First day of School!!!

Ahhhh there is nothing like the first day of school. And I haven't been as nervous as I was this morning since my first day of public high school and my first date combined. But that only lasted for about 20 minutes. The first class of the day was Opinion Journalism.
Zach and I had met with the professor before because he is the head of the journalism department. He was really nice and helped us out during our little meeting. But there were surprises in plenty during the first day of classes.
So back to the first class, opinion. It started at 11:00 AM, and we arrived at the university with about 5 minutes to spare. After we found the classroom we went and sat inside, thinking that we were just on time. Wrong. We sat in the class for about 10 minutes before the professor walked in. About 5 minutes after that, the huge group of students sitting outside the classroom smoking cigarettes meandered in and took their seats. I don't know why we didn't expect this, but it was weird for us semi-timely Americans.
The class went as usual for the first day. We went over the syllabus, but only after a mildly embarrassing introduction to the rest of the class, probably about 30 people. Our lovely profe turned to the both of us and told everyone we were the extranjeros from the United States and everyone just looked at us blankly. But hey, I guess it's a good way to meet people. I just wasn't quite expecting that, and was red in the face for the whole introduction process.
Onto our next class after a 2 hour lunch break, an anthropology class called Culture and Language of Mapuche (the Mapuche are the indigenous people of Chile). Despite trying to take different classes, it worked out that the fun classes, and classes that fit best in our schedule were the same. But we only have 3 classes together out of 5.
Anyways.... we went to the Mapuche class at 3 PM and waited outside that class for about 10 minutes. Then a group of obviously not Chilean girls walked up to us and asked in slow foreigner Spanish if this was the Mapuche class. There were 3 German girls and 2 French girls all a little confused as to where the class was, and why upon arrival, the door was locked. It turns out the class doesn't start till next week... a week after all the other classes start. Those silly Anthropologists.
So there it is, our first day of school in Concepción. The first week here is similar to the first week at UNM. Half the classes only last for 30 minutes, and the other half are canceled till the next week.

Video of Valle de Elqui

This man can sing better than I can record videos, and that's saying something, but here is a little taste of what we saw on our adventure. It starts out with us in the over priced Mistral restaurant. Then walking around the streets of Elqui, outside the church near a fountain. Next we are at the pisco distillery de Los Nichos.
And the song came from a man on our bus from La Serena to Valle de Elqui. He just hopped on, played a tune, asked for change and hopped off.

La Serena

To see a map of where we went.

Start of the trip with a 6 hour bus to Santiago, slept at a friend's house. Next day up and at them? we jump on another bus to La Serena. Spend all 6 hours completely alone on a big bus watching Stephen Segaul movies sometimes dubbed, sometimes not. Either way it was weird to have to come to Chile to be forced to watch the seagull.

The bus ride was long but the scenery was pretty, lots of cacti big and strong, San Pedros if I'm not mistaken. The kind you eat to start another type of trip, so I felt like it was fitting. Big hills like the ones you see when you drive into central Cali start to appear and then they just get bigger drier and steeper. Ending up in the land of valleys. Finally we get to La Serena and take a cab literally 2 blocks to our hostal-the guy said it was close.

Hostal was cool if not a little weird, the public computer was right outside our window, making it a point of constant traffic. An older Chilean guy working on his thesis sat in the lounge alone under the stars putting his head in his hands. I sat next to him and tried to figure out what we were doing the next day. I started up a conversation, he told me he was working on risk management but one day he hoped to travel to Australia to become an oceanic geographer. I asked him what kind of questions he asked people and what responses they gave. One of them was whether people felt they were prepared more than the average person for a tidal wave. Most people would say yes and then say they didn't know.

After talking to the guy for a little while we went to 900, a restaurant of meat. We ordered the plate of meat and before long 1 sausage, 1 blood sausage, 1 porkchop, 1 steak, one piece of chicken, 1.5 potatoes, 1 Chilean salad(tomatoes and onions), and 1/2 bottle of wine arrived per person. We sat there staring at the big pit of meat, which was suspended over roasting coals on our table. Then we started to eat.

After about 2 hours, drunk with meat and wine we walked back to the hostal and passed out.

We woke up to a lady screaming repeatedly- turned out to be a seagull.

Next day we woke up and ate breakfast. We shared a table with a swiss couple and talked about what they were doing and what we thought we might do. They seemed a little disappointed at the price of it all. So did we.

We decided to leave la Serena and go camping.

2.5 hours later we arrived in pisco elqui. The tiny little town filled with hostals and tourists during the summer. Now it being the winter there was little more than farmers and artisans selling pisco and crafts to the slow traffic of people coming through. On the bus an Australian man, Tom, asked if we knew when to get off for Pisco Elqui. He didn't speak any spanish.

Finally we got off and walked down a little dirt road to a refugio one of the men from the pueblo told me about and we set up camp next to a little river-covered by trees. Across from us lay the pisco fields. Then we walked back up to the mistral restaurant(the more famous high price pisco) where we greeted with heavy prices and weak english. Tom saw some people he knew. We sat with them and after about three minutes we didn't talk to them. We ordered some pisco sours and empanadas and sat back talking a little bit.

Tom said he used to be a business professional and quit his job a few months back-bought a world ticket, something like 20 flights for 3,000 and had been traveling around the world since. Some how he had gotten throughout South America knowing almost no spanish and having a tendency to get drunk everywhere.

He told us a lot of crazy stories about ex pats across South America and mannequins. We finished up and he jumped on a bus. I didn't know whether his stories were lies or not, some seemed pretty crazy. But I guess it doesn't matter, we only knew him for an hour or so and that is probably in all likeliness the extent of our relationship till death. So, who cares? It was a chuckle or two for free.

We decided to walk around town for a little while. We went up the hill popping into little artesanal tiendas. Bee wax face cream, pisco from the nichos pisquería marked up to triple the price.

We ended up in one store that had a hippy from chile and a world wanderer from germany. We talked for a long time about chile and the weirdness that it is. We talked about where to go and what to do. We talked about the goverment and the food, the rodeo and ponchos.

After that we went to a restaurant that claimed to have traditional food and paid double what anything was worth and sat in complete privacy in a big open tiki hut like structure.

This was a tourist town, and we were not in the tourist season. Things were open only as long as they had to be and after we left they locked the doors.

We went back to camp and took a few pictures of the night sky, amazing by the way.

Next morning we woke up to roosters and dogs barking, and decided to go explore. We walked to the nichos pisquería a few miles down the road and took the tour, drank some pisco, and left. It was a very cool little place, making only 4,000 bottles a year. Once again we were the only ones there up until when we left, when a bunch of wealthy older chileans came in confused that they were not at the mistral pisquería. They took the tour anyways.

We left and walked down the road a couple miles, and decided to eat lunch at a hotel/resort thing along the way. Once again we were hit with heavy prices but no english this time.

We had to leave the next day early in the morning so we decided to go back to serena that night. The bus ride passed quickly and was a nice ride, a lot of people from the villages/pueblos along the way hopped on. It was good people watching.

Later we ended up the only ones in a really cool hostel with white sand for floors in part of it and japanese art on the walls. We went out to eat, bought some ice cream, and came back to sleep it all off.

The next day in the morning we hopped on a bus to Santiago. When we got there, no one was home yet so we decided to eat a snack at a restaurant around the corner that just turned out to be some sort of revolutionary school/cultural center.

It was the woman's birthday that we were staying with. So we went for happy hour at a club around the corner. I drank mojitos and Hunter drank her now ever common terremoto. Having paused eating anything substantial because we thought there would be dinner involved with this birthday, we got really buzzed, really quickly. Their happy hour is two drinks for the price of one, and everyone orders their own two drinks. And unlike America where you get a cup full of ice with coke and a splash of rum-in Chile you get a cup full of rum with some ice and a splash of coke.

Feeling quite loopy and hungry we left the club and walked around to find something to eat, and of course the only mexican food around we happened upon was our choice. Which turned out to be a pretty good one. Cheap and not bad considering the location on earth. Although we could tell the guy was getting annoyed when he had to keep giving us more chile/salsa/tomato sauce.

Then we went back to the apartment and stayed awake for 30 minutes having very loose conversations with drunk people before giving up and going to bed.

Next day we woke up and walked around for 7 hours. We ate Indian food and went to a chinese market-finally providing me with some siracha. Then we realized we were locked out and no one was home. After repeated unanswered phone calls we gave up and decided to walk to the plaza brazil around the corner.

There we ordered a pitcher of artisan beer that was some of the better beer I have had since being here-Chile has some pretty awful beer. A platter de España was ordered and we sat watching the drama of the park across the way. Homeless people fighting, dogs trying to steal food, children playing, and drunk teenagers all co-existing just benches apart with out much interaction between them.

We walked back after a few hours and were relieved to find someone home. After that we argued for 30 minutes or so as to whether we really wanted to go to this one restaurant called las tejas because we'd have to go with our luggage and we'd have to take two cabs. We decided to go and it turned out to be closed. So this guy who was sitting outside of a bar next to it said we should go around the corner to a restaurant that was a hide out for revolutionaries back in the pinochet era. You used to have to say a password to get in.

We walked into the little tiny place that had no windows and looked almost like a delicatessen form the street. Once we walked in a little old man wearing a butcher apron with one eye closed looked us up and down and asked if we had a reservation. We said no, and he asked us where we from. We told him and then said that a bunch of people had recommended this place as being the place to go for chilean food. And that if he had a table that'd be great. He said usually he doesn't take people unless they call 18 hours ahead of time, but maybe he'd make an exception. I still think thats a weird time requirement.....I could see 24, but 18?

He decided to let us stay and told us to wait for a table to be cleared.

While we were waiting a drunk guy came up and said, "hey do you mind if we have a conversation?"

We said "no, of course not."

He said he was an english teacher and wanted to practice and then he said that he and everyone else in Chile hated us, well not us personally but the US. Then he introduced us to his friend who he said we wouldn't like because he was a communist and he wanted to overthrow the US government. Which I agreed with but thought was funny that a middle aged man with braces and a pony tail could be capable of such acts.

We got a table and sat down, there were cards on all the walls of people that had come through including some photos of naked people for some reason and revolutionary sayings that were painted in big red and blue bubbles. In the bathroom people added to the sayings, saying sorry to their girlfriends because they were leaving them for the meat platter.

Then the meat arrived, blood sausage, sausage, ribs, a pig leg, chicken....it was ridiculous and not for a lack of trying we barely ate any of it. It was not quite the gigantic or meat filled meal either of us had envisioned and I don't think we were really quite braced for it.

During the meal the old guy got on the loudspeaker and said some stuff about chile's independence and then played a folk song that everyone knew in the restaurant at full volume.

Then the first drunk guy got on and said fuck Bush and the US government-obviously for our benefit, and then told everyone to drink some more white wine.

We went straight from the restaurant to the bus station and made it there just in time. We traveled all night and arrived back in conci very early in the morning. With a new little chinese friend along the way. She didn't know too much english and no spanish and didn't know where concepcion was or when to get off....it seems there would be so many lost tourists with out us.

When I walked out of the bus station a drunk homeless man walked up to me with a horrifically bleeding eye that made me think maybe zombies had finally attacked and I was in Chile for it. All my potential strategies felt suddenly ruined. I asked a waiting taxi for a ride and what happened, he said the guy fell...they always say they just fell right?

We split a cab to our apartment and then showed the chinese girl where to find a hostal, she took our picture and then left.

We took a shower and watched the end of clueless which is called ni idea in spanish. And then went to bed. Woke up went to the feria, got some vegetables, went to the market for chicken, made roasted chicken and mashed potatoes then used the white wine chicken stock left over to make potato and leek soup....it was delicious.

A video of the farm

Here is a video of la granja de Carlos Crovetto. I am still working on skills with a camcorder, so pardon the shaky camera... I will soon have a little story to publish along with the photos and video about our conversations with Carlos. But as for now, I will give you a tidbit of background info on him. He is a no till farmer in a province 40 minutes outside Concepción. The idea behind no till farming is that you don't plow the soil so all the fungus and bacteria in the soil can survive, which in turn helps the plants thrive.

La Granja De Carlos

So I am exhausta after a fun filled day at the granja. Hunter did an entrivista with some length on it, so I am sure she will be writing something soon to add to this, or maybe we'll just send it to the paper.

LA GRANJA

A little tidbit of deliciousness

here is a link to Anthony Bourdain's shows No Reservations, he came to Chile a little while back. It's a pretty good look into what Chileans eat, and what we are eating now. Thought you guys would enjoy this.

http://www.megavideo.com/?v=FRIZFS70

That is all

The legal drinking age in Chile is 18. Alcohol is sold every day of the year, except during elections.

La reserva de Nonguen

El flor nacional de Chile
The original water pipes that transports water for the Concepcion and the surrounding areas, although I think it is still in use, we used it as a bridge to walk across the water ways.
Hunter hablando con gerhard durante un sección de el trek.

HIPER LIDER

Walmart came into Chile and bought this company hiper lider....looks like walmart, smells like walmart, feels like walmart-even gave me a little panic attack like Walmart does. The mix of culture is weird here, sometimes I'll walk out onto the street and remember all of a sudden I'm not in the states.

There are these little capsules of culture all over the place. Unlike Europe, people don't like subtitles for the most part. They think its weird, a lot like the states, and most movies come from us. Our TV is all pretty much in english with subtitles. I'll sit down, watch a movie or a show and forget I'm in South America, then go out to the city and remember all over again. Although a little jarring and surreal its kinda nice to jump back and forth like that.

We went to La Reserva De Nonguen yesterday, its a wildlife preserve that is closed off to the public. The guy who organised our language classes helped us out and got permission to go where most people can't. It was really fun, and felt like some weird alien forest. Bamboo, Eucalyptus, parrots, and all sorts of tropical-like stuff...except its winter. The forests here are weird, they feel ancient. South America and especially Chile was isolated from the rest of the world for a long time, and it feels like it. I have to photos that'll I'll post after I work em' up. Till then I present: street views from our apartment.

more fería photos

artichokes- en español alcachofas, a pile of potatoes (papas), and some huge crustaceans! and Zach and I in front of our favorite vendor. We call him our caseros, which means caretaker because he always throws in a few extra veggies when we buy something from his stand, that's called a yapa!

fotos de la fería

a rain barrel full of olives! yum

more photos of the market

These were the gigantic carrots I was talking about. Delicious!
Today for lunch Zach cooked up some sierra (fish) that we bought at the market with a vegetable rum sauce. We also had some boiled broccoli and potatoes.
Our roommate Yann is gone to Argentina to visit his girlfriend for the next ten or so days. So we have the apartment all to ourselves which is nice. from that once we get them. Chao for now.
for more market photos check out this link
http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=1057320063#!/album.php?aid=62193&id=1057320063

fotos de la fería

This is at the fería, or market, that is about a 20 minute bus ride outside of downtown Concepción. We bought a type of fish called sierra. There is seaweed, and chocos, which are a kind of crustacean, and olives.