Update

I guess I haven't posted anything in a while, so here's a quick skim of what I've been up to.

For St. Patrick's day we went to a bar owned by Americans from California. They had green beer, Guinness and Irish Car Bombs-- I tried a Bailey's, which was very tasty. The next day a few of us went back because they have US sports channels, so we could watch ND get defeated in the NCAA. Although, I really only went because the menu looked so good. And it was, their nachos are wonderful.

Last weekend I spent a day wandering around one part of the city--the Plaza de Armas. It's very cool looking, with trees, Pope JPII statues, pigeons, and historic buildings. The surrounding area is full of ice cream shops and relatively cheap food, but the ice cream is just amazing. Since it was a Sunday, there were a lot of Chileans enjoying the park. Note: I didn't take the picture above, but since I didn't take any pictures, I decided it would be okay to copy.

I also visited the museum of Pre-Colombian art, a block away from the Plaza. The exhibits focus on Central and South America and the Caribbean, and have a pretty incredible collection of artifacts. My favorite part was the textile displays. The image below is actually from a temporary exhibit about Inca influence in Chile. I don't remember if this is the right tunic, but basically the Incan army didn't like the camo look. They used a brightly patterned cloth to shock their enemies with their "combined graphic power".



Tomorrow I'll be heading to Valparaiso, this time with my camera in tow. I'm hoping to go on a trip with the university's pastoral student group next week, but if I don't get the okay from Notre Dame I'll have to change my plans.

Oh, and yay for fall semester schedule planning!

Isla Negra

Yesterday we had a paseo, basically a field trip, to the coastal town of Isla Negra. If anyone is planning on visiting Chile and doesn't know what to do for a day, I highly recommend this place, it was awesome.

The highlight of the trip was a visit to one of Pablo Neruda's three houses. He loved the ocean, but also got seasick easily, so his beach-front house was designed to be like a ship. Along with the cool architecture, Neruda collected things from all over the world and basically had a small museum in his house. There were African masks, pictures of famous writers he was friends with, instruments, maps, ships in bottles, shells, an insect collection, and one room just for a life-sized model horse with three tails. The living room was full of figureheads. In another room the entire wall was an undersea mosaic made of native Chilean rocks, including several fossils. Outside the house, overlooking the shoreline, is the place where Neruda and his third wife are buried.

Next we went to a restaurant called the Kaleuche, named after a legendary ghost ship. It was incredibly designed, with glass bottles in the walls, stained glass, shells, and a panoramic view of the ocean. Oh, and bread. I love bread. The main courses were pretty good as well. I ate caldillo de congrio, which is a kind of fish soup. Neruda wrote an ode to this dish, which was painted on a wall near his house.

When we finished eating we climbed around on the rocks for a while. It was really great seeing all of the sea-life in the tide pools. There were many-legged seastars, barnacles, snails, clams, bugs, and these weird things that looked like giant pill bugs. In one particular pool there were even red anemones! I was soaked by a very very large wave, and my pants were still damp when I got home in the evening.

Chile Ayuda a Chile

Since today is my last day of Christmas break, it seems like a good time for a blog post. Tomorrow I finally get to go to some classes!




One thing that has struck me during my stay here, especially in the last couple of days, is the level of national pride Chileans have. In every church, a Chilean flag hangs behind the altar, and flags are prominent on many houses. Today when I went shopping for school supplies, every Chilean flag I saw was at half-staff.

In response to the earthquake, one of the phrases that popped up is "Chile ayuda a Chile" or "Chile helps Chile". There has been so much support for those most affected by the earthquake. Every year Chile holds a Teleton, a one day television marathon for a cause, and this years marathon (which was yesterday) garnered 30 billion pesos, or about $60 million USD. In addition to monetary donations 40 trucks, donated by various companies, left Santiago at the end of the telethon heading south. It was quite impressive. I feel that, at least right now, Chileans have earned the title Campeones de la Solidaridad, Champions of Solidarity.

Terremoto

I'm not really sure what to say about my experience with the earthquake. I was in my house. As soon as it was over my host parents started calling everyone they knew to make sure that they were okay, including some relatives in Japan (Laura, I thought of you!). Since my only previous experience with earthquakes was that little one in South Bend freshman year, I didn't realize how unusual this one was. I didn't know how destructive it was until days later, when we were able to watch the news on tv again. My part of Santiago is fine, we've been using the metro, shopping, and yesterday made a trip to Valparaiso. However, the epicenter was very near Linares, where we had our pre-program. A lot of the places we visited in February are the worst hit. The seaside town we visited my first day here was almost completely destroyed in the tsunami, and another small town we visited called Nirivilo was badly hit. My host family in San Dionisio is okay--they live in a newly built house, so it meets earthquake standards. It's strange that I was going to write about Constitucion and Nirivilo in this blog, but now the places I was going to write about don't exist anymore.