I’d never stayed in a hostel before study abroad, and the thought of staying in one made me a little nervous because I wasn’t sure what to expect. After 5 months of traveling around South America, I think I get it now. It’s not necessarily sketchy just because you’re sharing a room with strangers—you might make friends. You might not even end up sharing a room with anyone. The bathrooms, on the other hand, very easily could be sketchy, so brace yourself and put on your adventure boots (or at least some shower slippers.) Keep these handy tips in mind and you’ll do fine.

 

1. READ THE RATINGS.

Tripadvisor and Hostelworld both offer traveler reviews—use them. Don’t just read the good ones—read the worst reviews to get an idea of what you might have to expect. And don’t necessarily trust a place if it has one good review, and only one review. The more ratings, the more accurate the overall rating will be.

 

Common sense.

 

2. If you can, bring a towel. Most places will let you rent a towel, but to save yourself a bit of cash and the weirdness of using a towel that lots of other people have used, make room for one of your own. (Bonus tip: if you’re taking a bus to the city in which your hostel is located, that towel can be used as an emergency pillow!)

 

3. Cook at the hostel, save yourself a fortune. I ate out a lot when I was in Valparaiso just because, hello, seafood, but it really is so much cheaper (and fun!) to cook at the hostel. That said, be aware you won’t necessarily have all the supplies you’d like to have. Simple things like salad, pizza, pasta, and rice are your best bet but can still be tasty and healthy. I’ve done some delicious lentils (just soak them a day in advanced.) For more ideas, you can check out this site for hostel recipes! (Or just do a Google search.)

 

4. Ask about storage, especially if you’re arriving before check-in.

 

5. Don’t sleep in—take advantage of breakfast when it’s offered! (Especially because you already paid for it.)

 

6. The staff will usually know English pretty well…impress them with your Spanish and make friends! I am ASTOUNDED by the number of travelers (especially Australians for some reason) who wash up in these hostels without knowing a lick of Spanish. I’m not quite sure how they survive in South America, to be honest. Either way, people like them make the people that work in hostels super grateful for people who do speak Spanish, and they’re more likely to be patient with you if you need to store your stuff a little longer or something like that.

 

7. Keep your chin up and call it part of the adventure! If you’re afraid of a dirty bathroom rug or slimy kitchen sponge, just suck it up and pay the extra money for a hotel. Your stay in Hostel La Dudosa ( = sketchy) might not be the most luxurious—I mean, come on, it’s a hostel—but it might be one of the most fun if you do it up right.

 

If you want to see some of the places I stayed during my stint in South America, you can check out my Tripadvisor account . Of course, these are by no means the only places available to you. It all depends on when you go and how many people you’re going with.

 

So get Googling, and good luck!

 

Previous posts:

1. Antes de que me voy  (Before I Leave)

2.  Host Families and Fun with Public Transportation

3. “Are You the Girl with the Blog?”  

4. Playing Tourists in Buenos Aires

5. Looking Good, Mendoza!  

6. A Detailed Guide on All Things Micro 

7. Trip to Las Termas

8. Daily life in Mendoza

9. Habia una vez en los Andes… 

10. Night of the Soccer Game 

11. Road Trip! 

12. My Mate for Life 

13. Ringo vs. Chuck Norris 

14. Pros and Cons 

15. CHI CHI CHI, LE LE LE, VIVA CHILE!

16. Philosophical Moments in Neuquen

17. Cordoba and Oktoberfest

 

Coming soon!

The Student’s Life
Trabajo Voluntario
Rafting in San Rafael

Chile Part II
The return to BA

Mar del Plata

Reverse culture shock

Goals – accomplishments and compromises

Ok here comes a long post, at least in terms of number of photos. To recap, (or see my first post), I am living in Viña del Mar and studying in Valparaíso, two coastal cities in central Chile. In other words, this is where I have spent a good chunk of my days these past months:

But while the majority of my time, and all of my blog posts, have centered around my home base, I have also made a bunch of trips, short and long, to see new things. This post is mostly to show photos and some very brief descriptions. I have been lucky enough to go all over Chile as well as to Argentina and Peru, and seen so much in just this semester.

Keep in mind that these journeys left me with many stories and hundreds of photos and for sure this post will not do all of them justice. If you want to find out more about or plan a visit to any of these places, this post will not help, you’ll have to do your own research. I have found Lonely Planet’s website to be great and informative for travelers as well as the obvious choice Tripadvisor.

Day trips

Isla Negra:

-early September, IFSA-Butler trip, 1 1/2 hours south of home

Portillo Ski Resort:

-Early October, 3 hours west of home

Santiago:

-1 day trip and 2 one-night trips in October and November, plus various airport trips, one IFSA-Butler trip, 1 1/2 hours west of home

 

Cerro La Campana:

-Mid December, about an hour northwest of home

 

Weekend Trips

Mendoza, Argentina:

- Early November, 6 hours (plus border crossing) west of home

La Serena:

- Mid November, 7 hours north of home, IFSA-Butler trip

San Pedro de Atacama:

- Late November, 20+ hours north. I took a 2 1/2 hour flight instead.

 

Longer Trips

Southern Chile:

-Mid September, during the Sept. 18th Chilean independence day festivities. We went first to Puerto Montt and Chiloé, 15 hours south, and then to Patagonia, two more hours south by plane (probably around 15 more by car). Total: 7 days.

 

Peru:

- Early December. We first went to Arequipa for 3 hours flight plus 7 hours bus north.  Then we went to Cusco, 10 more hours north. From Cusco, we did a four day trek on the Inca trail to Machu Picchu. Total: 11 days.

 

 

All this traveling has opened my mind to how big the world is, and how much I like and want to explore. I have met people from all over the world and been inspired by their stories and adventures. My trips have involved a fair amount of physical activity such as hiking, swimming, horsebackriding, etc which has made me appreciate my youth and want to do even more. In short (well actually in long) traveling rocks!

Last weekend Ben, Brannon, and I were reacting extremely negatively to the safety measures implemented for our safety. This weekend I am bidding these two goodbye, along with everyone else I’ve met in Egypt, and bidding my family hello! In the intermediate time, we went slacklining like crazy (Brannon worked on backflips and I landed my first spectacular face plant), I got frustrated at a young man (what’s new there?), Brannon and I went bouldering (FINALLY!!!), we went to an incredibly expensive Lebanese restaurant, we attended a party, I laughed a lot, and I gave and received a ton of hugs.

Safety considerations included the first round of voting on a draft of the Constitution that will pass, against many people’s better judgment. Half the country voted last Saturday, with the other half voting this coming Saturday. We got the low-down from Radwa, who spent most of Sunday filing violations. According to her activist group, this split election could most definitely be considered fraudulent. According to the Muslim Brotherhood website, the election is most definitely legitimate – how dare you citizens question that! Not only do I trust Radwa over the Muslim Brotherhood, I agree with our politics professors that the Brotherhood patronizes, even insults, the intelligence of the average Egyptian.

I found out that insulting my intelligence is a sure-fire way to rile me up on Tuesday after class. Brannon and I went slacklining again, having nothing else to do, and set up two lines in our original location. A man about university age, named Muhammad Azizi, approached us looking for recommendations for English universities. Um, I’m not British – I’m American, even though we are in the British Gardens. After repeated assurances I knew nothing of British univeristies, he wanted to take us to dinner. Next he wanted to go for coffee. He tried slacklining a couple times; but he stuck around long after decency dictates departure in the face of refusals. I spoke Arabic to him the entire time, but I couldn’t get him to believe that I understood what he was asking and still would refuse him. Brannon employed a very successful ignoring policy, which landed me with dealing with Muhammad. He was frustrating.

I finally turned in my second, and final, final paper. This one was for Radwa, and later I was disappointed that we hadn’t time to properly discuss our papers with her. All three of us continue to wait for comments. Sunday my ECA prof, Emad, interviewed (in Arabic) me for 10 minutes and expressed his joy at having me in class. I really enjoyed Emad’s class. (The clips in the video of Marco, Carolina, and I playing with my bouncy ball in our ECA classroom come from us wasting time between interviews and MSA.) Also Sunday, we took our 2 hour MSA final. That seriously sucked – I had to leave a couple questions in the listening section blank as I didn’t have the appropriate vocabulary. I appreciated the skills Zehad forced us to use, but I didn’t appreciate the test. Zehad was extremely gracious and gave me a nice grade – thanks!! Later on Sunday we recorded a skit in ECA for Emad, which Brannon stayed up til 4 am to edit – thanks so much!!! Monday we miscommunicated with Dr. Naglaa and ended up having 1.5 classes with Radwa. Tuesday was a day filled with evaluations. Wednesday Radwa invited an American Muslim from another program, Flagship, to answer questions. That was fun, and that was the end of our classes.

For the end of the semester (and the end of IFSA’s program), we have to vacate IFSA housing by tomorrow at 10 am. I’m the last to leave – Ben left today to catch the 3 pm train to Cairo and Brannon caught the 8:15 am train to Cairo to pick up Sarah. Both have been very excited – Brannon’s showed it more obviously! Instead of our weekly meeting with Dr. Mohamed and as a surprise dinner, he took us out to eat (beginning at 10 pm) at a new Lebanese restaurant down the street. In my blog on construction, I mentioned I’ve watched the renovation of a villa en route to school – about two blocks from the apartments. Turns out that villa’s actually a restaurant: Leila from Lebanon. It’s very upscale, and the number of cars has significantly increased since it opened a couple weeks ago. That supper was very fun and full of very good, Lebanese food, topped by incredible desserts that I’ve not had since Jordan, but even better than what I had in Jordan. Yum!

Also, TAFL Center (in charge of our classes) threw a party at an old, sumptuously decorated house-building. I love the fact that so many places in Alexandria have deceptively bare/old/crumbling facades that open to luxury. Honestly, IFSA students weren’t dressed to the same standards as the others, but the other students exhibited a range of formality, so we fit in perfectly. We got certificates, ate great food (I wish I’d been hungrier), laughed at Rina’s nose and the clown mask Brannon wore, greeted other students from our classes and our professors, enthusiastically laughed and clapped and booed at a play (in MSA!) put on by Zehad and students, talked briefly with TAFL’s director (she’s a power in of herself!) and took a ton of pictures before hugging all our professors and language partners farewell. So far, I regret to report no pictures have made it to Facebook tagging me…

At the party, Dina (my language partner) impressed upon me the importance of continuing to use Arabic. (She also wanted my blog posts shorter – a refrain I hear from many places, including from my father. I like to develop thoughts – sorry.) Emad has offered to Skype with us to help us use Arabic. The opportunities going forward are numerous, including summer programs. I love Arabic (and Islam), more than expected, and was astonished at my internal impulse to continue with it – the knowledge that the language unlocks a huge corpus of literature is a huge lure – but Luther College doesn’t support Arabic. It’ll be one of my jobs next semester to find myself a niche of supporting my Arabic studies (and another niche for continued research into the rationale of Islamic scholars) – and I have a hunch or two where to start!

Oh – I have three updates. A) Tomorrow, I pick up my family from the train station in Alex. They’ve been traveling in Egypt without me for some days; they’re finishing a two-day stint in Luxor right now! B) My arthritis is gone… C) For all my videos in Egypt, my YouTube channel is “Jess Landgraf.” Check it out!

Traveling is not only fun, but there are many beneficial aspects to it. For example:

1. Traveling increases knowledge about the world around you.

2. Traveling increases perspective and makes you a more culturally diverse human-being.

3. Traveling increases insight about your own country, state, and/or town.

4. Most importantly, traveling increases insight about who you are.

Therefore, I am going to take every opportunity that I can to travel to increase my knowledge, perspective, and insight. I have traveled to Mexico, England, Bermuda, and within the United States. Australia is my next stop and I couldn’t be more excited.

About Me

Even though theses paragraphs will make me feel like I’m traveling back in time to my freshman year’s college orientation, I believe it is necessary. In addition, it could be good practice for the orientations in my future with IFSA-Butler and my host university, Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

Anyway, here’s a short introduction to who I am: My name is Laura. You could describe me as creative, passionate, strong-willed, and a romantic, but the people who know me best know that there is no one word to describe me, or even ten for that matter. I guess you could say that I’m a pretty complex person, but you are guaranteed to see the real me, and only me, when you’re around me. I am not afraid to be myself in the least. I have a million and one stories to share and I like to think of myself as the tie-dye crayon in the box.

I grew up in New Jersey where I have lived my entire life (No, living in New Jersey is not like being on the MTV show The Jersey Shore). I love my family and friends. I have been truly blessed with all of the wonderful people in my life and I do not know what I would do without them. Although I will miss my family and friends while abroad, I have no doubt that I will create new meaningful bonds and relationships while abroad too. I also know that my family and friends will be looking forward to seeing me when I return to the United States, as I will be excited to see them too.

I am a college junior in the process of obtaining a BS in Psychology and a minor in Photography at Susquehanna University in the small town of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. Yes, this small town is in the middle of nowhere and yes, there isn’t much of anything to do there besides go to the mall, movies, or dine out. However, that being said, I absolutely adore my school. There is no place I’d rather get an education (besides Australia, of course). I have made lifelong friends at Susquehanna University and I wholeheartedly believe that Susquehanna has a family-like community that many campuses cannot offer. This is one of the many reasons I chose Macquarie University to study abroad at. I want to experience something completely different than what I am used to. I want to walk across the Macquarie University campus and not recognize 99% of the students I pass by like I do at Susquehanna. Macquarie has over 37,000 students enrolled, with over 12,000 international students (that will be me!) in which I will be surrounded by. I will be one of many at Macquarie University–and this is extremely exciting to me. It has been a dream of mine to travel to Australia, specifically Sydney, since I was a very little girl. I truly enjoy trying new things, experiencing new adventures, and challenging myself. I am thrilled to be attending a school that fulfills one of my lifelong dreams. Australia here I come!

I’ve grown up around decomposing things: there’s a wood across the road from the farm, let alone the 3-6 large compost piles on the farm itself. So, when I realized the amount of food waste that would go straight to the trash, I set up my own compost. I figured that at the end of 4 months, I’d be able to have some humus perfect for invigorating the tiny woody plant that sits on the balcony, and I’d deal with the rest of the rotting waste at the end of the program. So, I set up an empty water bottle box with a lining of several plastic bags (that’s one way to reuse plastic, right?) on the balcony, and encouraged vegetable, fruit, and grain scraps into the box for all but the last week.

I encountered some issues in setting up a compost:

1. Moutaz had apparently noticed it on the balcony, but decided not to ask me about the large “trash bin.” Mariam, on the other hand, confronted me about trash etiquette one day immediately upon my arrival from school. “You know, Egyptians throw trash into the garbage. They don’t leave it on the balcony,” she said. I think the situation was humorous in hindsight, but I got frustrated that my wonderful idea of a compost pile was considered “trash”! Anyways, I reassured her that it was compost, not trash, that I was fully aware of Egyptian trash customs (pretty much exactly the same as your average city-dwelling American), and that I would deal with the box when the time came.

2. Later, I found non-compostable items in the box, and eventually put up a sign at the balcony door requesting that no bones, grease, oil, fats, skins, restaurant food, etc. enter my compost pile.

3. I also found out that pouring nasty-tasting orange juice on the pile wasn’t a good solution – that got all over the balcony until the Oct. 6th rain.

The contents of my compost pile before I dismantled it.

Well, the time to clean up the pile came today: tomorrow I leave the apartments. I waited until Mariam was out and rain quit for a bit, so that she wouldn’t be disgusted by the odors floating from the pile. I found that there was some useful humus – I mixed what I could grab with the spoon in with the hardened soil around the base of the woody plant, and found out that I would more bags than originally planned. Turns out the pile was good at retaining moisture, especially around, between, and below the bag-liners (partially, I’m sure, because Alexandria’s weather has been incredibly rainy overnight). So much water was retained that the box bottom disintegrated and the central layer of compost was  almost literally dripping. I spooned all remaining rotting food into the new box, set the closed box in the trash stairway, and stuffed the old box in pieces with the bag liners into two bags, layered for protection. What I could scrape of the spilled food from the balcony linoleum went into a second pair of layered bags, and after rain quits, I’ll go out and sweep more on the balcony.

Sorting through the pile…

 After I realized the old box had separated from its bottom layer…

It’s done! And you can see all of my footprints. Ha.

I learned with this experiment: I really need more than 4 months to allow proper decomposition. I also need to stir my pile at least once, to make the water more evenly distributed – the edges were very moldy and dry. Banana peels almost immediately disintegrated, but grape stems from September and early October were still visible. Pomegranate peels (the last ones I had were a couple weeks ago, as their season has more or less ended) didn’t break down easily. Bread didn’t break down either, and individual seeds and grains appeared indestructible. But the fact remains that it worked. I saved a few bits of food from trash, provided my material with an environment conducive to heating up (the first stirs released small puffs of steam, a good sign) and decomposing organic material.

Finally, I’m getting around to writing about the people I have been living with for the past 5 months. My IFSA-Butler program sets each of its students up with a host family, and for me it has been a wonderful way to practice spanish, get a local perspective on life, and live like a spoiled baby all at once.

I lucked out and got a large and welcoming family to live with. The people who live in my house are my two host parents, Juli and Pato, and my youngest host sister Javi. Carol, my middle host sister, recently moved out when she got married at the beginning of December. My third and oldest host sister, Paty, lives close by with her husband and two daughters, and they all come over several times a week. Since I grew up with two brothers, having three sisters (and two amazing nieces) has a new experience. But what has been especially fascinating has been learning about Chilean families, and how they function.

Simply put, Chilean families are intense. Children don’t leave the house until they are married, and even then parents remain quite involved in their lives. My Chilean mother is one of the most caring women I have ever met, and nothing makes her happier than looking after her daughters and granddaughters. When my niece got sick, she took soup and food and love over to there house every single day until she got better.

Partly because of who my host mother is specifically, and partly because of Chilean culture, I am treated to the life of luxury while I am here. My bed is made for me, my laundry is washed and folded, and all of my food is cooked and in some cases delivered to me in my room. It is not unusual for my host mother to bring me a piece of chocolate just because she was thinking of me. Chileans even have a word for this: I am the “regalona” of the house, or the spoiled one. This word has been used at times to describe me, our chilean puppy, or my two host nieces. Everyone is “el/la regalona” when it comes to my host mom.

And looking around at the chubby, happy Chilean babies and their adoring families, my family is clearly is not the only one around here who spoils their children.

Not everything about the host family system is perfect. Living with parents or older people means that there are times when they go to bed early and I have to be quiet. Friends have reported less independence when it comes to going out at night. And although I like what my host mom cooks most of the time, I don’t have the ability to choose what and when I eat. (Speaking of food, now that summer has arrived the fruits have shifted again: pineapples, blueberries, and melon have all been appearing in my fruit salads lately)

But I wouldn’t trade living with a host family for anything. When I went back and read this post, I had to add the word “host” in so as not to be confusing. To me, it feels natural to refer to these people as just my parents, sisters, nieces, etc. The experience of being welcomed not as a friend or a visitor but as a daughter and a family member has been unique and has helped me feel comfortable and confident here. The advice, casual chats, the singing and laughing with my nieces, and so much more have made my semester here even better.

I will miss my Chilean host family so much when I return, which to my dismay is in just a couple of weeks. As my Chilean mother often says, “el tiempo pasa volando.” Or in English, time is flying!

 

Today I’ll be talking about:

I. Oktoberfest

II. Cordoba

III. Previous Posts

IV. Coming soon

 

I. Oktoberfest

I feel like now is as good a time as any to assure you all that I’m not one of those people who went on study abroad just to drink. In fact, I’d never drunk anything until coming here. Although I’ve definitely seen the inside of my share of bars now and I did get drunk for the first time in Argentina, I think certain people would even be disappointed with how little I’ve been drinking since coming here. It’s still just not my thing.

 

However, my friends and I couldn’t turn down the chance to check out Oktoberfest, and if it fits into your plans I don’t think you should either.

 

Tips:

-Bring more money than you think you’re going to need, especially if you’re planning on eating there. Obviously, the food is overpriced—wouldn’t expect any less from an event like that. Also remember that if you’re not staying in Villa Gral. Belgrano (1.5 hours outside of the city of Cordoba) you’re still going to have to pay for your ride home! The price of a mug of beer varies depending on how big your mug is, but consider $25 pesos the baseline.

-Make and bring sandwiches so you don’t have to eat overpriced food. I wish we would’ve thought to do that. L

-It rained while we were there. Definitely didn’t stop us from having fun, but it would’ve been nice if I would have a) brought my umbrella b) not been wearing shorts.

 

It was a lot of fun to try all the different beers—there was even a strawberry flavored one—rather than whatever boring thing is cheap and comes in a bottle at your local bar. My buddies and I are all blanditas (lightweights) so we each got something different and shared.

 

The most fun was wandering around and striking up conversations with strangers. There were come characters running around Oktoberfest, let me tell you. And of course, I can’t help but think of one encounter in particular when I think of Oktoberfest…

 

Ahem.

 

I don’t think the internet necessarily needs the full details of this story, but I will share this much with you all: I had my first kiss at Oktoberfest. And he was, of all things, a Yankee, not an Argentine—oh the odds. But it turns out this random stranger I met at a potentially sketchy event (with all my friends watching, by the way) was actually a nice person, and we’re still in touch. It just goes to show that you never know what life will bring your way.

 

Overall, I’d say I had the most fun at Oktoberfest of anyone in our group, and I didn’t even get drunk! I mean, how many other people get to say they had their first kiss in Argentina?

 

II. Cordoba

While in the city, we did a lot of wandering around in the rain and checking out museums. (There are two that operate jointly, so you can either pay to enter only one or pay for both together at a discounted rate.) My personal favorite part was a park with a … an um… Well, I’m still not quite sure what it was, but there were giant, multi-colored circles.

 

   

 

We spent so much time clambering all over those things. Naturally, they also became a graffiti magnet over the years, so I figured it wouldn’t do any harm if I added a few words of my own. Now a little piece of me, my mark, will remain there in Cordoba. Keep your eyes out for that and some “Le quiero a Justin Beiber!” graffiti if you visit.

 

 

 

That night we went out on the town with some friends we met in the hostel. Still one of my favorite boliches in Argentina, I think. But, of course, as with everything else I’ve done here, it was the company that really mattered.

 

 

III. Previous posts

1. Antes de que me voy  Before I Leave 

2.  Host Families and Fun with Public Transportation

3. “Are You the Girl with the Blog?”  

4. Playing Tourists in Buenos Aires

5. Looking Good, Mendoza!  

6. A Detailed Guide on All Things Micro 

7. Trip to Las Termas

8. Daily life in Mendoza

9. Habia una vez en los Andes… 

10. Night of the Soccer Game 

11. Road Trip! 

12. My Mate for Life 

13. Ringo vs. Chuck Norris 

14. Pros and Cons 

15. CHI CHI CHI, LE LE LE, VIVA CHILE!

16. Philosophical Moments in Neuquen

 

IV. Coming soon

The Student’s Life
Trabajo Voluntario
Rafting in San Rafael

Chile Part II
The return to BA

Mar del Plata

A few tips on hostels

Reverse culture shock

Goals – accomplishments and compromises

Hello Everyone!

So finals are over. School is over. Essex is over. Its crazy to think that 3 months ago I was just walking onto that campus thinking “What am I doing here?” with My IFSA boys Matt and Andrew. The three of us and the rest of our flat have grown so much in our time at Essex it is crazy to think it is all over. We are a family that made amazing memories that will never be forgotten. Things I’ve learned from Essex:

1. The English schooling system is totally different.

2. When your grades are made up of a paper and an exam…try not to wait until the last week aka finals week to write 3 papers you will wish you hadn’t.

3. Drinking is the British norm so if you don’t it will be a long semester.

This was a great adventure and now I’m on to a new one. For the next three weeks I’ll be traveling in Europe with two of my best friends! I’m so excited to start this new adventure. We will be in Germany, France, and then back to England! This new adventure has taught me a few things already that I would like to share with future travelers…

1. Don’t Pack a 50lb suitcase to do walking travel.

2. Once you have spent the semester abroad…(no offence to my besties I’m traveling with but) go home because you are poor at that point.

3. Your ankle will give out on cobblestone, so be prepared.

4. You have to pay for every meal so essentially your money will be going to have the energy to walk.

5. You will get lost so embrace it.

I will update you guys on my travels during the holidays and upon my return to the mainland.

Cheers,

Dominique

Today I’ll be Talking about…

I. Neuquen

II. How to make empanadas

III. Vocabulario

IV. Musica

V. Previous posts

VI. Coming soon

 

I. Neuquen

 

I spent the first half of my September spring break in Valparaiso, and then I popped down to Neuquen to visit my friend Yamila who recently graduated from Soka. (1 hour stopover in Mendoza between Valpo and Neuquen—just enough time to brush my teeth in the bathroom and change my shirt. Felt like an absolute BOSS at traveling.) Both were great visits, but I never want to spend that much time on a bus again.

 

As much as I enjoyed Chile, it still felt so good to be back on Argentine soil. I hadn’t realized until I’d left how much Argentina had become a part of me, and not just in my accented Spanish. Although Neuquen was about 12 hours south of everything familiar to me in Argentina, I knew I was back “home” when I heard Yamila shout, “Che boludo!” in response to being tackled by a friend.

 

Neuquen probably won’t show up on your list of must-see locations in Argentina—it was pretty quiet—but I’ll say that it was definitely a pretty place. For me, it was the site of a lot of needed reflection on my experiences.

 

More than anything, it was a relief to reaffirm that I really had learned something about Argentine culture and I understood it now. When I first met her and learned she was from Argentina, it didn’t mean much to me–I had no idea I’d be living there for half a year. She could have just as easily been from Paraguay, Chile, Colombia, or Venezuela as far as I was concerned. So, the reality of her life outside of Soka was a complete mystery to me. Between arriving in Argentina and meeting up with her, I had a secret fear that upon talking to her I’d realize that I hadn’t actually learned “real” Argentine things or that I would have learned the “wrong” Argentine things…but there were no secrets and no mysteries. Her Argentina was the exact same Argentina that I was coming to know and love.

 

We spent a lot of time discussing what it meant to us to have traveled (while she was at Soka, she did her study abroad in Japan) and what we learned about ourselves in the process. After living in the US and Japan, she’s not purely Argentine anymore, culturally speaking. She lives in some gray zone in between all of them that will never exist on a map. And that’s how I’ve begun to feel too. I want to keep traveling until my body and/or budget force me to stop, I want to surround myself with people who also like and understand traveling, and I want to maintain a worldview that doesn’t cut off at the edge of my backyard.

 

And I guess that’s some of what they mean when they say you can never go home again.

 

One night we went to classical music concert, put on at one of the congressional buildings because they still don’t have an official concert hall building. (Yamila plays violin, so she had plenty of opinions about that. However, she’s also one of few Argentines I’ve talked to who actually likes la presidenta Cristina Krischner.)

 

By far, my favorite thing we did together was to sit on the bank of the river where she goes swimming every summer, sipping mate.

 

A close second was making empanadas in her kitchen.

 

However, neither of the high points of Neuquen beat the moment when I came home to Mendoza. GLORY HALLELUJAH I’M OFF THE BUS. (Too bad the next weekend was the one I went to Cordoba—another long bus ride.) Because I got off the bus with a great big green backpacking backpack, hostel representatives came flocking to me, trying to sell me a night in one of their beds.

 

“Thanks, but I don’t need a hostel,” I said to one of them.

 

“Why not?”

 

“I live here, che!”

 

II. How to make empanadas

I think the recipe on this website explains it better than I can myself right now.  (I tend to use more hand gestures than words when explaining how to cook.) But I can offer you a couple of additional tips.

 

-Empanadas can be fried or baked, depending how unhealthy you want to be. Both are pretty simple—common sense, once you’ve read through these directions, but if you want to be very precise about it you can Google around and find exact temperature settings, how long to leave it in etc. (After using my host mom’s Oven of Death to make mother’s day cookies, I’ve kind of given up on precision.)

 

-You can also get pre-made dough if you don’t want to make it from scratch. Here in Argentina, you just buy the little circles of dough at the store. At home, flattened Pilsbury biscuits give you that flaky, buttery goodness.

 

-This bears mentioning again, even though it’s also included in the linked recipe: use water each time you want the dough to stick to itself. That’s the only real trick to it.

 

- Once you start using other fillings, you’re departing the territory of “authentic” empanadas, but if you like to cook and experiment, I say go for it. There’s not much that wouldn’t be delicious tucked inside an empanada. Here in Argentina, I’ve mostly seen beef (Chile has almost the exact same thing, which they call “pino” and includes hardboiled egg and one whole olive) but you can also find capresse, cheese, ham and cheese, chicken… etc. Once, back home in New Mexico, I had a sweet one with a sugary glaze on top and pumpkin inside. Let your stomach be your guide.

 

-That said, I wouldn’t recommend using salami as a filling. We attempted it and, although they were still tasty, it did a weird textural thing after we fried them.

 

III. Vocabulario

           Lomo – I believe I’ve told you a bit about this word once before. Well, it’s the gift that keeps on giving. It can refer to a) a cut of meat, usually in a sandwich, always delicious. b) A hot bod. c) Un lomo de burro, a speed bump. Turns out it’s because that cut of meat is off the rump reason, which is where all 3 uses come from.

 

Lloviznar – raining lightly (sprinkling, drizzling)

 

IV. Musica

 

In honor of Yamila’s Spanish-Japanese culture shock and its intersection with mine, here’s a song about a guy getting his Latin dance on in a Japanese city.

 

V. Previous posts

1. Antes de que me voy  Before I Leave 

2.  Host Families and Fun with Public Transportation

3. “Are You the Girl with the Blog?”  

4. Playing Tourists in Buenos Aires

5. Looking Good, Mendoza!  

6. A Detailed Guide on All Things Micro 

7. Trip to Las Termas

8. Daily life in Mendoza

9. Habia una vez en los Andes… 

10. Night of the Soccer Game 

11. Road Trip! 

12. My Mate for Life 

13. Ringo vs. Chuck Norris 

14. Pros and Cons 

15. CHI CHI CHI, LE LE LE, VIVA CHILE!

 

VI. Coming soon

Cordoba
The Student’s Life
Trabajo Voluntario
Rafting in San Rafael

Chile Part II
The return to BA

Mar del Plata

A few tips on hostels

Reverse culture shock

Goals – accomplishments and compromises

 

Today I’ll be talking about:

I. Leaving the country again?
II. Valparaiso
III. Viña del Mar
IV. Santiago
V. La musica de la semana
VI. El vocabulario de la semana
VII. Links to previous posts
VIII. Coming Soon

 

I. Leaving the country again?

 

Last spring, not long after I first decided to come to Mendoza, my roommate, Ranya, chose Valparaiso, Chile, and we made plans to visit each other during our spring breaks. Hers fell first, so Ranya crossed the Andes to come hang with me in Mendoza.

 

(Ojo –because of the ferriado, holiday, LOTS of people wanted to visit Mendoza, which meant lots of people crossing over to customs, which meant a 3 hour delay from the predicted arrival time.)

 

I had a great time showing her around “my” city—so reassuring that I understood the crazy mess well enough to explain it to someone else!

 

Mate in the park.

 

Also visited the zoo

 

Then, after Ranya left to briefly explore Buenos Aires, the city of Mendoza had a celebration for Chile’s independence in our Plaza Chile. (Argentines and Chileans LOVE to talk crap about each other, but they secretly love each other.) After sampling some Chilean foods, I was more excited than ever to get out of Argentina for a while.

However, three things made me very nervous about leaving Mendoza:

1. I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of being completely lost and confused by a city again, so soon after I had finally gotten a grasp of Mendoza.
2. Although I was excited to see my beloved roomie, I was bummed to be traveling without my chicas. Lisa went south to Bariloche while Ale and Lorri went north to Salta, Jujuy, and Tilcara. I didn’t have the chance to travel to any of those places (the time flies so quickly!), but the girls each had a great time and highly recommended their spring break travel destinations.
3. During Ranya’s visit, I lost my debit card. I had no problem cancelling it and applying for a new one (contacted my mom through Facebook and had her make all those calls for me) but the card wouldn’t arrive for about a week, meaning I’d have no way to get money without Ranya.

 

Debit card or no debit card, friends or no friends, I was off on a bus to Chile as soon as Ranya came back from BA. The journey got off to an interesting start when we bought snacks for the road…but forgot that you can’t bring things like oranges and nuts across the border. The Chilean aduana mean business, and can you blame them when they export so much food to big buyers like the US? But, at the very least, the view through the Andes was pretty nice, even though it was nighttime. The immense silhouette of the mountains beneath a spread of stars… And when I woke up, Chile was waiting for me.

 

II. Valparaiso

 

To get started, here are some hints I picked up while I was there:
-Don’t eat seafood on Mondays (the fresh catch comes in on Tuesday, so whatever’s there Monday has been there all week.)
-For safety reasons, don’t take the stairs at night. Walk up and around the hill or take an ascensor.

-Acensores close at 8

-There are stray dogs EVERYWHERE.

 

That said, I feel so deeply in love with Valpo.

They don’t call it the graffiti capital of Chile for no reason. Everywhere you turn, there’s gorgeous (or sometimes not-so-gorgeous) street art. It’s like a treasure hunt trying to spot it all. The entire city is a giant game of exquisite corpse that the whole city has been playing for years. I was geeking out the entire time. The street art also makes it easy to find your way–lots of landmarks. Which is fortunate because the streets aren’t marked too well once you get off the 5 or so streets that make up the plano (the grid) before the hills start. I found my way mostly by following the shape of the road on the map more than by the street names. You´re gonna feel the stairs in your legs, especially if you’re out at night after the ascensores stop and you have to walk all the way up the hill. (And perhaps that’s why Chileans like to brag that they have the best legs?) But the view from the top of the hill of the city lights over the water at night–to die for.

 

The buses are also little different than in Mendoza. No bus card—your change is actually useful and necessary here. The buses are also smaller, and there are more of them. The routes and the pick up/drop off points are also more fluid than in Mendoza.

 

Things I ate:
Cazuela + Pebre + Pisco sour = $8 USD

 

Sushi with octopus

Real raw salmon, real wasabi and ginger, real chopsticks handed to me as the default. I struggled with the, (so sad because there are so many Japanese kids at my school!) but stubbornly used them anyway with a fair amount of success. I’m not sure how authentic the addition of queso cremoso (cream cheese) was, but it was all delicious.

 

Where I stayed:

Hostal la Colombina – $16 USD/night

Not a bad place to stay at all. The owner was actually a porteño—an Argentine!—so it was great to chat with him about “home” because I was missing the Argentine culture badly.

Cooked in the kitchen for dinners to save myself money.

Veggiesveggiesveggiesveggies!

 

What I did:

Pablo Neruda’s house in Isla Negra. Did not have time to visit the Sebastiana in Valpo itself, oops. Not too worried because I’ve heard it’s the least nice of his three houses. Left in the early AM, came back in time for a late lunch.

 

Open-air mural museum: neat but not as neat as most of the amateur art scattered around the city.

 

But by far my favorite part was simply wandering around and getting to know Valpo.

I’ve literally got too many pictures to upload on my poor wimpy little Argentine internet connection, so I’m just going to attach a link to photobucket later. Especially because I went to Chile AGAIN and took even more pictures. I took pictures of anything that held still long enough!

 

III. Viña del Mar

 

Felt very much like SoCal to me—very different from Valpo’s chaos and color and grit. More expensive. Nice apartments, big American-style mall. Demonstration of Chile’s economy being on the upward swing…especially in comparison with Argentina. Their clothing is much cheaper than in Mendoza because a) It’s not as expensive to ship from the capital to Valpo/Viña as it is to ship from BA to Mendoza and b) it’s all made in China and the U.S.

 

Sunset on the beach + chocolate-dipped churros—the ones I see at home don’t have chocolate!! Some stray dogs started a fight near us

 

For more on Valpo and Viña, check out Rachel’s blog with IFSA.  Aside from being quite a nice girl, Rachel’s blog is very informative. She’ll break down everything you’ll need to know about buses, food, the students’ movement, etc.
IV. Santiago

 

Only an hour and a half from Viña by bus. Super easy to get to. I got lucky because the one day it was rainy and gross in Valpo and Viña, it was sunny and beautiful in Santiago.

 

Ranya and I took one of several free walking tours of Santiago and had a traqui day seeing a bit of the city. One thing we learned about that I thought was kind of hilarious was Café con pierna (coffee with legs), which is like the Chilean version of Hooters, but with an emphasis on the legs instead of boobs. I told you—Chileans love legs.

 

Subways—mind-blown. So easy!

 

Overall, less character than Valpo! Much like any other city in any other country. Then again, I didn’t have time to see too much of it. I was surprised by how clean it was though, or at least the parts I visited!

 

Mote con huesillo
Similar eating experience to boba/bubble tea, which was awesome because over the summer I downed that stuff like it was air. It was nice to get it back, sort of. It’s peach juice with a dried peach in it and some sort of grain (barley?) at the bottom. Eat it with a spoon. Sugary, cold, and delicious.

 

Lunch: Caldillo de congrio, inspired by Pablo Neruda! + jugo de chirimoya

V. La musica de la semana

I’m sorry that all the songs I’ve been linking you to have been in English… but I have a cool story about this one from my trip to Chile.

 

One night, I started chatting with the owner of the hostel I stayed at, and it turns out he loves Pearl Jam. “One of the best things to come out of your country!” he said. So he whipped out Youtube and pulled out this video.

He pointed to the lead singer. “That’s my shirt,” he said.

 

“Yup, I see it has the Argentine stripes,” I said. “Why did he decide to wear an Argentine jersey in Spain?”

 

“No,” he said. “It’s MY shirt. I took it off, threw it onto the stage, and he put it on!”

 

I stared at him. “Sos un copado!”
VI. El vocabulario de la semana

Chilean Spanish is infamously hard to understand, not only because it’s very fast and mumbly but because it’s got its own, weird slang. Armed with these words, you’ll be able to survive in Chile no problem.

 

Huevon – You’ll hear this word in Mendoza a lot too, but it’s more Chilean. It’s also very crude—don’t say this to any delicate old church ladies! It’s basically like saying BALLS in English.
Cachai – You know? / Get it?

Po – Doesn’t actually mean anything. (Though a Chilean girl I know back home said that it refers to an indigenous word for “the people.”)  It’s used as a filler, to emphasize, and to further confuse non-native Spanish speakers.

Caldillo – chowder, no to be confused with caudillo, chief.

Chascona – woman with messy hair

Bacán = copado/a

Taco – In Mexico it’s food, in Argentina it’s the heel of a shoe, and in Chile it’s a traffic jam. (In Guatemala Chinese tacos = eggrolls. In Argentina Chinese tacos are wedges. As far as I know, Chile doesn’t have Chinese traffic jams, but maybe I wasn’t there long enough to find out.)

Colectivo – In Argentina, this is just another word for bus. Not the case in Chile. Only micro refers to buses in Chile, and colectivos are collective taxis. There are also regular taxis, which are hardly used in comparison to the taxis in Mendoza.
VII. Links to previous posts

 

1. Antes de que me voy  Before I Leave 

2.  Host Families and Fun with Public Transportation

3. “Are You the Girl with the Blog?”  

4. Playing Tourists in Buenos Aires

5. Looking Good, Mendoza!  

6. A Detailed Guide on All Things Micro 

7. Trip to Las Termas

8. Daily life in Mendoza

9. Habia una vez en los Andes… 

10. Night of the Soccer Game 

11. Road Trip! 

12. My Mate for Life 

13. Ringo vs. Chuck Norris 

14. Pros and Cons 

 

VIII. Coming Soon

 

Neuquen
Cordoba
The Student’s Life
Trabajo Voluntario
Rafting in San Rafael

Chile Part II
The split up and the return to BA

Home?