal pace (imagine English, but twice as fast, leaving off the ends of words and with three times the amount of slang), make a lot more Chilean friends, explore the north and the south, surf the sand dunes in the Atacama desert, visit Buenos Aires, go to a fútbol game, and much, much more.

Well, ¡hasta luego, y espero que te vaya todo muy bien!

 

Off to the home of Pablo Neruda...

I spent last weekend probably the most relaxing way I could have—lounging by the beach for 3 days with my host family. Meals? Paid for and cooked by my grandfather, a famous Chilean chef. Weather? Just like Santa Barbara—foggy in the morning, beautiful and clear in the evenings. Afternoons I spent walking along the ocean, going to artisan’s markets, fishing villages and sitting on the 10^th floor balcony of our apartment looking out into the Pacific. Mornings I slept until I woke up, and felt the strange feeling of getting enough sleep for once—a feeling I don’t think I’ve felt since high school (or maybe India). And I spent the nights watching movies with my grandfather and brother, going through Spanish worksheets, and doing absolutely nothing. It was wonderful. It may not have been the most exciting of weekends, and it would have been great to have traveled with some of the other Stanford students who went surfing, horse-back riding or rafting, but I’m forcing myself to spend as much time as I can with Chileans while I’m here, no matter if it’s boring or uneventful. I can hang out with Stanford students anytime, but I will make sure I never turn down an offer to spend time with a Chilean while I’m here. That is my goal—make the most out of my weekends traveling and exploring Chile, but to always take the opportunity to spend time with Chileans.

Overall, the weekend was wonderful. I’m really enjoying my host family, and I’m very glad I got placed with them. It was especially great getting to know my Grandfather this weekend. He lives in the same neighborhood as we do, and they see him a few times a week. At one time, he owned about 15 high-end restaurants all across Santiago, but sold all-but-one of them a few years back. He still works full-time at the remaining restaurant, one of the best seafood restaurants in Chile. But when he’s not working, he enjoys playing tennis (we’ll be playing next week, hopefully), or spending time at his house in the countryside or apartment in Viña del mar. His wife passed away last May, and he told me he’s been quite lonely since then. Because of that, though, he’s incredibly eager to talk to me, and he’s been the most welcoming out of the family so far. As I said, we’re going to play tennis while I’m here, he invited me to take walks with him last weekend, bought me a souvenir painting of Valparaíso, calls me “El Gringo”, and is just always there to start a conversation with me. He showed me all the pictures on his phone of his wife, birthday party and dogs, and talked about how he looked at them when he got lonely. And since I’m always willing to spend time with Chileans here, I’m hoping to hope quell that loneliness a bit while I’m here through some weekend barbeques or afternoon tennis matches with him. We were going to play tennis this week, but it ended up not working out because one of his dogs gave birth to 8 puppies, but I’m sure we’ll get in a few games while I’m here. One thing that I especially love about Chile is how close the extended families remain. Most families have weekend get-togethers or daily meals together, and it’s great to be able to not only be close with my immediate host family, but to get to know my uncle and grandfather as well.

While the weekend was incredibly relaxing, I’ve had enough of the city of Viña del Mar. Don’t get me wrong—it’s a beautiful city, and I love the beach. But I started noticing this weekend that it’s pretty much where the rich of Santiago spend their weekends. It’s crowded with high-rise apartments being built around the clock, as well as overpriced restaurants and expensive cars. I didn’t feel like I was getting as much culture as I could get somewhere else, but rather just a feel for the elite culture of Chile. I think because India was the first foreign country I visited that I link poverty with culture. I consider the rich just a globalized portion of society, but look at the poor as being the true bearers of society’s culture. It’s not that I think that’s entirely true, but it’s a feeling I got in India and the same one I’m getting here—the rich are living in a globalized world, while the poor are living in a more traditional Chile, and the Chile that I want to explore. Viña had McDonalds, Starbucks, expensive high-rise apartments and Mercedes’. I get enough of that in the US, and I really want to explore what I consider the ‘real’ Chile. So this weekend I’ll be venturing off to Cajon del Maipo, a village about 2 hours to the south that’s perched right up against the Andes mountains. I’m not sure exactly what we’ll do there, but there will be hiking, mountains, a volcano, and a small-town atmosphere that I think I’ll really enjoy.

We also met with our language partners for the first time this week. Some local Chilean university students came into the Stanford center and hung out with us for a bit, while we talked about a bunch of stuff with them for a few hours. They’re learning English and we’re learning Spanish, so the night was split up into both English and Spanish. I mostly talked with a guy named Israel the entire time. He’s studying Journalism at the Universidad de Chile, and he lives on the southern outskirts of Chile. It was great to talk to him for a few hours, we traded respective slang words, and had a good time. He’s actually engaged, and said he’d invite me over to his fiance’s house in the countryside sometime soon for a barbeque, so I’m looking forward to that. They’ll be back every Monday for the rest of our time here—next Monday, we’re learning traditional Latin American dance. With my dancing skills, though, I doubt I’ll make any Chilean friends that way…

One of my other goals here, other than to never turn down an invitation to hang out with a Chilean, is to get a taste of the arts scene in Santiago. Although it’s not as active a city as New York or London, it has it’s beauties and fun, and I really want to get a feel for that while I’m here. One of my Stanford buddies down here has a host mom who’s a professional singer, so we went to a jazz club last night to see her perform. She specializes in a genre that mixes jazz with traditional Mapuche music, and it was very good! She played along with a more traditional jazz band, along with an amazing harmonica player who blew me away! We’ll definitely be going back to that jazz club more often, and it was a great outing. I had quite a bit of homework to do last night, but thought a night at a jazz club was a good enough reason to wake up early in the morning to do it, and it all worked out. A few friends and I are also going to start exploring other parts of the arts scene here, so we can really get to know that side of the Chilean culture, so I’ll hopefully have some play or band to report back to you about next week.

Well, it’s nearing 1AM, and I have to get up early tomorrow because we’re all going to the coast to visit Pablo Neruda’s house for the entire day. For any of you who don’t know, Pablo Neruda is one of the 2 Chilean Nobel Prize winners, and he won it for literature in the 1970s. He was a communist, given the Stalin Peace Prize, and the Ambassador to France under Salvador Allende. The house we’re visiting tomorrow, in Isla Negra, is about 2 hours away from here and is designed to look like the inside of a ship. It’s the house he was based out of for the later parts of his life, and was the inspiration for a lot of his later poems and works. I’ll spend the bus ride down finishing the book of Neruda poems I’ve been reading, and will hopefully have a wonderful day on the coast. Maybe I’ll even be touched by some inspiration while I’m there. Isla Negra tomorrow. Cajon del Maipo for the weekend. Latin dancing on Monday. I’m in for another wonderful week in Santiago.

 

 

A post long overdue

I meant to post this on Thursday before we left for the weekend, but before I knew it “we’re leaving in 2 hours” turned into half an hour, and I wasn’t able to post it, and haven’t had internet on my laptop until today. The weekend in Viña has been wonderful and relaxing, and I’ll write more about it in a few days because this post is already very long…

The past week or so has actually been quite busy—a lot busier than I thought being abroad would be, but great nonetheless. I’m leaving in an hour for a 3 day weekend with the host family at their beachside apartment in Viña del Mar, but I’ll do my best to write an update on my second week in Chile.

I actually came to Chile thinking I wouldn’t like the city of Santiago. I was excited about Chile, and all of the traveling I’d be able to do outside of Santiago, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t care for the city very much. I’d heard about the smog, the unappealing architecture, and the personality-less buildings. And while a lot of that is true, I’m enjoying the city a lot more than I thought I would. We had the ‘Santiago Challenge’ last Friday, which was a scavenger hunt across Santiago planned by the Stanford center here. We were split up into groups of four, given money for the metro, and a page of clues (in both English and Spanish) leading us to interesting destinations across the city. It took us to the Presidential Palace, an extremely European part of the city, a contemporary art museum, and the central train station. It showed me places I never thought would be in Santiago, neighborhoods I never would have envisioned anywhere in South America, and beautiful architecture I think the guidebooks missed in characterizing the city. I’ll upload pictures after I get back for this weekend. One of my favorite places that I found during the challenge was an area called ‘Paris y Londres’. It’s a small neighborhood centered around the intersection of those two streets (Paris y Londres) and is the most beautiful part of Santiago I’ve seen. Although I’ve never really been to Europe, my friends said it was very reminiscent of a small town in France—cobblestone streets, Parisian architecture, a quieter feel. We even found the headquarters of the Socialist Party of Chile there (complete with splashes of red paint on the front of the building from some recent anti-socialists. I’m definitely going to spend many more days simply exploring the city—walking until I can’t any more, going through all the interesting inlets, plazas and buildings, and making sure I leave Santiago knowing the city as well as I can. The next place I really want to visit in Santiago is Cerro San Cristobal, a huge mountain in the middle of northern Santiago—it’s supposed to have an amazing view of Santiago and the Andes after the rain washes away the smog.

I spent the last weekend with Sam (the guy), Sam (the girl) and Zach at Viña del Mar (the same place I’m going this weekend). It’s a very nice beach town, free from the smog of Santiago, and with wonderful beaches. Still without any homework to do, we spent the two days relaxing by the beach with absolutely no cares on our minds. It was wonderful, and a feeling I haven’t felt in a very long time. We were totally separated from the Stanford hustle and bustle of endless work, and able to take a few days and do nothing but relax, eat good food, explore the city, and practice our Spanish with the locals. We stayed in a fun hostel while we were there. It was on tucked away in a neighborhood in the hills of Viña, near to the beach, and was made from a large family house into a hostel, with a family still living in the back, cooking us breakfast, etc. With the help of my Lonely Planet book, we found a great Italian food place hidden downtown, and spent hours there Saturday night eating the delicious food and even better dessert, talking to the owner, and petting the owner’s cat, who also hangs out in the restaurant. He talked to us about some hard things to understand in the Spanish language (mainly the fact that some words can have multiple meanings), and gave us some difficult words to try to pronounce (i.e. “jarra”).  I’ll describe the town a bit more after this weekend, but I’m running low on time and I still have a bit more to write.

Classes really started this week, and I’m beginning to really appreciate the readings I’ve had in classes back at Stanford more. It’s not that the classes aren’t interesting, because they are, but I really miss reading in English. I’ve never appreciated my command and fluency in English before now. I still find it surprising sometimes when I hear Spanish spoken so perfectly and beautifully here. At first, I’m in awe that they were able to learn a language so well. I immediately think, since I’m learning Spanish, they must have learned it through books and classes too. I’m amazed at the Chilean’s fluency, and I always have to remind myself that they are native speakers. I’m not sure why I always feel that way, but I still have the Spanish language ingrained in me as a second language, so I am always so in awe of it spoken fluently, quickly, and perfectly.

On that note, I have begun to notice my Spanish improve. It’s not that I think my vocabulary has improved immensely (it has improved, though) or that I’m dreaming in it yet (although I think I do recall a few words here and there in Spanish). But I have noticed that my ear for it has improved immensely. Instead of listening to Spanish and inwardly translating it to English, I am gaining a better understanding of the language to the point where I no longer need to translate. The words have actual meanings to me other than their English translation, and I can read a text or listen to a lecture without having to think too often about English at all. It’s slower than my English reading, but similar in that less effort is needed to translate now. That is something that I’m excited about, and I know from this point forward my Spanish will improve drastically. That’s one of the reasons I’m taking advantage of the opportunity to spend this weekend with my host family instead of traveling with Stanford friends—I really want to make sure that I leave Chile having learned that most Spanish that I can. With Stanford students, it’s so easy and comfortable to speak in English, and being so inundated with Spanish everywhere else, speaking in English is so much more satisfying as I can really appreciate my fluency. But I need to force myself to speak as much Spanish as I can, so for the next 3 days, I will speak nothing but Spanish, read nothing but Spanish, and do my best to completely and fully immerse myself in it without a break for English.

                Other than that, this week has been about me adjusting to life abroad while having homework. It’s going to be an easier term academically (except for all of the reading and writing I have to do in Spanish), but it sure will be hard to concentrate with weekend trips, afternoon outings, and such. So, I’ve been trying to get used to having to do homework and reading this week, and I’ve spent quite a bit of my off-time in the Stanford center this week trudging through academic papers written in Spanish…not fun. But I’m enjoying my 3 classes, as well as my internship and Spanish tutorial. They’re really helping me grasp the language and culture of Chile and Latin America, and I know I’ll enjoy them this quarter. It’s just a bit hard to concentrate on my studies down here—there’s an entire country at my doorstep, and I want to take advantage of all the traveling I’m able to do right now. After traveling to the beach last weekend, we had a lesson on Chilean music on Monday night, and our official welcome dinner at an amazing restaurant Tuesday night. Next Monday we’ll be meeting our language partners, who are local university students learning English who we’ll be hanging out with for the rest of the term here. For half of the conversation, we’ll speak in Spanish, and the other half in English. That way everyone wins, and I’m excited at the prospect of meeting some more Chileans. We’ll be traveling to Isla Negra next Friday to visit one of Pablo Neruda’s houses, and we’ll either stay there for the weekend or have another fun trip planned. Although there are still so many places I’d like to visit before I leave, so next weekend may very well lead me into Argentina, the Patagonia, or the desert. Stay tuned.

                Wishing you a wonderful Día de Pascua de Resurección from Chile!

 

Getting to know the Chilean culture

I’m still astounded at how a place can be, in some respects, so similar to the United States, and in others, so different. At once, Santiago is a metropolis with visible signs of globalization: McDonald’s, Starbucks, Britney Spears, Blackberries, iPods, Miley Cyrus concerts, Blockbuster video and Jonas Brothers advertisements. It’s one of the few Latin American countries with both a stable government and a stable economy. But, if I’ve learned anything this week, it is that even in a globalized city like this, event the small differences in culture can create a world of separation between the two countries.

For better or for worse, Americans are always worried about what they say. Political correctness runs rampant in an effort to not hurt any feelings, not appear discriminatory, elitist, or any other –ist. Not so much in Chile. Chileans are very honest. They won’t shy away from telling you that your Spanish isn’t good. They’ll call you fat, they’ll nickname you ‘gordo’. They’ll ask you your age, even if you’re a woman, even if you’re old. They’re not scared to talk about different races, classes, and minorities. Calling a person fat, however, isn’t an insult, it’s just an observation. It put me off at first, how outright they are with their questions and comments. They want a lot of information out of you, and have no care as to what others may think. Some of the first questions I got from my host family were “Is your mom fat?” and “How old is your dad?” My host mom had no reservations with telling me her age, even when I didn’t ask. During a dinner conversation one night, we started talking about the education systems in the US and Chile. I asked if most children went to public or private school, and they told me that, for the most part, only the ‘humildes’ (humble) attend public school. She wasn’t hesitant to even say, ‘Those like Rosita (our maid) are the ones who go to public schools.’ She said that the Mapuches were ugly, as were the Peruvians. Last night, when I asked why there weren’t watching the futbol game, they said that futbol was more of a sport for the poorer classes of Santiago. At first, I thought it was racist, classist, or elitist for them to say those things. By American standards, it is. But Chileans, as a whole, a just more frank with their dialogue. They’re not always worried about political correctness, it doesn’t cross their mind that some of the things they say may be hurtful to some, that calling a person fat in the US is not simply an observation, it’s negative, or that it’s not ‘PC’ to ask someone’s age.

Society as a whole is so much more free-flowing than it is in the US. While the streets here are nothing like Indian ones, there is an amount of relaxation that comes with driving that isn’t found in the US. It’s not a big deal if you go out of your lane for a few seconds, if you stop the car to pick up someone in an area of heavy traffic, or if you make a turn even if your lane is supposed to go straight. If it doesn’t hurt anyone, it’s considered okay. (While I’m on the note of driving, I’d like to add that the streets here change directions! One street, during the day, can turn from one way, to going the other way, to two-way all in the span of a few hours, and with little indication.) I’ve seen multiple people drive up onto the sidewalk to pick up someone or stop traffic for a few seconds to let someone off. People here just don’t care about minor, day to day things as much as in the US. They don’t get caught up in details, they’re not as stressed, and it’s much more of a relaxed atmosphere. They take 2 hours for lunch to sit outside with their friends on a restaurant patio talking, or to go home and spend the meal with their family. Meals are a social time, not just a small break in the middle of a day to eat as fast as you can and get back to work. Musicians walk in and out of buses, playing a tune for a few minutes for the passengers.  (In the past 2 days, I’ve been serenaded by an accordion, a clarinet and a guitar while riding the bus to and from school.) I’m really enjoying how social and relaxed an atmosphere Chile is!

                Monday and Tuesday were filled with orientation, where we learned everything we’d ever want to know (mostly) about our quarter. We’ll be having trips to Buenos Aires, Isla Negra (to the home of Pablo Neruda), dance lessons, language partners with local university students, opera performances, a visit from Helen Bing (i.e. the Bing Wing of Green Library, the Bing Overseas Study Program, etc.), field trips to the ocean, dinners, and much more. It’s going to be a busy 11 weeks , but I know it’s going to be amazing! Because of the pollution here, it can be unsafe to run too much outside, so I’m debating whether or not to join a gym to keep in shape, or to save all of my runs for right after it rains, when the pollution gets washed from the air.

                Classes also started yesterday, and so yesterday and today were mostly shopping days. I went to all of the classes (except for one), so I’ve spend many hours the past few days listening to lectures in Spanish (which is a lot more tiring than lectures in English), and have learned a bit about Chilean literature, Chileanismos (Chilean slang), economic history, marine biology, and more. All of the classes here are either focused on Chile or Latin America, and range from Marine Ecology of Chile and the South Pacific to Cinema of the Southern Cone. I think I’ve decided on my 3 classes: Spanish, Politics and Culture in Chile, and the Emergence of Nations in Latin America. Real classes start next week, and while the quarter won’t be as much of an academic grind as the usual Stanford quarter, having my classes, discussions, and essays in Spanish won’t make things very easy… Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the best part: the way my classes worked out, I’ll only have class Tuesday-Thursday. Those days will be jam-packed, but it means that every weekend will be a 4 day weekend for me (although I’ll most likely work at my internship most of Monday and Wednesday). I didn’t even try to plan my schedule that way—I picked my favorite classes, and they all turned out to be on T-Th. Here’s to 4 day weekends and some amazing trips across South America!

                I’ll also be starting my internship next week. For the next few months, I’ll be working at Acción Emprendedora, which is an NGO in Santiago that works with small and micro businesses across Chile to help them develop business plans, structure their financing, advertising, and teaches entrepreneurs the basics of business. These may be people who’ve already started their businesses, or Chileans who just have a goal of starting and owning their own business. Either one, AE offers them the support they need to make their businesses more successful. I’m not sure of what my exact role in the organization will be yet, but I’ll get to meet entrepreneurs all across Santiago, practice a lot of my Spanish, get to know the others who work at AE, and I’m really looking forward to it. I met one of the employees at AE today, and everything he said about the organization made me extremely excited to work there. It will be a great few months!

                Tomorrow, we have the ‘Santiago Challenge’ which is a puzzle game that gives us clues that takes us all around Santiago. I think I’ll spend the rest of the day and night here in Santiago, and then venture out to the beaches at Viña del mar and Valparaiso on Saturday, and spend Sunday exploring Santiago. I can’t wait to see more of Chile!

                Well, I think I’ve written enough for today. I’ll be sure to write more in the next few days telling of my weekend adventures. I’m sure I’ll have more stories to tell by then! Hope you all have a great weekend in your respective cities/countries!