a través de los ojos de la rubia: ¿Cachái?

Continuing with my tale-telling from where I left off, for the next 3 weeks I had my Spanish ILP class, Intensive Language Program for those of you who don’t know, and it gave me the chance to get to know the other UC students studying here. A few highlights from my class were having a dog literally stay with us for an entire day in the room, blasting and singing Ai Se Eu Te Pego*, learning all of the "Chilenismos"[like cachái which means do you get it?] , and pretending to act like a jote* for conversation practice. As part of our orientation we also had a weekend excursion to this resort place in Cuncumen, which was a a blast because it gave us all chance to bond and learn about the program in between tanning, swimming, and eating the amazing food they gave us. The first night we had a giant dance party and even our program director joined us in the festivities!

*a verrrrry current popular song in Portuguese by Michel Telo; I can rock it out on the guitar

**Chilean word meaning like a wanna be player/Casanova

Cartagena, Chile

During ILP we also had to break off into groups and visit/research a part of Chile in order to give a presentation at the end of the program so my friends Natalie, Rachael, and I went to San Antonio, Cartagena and Santo Domingo. That trip was a lot of fun even though it began disastrously. 1) Our bus got to San Antonio at like 10am or something and it was cloudy and freezing cold [we were all dressed for the beach]. 2) We got dropped off in this flaite area with empty warehouses and there were literally no people around. 3) We finally found a cab but they didn’t know where the street was for the hostel we wanted so they drove us to the only hostel they knew of and the receptionist told us that they wouldn’t know until noon if they had any vacancies for the night. Great.

BUT, it all turned around when we found a sweet hotel that overlooked the port and one of the managers/owners, Gonzalo, drove us everywhere we wanted and basically saved our lives. If you know Natalie, Rachael, and I then you know that we would of course still manage to have some extreme struggles like becoming sunburned lobsters at the beach and having to leave behind two adorable kittens that Nat and I had become attached to [Rae refused to get attached]. In those three cities we also tasted our first shrimp and cheese empanadas, got shells braided into our hair, Rae and I got tattoos [don’t worry Mom, they were airbrush], and we bought the cheapest clothing [only $4 for a dress!!].

La Piojera!

During those first 3 weeks I also went to check out clubs and bars with my new amigos and one night Russell, Tyler, Meredith, Shermila and I went to an Irish pub called Dublin in Bellavista, a popular club/bar area right, and had these flaming shots called “La Cucaracha”. Another drink that we found in Chile is called the Terremoto [earthquake] and various bars debate about which one really invented it, but basically you can only have 2 because they are so potent and taste delicious! They're made differently depending on where you go, but usually it has some kind of combination of wine and beer topped with a scoop of pineapple ice cream! Ice cream!!! Yeah, be jealous. The best place to get them is at La Piojera, which means louse, and it's a totally sketchy but awesome chilean bar. A couple other fun nights were spent in the discoteque Las Urracas where we even got into the VIP section [which wasn’t really that big of a deal because last week we got into the super VIP section and had our own security guard just for the 6 of us]. Those 3 weeks of ILP also included our cultural immersion and we were split into different groups each with a “monitor” who took us to restaurants, museums, a wine tour at a local vineyard named Concha y Toro, and the presidential palace, La Moneda. My monitor was Joaquin and he was hilarious and an awesome guide to Chilean culture.

Once ILP ended we had about 2 weeks to travel around before classes began at our respective universities and that’s when I went to Brazil and Uruguay and visited one of my best friends from Berkeley. But you’ll have to wait until my next post to read about the locura* of Carnaval!

*craziness