Feliz Navidad y Feliz Año de Santiago! The last two weeks have been a great time with family and friends. It started on Thursday the 20th with our ChACE Christmas Party. Sarah cooked a great dinner and we had a gift exchange and general hilarity. Here's our Christmas tree with our presents underneath it.
The exchange was a huge hit. Garrett had a rough time--I think he was stolen from maybe 4 times. I ended up with a scale, a passport pouch, a few power converters, a pen-sized flashlight and a quick dry towel. It was just what I wanted! My gift of a "movie night", various drinks, snacks, and a gift card to get a movie, ended up (finally) in Garrett's hands.
Friday night we went to see the end-of-the-year show for Steve's salsa school. It was great. Steve can really move out there and we saw styles from several different Latin American countries. And Zumba. Of course there was Zumba.
On Sunday, the Franskes arrived in Chile! This was the first time all 6 of us have been together since last Christmas. After some rearranging of flights they actually got in 12 hours early. Unfortunately their luggage was still flying a different route so we went to Costanera Center (gigantic new mall) to get some essentials, eat lunch, and marvel at the technological wonders inside. Check out Dad's new shades!
Monday, Christmas Eve, started with a tour of Santiago. It was very informative for all of us because I haven't been spending a whole lot of time in the city itself. My school is on the outskirts and my host family's house is near the school so I'm only in Santiago on some weekends when things are going on.
This is Chris, our tour guide. He has an English/Chilean background and was quite knowledgeable. I think he looks a little like Father Mark Thesing from Notre Dame...
Plaza de Armas, where 13 flags fly for the 13 regions of Chile (it's really 15 now...they need to add a couple flags). The big building is called the Presidential Palace but Piñera doesn't live there, it's all offices these days.
After the tour we went to mass then I grilled for my first asado! It was great. Choricillo, choripan, pulpa, and lomo vetado. And pisco sour--dad had 3.
Christmas Day we spent with my host family. There was good food, wonderful gifts, and lots of love and warmth. The pictures from the asado and Christmas Day are all on other cameras--stay tuned!
On Wednesday we left Santiago for wine country. Here's a map to follow along. Our first stop was Concha y Toro, Chile's biggest winery and the second largest in the world.
I saw a lot of wine barrels last week. Each vineyard has their own way of processing and storing the wine and the barrels are always stacked neatly for visitors to see. Some of the rows seem to go on forever.
Concha y Toro's most famous wine label is Castillero de Diablo, or the Devil's Cellar. Legend has it that thieves were stealing wine from Don Melchor (the founder) so he put a curse on the cellar that would keep thieves away. The devil still lives down there daring anyone to try to steal the wine. If you look closely you can see him at the end of this hallway where the family keeps their private stock. Check out all the bottles!
Thursday we toured two vineyards starting with Lapostalle, a French winery. I think I may have liked their cellar the best. They call it The Planetarium because it looks like one. There is a huge dome as the ceiling and soft lighting all around. We learned a lot about how the wood is selected for the barrels. Apparently the French are very particular regarding who gets barrels made from their trees. There were several here from trees as old as 400 years.
For me the real gem in the Lapostalle cellar was the glass table in the center of the room. This is where we had our tasting. You can look down and see Madame Lapostalle's private store--three levels filled with bottles below the table. It's really quite impressive. Mom and Anna kept talking about how James Bond would have a field day in here shooting up all the glass.
In between our tours we went to the Colchagua Museum, named after the valley. This place was incredible. They have collections from every era in Chile and the audio guide was thorough and interesting. We also found this gem--a threshing machine from Hopkins, Minnesota!
Montes was our vineyard tour in the afternoon. This place was interesting. Their owner is all about Feng Shui so everything in the winery is placed, colored, and shaped with purpose. The barrels of their best wine here are wrapped in red--the color of success. And get this: they were playing music for the wine. Gregorian Chant, 24 hours a day. I felt like it was rude to talk loudly in this room. Then I remembered it was wine. Seriously?
We ate a lot of really good food and drank a lot of really good wine on this trip. Wednesday night we ate at Casa Silva winery at the clubhouse in the middle of the vines on a terrace overlooking a polo field. Does that even happen in real life? Pictured here is our Thursday dinner at El Sauce in Lo Abarca. This place is said to have the best pork in Chile. It was quite good--great fries according to the rest of the family. Both nights were accompanied by local Cabernet Sauvignon.
On our route North we stopped at Pablo Neruda's house in Isla Negra. I learned a lot about the poet in high school Spanish class (gracias, Señor Diaz!) and it was cool to see the places he wrote so much about. His house is a little odd. He pretty much just builds and collects whatever strikes his fancy which makes for a very interesting finished product. No pictures were allowed inside but parts are modeled after boats and others trains.
Neruda was a very interesting man. He was very outspoken and popular in his political activities with the communist party. He also loved his final wife Matilde very much. They were both buried, at his request, at this Isla Negra location after the dictatorship ended.
Saturday we drove up to Los Molles so I could finish my dive certification and so Ben could dive for the first time in 10 years. It was great! I was able to take the whole family to Puquén. We saw an interesting pair crossing the path. Some sort of winged insect was dragging a dead tarantula across the trail. Josie was uneasy. We kept telling her not to worry, the spider is dead! She was unconvinced, reminding us that the winged thing had probably killed the spider. She had a good point.
I tested out my underwater camera, one of my Christmas gifts. It's supposed to be good down to 200 feet! I only got a few shots off on this dive, but here is Ben's back :)
And Ben on the boat ride back to shore! We saw lots of sponges, starfish, shrimp, and an eel as we swam through the strong currents between the rocks. It was a great dive.
We stayed three nights in Viña del Mar, a city right on the coast and just North of Valparaíso, a port city rich with history and colorful houses. Chris, our guide from Santiago, met us here on Sunday and gave us a tour of Valpo and Viña along with a short drive up the coast to see Reñaca and Concon.
Guess who owned this multicolored house in Valpo? Neruda had one of the best views of the sea in the city. The house was once again very odd with collections of items from all around the world inside. The space here was much more limited which made the audio tour a little cramped but I loved hearing about the poet.
Both of our tours with Chris were very fast-paced because of the many things to see in the cities on a tight schedule, so Ben and I went back to Valpo on Monday to walk through a little slower. There are some very impressive feats of architecture here. The city is comprised of some 43 hills and the houses are almost stacked on top of each other. Seems interesting for a country prone to strong earthquakes, but many have stood the test of time.
There are many passages that can only be traversed by foot. I told Ben that if you broke your leg you'd have to move. There would literally be no way you could live in Valpo with any sort of a physical disability. It was very fun for me to walk the narrow passages with high rises on both sides though. It's quite beautiful.
Valpo is perhaps most famous for its Funiculars or very steep elevator-like rail cars that save you from walking up hundreds of steps. There are maybe 5 of 20 funiculars operating today but they date back to the mid 1800s. They use a counterweight system where one car descends pulling up the other one. With proper weighting very little force is needed. Ben and I rode 3 over the weekend to get around. Check out this one with the Chilean flag theme.
Monday afternoon I walked the length of the beach in Viña with the siblings and came back to watch the sunset over Valpo.
The main attraction of celebrating the new year on the central coast is the fireworks display. We got a good spot around 10 and waited until they started at midnight. Ballpark estimates were 2 million people on the coast to watch. There were dozens of these sky lanterns being lit too, quite the effect.
The fireworks display is set off from a series of maybe 15 barges out in the water along the coastline. They're synchronized so you can look down the coast and see all the boats firing at the same time. It's an amazing show.
I played around with the fireworks setting on my camera. I was actually quite impressed, I've never had a camera that was very effective in capturing fireworks. The show lasted about 30 minutes and was definitely one of the best I've ever seen.
It was great having my family here for the week. They left Wednesday for Panama where they'll tour the canal and head back to the states for the weekend.
Hint time! The first week of February I'll be going to the same place that my background picture was taken. From what I've heard seeing it in person surpasses all expectations.
Heading on the joint San Nicolás/San Esteban mission trip tomorrow. I'll be back Wednesday for a few days before the grand rounds begin. I'll post before I leave with details of all my plans. I can't wait to blog all my great adventures!
Greetings from Chile, the End of the World! Many refer to the country as world's end because of its far southern reaching Patagonia Region.
Anyway, even if the world isn't going to end tomorrow, I hope everyone is enjoying time with friends and family as the holidays approach. The Franske Family arrives in Santiago on Sunday, I'm very excited!
This past weekend I traveled by bus to Los Molles Chile to get my PADI Open Water SCUBA Diver certification. I chose Los Molles mostly because their Santiago-based dive shop is very close to the ChACE apartment, but it turned out to be a real gem on the coast. It's a simple town fed by tourism: beach goers, kelp fishermen, and divers.
I took a very early bus Friday morning to get to Los Molles in time for the first dive at 10:30. I booked a cabin up on the hill that overlooks the ocean. It was a great call. I cooked dinner both nights, had a great view and easy access down to the beach, and had great conversations with the owners who have one son that works in the dive shop and another in Torres del Paine in Patagonia.
This is Watson, the very friendly yellow lab that lives on property at the cabins. We went on a hike together Friday afternoon in search of Puquén, a park my host mother told me not to miss. When I went with Watson all we found was a locked gate. It was a bummer, I would have loved to explore with him.
After checking in at the cabins, my English-speaking dive instructor Christian drove me around Los Molles and we wound up at the dive shop. PADI is known around the world for their certification courses. Considering my travel plans for January, becoming certified was a no-brainer. I'm going to have the incredible opportunity to dive in some of the most beautiful waters of the world and I wouldn't miss it.
Here I am with Christian coming out of the water in full gear. I learned so much this weekend about buoyancy, pressure, and safe diving practices. Thanks so much to Christian and the crew at Los Molles for everything!
After each dive I walked the beautiful beach. There are probably 15 boats lined up waiting to take tourists fishing or diving as long as the conditions are favorable. After launching and beaching our dive boat I can say it's quite the process to get it past the surf and back in.
If you look at the map I linked above, you can see that the beach is a semi-circle facing South. This is a view from the Eastern most end of the beach. We actually dove from the other side, which meant we launched our boat technically heading East--in a country where the entire coast faces West. Cool. The waves here could get pretty intense at high tide. There were a handful of surfers and body boarders trying to make something of them but generally to no avail.
The diving was fantastic, but the real gem of Los Molles in my opinion is Puquén. After being disappointed Friday afternoon, the Cabin owners gave me a back way in. I eventually found it and wandered through a very hilly prairie trying to find the coast. The sun was already pretty low and I wanted to see it set over the water. I eventually found a path that led to a collection of cliffs. It led to an incline that climbed a cliff and the sun shot out from behind a rock.
This is what I saw. I think it has a great shot of being the best sunset I've ever seen. When I arrived there were strange sounds coming from the rock in this picture. I figured they were birds, but after a few minutes I saw the animals moving around. There must have been 150 sea lions watching the sunset with me, and the top ridge was lined with penguins. Incredible. Even more amazing to me, I was the only person witnessing this beautiful gift from God. There wasn't another soul in sight.
This sunset brought back lots of great memories. There are 5 distinct sunsets, in no particular order, that come to mind. The first is really just a location. My dad grew up in Waverly Minnesotaon the southern shore of the lake. I have so many great memories there: learning to water ski, picnics with family and friends, learning to wake board...and I love sitting on the dock watching the sun fall behind the trees. Second was driving across the Howard Franklin Bridge in Florida last year. There was one particular time that I was driving West across the bridge. When I started across the sun was completely up, and by the time I was across it was completely down, dropped below the St. Petersburg Skyline.
Third was my on first cruise through the Caribbean. We took a catamaran as a shore excursion and watched the sun drop on the water as we sailed East. Fourth was this past summer at a retreat on Lake Michigan. We had mass facing the lake and the sunset was coordinated with the consecration and Eucharist itself. It was incredible. Fifth was this moment at Puquén. I will never forget it. The combination of crashing waves, roaring sea lions, and beautiful horizon were perfectly orchestrated.
I went back to Puquén on Saturday and again on Sunday. I wanted to explore more along the coast. It was worth it. Check out the location of this house. Whoever built it knew what they were doing. I couldn't capture it with a picture but the view on the other side of this gorge is ridiculous. Waves slamming against rocks jutting up out of the sea. There were times that those rocks on the left were completely covered.
The only guy I ran into on Saturday was carrying bundles of kelp up from the water. Apparently they sell them to make dermatology products.
I probably saw 6 or 7 piles like this one along the coastline.
Here's the sunset from Saturday. Another stunner. It wasn't especially windy, but there was a thermal coming over the ridge so there were birds soaring all around me, within 10 feet I'd say. Such a naturally beautiful place.
On Sunday I had a few hours to kill before my bus came so I just sat on one of the terraced rocks in my favorite spot along the coast and watched the tide rise with giant waves crashing into shore. I played around with the high speed shutter on my camera until I got some sweet shots like this one. So beautiful.
Time for this week's travel hint. On Monday morning I went to pick up my visa for the only country in South America that requires US citizens to have one. That will come in handy for the second half of February!
Considering the world is supposed to end today, my namesake has made me do a lot of thinking. Between trying to collect gopher wood and converting from cubits to metric to imperial units in preparation for a biblical flood, I figure this is a great time to mention how much I love my family and friends. I'm so excited for my family to arrive on Sunday and to share all these incredible experiences with them!
Season's Greetings from Chile! I hear Minnesota has gotten some snow. I can imagine fire places, hot chocolate, sledding, and snow angels as you all prepare for Christmas. Here things are a little different. We approach 90 degrees every day, and this past weekend we went to the coast, a beautiful town called Zapallar, for the annual ChACE retreat.
I suppose our accommodations were ok. We had a giant house with ample bed space for all 15 of us with a roof that had a jacuzzi and a view of the ocean. The beach was a short walk down a path lined by palm trees. Wow.
But our home base for all retreat activities was even more spectacular. Owned by a friend of St. George, this family has a plot of land on one of the most beautiful seafronts I've ever seen.
They have an infinity pool so you can sit and stare out at the ocean with no visual break between the pool and the sea.
The retreat was structured around an Advent theme, asking why God has brought us here and what He wants us to do with our time in Chile. Mostly though we had lots of free time to listen to the waves crash against the shore and reflect.
This porch is where we had mass the first night and a few discussions throughout the weekend. I love having mass and being able to look out at the ocean. I find God most in nature, especially in fire and water. This venue was unbelievable.
Friday afternoon we went for a walk on a path that has been constructed to connect a series of beaches along the Zapallar coast. It's a little tough to tell here, but it's quite an engineering feat. The path is stone, and it's built up with walls and bridges for maybe 5 miles. The coast is particularly rocky so the path is necessary to walk the shore.
I have never been in a place where the waves truly crash against the rocks in such dramatic fashion. The water would sometimes splash upwards of 20 feet straight up. It was mesmerizing, and I spent several hours over the weekend just staring at the waves and letting my mind wander.
Here's most of the crew above a narrow and very turbulent gorge along the path. A great group of people!
Another animal I've never seen in the wild before: penguins! There was an island just off shore that was full of them. I had no idea they lived this far north but there were TONS hanging out on this rock. Pretty cool!
Here I am with the penguin island in the background. Apart from the mornings and evenings which were brisk I didn't change out of this outfit. I was in and out of the ocean, pool, and sun for 3 days. No complaints.
Sunset Day 1 with a glass of wine. Not bad.
When we arrived, Fr. Lou's first comment was "Gosh, don't you guys think you could have chosen a beautiful country?"
Sunset Day 2. I spent maybe 3 hours on Saturday afternoon in this kayak. The cove was delightfully turbulent which made navigating the narrow channels between the rocks a challenge. At the same time heading out to open water and bobbing up and down was very peaceful.
Sunday morning we had mass and headed back to Santiago. I ran errands in town Monday morning and have since been back at school planning for next year.
Lots of exciting things coming up! I have most of my travel plans set for the summer and I'm going to start dropping hints as to where I'm headed. Guesses are welcome! The hint this week will be my plans for the coming weekend. I'll be heading to Los Molles, a little ways north of Zapallar, to complete my PADI SCUBA diving certification. I'll be going alone, and I'm excited to have a relaxing weekend away from everything--a true retreat--with some spectacular diving mixed in. The SCUBA certification will definitely be put to good use in January. Watch for a recap of my first SCUBA experience next week!
Hey everyone! I'm a little overdue on my weekly promise but don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you.
Busy week! Last Saturday the 24th was a great day for relaxation. There was lots of sun and it was quite warm so we invited the neighbors over and had an asado. Here are our chefs!
And, of course, the meat. I'm learning more and more about which meats and seasonings I prefer at asados. This will be useful for when the Franske clan comes down for our asado on Christmas Eve.
Transportation from my host family's house in Chicureo down to Santiago can be a little tricky but I've stayed at the ChACE apartment in Las Condes at least one night every weekend since I've been in Chile. The occasion last Saturday was the ND/USC game. Ryan's host family lent us a projector so we went to the back yard and watched al fresco.
I was very much reminded of our time in the Duncan Hall "penthouse" at Notre Dame when we would have game watches in our room with our projector. It was a great way to close out the Irish regular season.
But, of course, I'm sure you all know we won. Which means Notre Dame will be playing in the BCS National Championship on January 7th! I'll be on a mission trip from the 4th to the 11th so whether or not I'll get to see the game is a matter of internet connection but I'm crossing my fingers.
Alabama won the SEC championship against Georgia on Saturday the 1st which means it will be ND/Alabama for the big game. This game is going to make MONEY. Face value is $1600 a ticket. I entered the student lottery for a friend. Limit of 2 tickets, $350 a piece. As the Minnesotans say, "oofda". Or however else you want to spell it.
Something I've been planning for over a month, and have mentioned previously, is that Cirque du Soleil is currently in Santiago. Every Cirque show I've seen has been fantastic and I couldn't miss the opportunity to attend in Chile! A group of 13 of us went and it was fantastic. If you ever have the opportunity so see a show I highly recommend it. We were in the nosebleeds (partial vision) but everyone still had a great time.
Trying something new here...imbedding videos. These were 3 of the favorite acts. Enjoy!
As promised, my haircut! It's so nice to feel lighter as the temperatures rise here. Approaching 90 on a daily basis now (except for last week when it was cloudy and cool for a couple days).
It's still odd for me to think that the students have pretty much finished their academic year. In December. Weird. Anyway, the school has been riddled with end-of-the-year parties and I'm invited to most. I have to monitor my cake intake. Side note: cake in Chile is not good. Nobody's specific cake, just the style of the cake in general. It's spongy and kind of tasteless. I'm hoping to make Fr. Mark Thesing's chocolate sheet cake soon to show them what's up.
Also going on all of November was Mes de Maria, or month of Mary. They take it very seriously here. In the states our month devoted to Mary is May and I still don't know why they chose November here, but it was lovely. They had a special prayer to Mary with student songs and presentations every morning. What a great lead-in to Advent!
Thanks to my wonderful mom back in Minnesota I've had the ingredients for proper Puppy Chow in my room for a while now. My host mother, Lorena, had her birthday on Friday the 30th so I decided it was time to make a batch. I think Amelia would have been content to eat all the melted chocolate/peanut butter mixture by itself.
Still having trouble finding grocery size paper bags in South America. So this time it was another gift bag. The favorite (and most "raro," or strange) part for my host siblings was shaking the bag. Best batch of puppy chow I've made thanks to the rice chex and semisweet Tollhouse chocolate chips. Thanks mom!
We once again celebrated the Chilean tradition of birthdays at breakfast. My puppy chow was accompanied by a delicious fruit torte and Lore was muy regalada (given many gifts) by all. I took the liberty to make an "elf youself" of the family. It was a hit. By the way, that link will only work until the 1st of January but if anyone would like to download it for a dollar feel free.
And here's the birthday girl! Thanks again to my host family for everything they've done to make me feel welcome in Chile. They're fantastic!
Friday night we had family and friends over for sushi and good conversation. I was beat and went to bed at midnight.
Speaking of being beat, things have picked up quickly at school. The head of the English department, Alicia, is in Brazil with the 10th graders for a week and a half so I'm in charge of her classes and most importantly giving and grading the English finals for her classes. This may seem like a big undertaking for someone that hasn't taught the classes all year but I'm thrilled to have purposeful work! I've felt kind of like a useless lump at school for a while and it's nice to have some responsibility.
So. Now that I've seen how some of the grading works, I have some issues with it. This may get a bit mathy but try to stay with me. Everything in Chile is on a scale of 7, with a 7 being 100% and a 1 being 0%. 4 and above is called an "azul" (blue) and below 4 is "rojo" (red). Easy enough, right? Just take the percentage and multiply by 7? Not quite. Having 1 as the lowest would make things a little trickier, but to make matters worse, a 4 is not 50%. It's a fixed 60%. This means that the grades from 1 to 4 follow a linear scale from 0% to 60% and 4 to 7 follow a different linear scale from 60% to 100%. If I've lost you don't worry, it just means that there is more grade inflation above 60%. Think of it this way: one point between 0 and 60 is worth less than a point between 60 and 100, so if you're a good student it is easier for you to be great than it is for a failing student to pass. Sneaky grade inflation.
I'll leave you with some irony. They asked me to put together the English Department portion of the yearbook. I've been here for 2 months and have the artistic flare of a cinder block. I finished the captions and pictures on Friday. More on this to come. Happy December!
