Veintiuno de Mayo

Today, was a holiday here in Chile. The holiday celebrates a general and his soldiers that died fighting for their country. We went to a parade in Valparaíso where the different branches of their military marched, displaying their colors and bands.

Caribineros

Chilean Air Force

That's all I have for today. We have class and a lecture tomorrow, so I probably won't post anything. I'm not sure about Thursday yet, so till next time.

Concón

Yesterday evening, I watched the sun set over the ocean. It was gorgeous. I had a great view from the top of some sand dunes that are located in Concón, just up the coast from Viña. The climb up the dunes however, was not so great. The slope was extremely steep, and sand does not make for a good foot hold. The footsteps that were already there had packed the sand some, so those were easier to walk in, but the sand would still move out from under your feet.

 

Going down was a lot more fun. You can just let the sand slide out from under your feet on the way down. It felt kind of like skating or skiing. As you can imagine, going down took a fraction of the time that the climb up took. The view was worth the climb though.

Tomorrow is a holiday, and we're going to a parade in Valpo so I should have pictures and a post for that. Till tomorrow!

Valparaíso & Santiago

Yesterday, we saw more of Valparaíso. We went to see another one of Pablo Neruda's houses, which is located in Valparaíso, and we walked most of the way to get to see more of Valpo. I have pictures from Valpo, but not Neruda's house because they don't allow pictures. I will say though, on our audio tour they said that the English originally named Chile as Chilly because of the extreme cold temperatures of the Andes mountains which form a natural eastern border for Chile. Here are some of the things we saw while climbing the hills of Valpo:

Pablo Neruda

Street Art

Street Art

Today, we went to Santiago. We saw the Chilean version of the White House called "La Moneda." Then we went to the central square called "Plaza de Armas." For lunch, we went to the central market and had seafood:

Paila de Mariscos

Then we went to a hill called Santa Lucia. Santa Lucia is the first place they started building what is now the city of Santiago. The original structure was called Castillo (Castle) Hidalgo. Here are some pictures from there:

Jardín Circular
(Circular Garden)

View from the top of the hill

Castillo Hidalgo

And here is a picture from our two hour bus ride to Santiago at 8 a.m.:

Will and a sleeping Carli

Shout out to Will! Because he wanted one, even though I'm pretty sure he doesn't read this. I don't know if I'm gonna have a post tomorrow or not. We're going on a company tour. Apparently they're really interested in Auburn, and there are gonna be some big execs there. But I will definitely have something Tuesday, because we're going to the parade for their holiday!

Reñaca

Today, we went on a bike make that Jeep tour. All six of us started out on bikes plus two tour guides.

 Then both of Emily's tires popped. So she got one of the tour guide's bikes, and he took the other one back. And then there were seven. Then, after a particularly rough curb, Carli's front tire popped and my back tire popped. And then there were five. Well, apparently this is a rare occurrence, and our tour guide was not prepared with enough spare tires. So he rode back on his bike, got his jeep, and came back and picked us up. We continued our tour via car, which worked out better anyway, because we got to see more than we would have if we had gone on bikes.

Reñaca

We got to see a lot of coastline. We saw a pack of sea wolves sunbathing on one of the rocks sticking up out of the water. It was pretty high up, too. I don't know how they managed it.

This is the rock the sea wolves were on, they were more
on the side I cut off on the picture though...

I have more to post, that's actually from today, but I have an early start tomorrow so it probably won't happen tonight so, till tomorrow!

Comida y Diferencias

(Food AND Differences)

I had trouble uploading my pictures again last night, but we've just been touring companies and having class so I'm not gonna double up today. I do have some more food for you though! They have "papas fritas" here, which SHOULD be like french fries... but they're not. They're fried potatoes, and sometimes in the shape of fries, but they're usually soggy and not salty.

The round things are papas fritas. We also had a quiche-like
thing and a meatloaf-like thing.

We also had a desert that was cut up apples and bananas with cream on top.

There's a soft drink that's like the thing to drink here called "pap." It's made from papayas. I didn't really like it. It has a really strong taste, and to me it tastes like those orange circus peanut things.

We went to a really nice restaurant Saturday. Most of us had salmon and rice. At restaurants here they don't give you refills on soft drinks. They give you a glass bottle with your drink in it and a cup.

Drink in a bottle

Salmon and rice

I bought postcards today! Apparently they're going to take a month to make it to the U.S. though... that is, after I send them. I'm gonna try to send them tomorrow. That's all I have for now. We have a guest speaker tomorrow, so I may not post again. We have a bike tour Thursday though, so maybe I'll be able to take more pictures. Till tomorrow!

Día de la Madre

(Mother's Day)

Today, all the students living here told our host mom that we had plans for lunch, making her think she would have an empty house for lunch on Mother's Day (We felt bad about lying to her). We actually went to a restaurant and waited on Jorge (host dad) to bring her to the restaurant on the premise that it would be just them. She was very surprised when Jorge walked her to a table in the back filled with all the students. We all wrote notes to her and signed a card for her.

Everyone celebrating Mother's Day

Later Emily, Carli, and I went to the mall and got her flowers. The other students that are here for the whole semester had already gotten her a necklace. Trying to find a place that sells flowers was fun (sarcasm). We asked half a dozen different people for directions (which we received in Spanish) trying to find flowers. Here "the mall" is actually three different malls, but they're all in a row and connected. So we wandered around three different malls trying to follow directions we only halfway understood, when we just happened upon a flower stand outside between two of the malls. I say flower stand, it was specifically there for Mother's Day, but, regardless, we did finally find some flowers.

Paty, Martina, Me, and Jorge

That's all I have for today. We have a company tour and class tomorrow, so it might be a bit of a boring day, but I can always write some more about food! Till tomorrow!

Isla Negra & Algarrobo

Today, we went to a gorgeous place called Algarrobo. We walked along the beach, and we saw the biggest pool in the world. Oddstuffmagazine.com says, "San Alfonso del Mar resort in Algarrobo, Chile, has the largest swimming pool in the world. It’s 3,324 ft (1,015 m) long and has a total area of 19.8 acres (8 hectares). The pool holds 66 million gallons (250 million liters) of water, as much as 6,000 normal pools. Incredible!"

The boat that cleans the water in the pool.

We also went to Isla Negra, a home of the famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. After seeing his house, we all agreed he was a very strange person. I guess you would have to be to want to write poetry. We couldn't any pictures inside, but the house had a ship theme. The house contained probably a dozen maiden figurehead (like from the bows of ships), most of which were in the living room. One of the ones in the living room had crystal eyes, on which water would condense, making her appear as though she were crying. There were other statues besides figureheads, including two angels and a Native American statue, which Neruda referred to as the "guardian" of the group. The bedroom had two glass walls that overlooked the ocean, with the bed angled for the best view of the sunset. Neruda was a great collector of things, all relating to the ocean. There were many figureheads, shells, preserved insects/butterflies, instruments, and even the horn from a Narwal. Though I couldn't take any pictures of the inside, I did take some pictures of the outside.

View from the bedroom

Isla Negra

I tried to post this post yesterday, but I couldn't load my pictures for some reason. So I messed up my timeline a little bit. I'll try to do another one tonight, but no promises. Happy Mother's Day!

El Jardín Botánico

(The Botanical Garden)

The Botanical Garden here is different than the one back home, or at least the one in Huntsville. There is an area that's what you would traditionally think of as a garden, but a lot of it is trees from different countries. People would bring them back as a symbol of their wealthy status.

Our guide set this out to make us
feel more at home.

From Asia, this is one of the few trees that
survived the bombing of Japan in WWII.

Here are some pictures of the more traditional part of the garden:













And some flower close ups...

I didn't have a whole lot for today. I might come back and do another back-log post tonight... Maybe. We'll see. If not, till tomorrow!

What a Sight to Sea

(pun intended)

This is going to be a back-log post. Most of these pictures will be from our tour of Vaparaíso (Valpo) on Monday. First, here are a few from USM campus:

A plaza on the USM campus

The main building
(and the one we have class in)

We found a rooftop to eat lunch on the other day on campus.

Our view from the rooftop

And now for some more Valpo pictures!

Any building on the street that this structure (picture to the right) cannot change the outside appearance. The owners can do whatever they want with the inside, but they are required to keep the outside the same. Chileans are extremely proud of their old buildings, because they have survived countless earthquakes. About 80% of the world's earthquakes take place in Chile. However, Chileans don't really count them as earthquakes unless they register as a 7 or higher on the Richter scale. Anything smaller than that is called a "temblor,"and they have those all the time. Our host family told us we would probably feel one while we're here.

There's artwork everywhere, paintings and mosaics all over!

Notice the roof of the building BELOW
the painting

This is a statue of a general from la Guerra del Pacífico (Pacific War- that's kind of ironic). He and his troops were on a ship when it went down during battle. Because they died defending their country, Chileans remember them with the holiday 21 de Mayo (May 21), which they get not just the 21st off, but the 20th off, too. Chileans really like their holidays.

And here are just some random places I thought were cool:

There are stray dogs everywhere here. They're really smart. They know when it's safe to cross the road, and they know tricks to try to get people to feed them. We had one follow us for about half our tour through Valparaíso (Carli looked at him, so he decided to follow us). He would bark at people who approached us, follow/lead us around like he was our protector. Even when we road the asensor down the hill, he still managed to find us again.

Here is our "protector" keeping another dog away from us.

And last but not least, all the students staying in our house plus the daughter, Martina:

Going clockwise from the bottom left: Felipe, Emily, Me, Carli,
Martina, Jeneka, Audrey, Nacho, Barbara, and Connie

That's all for now, till tomorrow!