Mike in Chile

Nearly Done

2009-05-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

Today is our last full day here in Chile, which is why I finally have time to write. Sadly, I didn't bring the cable I need in order to upload pictures to my computer, so no pictures get put up. Don't worry, they weren't that good anyway, though I did start an "Interesting Dogs in Chile" collection. We fly out tomorrow at 10 at night, but we'll be leaving sometime in the early afternoon to get to the airport in time. We'll just get up, pack or shop, grab a last meal, and leave. Thank goodness we don't have any more physical activity planned, though. Who knew horseback riding was so painful?

Right, I suppose I forgot to mention that part. Let me try again.

We went horseback riding today and it was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Better? We got to the horsery at 11 this morning and had about 4 or 5 minutes worth of instruction before we horsed up. I ended up on a white stallion named Sanguinario. I just looked that up, and apparently it means "muy cruel" in Spanish, which kinda makes sense, since he bit Keith in the knee. Don't worry, he was going for Keith's horse. I also didn't find out that he was a stallion until the end of the trip when he tried eating a pile of crap and the guide told me it meant he was sniffing to see if the horses were his or from another herd. (I don't care how experienced the guide was, that horse's mouth was open.)

But anyway, the whole thing was completely amazing, not to mention painful. At first it felt like I was going to fall off whenever he moved, but I was a lot more in control once I got more used to the idea that I couldn't hurt the poor guy no matter how hard I pulled or kicked. We started off going through some pretty greenery, which was a good time to get used to the bouncing. Then we broke out into the dunes, which was so cool. There was a ton of up and down hills, and that's where one of the guides first decided to yell out "gallop" in a Spanish accent really loudly, which the horses understood before we did. The trotting was pretty painful, but the galloping was a lot of fun. There's a lot of power inside of those animals.

Afterward we had a delicious barbecue involving three different kinds of dead animals and some chorizos, which may or may not have come from a fourth kind. Speaking of food, I'll recap the last couple days, since eating was usually the high point.

Sunday
Another free day. We didn't do a whole lot, but we went to a fancy Italian restaurant at Pitt's expense. That was fun.

Monday
We went into Santiago and saw the stock exchange and a random museum. We were going to go into the presidential palace, but there were too many people with guns politely asking us not to (something special going on). We went up an incline to get a sweet view of Santiago's pollution, and then we wandered around two blocks with about ten shops, all selling overpriced lapis lazuli stuff.

Tuesday
Visitamos la Isla Negra. Linguistically speaking, that translates to "we visited the Black Island." Practically speaking, that means we walked around a house that Pablo Neruda built. It was pretty cool because he had more collections than anyone ever, and plenty of time to build them up. Then we ate at a nice fish place, came home, had more empanadas, and hung out around Valparaiso.

Wednesday.
Wednesday was our fun activity with the local university day. Since it was raining, we went bowling and watched Arturo get destroyed by his girlfriend who had never bowled before. Good times were had by all.

Each of those days involve wandering aroud Valparaiso, going out at night, and generally doing cultural things, but they also aren't all that distinctive in my memory, so I'm not going to try to distinguish them. All in all, this trip has been a whole lot of fun, taught me a lot, and introduced me to a lot of cool people, and I'm extremely glad I came on it. I'm planning on enjoying my last night and day in Valparaiso before I head back to Valparaiso.

Free Time

2009-05-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

These past two days we transitioned from learning about culture and companies and the like to completely relaxing. We did have to start off Friday with another company visit, but it was a canning company and surprisingly interesting. After an hour or so of that, we boarded the coach bus we´ve been taking everywhere and headed over to a resort-spa for the day. It was tucked away in the middle of a run-down neighborhood, but it was so nice once we were inside. We took on some of our Chilean friends in soccer, ate at a buffet, lounged around a pool, and played a lot of ping-pong and foosball. Although we lost to the Chileans in soccer, we did regain our honor in beer pong, made possible by the free unlimited beer they had at the place.

-side note: yes, we´re of legal drinking age down here, and yes, I have tried it. However, I didn´t even take any of the free stuff yesterday because it took me only a few days to realize that alcoholic drinks taste way too nasty to make any sense to drink if you don´t want to get drunk. Of course, there are quite a few people on the trip who do want to get drunk, so this is quite the opportunity for them. I, however, am not and will never be one of them. And I don´t feel like defending myself/ranting about my distaste for alcohol anymore, so I´m moving on.

Even though the resort was extremely cool, we then got to move on to a barbecue at the house of one of the Chileans who set up most of this. We had some of the most delicious chorizos I´ve ever had. (That´s sausage to those of you who don´t speak Spanish.) After hanging out there, half of us came back to the hotel to rest up for today, which mostly involved walking around Valparaíso, Chile. We got some really good pictures, bought/ate some interesting things, and wandered around some cool looking neighborhoods (read ¨ghettos¨ by those who aren´t my mom or someone equally worried about me). All-in-all, it was a pretty relaxing day, and we´ve still got dinner and a night out ahead of us (my more conservative readers should reread that middle paragraph).

Late Start

2009-05-07T18:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry to those of you who were planning on following this, but I keep forgetting to update this blog whenever I have internet. We were supposed to have wireless in the lobby of the hotel, but it was down for a while, and now that it's up and running, my computer doesn't want to accept it. For all you sharp ones who just thought "but how on earth are you online now?" the answer is that I'm at the McDonald's two blocks down the street that has free wi-fi.

So far, Chile has been amazing. The flight went smoothly (side note: if you haven't seen it, never, ever, ever watch Hotel for Dogs; worst movie I've ever seen), and we got in to Santiago around 7 in the morning. After a large amount of passport controlling and a long drive, we got to our hotel sometime around 11. Most of us decided to walk around the city since we didn't have anything to do until dinner that night. We didn't do a whole lot, but it was a good way to transition to the new culture and get to know each other a little. I only knew two out of nineteen people on this trip before our meetings, and our pre-departure sessions didn't really help that, but I'm already comfortable with everyone on the trip.

On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we had lectures about business and culture in Chile, and on Monday and Tuesday we got salsa lessons, which were definitely interesting. We decided that God just made Chilean hips differently. Other than that, we've had three company visits yesterday and today, and we've spent more time exploring the city and eating. Tomorrow we go to a resort/spa called The Farm for most of the day before going to a barbecue at the house of one of the locals who set this all up.

I've gotten a lot of chances already to practice my Spanish, though I believe people when they say that Chileans speak extremely fast and have their own language. A couple other kids on the team have good Spanish too, and their are plenty of people who are bilingual here, so it's not that bad. The culture's really interesting. A lot of aspects of both the culture and the landscape remind me either of Guatemala or Ecuador, but Chile is also its own country entirely. The mountains and the sea here are beautiful, especially right next to each other. I'm very glad I came on this trip so far, and the rest of the week should be a lot of fun.

Plus3 Chile Link

2009-04-21T20:37:00.001-07:00

Here's the link to get to the Chile Plus3 website:

http://www.chileplus3.pitt.edu/