The Top Tube

blur blur blur.

2011-06-12T20:13:00.000-07:00

Well it has been a week since my last entry... and as the title says. What a BLUR it was. The saying that "time flies when you are having fun" is certainly validated by my last week here in the lovely pias de Chile.

To go for a recap of the last weeks events I will start out by outlining what I done in one sentence and then breaking that sentence down to its bare bones facts. Here it goes:

I have met locals, watched futbol games, climbed 2 mountians, gone on the most beautiful 11 mile run of my life, ate more crazy food than in can think of, done laundry for the first time, and ohh yeah I finally started real classes down here in Chile.

So yeah like I said going out here is literally something chileans do like no other... well maybe no other than the students at Indiana University. We seem to have very similar habits compared to people from other schools. Just sayin..... UNC you have nothing on IU ;)

Secondly laundry here is a pain in the butt... Its a process that takes 3 days minimum. Why is this you ask? It is because one day to wash them and then 2 days to let them air dry in the cold air... yeah so its prolly best to know how many underwear left before you realize you need to do laundry..... i may or may not be speaking from personal experience; but its just something a little bird told me.

Hike hike hike yeah so we decied to go climb cerro pochoco on saturday. For your info cerro derectly translates to "hill" but it is nothing like that. A cerro in chile, like the one we climbed is still a pretty nasty affair lasting no less than 4000 feet of straight elevation gain capping of at a 5400ft summit. Yeah prolly the biggest hill i have climbed up yet. This adventure led to one of my first near death experiences of the trip were we opted to go climb a rock face instead of taking the well broken trail. What happened is i followed the other guys up who said that it was realtivly easy, but what i didnt think about was that they are all 6'1"+ guys yeah they have go go gadget arms compared to me so where the could grab the next hand hold i was stuck fist pumping the air... oops haha so once i got spread eagle up 15-20ft of rock i was in a very uncomfortable place. Thanks to nathaniel i made it out alive but with the first nasty, yet B.A. cuts and scrapes on my knees and chest of the day. Nice!

Some of the food I have consumed is downright crazy different. I have gone to three remarkable places to eat in the last week each that deserves its own paragraph but i dont have time for such trifiling matters. Fist was the Jewl of India. A really really really nice indian resturan... so good so much curry but sooo overpriced even for the US. Really tasty but I dont need to drop dough like that again. Second was "El Hoyo" which directly translates to "the hole' Like the hole in the wall. This place was crazy good too. To put it in perspective Anthony Bourdain in his TV show on Travel Channel visited this place and it literally blew his mind. We got huge pitchers of Terremotos (white wine and pinapple ice cream). Then we ordered exactly what Anthony Bourdain had. This ended up being the most authentic manly meal i have ever had. Straight carnal meat. There was entire slow cooked leg of pork, cow tounge, and to top it all off salchicas de sangre (blood sausage). Omg delicious no matter what the foods come from. Best way to describe it is that feeling after when you have a huge steak and go to town on it and you feel very very satsified an manly... yeah just like that. The third place was at el mercado central (central market) in santiago. El mercado central is literallky the definication of the serotypical south americal open aired marked full of trinket vendors, butchers with fresh meat, and outrageously fresh food. We opted to go for one of the many fresh fish places named Tio willie's. Uncle willie himself came up and talked to un gringos, good times. There I had cehevice.... interesting dish.... it is raw fish that is cooked by sitting in pure lemon juice for atleast 12 hours. This process with the acid in the juice "cooks" the fish and eliminates bacteria makeing it a tasty, yet different meal. Overall it was like the first time you ever have tuna salad... just different and kinda interesting. Not sure if I would get it again.

Okay boys and girls its late and i need to get some shut eye. Will finish this tomorrow. Still gotta talk about futbol, and another near death experience. For more details check out FB pics. Crazy stuff happening there!

Just another day in chiledice

2011-06-05T17:33:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah whatever, I know that it has been a few (almost 3) days since the last post and for that I appologize. I will try to get everything up to speed. To make a long story short, I feel like I finally know what I am doing while walking the streets on any given day but at times I still feel like an estranged tourist.

Over the last few days I have effectively learned more about the Chilean culture than you can possibly imagine, not only have i seen many of Santiago's major tourist attractions i have also been to the famous coast city of Valparaiso and the up and coming rich Vina del mar.

Upon our visit to the Villa Grimaldi i was greeted with something unexpected. My first view of the Andes mountains from Santiago! The smog had finally cleared a little bit and I we were able to view these magnificent mountains. They are very striking and definitely seem more aggressively sloped and rugged than anything I remember seeing in the Colorado last summer. But back to the Villa Grimaldi.... what a beautiful place! However it was filled with an aura of sadness. You just like many Chileans may not know what it was or believe that Villa Grimaldi existed. It was a concentration camp that was used back when dictator Agusto Pinochet was in control (1973-1990's). It was not as lethal and the camps used by the Nazi's but terrible things still occured there.

For example we were told that when people either disappeared or were executed there it was suspected that the bodies were taken to the ocean near Valpo and disposed of there. And until this day some families refuse to eat fish from the area because you know... if fish ate the bodies and you are what you eat.... would you wanna eat your friends... I mean fish?

Enough depressing stuff. On saturday we went to Valpo and saw the house of Pablo Neruda one of the most famous Chilean men. He was a writer, a poet, a thinker, a politician. And as i would later find out a communist and a mildly creepy dude. I decided he must have been creepy because there are accounts from his friends of him saying that every day, at the green house he could see from his sitting writing room, a girl of suspect age would come outside and sunbathe nude and he would plan his reading and writing time around this daily occurrence. Kinda creepy if you ask me. Just sayin...

After that we went to Vina del Mar. It is basically the Carmel IN of chile mixed with las vegas and miami. Pretty sweet I know. There we only had two hours and what else would a bunch of tourists do but go to the beach and swim in the ocean during the winter? Boom. Check. Chilly in Chile. (yes pun intended) I went out that night got some pizza and some fine chilean vino y had a great night on the town (got back at 5am) For details you must ask me personally hahahaha.....

Sunday has been the first actually in-climatic day we have had. First of all i am gonna say that it is actually cold, has rained for the first time in almost 2 months, and while on a bus tour of the various barrios una de las chicas de nuestro grupo encuentro un ladron (robber) of which robbed her of her mochila and took off. However, after about two hours the valiant carbinairos de chile (police) had found the bag and nothing was gone except the cash. This followed by me doing my first full afternoon-evening haul of homework and a delicious family dinner capped of a mostly uneventful day. I will prolly only have time to write about every other day now just because all my free time is being filled up with school, trying new foods and drinks, going out, and sleep... probably in that order.... hahaha you know what it is!

Finally tired.

2011-05-31T20:18:00.000-07:00

A este punto en mi viaje yo he haciendo mucho en los dos dias que estoy aqui en santiago. Yo siento que el todo de los actividades tienen una grande pesas a mi cabeza y cuerpo. Este importante que you estoy saludable y me siente bien. Por este razon que yo decidio que lo fue un mal idea salir con mis amigos a las resturantes para bebidias de cervesa esta noche.

Esta manana kristin y yo fuimos a correr a las calles de santiago para exhercicio. Lo fue muy differente correr in santiago porque algunos razones. Primero, a la sies y media era frio fuera de la casa y la gente miran a yo como yo soy loco porque yo llevo pantalones cortos. Segundo era mucho traffico en los sendero y calles a esta tiempo porque era 'rush hour.'

There was also mucho smog en el aire. We ran seis millas y que es como diez kilometers. It was certainly an interesente experiencia. I know that running here will help me stay fit and help me achieve my goals of experiencing new things while abroad.

When we got back from the run i took una ducha y tomo cafe con my desayuno. At school we had a short introduction to chilean history before we had a 2 hour long break where i went out with a group of people and walked around more of the providencia region. I visited una pandenderia (bakery) and had some fresh bread and pasta para almuerzo. After lunch we worked on grammer and then went on a scavenger hunt throught the most populated areas of the providencia region of santiago.

This scavanger hunt was interesting but was very tiring because we had to ask many of the local where things were and it forced us to talk to people e we did not already know and made us walk along while. At this point i was ready for a nap and i have yet to take one. When we were done with the scavenger hunt we came back and met with a guy from the american embassy who told us what to do if we get in trouble. Haha basically dont get in trouble and all is well. After this it was about 6 pm and me and a group of chicas decideron to go to a nice resturante cenar. It was a really nice resturant and apparent it is famous in chile for being a place that sports people rent out and visit frequently it is called Lienaera or something like that? I had una cervesa de Kuntzmann Torobayo for the first time and i will have to say that it was very very good. I have yet to have anything that I dont like yet. I also had un sandwhich de pescado it was very good y tuvo mucho sabor. After that i decided to stay in at my house because i need to be healty for the rest of the trip and i need to get some real sleep tonight. Yes i am finally to tired to go party. Haha ohh well happens to the best of us. ;)

soy una estudiante

2011-05-31T00:09:00.000-07:00

This is gonna be a short one because it is about 3 am my time and i am planning on getting up early to go for a run in this awesome smog filled city. First of all today has been very interesting and i have met alot of new friends and whitnessed some new things that santiago has to offer.

This morning i woke up and had to figure out how to take a chilean shower. It is different in that the water never gets hot... only lukewarm, and even so there is still seam all over the room when you are done. It was certainly hard to shave using the fogged up mirror. After a hearty breakfast of oatmeal y pan yo camino I la escuela con mi familia y Kristin. The first part of the school day was standard introduction and awkward people meeting. Lunch was chilean sandwiches where are different because they are really frickin big, have different types of meat on them, are smothered with more mayo than i have consumed in the last 3 years, y have guacamole on them. After lunch we had introduction to la historia de chile y we took a spanish writing exam to determine our proficiency in the language. The group will be split up into three different groups each focusing on classes for different levels of proficiency. Hopefully i am in a easy group!

Dinner was really tasty, we had a pasta dish that was kinda like spaghetti with meat sauce but there was tomatoes it was all meat and flavor, its hard to explain. After dinner i showed my host parents picturas de mi familia y mi vida en el EE.UU. Entonces yo went out to the bars with a big group of people from my program. There were about 12 of us including 2 local hombres que eran ijos de otras estudientes en mi programa. These guys were really helpful because they showed me how to use the metro (subway) an get a proper seat at a bar. We went pretty far away to the party capital of santiago, bienvista! It was pretty slow tonight because it is only a monday. But this doesnt matter to us from Indiana University because we do it big regardless of the time! Haha but seriously we americans represented. I had my first piscocola (pisco is a local drink that is really strong and is basically burned brandy and a piscola is that mixed with coke-cola). They say that more than 2 drinks of pisco will give you a worse hangover than a bad tequila night. I will let you know if this is true once i test it out but because tonight is my first night far away from my house i was careful. I also had a really good beer that is hard to find in chile called Colonial which was interesting because it is sin pasturizado which means that it still has the active yeast in it. It definitely beats any keystone lite or natty ice i have ever had. haha well that is about all i got for now. Hopefully i will have more crazy stories tomorrow. Caio!

Arrival and first day.

2011-05-29T22:13:00.000-07:00

First of all I am going to say that I will most likely be writing in mixed engilsh/spanish for the rest of my trip abroad because it is the easiest way for me to express my thoughts.

My flight to santiago was 9:46 long and went smoothly there were about 10 of us from the IES programa en nuestro avion de atlanta to Chile. The passenger next to me was also a student traveling to santiago for classes (law school) a santiago y argentina. Once I arrived at the santiago airport all was in total chaos. I was not sure what to make of things and the best way to describe it was "the most ackward" airport experience one could imagine. All i will say was that i am a gringo, havent taken spanish for over 1.5 years, and had to declare items at customs (total luggage review) with un hombre que solo habla espanol. From there we walked outside and met up with a representative from IES. After about an hour waiting for everyone from different flights to make it to santiago we boarded small (special) busses that would take us to meet our homestay parents.

This bus ride would be really awkward because when the driver got to the address to drop one of us off he would announce our name over the intercom and we would grab our luggage and get out. This would leave us walking up to the house or apartment where we would be staying to knock on the door and announce our arrival. Mi familia esta muy emocianado and i realized that i could not have ended up with a better family. At first i was bombared with so many questions that i had no idea what to say/understand/anyting at all. I was really worried that i would not be able to communicate effectively with my family. Pero after awhile i realized that vocabulary was coming back to me and with patience from both myself and my host family i would be able to communicate effectively.

The family consists of Isa y Gorge who are a wonderful couple in charge of the house. Isa's madre Nana whom is sweet but speaks older editions of espanol y es mas defecil para comprender. Also living in the house is a guy, anthony, from california who is an USA air force pilot taking espanol classes and in an intense latain american program to ready himself for work down here on behalf of the american military. He is a pretty chill guy.

After we ate lunch me and my host family talked more about our expectations and what were going to do for the rest of the day. I ended up taking a nap and then my host family took me on a car tour of santiago that ended up driving up the slopes of santa rosa park's mountainous outlook that overlooks the entire city. It was quite a marvolus sight because when we got up there the sun had just gone down and it enabled us to see how expanisve santiago really is. There are over 7 million people living here and i was shown all of the diffrent barrios (neighborhoods) that people live in.

Once we got back from the tour we had dinner that consisted of traditional pollo, carne, y chorizo con arroz y pan. Then anthony and i went to some of the pubs to meet one of his air force buddys for a couple of drinks. I thought this was sweet not only because i am in another country but also because this is the first time i have ever been to a bar in my life and been able to order my own drinks. ( haha keystone/natty and cherry karkov dont count as acutal drinks in my book). Here i ordered a pint of kuntzman's negro because i heard that this was the best chilean cervesa (beer). I will agree it kicks the crap out of everything else i have tried before with the exception of newcastle ale (go england!). From there i had about 4 more pints before we decided to call it a night (about 12:30pm) it had been a long day and i was ready to sleep. I got back to the house skyped my brother and here i am now.

It has been a great first day and I am sure there will be many more to come!

T-minus 12 hours

2011-05-27T21:29:00.000-07:00

As I am sitting here the eve before I head to Santiago, Chile for 8 weeks I am filled with a mixture of feelings. I am very excited and looking forward to everything, especially the unexpected. There is something intriguing about not knowing what you are getting yourself into. Sometimes it works out poorly but sometimes with the correct preparation the stars align and the unexpected is fricken awesome. That is why I am going into this trip without worrying about the details and plan on just going with where things take me.

To elaborate on what I have been up to this summer so far. It would be safe to say that I have developed a new appreciation for professional cyclists. Through riding at 30-50 miles a day 6 days a week for the last three weeks I feel like I am in better cycling shape then ever, however when I compare my efforts to those pros riding in the Amgen Tour of Cali and the Giro d'Italia i am blown away with the fitness they have to ride 4-7 hours a day at blistering paces for 21 stages straight. Simply crazy.

Something else that I have done that I am proud of is running half marathons for both my 3rd and 4th runs of this calender year. By this I mean I literally put on my running shoes only 4 times thus far and with no training ran two different half marathons. Feels great to be young. I ran the 500 Festival Half-Marathon in a time of 1:39:41 and then two weeks later the Geist Half-Marathon's tougher very hilly course at the same pace of 1:39:26. This is pretty remarkable to run this fast 7:35 pace off of no training appart from my daily cycling rides. Albeit I was unable to walk down stairs for about 2 days afterword.

I apologize for the lengthy post, just tying to get up to speed. From now on I plan on shorter posts that will most likely be a logarrhea of words following a stream of consciousness thought. When in doubt roll tide it out. (explanation on blog name to come)