Próspero Año y Felicidad

 

Cheap cherimoya champagne, plastic rainbow wigs, and far, far too many hours without sleep; if how we spend our New Year's Eve is at all indicative of how we will spend the next year, mine will be filled with love, laughter, live music, fireworks and more public urination than I'd care to admit.

Following the advice of several friends who told us traffic would be crazy if we didn't get to Valparaíso early enough, we left Santiago at 8:30 AM which landed us in Valpo around 10:30.  We didn't book a place to stay since things were so pricey because of NYE.  We figured we'd be up all night anyways so why not just wait a few extra hours and go back to Santiago in the morning?  I carried around our few essentials in my purse and we got ready in a gas station bathroom (keeping it classy, as usual).

During the day, we entertained ourselves by wandering around (as if we didn't do that enough while we were there over Christmas) and meeting up with different friends throughout the day.  We also did a boat tour of the bay which was nice (and only about 4 bucks), rode the famous outdoor elevators and ate a big delicious seafood lunch.

When nightfall hit, we headed to the Plaza Sotomayor for a concert, street party and an awesome fireworks display.  After ringing in the new year, dancing and drinking there for a few hours, we met up with a friend from Santiago and a group of his friends and stuck with them for a few more hours of aimless ambling around the city (only this time slightly more inebriated).

Around sun up, we were kicking ourselves for not booking our return bus until quarter to eleven.  At seven, we headed to the bus station which was a virtual refugee camp.  Displaced partiers were strewn from one side to the other; littered across the floors and up and down the staircases.  We wove our way around the labyrinth of bodies, only to find that it would be impossible to change our tickets for an earlier time.  We decided to adopt an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach and found a loose scrap of cardboard, nestled ourselves amongst the other NYE casualties and made ourselves comfy. 

The bus station personal eventually got fed up and intentionally set off the fire-alarm...three times.  When that proved to be ineffective, they sent in a police officer to yell and shake his baton around.  I had a nice spot next to the fellow with the tye-dyed fanny pack (pictured below) until the cop starting using his baton to smack the railing that was propping up my head.  I'm not sure if his plan of attack was entirely successful but it was enough of an annoyance to make Jeff and I relocate to the grass outside.

By the time we bussed back to Santiago, metro-ed to our friends' house to pick up our stuff and walked to our new hostel, it was almost 2 pm.  We stumbled through the front door and dragged our feet up the four floors of winding stairs just in time to collapse into a big bed and sleep off what was left of New Years Day.

Chile has some interesting New Years Ever Traditions, of which I participated in just one (see photo above).  Most of them are meant to bring financial prosperity  and, in retrospect, I probably should have done more of them. There is still a lot of uncertainty about what 2013 will bring.  Will it take me back to Iquique to work in the mine?  Will it pull me south to Puerto Varas to start a new teaching job there?  Will the yellow underwear trick fail me and send me scraping together monedas to buy my return ticket to California?  To be honest, all three are possible, if not probable.

If my New Year's Eve serves as any kind of window into what my new year will look like, there will surely be ups and downs ahead.  Things may be sticky (like the cocktail of fake snow and booze that I spent a good part of the night drenched in) but I will find good things in surprising places (like confetti in my bra the next day).  There will be beautiful miracles (like finding a drunk friend in a crowd of thousands) and some mysteries that are better left unsolved (like what kind of meat was used in the 'sándwich de potito' aka 'butt sandwich' that Jeff ate in Plaza Sotomayor).  There will be some things that instantly become crystal clear to me (like the fact that a three dollar bottle of champagne sold on a street corner is bound to be terrible, no matter how much I like cherimoya) but there will others that I will never fully understand (like this cryptic message scrolling on loop our entire bus ride from Valpo to Santiago).

A merry new years to all and to all a young man neoplan bus young man truck.

German technology. Chinese prices.

Jo Jo Jo

Although Jeff and I had a hell of a time getting down to Central Chile (more on that later), we finally made it and we had a lovely Christmas in the Viña/Valpo area.  We stayed at a B&B called  Casa Kultour in Valparaíso for X-mas eve and X-mas night which ended up being a great choice.  The owner was super friendly and helpful and our little room was perfect.  How could we not have been happy in a place called cerro alegre (happy hill)?

On Christmas day, we woke up around 10 for a nice breakfast at the hostel and made a few Christmas phone calls.  Thanks to the time difference, that meant a 6 am wake-up call for my dad (oops).  My nephews lucked out though, since they'd been up since 5 waiting for him to get his lazy butt out of bed so they could open presents.  I got to watch them run around like crazy and unwrap some of their gifts via skype which was rad. Yay for Christmas spirit and way too much sugar.

Jeff and I headed out around noon and spent the majority of the day walking all around and exploring the two neighboring cities.  We had wonderful, sunny weather all day and then, when we started to head back to the hostel, it got super windy.  We made it back to our room just before it started to rain and crawled under the covers with a couple of mugs of cola de mono and some mint chocolate Christmas cookies.  After about nine months in Iquique, we were thankful for the rain and it was especially nice to have some wintery weather on Christmas (even though it's summer here).

We got nice and cozy and watched Love Actually (my favorite Christmas movie).  Jeff was reluctant because it's kind of a chick flick but he actually ended up liking it too (sorry for outing you on the internet).  We passed out pretty early from a combination of the cocktails and a full day of walking around in the sun. 

I knew it would be strange spending my first Christmas away from family but it turned out to be a really good one.  Although I was definitely still a little homesick and my low-key day was a far cry from the madness of a Briscoe Christmas, I am super grateful that Jeff and I got to spend our first Christmas together here in Chile. 

21.12.12

All of this recent talk about self-driving cars has got me thinking, why on earth has no one invented self-packing suitcases yet?  Driving a car is really not an inconvenience.  Moving is a nightmare.  Since I left home at 17, I have gone through the process of moving all of my earthly possessions an innumerable amount of times.

Ok, maybe not so innumerable.  I have done the official count (using almost of my fingers and some of my toes) and the grand total is fourteen.  FOURTEEN times!  I've moved fourteen times in the past seven years.  Tonight, for the fifteenth time, I find myself slipping into the old routine.  It goes something like this:

Step One: Wait until the last possible moment.
Step Two: Drink an ungodly amount of caffeine
Step Three: Find any smaller and seemingly more manageable task to distract yourself from the actual task at hand
Step Four:  Organize and pack every item possible before your heavy eyelids refuse to tolerate any more resistance and you are forced to submit to sleep
Step Five: Push all remaining clutter off of the organizational epicenter (aka, bed)*
Step Six: Crawl in
Step Seven: Pass out

*If exhaustion is too strong and you are unable to clear off the bed, just push the junk over and make a little space for yourself to sleep in.  Finish packing in the morning.

Although, like most, I consider the process of moving a special kind of hell, there's also something undeniably therapeutic about it.  While rifling through old keepsakes, we are reminded of so many good times and good people.  Moving also gives us an opportunity to take a good hard look at the objects we are lugging around and determine whether or not their essential in our lives.  If not, we (hopefully) chuck them out, simplifying our lives (and making room for new junk).

The last night in any apartment always feels a little surreal and tonight is no exception.  Tomorrow evening, Jeff and I will head down to Santiago on an extremely long bus ride through the Atacama desert.  We will spend about a week and half bouncing back between Valparaíso, Viña del Mar and Santiago.  On the third of January, Jeff will sadly head back to the USA and I will...well, as usual, I don't know what I will do.

I've become accustomed to dealing with a certain amount of uncertainty in my life as of late and, although it is a bit overwhelming at times, I'm trying to roll with the punches.  I'm still waiting to hear from the academy about my possible contract up in the mine.  In the meantime, I'm keeping my options open and considering either coming back to Iquique to teach Summer school kids' classes or heading South to explore (and possibly find work there).  As usual, I'll keep ya'll posted as plans progress.

As for now, I'm just glad to say that we all officially made it through another apocalypse.  This may be the end of another chapter, but it's certainly not the end of the word.

Arte de la Calle

 

 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I hope you liked my 6,000 word introduction.  Now on to the main essay (14,000 words) on some of the strange, beautiful and interesting street art I've found across Chile.  

Enjoy :)

 

1. Iquique 2. Valpo 3. Arica 4. Valpo 5. Santiago 6. Valpo 7. Iquique 8. Iquique 9. Iquique 10. Iquique (obviously)
 11. Iquique again 12. Iquique... 13. Arica 14. Yup, Iquique again 15. Santiago 16. Santiago 17. Santiago 18. Santiago 19. Iquique 20. Santiago

Capítulo Dos

Why hello there everybody. As you may have noticed, blog entries are getting fewer and further between. However, I AM still tryyyiinnnggg to keep you all updated with what's going on with me in Chile. Tomorrow (well, I guess TODAY since it's almost one in the morning) is my last official day of my IDELT certification course. After that, begins capítulo dos of my Chilean adventure; finding a job and a place where I want to live here. My plans have changed a little since my last entry and my friends and I are cutting our trip to the North down to just La Serena and the surrounding areas. We will be taking off (hopefully sometime before noon) on Thursday. Our trip to the Valpo/Viña area will be moved to the end of our trip (probably somewhere around the 12th, 13th and 14th) and then back to Santiago for a few days to pack/clean up my friend's house before her lease is up and (if we like it, of course) get ourselves situated to move to La Serena. We're also toying with the idea of going to Bariloche to visit and renew our 90 day tourist visas but we'll see how that ends up working out. We're all a little anxious to get things situated in our new home (wherever that might be) and figure out the housing and job situations before we make any serious travel plans. A lot is still up in the air but I'm really excited for the challenge and adventure. In the meantime, time to celebrate graduation. Parrrr-tayyyy!

A Day to Recover- 6 de Febrero

Today is a day of rest and recuperation after two days of sightseeing, sun soaking and cerveza sipping in Valparaíso and Viña del Mar. Things didn't go quite as planned and my roommate and I ended up leaving Santiago considerably later than we'd hoped for. We didn't make it to Valparaíso until about five pm on Saturday but luckily it gets dark pretty late here. We got a little lost because we didn't have the best map (yes, it was the map's fault...not ours). The wind was crazy strong and it was blowing up all kinds of dirt and rubble into our eyes as we wandered around trying to find our barrings. Finally, windswept and covered in dirt, we found Hostel Licanantay, where we had already reserved two beds. We cleaned ourselves up and headed out for dinner and some bar hopping. Our hostel was surrounded by restaurants, bars and discotecas which was very convenient.

After the bars closed at five am, we headed back to the hostel and hung out with a bunch of new friends that we met there. The next morning, we took a little mini-tour of Valparaíso with some of them since they were more familiar with the area. It is a cool town with lots of neat street art but it is also pretty dirty. After that, we rode in one of the ascensadores (small outdoor elevators that go up and down the hills) which completed our to-do list for Valparaíso, so we hopped on a bus to Viña.

When we got there, we walked along the beach and checked out a little bit of the downtown area but we didn't have much time to explore beyond that. Our plan was to go to the station, buy the latest return ticket possible and then go back out into Viña until it was time to leave. It didn't work out because when we got to the bus station, all the later trips to Santiago were booked and our only option was to buy a last minute ticket for a bus that was leaving right away. We were a little bummed but super relieved because for a while it was looking like we wouldn't be able to find a way home at all. Luckily the guy working one of the ticket booths was super helpful. Six other companies had already told us that there were no more tickets to Santiago for the day before we talked to him. When we came up to his booth (probably looking a little panicked), he locked up the ticket booth where he was working and took us out to the terminal where we paid the driver for a last minute ticket right there on the bus (and no, we didn't get ripped off. It was actually cheaper than our ticket there). Thank God everything worked out but I wish we had had more time in Viña. It is so beautiful. I'm already thinking about moving there after my program in Santiago wraps up in March. Obviously, I'd like to spend more than two hours there before making my final decision though. We're already thinking about going back next weekend :)

Los Terremotos y El Daño que los Puedan Causar- 3 de Febrero

This morning I woke up with my first Chilean hangover. The culprit, as you may have guessed, is pictured above. We call it El Terremoto, and much like natural terremotos (earth quakes), it is quite capable of shaking things up a bit. Luckily, we managed to survive the damage with only an (albeit, overpriced) taxi bill and a rough next morning. Los Terremotos are made with a sweet white wine (and yes, that is a liter and a half of it you see in the photo) mixed with pineapple ice cream and sometimes rum or cognac. Deliciously dangerous. If you're brave (or stupid) enough, you can follow your terremoto with una réplica (an aftershock), which is just the same thing but "only" half a liter. You can bet that after two liters of alcohol, the earth will be a-quakin'.

Despite my better judgement to sleep off the hangover, I actually pulled myself out of bed at about 7:30 this morning to go get a sim card for my Chilean cell phone. As luck would have it, the department store that I needed didn't open until eleven so I guess I should have just taken advantage of that extra hour of sleep. Pues, asi es la vida.

After my last Spanish class, I went and got sushi at a restaurant by my school que se llama "SushiGREEN". It was muy delicioso and I have been craving sushi for about a week so it really hit the spot. Afterwards, the three of us went on another school field trip with Marisol to Concha y Toro, a vineyard about an hour out of Santiago. There weren't enough people to signed up to justify renting a car so we took 2 metros and a bus instead. This was my first experience riding the bus. On the way there it was fine, but on the way back it was a little rougher since we didn't have seats and had to balance ourselves standing up in the very narrow aisle. It felt a little like we were tourists on display at a zoo, with a guy playing guitar and singing in the background who announced us as we got on the bus, " ¡LOS EXTRAJEROS!"

We paid $8 for a tour of the winery which included two glasses of wine glass. We also got to keep a souvenir Concha y Toro glass which I was excited about because I don't have any at my house here and it feels weird drinking wine from a coffee cup. Overall, I was really glad that I went. I got some great pictures and my SLR survived her first venture into Chile and returned home unscathed.

Now I'm planning my weekend trip to Valparaíso/Viña del Mar. The hostel is booked and now it's time to pack. We take off at ten tomorrow morning! iChau bellos!