La Campana

Hey there!
It's good to be back 'home' in Vina after the big trip down South. I had a few days of school, which went pretty well, I think anyway as I still don't really understand much of what my professors are saying. I find that following along in class is like walking a tight-rope. Lots of focus and if you lose it for a second, forget about recovering! Luckily, I've made friends in each class who are very very helpful and patient with me.
In my spare time, which there is a lot of, I've been getting to know my new roommate a bit. Her name is Katie and she is from Arkansas. She's here to teach English at a local tech-school. She's super busy and not around a lot but when she is home, there is usually a lot of laughter!
Also this weekend, I went on a fabulous 12k hike with Kindra, my friend from UM. La Campana is a mountain/National Park located about an hour inland of Vina. We hiked as far as we could in the time we had and almost made it to the top. We also bumped into a girl from Wyoming who knew some people from Missoula that Kindra also knows. Small world! The hike was beautiful, landscapes that I have never before seen. Lots of oddly shaped mountains, lush trees separated by dust dunes, and even a tarantula (granted it was a roadkill tarantula but I still have the heebie-jeebiez)!
Speaking of Kindra, she also has a blog and has a much better description of our hike. She's a bit more on-the-ball than I am about posting. My travel buddy Laura also has a blog with a very complete story about our trip down South. If you want to cheat on my blog and read their excellent writing instead, I won't be jealous.
Kindra's blog is www.ungulatedreams.blogspot.com
Laura's blog is www.chillychilepepper.blogspot.com
My friend Dan has also posted some pictures of Bariloche, which is great since I didn't take many there :) You can find them on his blog at www.danshirley.blogspot.com
Hope all is well in los Estados Unidos, I think of you all often!
-Clare

Pictures!

Here's the link to the pictures corresponding to the last post. Hopefully someday I will figure out how to get the pictures onto the blog but until then just follow this link; if you click on the first picture to enlarge it, you can see a description underneath and then just scroll through them that way.
http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg297/ClareHansen/Adventuras/

Una Semana Loca

Hola!
So I realize that it's been a long time since the last post so here it goes, my best effort to bring you all up to date!
Classes started but my first day was rather uneventful. My class was cancelled, indefinitely. So I rescheduled and now I have classes on Tues-Thurs. I've only had one week of classes though, this past week they were cancelled. Yay for going to school in a Catholic country, lots of time off for Easter!
During this free week the other exchange student from the States (Laura from D.C.) and I decided to take a little vacation. Basically we got onto a bus going south and got off at the last stop, it took 14 hours.
Day 1) We left Vina at around 10pm and headed south, ending up in Puerto Montt after a rather long bus ride. Luckily we had some Mission Impossible (dubbed in Spanish of course) to keep us entertained...
Day 2) We arrived in Puerto Montt and booked a hostel for the night expecting to leave by boat in the morning. Puerto Montt turns out to be not the loveliest town in the world. Lots of gypsies waiting to steal your money and shady characters around every corner, we mostly hid out in our hostel after it got dark.
Day 3) Went to the boat terminal only to find that the boat we wanted was late and may not show up for a few days. Thinking that anywhere was better than Puerto Montt, we booked a bus to Chiloe. Chiloe is a large island off the southern coast of Chile. On our bus we met another traveller who recognized our US accents, she was from Manhattan. We all three decided to spend the night in Castro, the capitol of Chiloe.
Day 4) Woke up in Castro, a very fun, very lively little town. It was such a change of pace from Vina that it's hard to believe they are in the same country! We spent all morning sea kayaking around the little islands close to Chiloe. There were also some cool houses on stilts that we could paddle under. All in all, a very fun town to be in. We left Castro that afternoon and headed across Chiloe to the tiny town of Cucao. It's the last town before you hit the National Park. It was comprised of a few thrown together houses and a road that supported one crazy bus driver and his ghetto bus once a day. We went through Cucao towards the park and found El Fogon de Cucao. It is an architecturally sweet house/restaurant/bar/hostel/campground/ranch built and run by a man named Miguel Angel Allendes. We stayed at his house that night and he made us an incredible dinner of the biggest hunk of salmon I have ever seen. Then he played music for us the rest of the night, he is in several traditional Chilean bands that travel the country frequently. He was a very interesting man with a never-ending supply great stories and advice. He will be in Vina in two weeks and he is planning on looking us up to show us the music hot spots he knows in Vina/Valparaiso.
Day 5) Marissa from Manhattan had to take off early to catch a bus to Valdivia so Laura and I set off on our own to check out the National Park. Since it is the off season down here, mid-fall, there were maybe 4 other people in the entire park. It was crazy! Huge sand dunes with crashing waves of the ocean as far as the eye could see. *There were cows along the beach eating seaweed, they looked very out of place* Then if you turned around there was a big thick lush forest with a large lake. We spent most of the day hiking around and picking our jaws up off the ground. Then we packed our bags and sat on the side of the road waiting for our bus. We had a momentary panic attack when we thought we saw it pass by without stopping, but luckily another one came along about an hour later and rescued us. We spent that night back in Castro.
Day 6) We had a bright and early 6:25am bus back to Puerto Montt (unfortunately it's the only town with access to and from Cucao) where we met up with my friend Dan from the University of Montana. He's studying in Concepcion this semester and also had some free time to travel this week. The three of us hopped on a bus and headed to Bariloche, Argentina! The drive over was awesome. Such a change of scenery again. We all kept saying that certain aspects of it, like the trees or the hills remind us of home or someplace else we know...but all together, nowhere else in the world looks the way it does down in Northern Patagonia. We got to Bariloche in the early evening, set ourselves up in the hostel and went out for a night on the town.
Day 7) We spent this last big day of our trip exploring Bariloche. It's a fun city, a little bit of a tourist trap, but with lots to offer. We got some good food and sat at the edge of the lake looking out at the mountains. Most notably though, this was the day I started to get sick...more on that in a bit.
Day 8) Due to it being Easter, bus tickets were a bit hard to come by so Laura and I had to leave earlier than planned. Which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. We went from Bariloche to Osorno in the south of Chile. We had an 8 hour layover in Osorno and then we got on another marathon 12 hour bus ride back up to Vina. We got home this morning around 10am. The blessing in disguise is that I clearly have Strep Throat and any more time on the trail would have been difficult. I called the doctor's office today and when I told them I was an exchange student, they insisted on doing a house call. He actually showed up with a little black bag. So, now I'm on a round of meds (don't worry Mom and Dad, no penicillin) and should be back on my feet in no time! I went to the supermarket to buy some comfort foods (cranberry juice, sprite, and tomato soup) all of which had to be purchased in the "World Foods" section, aka a shelf with Safeway stuff :)
It is, of course, completely impossible to sum up this week long adventure in a blog post. Even the pictures (that I will hopefully post tonight) can't really convey what went on. It was the best vacation I could have asked for and never before have I been so happy and content to just take off into the unknown. All I can think to say is that my life is ridiculous, and I love it!

Back to school.

It's that time of year here! School starts on Monday, pretty exciting after about 3 months off. There isn't much new to report here. I spent last week in an intensive spanish class with 3 other students from France and Germany. We went on a field trip to Valparaiso where we were lucky enough to take a small boat (lancha) out into the ocean and look around the port. Valparaiso is one of (if not the) biggest ports in Chile and also home to the Chilean armada.
In other news, a friend of mine from Montana who is studying in Valparaiso this semester called me up last night. Turns out she lives in the same neighborhood as me! She stays with a really nice host family that has already invited me over for dinner.
And, since you've all been asking so nicely, I've finally put up some pictures! You can check them out at http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg297/ClareHansen/
If you click on them or do a slideshow there are descriptions for each picture.
Chao,
Clare

Internet At Last

I have internet at my house! Hallelujah!

Hopefully now I can post in a much more timely manner.

Things that have happened since the last post:

1) I had another birthday part. This one was with Alejandro (my landlord) and Veronica (his good friend, and who I stayed with first). Alejandro's friends from the area came over and we had a big BBQ. The best part of the party was that the Chileans started reading my chilean slang dictionary and pretty soon the whole table was saying things like "To screw? To screw? What means this?" Then they would read the chilean part and laugh, it was pretty entertaining for everyone.

2) I started spanish classes, and holy crap they are hard! I start real classes next Monday, or should I say Lunes, and I managed to get a schedule with classes only on Mon, Tues, Wed. So that leaves a four day weekend every weekend for travelling, woohoo!

3)Well, obviously, I got internet and everyone here is very very excited. We've been out of the loop for awhile!

Thanks to everybody who checks up on me and reads this, and thanks for all the birthday wishes! It's good to know that I'm loved back in the States.

Chao,

Clare

p.s.- Here's a fun fact- I spent about 20 minutes in my Spanish class today explaining Paul Bunyan to a mix of French and German students as well as my Chilean teacher. None of them can pronounce Bunyan to save their souls, but they liked the story!

Happy Belated Leap Year

Hola!

It’s February 29th, happy leap year! As you may notice, this is posted later than Feb. 29 and that is because I have not been not connected to the internet for several days and I have been typing updates so that I don’t forget anything. So gear up, this might be a big blog, depending on when the internet people get here.

That brings me to my first new observation of Chile. People are always late, always. By several hours, if they even show up at all. It takes some getting used to. Although, there are some Chileans that are really put off by this trend so it’s always hard to tell when you show up for an appointment if you are going to be waiting 3 hours or be scolded for being 3 minutes late. Also, no matter where you are or where you are going, they all tell you it’s “about a 10 minute walk”. 

Walking is my main mode of transportation for now, collectivos (shared taxis) are still kind of scary and the micros (bus) are even harder to figure out. On the other hand, walking has given me a better lay of the land and I can get to school in 20 minutes (it takes 30 to get back because then it’s all uphill) and it takes about 45 to get to the main beach. I’ve also lost about 5 pounds and my tan is coming along quite nicely!

Things that have happened since the last post:

1) I moved into Alejandro’s house up on the hilltop, incredibly beautiful. I have two housemates up here. They are a lovely 26 year old couple from Finland (Matte & Ana). They speak some English and not much Spanish so we are all learning together. They are mechanical engineers and are going to another University here. They are also big card players, woohoo! They teach me lots of new games and last night I learned how to say ‘clubs’ and ‘spades’ in Finnish, why not.

2) I turned 20! My birthday was fabulous. I spent the day at the market (see #3) and then walked down to Veronica’s where we drank wine and chatted for a while. Then I tried to go downtown to my friend’s apartment but somehow got really really lost. I was on the busiest street in downtown and feeling damn scared when I saw a huge crowd gathered around a pair of tango dancers. Needless to say, they were awesome. So I had time to collect myself and finally hailed a collectivo and shared it with a mom and her little girl who thought my Spanish was absolutely hilarious. I made it to the apartment and there was a crowd of about 20 foreign students and locals there. They bought me a lovely pink scarf and made me a yummy chocolate cake, with matches on it because there were no candles. At midnight they sang to me in Spanish and English and we stayed up drinking pisco and talking until 4:30. It was a lovely way to turn 20.

3) I went to the Farmer’s Market for the first time. It is so big and busy and full of smells and sounds and even had a live band. The first walk through I was too nervous and overwhelmed to buy anything because, of course, I had to do it in Spanish. The second time around I chanced a stall and asked for a cucumber. The old man was so nice and taught me a bunch of words for the other food. Well, that was it. I was on a roll after that and I bought so much food I could barely carry it all back to meet Alejandro at his car. I had bags hanging off of me everywhere and a watermelon (or a sandia) tucked under my arm. It was so envigorating! Now I have fabulous fruits and veggies for a while. Good news for me is, the market is open all day every Wednesday and Saturday, and it is extremely affordable. I spent only around 10 US$.