que rico

Today was your average weekend activity kind of day. After breakfast, the family and I ran some errands and stopped by the feria (farmer's market) to get our fruits and veggies for the week. My host mom's boyfriend explained to me, there are two types of Chileans. There are feria Chileans and supermarket Chileans. In the supermarket, you get to pick out your produce but it is much more expensive. At the feria, you say I want one kilo of tomatoes and instead of taking all of the pretty tomatoes from the display tables, the person working the area takes a kilo of tomatoes out from underneath the table and hands them to you.  Not as pretty and bruise free as the ones in the display.

He also added that they save the good ones for their friends and frequent customers. So, if you want great, fresh produce for cheap, you have to have patience. You have to keep going back to the same farmer out of the whole market every week until they like you enough to give you the good stuff. Good thing I have a Chilean host mom who is in with all the farmers.

and what didn't we do?

Such a long day! We woke up extra early today to catch a bus in Santiago to go to El Museo de la Memoria y Los Derechos Humanos (Museum of Memory and Human Rights). It was essentially all about the human rights violations that occurred during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990). It is so easy in day to day life to not think about death and torture and human rights violations but it happened and it is a huge part of Chile's history. We saw videos of people talking about being tortured, a bed that people were tied to  to receive electric shocks and diagrams of water boarding. 

outside of the museum

a wall with a picture for each person who
was "disappeared" or murdered 

[Mom, skip this paragraph]

Honestly, I cried when I read a letter that a little girl wrote to her dad who was being detained and tortured. It essentially said, "Dear Dad, I miss you so much. I haven't seen you in so long but don't worry, I promise I won't forget you. Mom told me that maybe if I study hard, you'll come home. I've been trying so hard Dad! I study so much. Mom keeps crying but she tells me that it's nothing. When you get home, we can play all the time. I love you and miss you."

After that very intense morning, our class and professors went out for a lunch of typical Chilean food. We actually went to a restaurant that Anthony Bourdain went to for his show No Reservations and really liked. I finally got to try terremotos! And they were quite delicious. It was white wine with Pineapple sorbet. We sat and chatted and then got serenaded by a mariachi band while our professors sang along. Very entertaining.

After lunch, we got back on the bus toward Valpo and I woke up to hear people talking about buying tickets to the Shakira concert this Thursday. Come on guys, it has to be sold out by now. Turns out it wasn't. And they talked me into buying a ticket to a Shakira concert. I figure life is short. Maybe I'll learn to shake my hips?

so soon!

lo mejor

I really lucked out with my host family. They are just the nicest people in the world. My host mom's name is Lidia but everyone calls her Pelu and she has two kids, Matias and Isadora. Last night, Pelu told me that Evita (nanny/ housekeeper extraordinaire) had made us a really good lunch for today. I was the first one home from school today and I didn't know where this lovely lunch was hiding so I waited until Matias and Isadora got back. I asked Matias when he was going to eat lunch and he said "Whenever I'm hungry". Great 15 year old boy response. Fearing that I would accidently break into dinner instead of lunch if I ate by myself, I asked Matias if I could eat lunch with him and his friend.

His response: "Obvio!" With this look that just said stop pretending like you aren't part of the family and asking silly questions. Of course you can eat with us. Whenever you want.

And speaking of the homestay situation, I finally took pictures of my room :)

I may have definitely under packed.
Sad sad looking closet.

Blurry view of Avenida Vinia from my window.

home already

It's midnight here and in Chile that is way to early to come home from a night out (even if it is a school night). My friends and I headed into Vina to try to find some terremotos tonight only to discover our little outdoor bar didn't serve them. Bummer. That's ok though because they did have strawberry mojitos. One more word that is different in Chile than the rest of the Spanish speaking world (Strawberry is frutilla here instead of fresa if you were wondering). Anyway, I was just about to order another round of drinks when our waitress told us they were closing. At 11:00? We weren't aiming to party but that is pretty early to close. I guess everyone is right that Valparaiso is the party city out of the two.

So we headed into the plaza to grab a taxi home and they have the craziest system here. They are called collective taxis or colectivos and they are taxis with set routes that you share with other people. Every route has a number on the roof so you jump in whatever taxi is headed toward your house (mine are 86 and 7) and cozy up with up to four other people. It's really hard to see the numbers from far away so I asked one of the colectivo drivers who was parked where to stand to hail my taxi and he told me he would take me straight there for a little extra. I asked how much but unfortunately, numbers are one thing I really need to work on.

He said 2800 but all I heard was the word thousand so I jumped in. Two dollars is a pretty good deal to be taken straight home! When we got to my house, I handed him 1000 pesos and he just looked at me like I was stupid. He then repeated 2800 to my disappointment and I handed over the money. I guess $5 still isn't too bad of a deal to avoid walking alone at night.

These aren't my pics but I google imaged it to give you an idea of what they look like and how hard it is to see the number and hail the right taxi when they're going fast!

peligroso

Class really doesn't inspire too much to say thus far. Going over some Spanish. Watching the news with my Chilean mama after dinner.

Maybe tonight will result in some sort of good story. We're hopefully going out to try terremotos (wine floats. check it).