Week 12 in Chile

I had another whirlwind week of classes and traveling to around the 5th Region of Chile! There are 15 regions in total, and so the 5th region is the region right above Santiago which is called the Metropolitan Region. I had such a blast traveling with all my friends from my program. Hope you enjoy!

Monday, August 19, 2013

-fly home from Calama and get in around 1:30; home to unpack and get lunch
-DDHH class at Villa Grimaldi which was a torture center during the Pinochet era; very sad visit about a very sad topic
-Sushi in Plaza Nunoa with Kate and Marta
-Home to hang out with Nora and do homework; convo with Nora about how she was a bad ass and protested Pinochet and had friends who disappeared and family members who fled or were exiled and how her family is proud of her for always fighting for peace and democracy

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

-class in the morning; nothing special; lunch with some new friends from a different study abroad program in the US and there was a giant fiesta at lunch at the engineering building with music and mechanical bulls and snacks and cheering; homework in the library; class in the afternoon; nothing special really again
-met up with my cousin Eric's friends who have been living in Chile for the past 5 years for dinner at their home; ate American food and swapped stories about our times living in Chile; they were awesome people and so kind and I hope I get to see them again soon

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

-Class in the morning at Oriente and then after class talked to the professor with some other gringos; he's a really cool dude and totally an art history hippie; next wednesday we have a field trip to a museum for class
-Headed home to relax and catch up on some work and then headed to my human rights class at the program office; interesting class as usual; I'm really happy with all my classes here in Chile; everything I'm learning is very unique and helps create my image of Latin America as I am getting a political perspective, art perspective, literature perspective and cinematic perspective of Chile and of Latin America
-Later that night I packed up my bags because we are leaving early Thursday morning to head on our first CIEE excursion to the 5th region of Chile

Thursday, August 22, 2013 - Sunday, August 25, 2013

This past weekend, the program travelled on our first excursion to the 5th region of Chile. Some highlights of trip include empanada and pottery making in Pomaire, visiting one of Pablo Neruda's 3 houses in Isla Negra, exploring the beautiful cities of Valparaíso and Viña del Mar on the coast about 2 hours from Chile, and finally exploring the beautiful Valle de Aconagua and getting a real taste of Chilean culture through our activities and the food that we tried. All in all, it was an amazing, fun and informative trip! I am excited for our next trip in October where we will head south to La Serena and other cities nearby. Below are a few pictures from my trip:

Week 11 in Chile

This week was super fun! We had a long weekend so 6 of us took a trip up north to the Atacama desert. Enjoy!

Monday, August 12, 2013

-Slept in late today because I don't have my first and only class of the day until 4:30; after eating breakfast and getting my life together, I spent some time researching different places to go this weekend because we have a long weekend with no classes on Thursday (and I have no Friday classes this semester), so we are thinking about either going to Pucon in the south or San Pedro de Atacama in the north
-Later in the day, I met up with my friend/sorority sister from Tufts at the office because my program and the Tufts program share the same office, and we headed to the Bellas Artes neighborhood to grab some sushi for lunch and catch up; it's good having a familiar face and a friend around in Santiago; after our nice lunch, we headed back to the office to deal with various different things with our respective programs; then I headed home for a bit because there was no power at the office and I live close enough to go back and forth; it seems that when it rains, we lose power; you'd think a so called developed country would have better infrastructure, but I guess not; I went home, did my homework (what is that??) and then headed back to the office for my Human Rights course where we discussed different legal aspects of human rights and how they come to be law; after class a few of us stayed after to discuss weekend plans because of the long weekend and it looks like I am going to SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA to see the desert and stargaze and sand dune surf and see geyers and do awesome and uniquely Chilean things! I am super excited!
-After that a few of us girls headed over to Lastarria, which is a super trendy and kind of hipster nearby neighborhood, to grab coffee and sandwiches at a really cool cafe; after we parted ways, I went home to do some homework and finalize all my travel plans for this weekend; so excited!

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

-Woke up early today because I had class this morning at La Catolica at the San Joaquin campus, which is the main campus of the school and has a real university feel to it sans dorms; I hung around campus all day and got work done at the library and then tried out a new class called El Cine desde la Literatura, which I ended up liking a lot, so I'll be taking that instead of Chile y el Sistema Internacional; I'm glad that class registration is finally over because it was the least efficient and streamline process ever, like if you thought SIS was bad... it's nothing in comparison to the system here.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

I had class at the Oriente campus this morning, which is the arts campus and then I went over to the CIEE office to work on a presentation for my Human Rights clas and then we had class and everyone presented and did really well; got an A for my first grade in Chile! Yay! Later that evening, I went to a friend's birthday party  and then we all went out to a bar. Typical Wednesday in Santiago.

Thursday, August 15, 2013 - Sunday, August 18, 2013

We had a long weekend so 6 of us from the program took a trip to San Pedro de Atacama and Calama. We saw the Tatio Geysers (3rd largest geyser in the world), visited Pueblo Machuca and ate llama meat, walked around the town of San Pedro and saw the church in town as well, biked through and hitch hiked out of Valle de la Muerte, visited Laguna Sejar (saltiest lake in the world), Ojos de Salar, and Tebinquinche, and some people went sand boarding but I was too burnt to go outside. It was a great 4 days in the beautiful desert! Below are some pictures of my trip!

Until next time!

Besos,
Lesley