Chile, July 2011 - #5 (Pinochet is Everywhere)

Well this has been another jam-packed week! In fact, I was making a list of what we did every day, which I will post separately, and I have to say I was kind of impressed with myself! This week was a crash course on Chile under Pinochet. Almost everyday I learned something new about life under the dictatorship and how present the period is in the collective Chilean memory.

The week began with a visit to the National cemetery. The cemetery was much bigger than I expected, and so were the mausoleums and tombs that line the main and side streets running through it. All major families in Chile have mausoleums here I think, some are more modest and others are ornate and have stained glass or statues. There were so many different kinds, and some beautiful tombstones and statues too, many by important Chilean artists. At the edge of the cemetery is Salvador Allende's tomb and a large monument honoring all of the murdered or "disappeared" from the reign of the military dictatorship. Although somewhat eerie, the visit was really interesting and I could have spent a whole day wandering around and exploring the expansive grounds. Linda didn't think that sounded like fun, but it's ideal for a girl who loves to make up other people's stories and imagine other times!

On Tuesday, Linda and I ventured into a part of the city we hadn't seen yet to visit El Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende. This is a museum that Allende started as the first Contemporary Art Museum in Santiago (and maybe in Chile) to honor the relationship between freedom, democracy and the arts. He solicited donations from well known artists around the world, and the museum has an interesting collection. It includes paintings from artists like Miro and Picasso, as well as an entire floor dedicated to Italian artists who were apparently particularly receptive to Allende's request for art. It also houses contemporary art from working artists today that was neat. There were some cool installations and interesting sculptures. Maybe most interesting was the small exhibit of the Allende's affects from the day of the military coup on September 11, 1973. His wife's suit is hung in a glass case, along with a letter she wrote to her daughter (I think) while the events were occurring. It was chilling to read. They also have some of Allende's things, like his membership to the Socialist Party and a wallet among other artifacts. What I think is most important, and what I think would make Allende happy, is that Santiago has grown into a city devoted to art, with a huge number of galleries, art exhibits, art museums, and contemporary artists. This commitment to visual art and the honor and respect Allende started for it with his museum has really become part of the culture. From graffiti (like the murals done by art students in Valparaiso) to the sheer number of galleries, art plays an important role in public expression and public discussion here.

Wednesday was all about Fashion! Our school trip was a visit to El Museo de la Moda, and the current exhibit was fashion from the 80s!

I'm not a huge fan of fashion from the 80s, but after my visit I have to say I have a lot more respect for it! We walked in to a Back to the Future exhibit with a replica of the time-traveling car and the jacket Michael J. Fox wore in Back to the Future 2. All proceeds from that exhibit (or something like that) go to the Michael J. Fox foundation apparently. It was pretty cool, and they were playing clips from the movies on screens behind the car.

We had an excellent tour through the exhibit which really discussed fashion as an extension of the culture of the 80s and it's imperative to break fashion rules and ignore the restrictions of "good taste." It was interesting to see the different designers collections from the decade, and the incredible impact the importance of physical fitness and health had on fashion design. Perhaps the most interesting part about the museum was how it tied global fashion into Chile's experience in the 80s, at which time they were still under the military dictatorship. There was limited material and resources to create clothes that were up to par in the 80s, but Chileans got creative and many were able to follow the trends. However, fashion was generally more muted here because information and exposure to what was happening in the rest of the world was limited and Chile was very conservative. The contrast between the role of fashion to Chileans living under dictatorial rule and the role of fashion in the rest of the world was a fascinating way to learn more about living under the dictatorship.

Thursday was shopping at Los Dominicos, an artisan market, and then cooking for all the people in my apartment which I will write about in another post.  Friday was another jam packed day as I tried to fit everything into my last few days here! I had class early in the morning and was done by 10:30, so I went to see the rest of the things on my list. Most importantly, I went and saw the Supreme Court which is beautiful inside! It's a big colonial building with lots of sun and yellow walls, with lawyers and all kinds of people scurrying through the halls or studying cases on benches outside different court rooms.

I wandered around for a while, and then went looking for the Supreme Court library which was supposed to house some really old books. It did! In the basement, I slipped through the door and walked by a couple of confused librarians like I knew where I was going. I made my way to the back of the library where I saw some incredibly old law books on civil law, Spanish law, French law, old Chilean laws, everything! It was so cool! I couldn't take them out to look at them (they were in a glass case) but it was neat to read the titles and to think that some of them had been around for hundreds and hundreds of years. It was really cool!

I also saw another antiquated treasure - the library had a card catalog!

After my trip through the center of Santiago, I made my way back to school for our last school excursion to Quinta Normal, a "park" of sorts that houses many museums and exhibits. To our disapointment, the natural history museum was closed, but we did go see an art museum for kids in a building that had been built for a worlds' fair in the 1800s and a train park filled with old-fashioned locomotives. We ended our visit with el Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos, a relatively new museum built to honor the people killed or "disappeared" during the military dictatorship and to inform the public about the atrocities that occurred during the regime in order to continue discussion about how to prevent future human rights tragedies. The museum was a sobering look at the prevalence of human rights abuses all over the world and still occurring today. It explained the history of the military coup and dictatorship, and exhibited photographs by artists living through it. Our guide was on of the teachers from the school and he explained his own experiences and what he knew about that period with such eloquence. He told me stories of different towns and how they lived under the dictatorship, including the first town to discover a mass grave of 15 people who had been killed and buried in an abandoned mining pit. This discovery was the first actual proof of the government's abuses and the first step towards taking action against them. They also showed needlework done by village women throughout the military dictatorship that portrayed the small town experience of the oppressive regime. The craft was a way to speak out and talk about what was happening, especially among a semi-literate and only partially educated population. They were eerie and touching, showing the discovery of mass graves, a funeral for a beloved priest killed by the military, communities coming together to help each other - they were all different and very much the same.

At one point, our guide asked us what we thought about the museum. He then told us a story of his own, when he traveled to Germany in the early 80s. He went to visit Dachau, and was struck by a statue of a man with the words "So it will never happen again" inscribed on it. He remembered thinking, "But it is happening again, right now." He was living under a repressive regime full of human rights abuses including torture, detention and murder of political prisoners who were mostly just students who belonged to political parties that did not support Pinochet. But they were taken without warning from their homes, their work, or the street and many never returned. He talked about how twenty years later that period is still fresh in Chile's memory, and how each abduction is not only a trauma for the person and his/her family but for the entire community. He said that Chile is still dealing with this trauma today. When he said that, I got chills. Even today, with so many reasons to remember past abuses and prevent violence against humanity from happening again, people still live in fear and repression.

I'll leave it at that for now, but the next post will be about lighter subjects (and may be after I get back...hooray!)

Chile, July 2011 - #4 (Finding my inner poet in the streets of Santiago, con't)

And we're back for part 2 of this incredible week! I left off with el Parque por la Paz, which was intense, and beautiful and terribly sad. A short picnic with Deepti to digest not just our meal but what we had seen, and I was off to the apartment to change and get ready for the opera! Mauri, the other man who shares the penthouse with Nell, had mentioned that he wanted to go, and Nell worked his magic to get the tickets for free because he has a friend at the theatre, of course. Nell got all of us tickets in the orchestra of the opera at the Teatro Municipal, and each of us dressed "muy elegantes" we walked to the opera at 4:30 for the 5 p.m. show. The opera was Boris Gudunov by Modest Mussorgsky, in Russian with Spanish translation projected over the stage. Luckily I read the synopsis before going, so I had an idea of what was going on and could get more details from the translation without needing it to fully understand what they were saying. The Teatro Municipal is the nicest theatre in Santiago and the best opera in Chile. The scenery was gorgeous and the actors had beautiful voices and were great! The opera was 4 hours long, but it was so beautifully done I hardly noticed the time go by. The costumes were beautiful period outfits, big beautiful dresses and flowing capes for the men with intricate designs on them. The set was made of several different pieces, two of which had 3 spinning panels each with brick on one side and a mosaic of silver and mirrors on the other. They used the spinning panels both to change the location from the street outside to the inside of the palace, and to signify the tzar's dream state/hallucinations by spinning them for the length of his hallucination aria. The lights reflecting off the set made the whole show literally sparkle. It was beautiful!

Me and three of the other students staying at the apartment, in front of the auditorium. 

After the opera, we went out to eat at an excellent Peruvian Japanese fusion restaurant. I must say that I have generally been underwhelmed by the food in Santiago, but this restaurant was truly delicious! We got lots of sushi to share, and then Janika (another student at the house) and I got two meals to share because we both couldn't decide between them. Both were incredible! Mine was a Chilean fish (La Reina?) with grilled shrimp and a delicious sauce over slices of baked potato, and Janika got a dish that was similar to chicken fried rice, but different and much more tasty. Of course there was plenty of wine to go around, and lots of very fast Chilean Spanish that I tried my best to follow after reading 4 hours of opera translation and drinking more than a glass of wine. It was all in all a wonderful evening out on the town! I feel so lucky to have been placed here in Nell's apartment, because although I don't have to really deal with the hassles of living with a host family, I get all the benefits of having an incredibly generous and welcoming host, without whom I would not have seen half the things I've seen here in Santiago! 

On Sunday, after sleeping in to make up for our jam-packed Saturday night, Linda, Deepti, Dani (another student here) and I went to Isla Negra to see Neruda's third and last home. I didn't know when I came here that this trip would turn into a Neruda frenzy, but it has and each house has been worth it! Now I actually have to read some Neruda! His third house is on the beach in the small town of Isla Negra, about an hour and half away from Santiago (without traffic, which was not the case for us...) It's called Isla Negra because the beach has giant black rock formations and black seaweed growing all along the shore. It is an absolutely stunning location - Neruda really knew his real estate! 

 The beach directly outside of Neruda's Isla Negra house

The house in Isla Negra is the house with the most of his collections, and where he and Matilde (his wife) are buried. You can only see it by taking a tour, which we did. The tour guide was kind of blasé about everything, but I asked questions the whole time that revealed some really interesting anecdotes about Neruda and Matilde. He was certainly a character! In each house we've been told about his insistence on drinking only out of colored glasses, because wine tasted better that way. In the Isla Negra house, there is a huge collection of figure heads that he bought all around the world, including a Native American figure head from a whaling ship in Boston. The house also holds most of his collections from his travels and work as consulate to various countries, including Indonesia and Peru. Another thing Neruda loved to collect were over-sized articles that were used to advertise merchandise in stores in the early 20th century. He has more than one pair of giant shoes from in front of shoe stores, a giant clock, and the cream of the crop is the giant paper maché horse he bought from a saddle shop in the town where he grew up. He loved it so much he built a "barn" onto the house for it and had a party when he bought it. It was really fun to see all the things he collected exactly as he displayed them. I really got a sense of his personality and incredibly playful spirit, in addition to his seriousness as a poet and need to create inspirational spaces in which to work. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the house, but his obsession with sailing (although he never did go sailing by himself because he was too afraid of it) and collecting is evident outside the house as well! Staring at the ocean with all of the cool collections peeking out of the windows of the house, I could imagine writing some pretty great poetry myself.

With that I'll leave you with a fish kiss from the three of us! Neruda's symbol was a fish (I assume it has something to do with his love of the sea and sailing) and all of his houses have fish symbols everywhere. In Isla Negra, there is a large fish sculpture in the courtyard, and we couldn't resist!

Chile, July 2011 - #3 (Finding my inner poet in the streets of Santiago)

This week was about wandering around Santiago, living the high life with Nell, my host, and learning more than I ever thought I would know about Pablo Neruda. Let's start at the very beginning.

My week was much improved from the last one. No more stolen goods or police visits, plus I learned a second form of the past tense AND the future tense! It was a very big week. On Monday, I struck out on my own after taking a long hard look at a map of Santiago, and went to Estacion Mapocho, another Santiago cultural center, to see some free exhibits and to admire the architecture. On the map, it looked very close to my apartment, so I planned to just walk home afterwards instead of taking the round-about metro route. My plan failed in every way. First I got to the cultural center to find that I had overlooked the fact that the exhibits were closed on Monday. Well, that was ok, because what I really wanted to see was the building which is supposed to be beautiful, like a giant turn of the century train station. However, to my dismay, "Animal Planet," the current exhibit set up for kids on winter break, took up most of the inside of the space with big black tents. Still, after sneaking around all the kids and their parents, I found a side entrance where I could go in and look at the building. It was really pretty, and reminded me of Musee d'Orsay in Paris. Some pictures and staring and I was on my way, ready to find my way back to the apartment. Unfortunately, I proved my terrible sense of direction by walking in exactly the opposite direction for about an hour, wondering why I wasn't seeing any street names that I recognized. I figured it was farther than I thought, and was enjoying the walk, so it wasn't until I had walked well out of the way that I stopped to ask somebody. Along the way, though, I saw a giant flower market of pre-made flower designs (hearts, etc. on flat board) and the fabric neighborhood of Santiago where old ladies were checking out different rolls of mostly hideous fabric and sewing materials. I was clearly wandering where no tourist usually goes, and when I finally stopped to ask someone, I was informed that I was incredibly far away and would need to take transportation to get back to where I wanted to be. Suffice it to say that two bus rides and lots of directions later, I was back at my apartment which was literally two blocks from the cultural center but in the other direction. I had a similar experience Tuesday when I wandered to the Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice to find that the court closes at 2 to visitors and the way back was once again in a different direction than I chose to walk. Still, the days were beautiful for wandering, and I got to see where the National Theatre was and the millions of glasses stores farther down my street with women outside each one urging me to get glasses whether I needed them or not.

Wednesday was a big day! On Wednesday, we went with the school to see Neruda's first house in Santiago, La Chascona. It was once again full of collections of random objects that reflected the poet's inner child and inner hoarder. The Santiago house is built in three parts so that the large terraces and gardens become part of the house itself.  When we commented that this didn't make a lot of sense because you had to go outside to get to the living room/bedroom/study and it gets pretty chilly in Santiago in the winter, the guide said we can never look for reason in the actions of an artist. The house is named after Neruda's third and last wife, Matilde, for her crazy red hair. The sun-like symbol that is all over this and his other houses represents her hair all around her face. It was a lovely visit!

On our way home, Linda and I decided to go see Harry Potter that night and made our way to the closest movie theatre which was jam-packed with kids on winter break. The only movies out this past week were Harry Potter, Transformers, Cars, and Kung Fu Panda, all aimed at the school children who had the week off. Harry Potter was really good, and the whole theatre had such cute reactions! It was subtitled, so it was mostly adults, and when Ginny walked in to see Harry at Hogwarts, the whole audience let out a lovelorn "awwwww!" It was adorable! Walking home from the movie I thought it was the end of my night, and I got into my pjs and set up my computer on my bed for a little pre-sleep putzing around. About 15 minutes later, Nell throws open my door and says, "Hurry up! We're going!" I asked where we were going and he simply said a restaurant close to the apartment, which is what he always said and which has never been actually close to the apartment. "Hurry! Throw on some clothes and let's go!" I don't know why I was up for it, but I did throw on some clothes and head out with him and a couple other people living in the apartment upstairs. We hopped in a cab (because as I said - close is never that close) and pulled up in front of what looked like someone's garage on a residential street. I was wary, but everyone was going in and the large fence-like door was being held open by someone so we could enter. First we walked in through a door to find a set of curtains, through the curtains to find an entry way with Thai sculptures in it, and through a final set of curtains that opened up onto an incredible secret Thai restaurant! It was so cool!

After cosmos and chicken satay, we hung out at the bar for a little and then, exhausted (me anyway), headed back home where I collapsed in bed, happy that I had thrown on some clothes :).

Thursday we went to see the MAVI, a museum of contemporary art, and I absolutely loved the main exhibit of the ceramic artist Ruth Krauskopf. She is a Chilean artist and the exhibit was a retrospective of her past work. She has studied and worked all over for the past 30 years, and her sculptures were beautiful. They kept the feeling of the earth and clay while creating a beautiful movement and intrigue with a few gestural details.

The main event of the week, a trip to the National Opera, was preceded by a visit to Parque por la Paz, a former villa turned detention center turned memorial and museum for the atrocities that occurred during the Pinochet dictatorship. I went with my friend Deepti, who treked out there with me on two different metro lines and a bus. The park is eerie, located on the beautiful grounds of a 19th century villa with stunning mountains in the background, but marked with mosaic signs throughout the garden with the different areas and their uses during the villa's time as a detention and torture center.

We had audioguides, and walked around the park learning about the repressive practices of the dictatorship. Most of the murdered or "disappeared" were members of opposition political parties, and in honor of that there are statues for each political party in Chile on one side of the park. It was a chilling visit, especially because it was so recent. The regime was in power as recently as 1989. Particularly touching was the rose garden with plaques naming women that had been killed or "disappeared" at Villa Grimaldi, with a fountain in the center painted with the words of Gabriela Mistral, "We were to be queens."

This post is getting long, so I'll end here and write another one this afternoon about my incredible weekend seeing an opera and visiting Neruda's third and last house in Isla Negra. More pictures will be up on facebook at some point - this is just a taste of my Santiago adventures. Now off to school to study more verbs!

Chile, July 2011 - #2 (My Week of Caparaahhhhhs!)

Hola!

Here goes update number 2! This week was definitely eventful, though in a much different way. To explain the subject of this email, I will explain the word capara, which I don't think I spelled correctly as I've only heard it and never seen it. *A capara has become a very important thing in my family. Originally an animal sacrifice to the gods (specifically a goat) replacing a human sacrifice, for us it has come to mean something lost that prevents a worser fate. A sacrifice to the gods of sorts, of anything from sunglasses to a stolen purse, that replaces any harm from coming to people. Well, I'm sorry to say, my week was full of them.

The beginning of the week went just fine, with a wonderful day on Sunday visiting Santiago. We started in the fish market where we saw all kinds of sea creatures, alive and dead, and walked through the slimy stalls with lots of fishmongers urging us to buy their fish that looked exactly like the fish in the stall next door. They were very nice, and actually posed for pictures when they saw we had cameras. One side of the market is all fish and seafood, while the other side is full of seafood restaurants. We went during a non-meal time on purpose but even so, all of the restaurants hire people to stand in front of their doors or areas and get people to sit down and eat. After a lengthy stroll through the market, a Hatian man working for one of the restaurants struck up a conversation with us that included Spanish, English, and French. It was actually really fun, and I think he just wanted to chat. We talked about traveling, Chile, Hatian politics...you name it! In the middle of our conversation he threw in a shout out for the restaurant he was working for, out of obligation I think, before launching into what he thinks about Wycliff running for President in Haiti.

After a while we extracted ourselves and continued on to the Plaza de Armas, the center square of Santiago with beautiful buildings on all four sides. It was sunny,bright, and warm. After walking around and checking out the cathedral, one of the oldest buildings in Santiago, we went back outside and tried to take a picture in front of it. A very nice older Chilean man offered to take our picture together, which he did, and then our second long conversation with a stranger started. This man also just wanted to chat, and talked our ear off for about 20 minutes before finally letting us go, with his phone number written on the back of a receipt so we could all go out for a beer sometime. He was dressed in a tweed jacket with a pageboy cap, a sweater vest, and glasses - very academic looking. When I asked him what he did, he said a little bit of everything, from teaching English and Spanish to selling food on the street. He then described how he made a sweet syrup out of sweet potatoes to make a kind of candy/dessert that he sold in places like Plaza de Armas. From there, we stopped at our apartment for a quick lunch and then headed out to meet a friend to climb up Cerro St. Cristobal again because it was so nice out. We had a great time and afterwards the three of us went out to dinner in Barrio Lastarria which is a bunch of small cobblestone streets near our neighborhood that Linda and I have come to love.

At the top of Cerro St. Cristobal

Monday would have ended just fine if I had not tried to upload my pictures with another girl's computer since I couldn't find the cord for my camera. In the process of moving the pictures to a thumb drive, all the pictures from my first week here were erased. Although she took the memory card and computer in to work with her on Monday, the pictures could not be recovered. Capara #1. So sorry - no pictures for the moment, but hopefully I will be able to post some soon! I wasn't too worried though - Linda has been voraciously taking pictures and offered to let me take some of hers off of her computer.

Tuesday is when the real trouble began. After class Linda, another American student and I had grand plans to visit the Centro Gabriela Mistral, or GAM to see the two free exhibits they have up right now. Before going, we went to a restaurant called "Oh! Salad" (that is pronounced exactly as written, because it actually is incredibly surprising to find a salad place in Santiago.) We got our salads and ate on the second level in the corner. When we got up to leave, Linda's bag was gone. We looked all over and asked the table next to us, but they had not seen it. When we went downstairs to ask the cashiers, they gave us a knowing look, asked how long ago it had happened, and immediately pulled up the tapes from the four security cameras in the restaurant. With a little searching, we actually identified on the tape the two women who stole the bag, and even saw them doing it! They were incredibly sneaky, and we didn't even notice that they had been there! Linda's bag was next to her on the ground, and the women came upstairs, sat down, put their coats over there chairs and proceeded to pull at the strap with a foot to slide the bag over to their table. Then, putting the bag under her coat, the woman who had pulled it over put on her coat and the both of them left with the bag and unnoticed. It was incredible! Linda was very upset because she lost all of her Chilean cash which she had been carrying with her, a credit card, her camera, headphones, and most importantly her Spanish homework for the next day! After calling the credit card company we went on a trek first to scope out the McDonalds where the theives apparently went to make good use of the credit card with $9.00 worth of greasy sandwiches, and with no luck finding the bag discarded, went to try our hands at making an official police report.

When we finally found the police station, and a policeman finally asked us why we were there, I tried to explain with my recently learned past tense that a bag had been stolen but the restaurant had videos of the theft and could identify the women who did it. I thought I was doing ok, but the policeman seemed confused and on the verge of giving up. Luckily, there was a Chilean man in the booth next to us who spoke very good English, and although he was mostly finished getting his declaration for his car insurance company, he stayed well after he finished to help us get through the declaration and fill out all of the forms it required. He was incredibly helpful and kind to do that! In order to relax after our harrowing adventure, we went to a really great restaurant and had an absolutely delicious meal, some much needed glasses of wine, and even got to see Chile's winning goal against Peru in the American Cup game they were playing that night.

Exhausted on Wednesday, I was glad the ordeal was over and tried my best to enjoy our outing to Cerro Sainta Lucia, which was really great. The teacher who took us told us a lot of Chilean history and a lot about the "hill" including the now defunct ritual of shooting a cannon every day at 12 p.m. They don't do it anymore because it was so loud that it would set off all the car alarms in the neighborhood and a lot of people complained. Now you can just walk up to the top and see a beautiful 360 degree view of Santiago and the mountains surrounding the city. Exhausted after our outing, I went home, made some dinner, and promptly went to bed.

But the week went from bad to worse. Yesterday, Thursday, we decided to try GAM again, this time without any petty theft. We made our way over to the center, but stopped to have lunch first in the cute little streets of Barrio Lastarria. After deciding on a cafe, we sat down, all very concious of our bags. I clipped my bag to the chair with the clips provided in many restaurants. We were sitting against the wall and I could see my bag right next to me. I had it clasped closed and checked on it frequently throughout the meal. Once when I looked down to check on it, I noticed the clasp farthest from me was undone, but I thought that maybe I had left it open and simply reclasped it and went back to eating my lunch. However, as we finished up, there was commotion when the two old men behind us got up. The waiter yelled at me to make sure I had my purse, which I did, and I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. He then said check in your purse, and when I did, I found out that my wallet was gone. (I found this out as I saw the waiter run after the taxi that had come to pick up the men, and slam his tray down on top of the cab to try to get it to stop.) I couldn't believe it! The man behind me had very subtly unclasped my purse, rustled around in my bag, and gotten my wallet out of the velcroed pocket that I had put it in. I was shocked! Luckily my iPhone was next to me on the table, my camera was in my pocket, and my Chilean cell phone was in a different front pocket of my bag, so i only lost a credit card and some money. But I was appalled that they were so good at picking pockets (or in my case, bags!). Determined not to let it ruin my day, and after the other American student, generously paid for my lunch, we went to my apartment where I canceled my card (which 30 minutes after the theft had a $100 gas charge already), and went to see the exhibits at the GAM. The main exhibit of a Chilean photographer's portraits was really wonderful. Not only were the portraits beautiful and captured the essence of each subject, they were a "Who's Who" of Latin American cultural history, with photographs of Pablo Neruda, Salvador Allende, and other Latin American politicians, writers, painters, poets, and artists. The beautiful exhibit did lighten my mood, and I was really glad we went.

Later, when we got home, Nelson, my host, took us out to dinner at a really nice Italian restuarant because he was so upset about both of us getting robbed, and Mauricio, his partner (I think) gave me a cd of yoga music "because now I needed it." :) I have been doing yoga here in the living room, and they think it's funny/cute so I thought it was a really sweet gesture. A good end to a less good day.

When we went into class this morning, I found out that another student had had her wallet stolen at McDonalds, and someone had tried to steal a second student's bag. It seems to be a bad week for gringos in Santiago! Today we went on another excursion with the school which was wonderful, to the Pre-Columbian Art Museam, and had an excellent guided tour. Afterwards, the teacher that was taking us showed us another cultural center near where Linda and I are living that has more exhibits and lots of artisan crafts for sale. You can even go during the day and learn how to do a craft - July is copper work and people were banging away at little tables making rings and bracelets - it looked fun! I will definitely go back and give it a try. Afterwards we came home to relax and get ready for our weekend trip to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, two cities an hour and a half away from Santiago. But to top off this week of mishaps, during our evening yoga session in the living room, we experienced a little earthquake. (A tremor I was later informed.) Here's hoping we've had enough caparas to last us a while.

Well this email of disasters is much longer than I anticipated! And although this week's main events were unpleasant, we did do a lot of really fun things, and saw more beautiful parts of the city. Also, as I often find when something unpleasant happens, each time something was lost, we found an incredibly helpful and generous person because of the situation, from the English speaker at the police station to the waiter who tried to chase down the pickpockets. Not to mention making a new friend in the process (Jen, the other American student) and being reminded to think about people and experiences rather than things.

With that, I'll leave you and go off to start week # 3 in the Southern
Hemisphere!!

Hasta luego!!!

Chile, July 2011 - #1 (La vida loca)

Here is my first email update from Santiago, Chile! I've been here for one week with my friend Linda from Cornell, and it has been wonderful so far. (I'll post pictures on facebook soon!) I arrived just fine, early in the freezing cold winter morning last Saturday. I was thrilled to find that the apartment I'm staying in, assigned through the language school, is absolutely adorable and comes with an incredible host who lives in the penthouse of the building! And I'm not kidding - his apartment truly is a penthouse. He is a designer, and has decked each room out in its own theme and color scheme, and has art all over the walls, ceilings, everywhere! Not only that, but there is a giant and gorgeous patio with a beautiful nearly 360 degree view of the city around us. His apartment is so beautiful that a tv series was filming there yesterday and today! Hahahah! Incredible! Apparently some very famous Chilean actors and actresses were walking in and out of our building all day.

A view from the "penthouse" terrace

Anyway, all the apartment description has hopefully indicated how much of a character my host is. He is truly larger than life. Our first night here, we went out to dinner for giant steaks with his friends and some other girls staying with him, and the invitations to do things have continued every day since! We have gone to a snazzy gallery opening of a contemporary Chilean artist, who's artist booklet for the show was designed by Nel (Nelson, the host) and his company. Another night we went to the opening of the World Press Photo Exhibit that you had to have an invitation to go to, and had some of the most delicious horsd'oeuvres and lots of different juices, cocktails, and wines. The show was great, but I only got to see some of it because Nel informed me we needed to hurry to the front s we didn't miss the food :). I told him he was an art show opening expert, and he agreed. He is super flamboyent and fun, and such a nice guy! So we really lucked out with our student apartment, because we got the best of both worlds! Our own space and no obligations but an incredibly warm and inviting host none the less!

I also started Spanish classes on Monday, and I'm really enjoying them. I was the only student in my level, so my group lesson hours got translated into private lessons and I really liked my lessons last week. Private lessons are great! I can often understand most of what people are saying, which is exciting because Chileans talk incredibly fast. Next week is Week 2, and I'm hoping I learn lots more! Spanish is a really fun language to speak and sounds so pretty when I can understand it :) (and even when I cant!). The school is great, and they offer excursions twice a week. So far we have gone on both last week - one as a walk/hike up Cerro St. Cristobal, one of the "hills" of Santiago with a giant statue of the virgin Mary at the top, and the second was a visit to the Museo Bellas Artes, right near our apartment. There is also a really nice park near our apartment, and in fact, Santiago has lots of really nice green spaces.

View of Santiago from Cerro St. Cristobal

The city itself is beautiful, with modern buildings and old facades mixed together. In some other parts of the city the architecture is much more modern but in our area it's older with smaller streets and little shops and cafes. There is a really big art scene, and a growing design scene I think, which means lots of interesting clothing, shoe, and bag stores to explore! Also, Santiago has tons of stray dogs! But they are incredibly friendly and well fed by the people here, and many of them have little doggie coats put on by Santiagoans for the winter. It's really funny to see all these stray dogs walking around in cute patterned fleece jackets or once-posh quilted ones! Sometimes its hard to tell the difference between the stray dogs and the house dogs. And, incredibly, the streets are clean and the dogs rarely if ever cause problems for people. For more doggie fashions and commentary, check out my facebook pictures!

Today, Linda, Deepti (a friend from high school I discovered was here doing a summer internship), and I went on a bike and wine tour in the Maipo Valley, about an hour out of Santiago. It was absolutely gorgeous! The mountains frame the vineyards so beautifully, and it was really fun riding around the main vineyard we visited. They grow almond trees, raise cows, and plant eucalyptus trees in addition to both wine and table grapes. We tasted some of the grapes and almonds, and finished our tour with tastings at an organic vineyard and a "typical" Chilean lunch at a restaurant near the vineyards. It was a great day!

France, May 2009 - #18

Venice, Nice, and Ardèche...finally!

So as you probably know, I had an action packed vacation in April and am just now getting around to writing about it. But not for lack of material! I spent a week and a half in (and around) Venice on a beautiful bike and boat trip. Then I spent three days in Nice, checking out the Cote d'Azure (it really is Azure!) and finally I spent the weekend in Ardèche with friends celebrating Rémy and Sushi's 4 year anniversary in a country house in the middle of rolling hills and cow pastures (far enough away to make for a pleasant view without the accompanying not so pleasant smell). So I'll start with Venice.


I met up with my parents in Venice after discovering that in fact all the ferries to our B&B closed before I even got there, and so finally I took a nice night ride in a water taxi and was greeted by a sleepy but very happy Daddy. My mom booked an adorable B&B on the island of Murano, where Venetian glass is made and where the masters work, so we spent the next day wandering around the different glass studios and watching demonstrations (A glass horse is not as hard to make as it seems! Not that I could do it...) In the afternoon, we went on an adventure with all of our luggage to find the boat that would take us allong our bike tour. It was kind of like a treasure hunt! The directions were not at all correct, and after crashing a little Italian child's birthday party, Mom saw with her eagle eyes that our boat was several docs over. So we went in search of said dock, and after one or two mishaps, we wandered into a large boat yard at the end of which was our little Dutch cannal boat waiting to greet us. It's name is Vita Punya, which means "Life is a struggle." How apropro.

We were greeted by our incredible tour leader, Hein, who is Dutch and has lived all over the world. Our whole trip was constantly enlightened by his musings on life (always very apt!) and his consistant and goofy smile. He truly made the tour - he was a ball of fire, full of energy and always ready to chat. And if ever something didn't go according to plan, well, we learned that "that's how life is" and we moved on with it.

The bike trip was 8 days between Venice and Mantova, a city to the west of Venice. We followed the Po river delta, and so we saw a lot of water and farms and beautiful poppies everywhere! Dad was all decked out in his gear, including a fancy rear view miror that clipped onto his sunglasses. Mom and I went more for comfort but still looked pretty good with our bike gloves and diaper biking shorts. There were about 20 of us on the trip, from all over the world. Aside from me and another girl who was traveling with her mother (14) most people were between their late 30s and 70s. This made for wonderful stories, charming personalities, and an inspiring trip! I hope that I am doing bike trips when I'm in my 70s! Each day we biked between 45 and 65 km, usually around 50 km. We always stopped at least once, and often twice for coffee and also for lunch, so we had a very relaxing trip. At night we ate delicious Italian food cooked by a girl my age who learned to cook from her mother. Real home cooking!
Highlights of the trip:
- Standing on a wall down the middle of Lado (I think) and seeing the Sea on both sides! That's how narrow the island is! Incredible!
- Seeing flamingos taking off while biking through a private aquaculture
- Watching the re-assembly of the Captain's room of the Vita Punya
- Wandering around the medieval commerce streets with Mom in Ferrara
- Watching a fellow biker (who was using an electric bike because he had had a stroke) zoom ahead of everyone else as they struggled against the head on wind. He turned around and smiled with such endearing pride!
- Hanging out with Mom and Dad in our itty bitty tiny room on the boat. It was so small that only one person at a time could fit between the two beds that were on either side of the room. MMmm cozy.
- A lesson in coffee - aka the millions of ways to order it - in Italy from the Italian somalier that was biking with us for the week (whose wine we drank all week also - it was wonderful)

So those are some of the highlights from the bike, which was all around beautiful, fun, and rewarding, even (or especially) when it rained!

After the bike trip, Mom, Dad, and I spent three days in Venice. Venice is like being in a fairy tale. I loved it!

France, May 2009 - #17

Tansoleil - or something like that

Feast your eyes! I have been taking an African dance class since I got here, and we finally had a performance! It was a Mali Festival and all the classes from the association had different dances that they did for a wonderfully encouraging audience. Here is a video of my class's performance of one of our dances - tansoleil! (Try and catch the move that I can't figure out how to do for about 20 seconds - it's not that hard to pick out! hahaha!)

France, May 2009 - #16

The CHALLENGE!

Today was a very important day in Monteux (the small town where I work) for the elementary schools. It was the Challenge des Langues Vivantes, Anglais! A day of skits, songs, and games in English and the culminating event of what the kids have been learning all year. (For me it happens to fall two months before the end of the year, but what can you do?) Even though the Mistral was blowing its hardest and I managed to get sun burned, it was a really rewarding day.

Of all the students there, 6 of the 8 classes were mine (3 schools total, two of which I teach at). Each class had to prepare a little performance, which meant that I was running around for the first half of the day figuring out cds, singing with the kids, and encouraging them to sing plus fort! plus fort! Everyone did alright, but I was most proud of two of my classes. My youngest class of first and second graders sang the best of any of the students! They sang "I love you" (people don't have the same Barney hang-ups here that we have in the states) and "This Land is Your Land" which is particularly impressive because of its complicated vocabulary (gulf stream waters is not easy to say if you're a French 7 year old). They sang so loud and so well; I was so proud of them! The second class that I was really proud of performed a skit of Go Dog Go. Over the spring vacation, they all made dog ears and props for the skit (to my surprise!) and memorized all of their lines and movements! They looked so adorable with their little cardboard ears! Also when we rehearsed yesterday, I told them to be more enthusiastic because it's more fun to watch, and they actually did it today! They jumped and smiled and hammed it up! It was great! Afterwards a bunch of teachers came up and complimented me on the idea and how well they did. It felt so good because I was not sure we were going to pull it off at all, or that it was worth spending that much time on, but in the end everyone had a really good time doing it! Here they are (I'm on the edge...same size as them!) with their ears on!

They were proud of themselves too. All around a success I would say! The next youngest class did a skit of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? Unfortunately, they were far less prepared and impressive, and it was maybe a little painful to watch for the kids in the audience. They are a cute class but don't pay any attention and goof around all the time. But in the end, I think it was worse for them than for me, and the teacher just shrugged and said something like, what can you expect and we laughed and it was over. (Phew! They are certainly not going to get the big scratch n'Sniff stickers that I'm giving to my Go Dog Go class! Maybe a sparkly insect instead...) Another class sang "It's Raining It's Pouring" and "He's Got the Whole World in his Hands" which they sang very well even though the music didn't work for them. Another fifth grade class sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" and my last class did a little Beatles medly - "Hello, Goodbye" and then "All Together Now." They chickened out on the movements for Hello Goodbye, but they did an excellent job sailing the ship, chopping the tree, and skipping the rope for All Together Now. Then finally the performance part of the day was over and it was on to the relay of games based on English vocab, structures, and culture!

The game I was running was Guess Who, and included people that I certainly didn't know about in Elementary school - Mohamed Ali, Carl Lewis, Andy Warhol. But they did ok - and had fun running around and showing off their American knowledge. They all had teams of 6 or 8 kids, two each from different classes, with a little scoreboard that one team member wore around their neck. At the end, the scores were tallied and there was 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners, and then everyone got a snack before going home. As the kids were getting ready to go home, two of the girls in one of my classes came up to me and thanked me for my excellent English classes that had taught them so much. They were thrilled because they had come in First! It was so cute and I was so touched that they did that! It was really fun for me to see them feeling proud of themselves for the English they knew. I feel like this year has been a good year for them, and there are definitely some kids who really care about learning English now, which is great. A mother of another of my students who was chaperoning told me how much her son loved English. Then she told me how he comes home and tells her about what we do in class every week - and she knew everything we had done! She knew his English name (Steven), about my little powerpoint that I put together after going home for inauguration, about my sister coming to visit, about the Go Dog Go skit (her son had particularly excellent ears). It was so rewarding to hear that he gets excited about what we do in class! It was a day that came at just the right time, when I was not particularly looking forward to teaching for another 2 months. But after doing this day with my students and seeing them have so much fun and feel so good about what they learned, it got me a little excited to play games with them and think of fun lessons to do in these last months of school. Even though I don't want to be a teacher, I think I'm going to miss being Miss Becky when this is all over. It can be lots of fun.

France, March 2009 - #13, 14, 15

Some pictures, Avignon

Carly and I in front of Palais des Papes, 5:30 am

Steve performing for Jesus and Mary

Bringing my apple pie (for the International dinner with my land lady and her family) to Carly's. She has an oven. I don't!

Tuckered out after an invigorating game of tag.

Delerium - the place to be in Avignon.

Some Pictures, Barcelona and the Pyrenees

Kasia, Carly and Myrto being the Pyrenees in front of the house where we stayed.

The view from where we were staying. Beautiful and breathtaking.

Kasia and I looking at some mosaic in Park Guell (The park in Barcelona that Gaudi designed).

Laughing and enjoying delicious tapas!

The delicious tapas!

Some Pictures, Barcelona

Carly and Fannie in the metro with their masks

A small street in Barcelona

Les Quatres Gats for my birthday dinner!

Fannie and Carly interpreting Gaudi's La Perrera.

Road Trip! Setting off for Barcelona!

France, March 2009 - #12

Birthday in Barcelona!

For my February vacation, my housemates, Carly, and Fannie (a French friend) decided to take a road trip to Barcelona and the Pyrenees. The five of us piled into Myrto's little two door car, and set off for Spain on Monday morning (March 2). On our drive we stopped in Caraques to see Dali's house (with two egg statues and two cracked head statues on top) and walk around the town's small cobble stone streets. Then we spent the night in Fugueres, and went to the Dali museum the next day, which was amazing! I have never liked Dali's work before in my life, but the way he presented his work really helped me understand and appreciate it! It was soo cool! It completely changed my perspective by showing me his perspective. If you are ever near Barcelona, I would highly suggest making a detour to see this museum.

After spending a day with Dali, we piled back into the car and headed to Barcelona. We had slight setbacks meeting up with our couch surfing host, and when we finally did meet up it was about 9pm. We ended up hanging out with his friends for a couple of hours, who were very nice, although having the same conversation over and over due to limited English and non-existent Spanish can get a little tiring. Our host had to do his laundry and we had to wait for him to show us where we could park for free, which meant hanging out for a while. The more we hung out, the more we realized that there was no way we were going to sleep at all if we stayed the night. There were far too many people staying the weekend, and the party had only just begun around 11 or 12 when we finally decided to go park the car ourselves. We made an executive decision and got a hostel instead. By the time we parked the car and got all our luggage back to the area we were staying, we were starving! (We had not eaten dinner and it was already past midnight!) Backpacking packs and all, we headed for the first restaurant we saw, which was a touristy tapas restaurant with a table of rowdy Italian girls who ended up singing me happy birthday in at least 5 different languages. Not a bad start to the trip!

The next day, we did a Gaudi walk and saw his major designs. His architecture is so playful and imaginative! I loved it! I felt like I was in a dream! We saw the house he designed from the outside, and went into La Perrera (whose roof was breathtaking!) and La Sagrada Familia, which is still in the process of being built. Then we went to the Fondacion Miro, and saw a lot of Miro's work from his earliest paintings to latest works. Barcelona is such a cool city with so much art and beautiful architecture everywhere you look!

After the museum, we went back to the hostel to rest a little and drop off our bags. As I was checking my copious facebook messages (thanks everyone!) the 4 girls I was with came down, took all my stuff and blindfolded me, and walked me outside to a nearby Flamenco bar where they had bought tickets to watch the show for my birthday! The dancers were so serious and intense, and the music was wonderful! It was such a great surprise! Afterwards, we went back and got changed, and went to Les Quatres Gats, the restaurant where Picasso used to hang out all the time. The girls had figured out everything without me knowing and had made a reservation for us. The night just kept getting better and better! We ordered delicous food (the arroz negro, suggested by Steph, was to die for) and yummy Spanish wine and ate so much we could hardly move! The girls bought me The Little Prince in Spanish as a birthday present since I'm learning Spanish, and when I thought the night couldn't get any better, our dessert came with a candle in it and the piano player started playing Happy Birthday. We all shared the wonderful Creme Catalan and sorbet, and the waiter kissed me on the cheek because it was my birthday before we left. Afterwards, Carly, Kasia, Fannie and I went to a club that was right next to our hostel and danced our pants off for an hour or two before heading back to bed. (We did that thing we used to do at Cornell where each person makes up a dance move and you put them all together! The other people in the club thought it was hilarious!) It was a truly amazing birthday!

The next day, we walked around Barcelona and saw some of the Cathedrals and Churches. We did a little shopping, and had lunch on the beach. It was sunny and warm, and we had a really relaxing day getting lost and finding ourselves again. Then at night we went up one of the hills next to Barcelona and watched the sunset and the lights in the city light up as it got dark. Fannie, Carly and I bought paper kids masks for fun, and wore them on the subway to the fenicular, and then while waiting for Myrto and Kasia to meet us we had way too much fun playing around with the masks and staring at people with them as they got off the subway. It was so silly and so much fun! What was the weirdest thing was that people in the metro didn't even react at all! They acted as if there were always people wearing parrot, tiger, and flower masks on the metro! Only one little girl stared at us with a look of jealousy because our masks were fabulous. After going up the hill/mountain and coming down again, we had an evening of tapas, and went to two pays basque tapas restaurants that were delicous! We had sangria and all the traditional tapas at one, and then at the second had cider and more creative and equally delicious tapas. It was really fun and really filling in the best way!

The next day, we went to Park Guell (designed by Gaudi) and walked around while Kasia tried to sell the earrings she had made (no success unfortunately) We had a picknick of Spanish ham and cheese that we bought at the main Barcelona market and basked in the sun which finally decided to come out in force. We left in the late afternoon and loaded up the car to go to the Pryrenees, to stay with a friend of Fannie's who has a house in a tiny village.

The drive was beautiful, and the Pyrenees were striking and gorgeous. The house didn't have heat (they use it as a summer house mostly) and there were between 20 and 30 people there for the weekend! We lit the fireplace and played games until 4 or 5 in the morning before we finally went upstairs to the loft where there were shockingly enough mattresses for everyone to sleep on. Incredible. (My new sleeping bag kept me toasty warm, despite the lack of heat!) On Saturday, we woke up late, and then Fannie, Kasia and I went skiing for the afternoon in a mountain about half an hour from where we were staying. It was so much fun! The snow was powdery and landscape was so striking, I couldn't look away! (This proved to be dangerous while skiing). It was definitely one of the most beautiful sights I have seen. That night we got back and the power went out, so we ate dinner and played games by candle light for the rest of the night before going to sleep. The next day, before piling back into the car to go back to Avignon, we went on a walk around the village and through the fields nearby. It was such an amazing vacation, I never wanted to leave. Work on Monday was hard, man!

And that concludes the tales of my Barcelona/Pyrenees adventure! Signing off, a real grown up 23 year old, Becky

France, March 2009 - #11

A Whirl-wind week

Here was the last week in February, which was definitely up there among the best weeks of my life!

First of all, Carlos came to visit! It was really fun! I showed him around Avignon and we hung out with my housemates and drank lots of wine and ate delicious cheese. He got to meet Andy and Carly, my best friend here. One night, he, Carly and I went out for wine before dinner to a small wine restaurant. We tasted all kinds of cheeses, and one of the best ones (that I've had in Avignon!) was a chevre covered in nice blue and green mold. MmmmM! While Carlos was here we walked all around Avignon and went to see things that I still hadn't seen, like the Fort St. André and Villeneuve les Avignon (a small town off of Avignon). He made me climb a tree (that he and his friend were already in) as French people walked by and stared, and I was mortified, but he thought it was funny. Americans! So inappropriate in pubic!

Then Friday night my housemates and I cooked an international dinner for my land lady, her husband and her daughter, who are all wonderful. We started off with Greek - salad and cheese puffs, then moved on to Polish cream of mushroom soup, and chili (by yours truly! It was spicy and delicious!) accompanied by Polish potatoe pancakes. Then we finished with apple pie a la mode for dessert. It was such a nice evening, and I love my land lady! (What a refreshing change from last year!) After dinner, we met up with Carlos and his friend Nigel (who had eaten dinner with Andy) at a club/bar called Delerium. They always have live music and stay open all night, and we danced every kind of dance (salsa, swing, hippie swaying...) and stayed until they finally asked us to leave because they wanted to close at 5am. (5 am is unusually early for them to close but there weren't that many people left). Since Delerium had closed, we had to find something else to do until the market opened at 6 for breakfast. We decided to go to the Palais des Papes (what Avignon is most famous for, aside from the Pont d'Avignon) and play tag in the square in front of the palace, with statues of Jesus and Mary looking down on us. This also happened to be the one night I decided to wear heels out (not to be repeated- too many cobblestone streets) and they flew off in about 5 seconds, leaving me at a slight disadvantage and running around in my stocking feet on the cold stone square. But it was amazing! Finally, around 5:45, we worked our way over to the market that was just opening, got fresh croissants, and sat down to have coffee and hot chocolate at 6am. Not ready for the night to end, we decided to go watch the sunrise from Fort St. André when we finished, so we all piled into Andy's British car (driving wheel on the right!), drove over, and watched the sun rise over Avignon. It was beautiful (albeit very cold) and for all my (very vocal) complaining I loved it. Afterwards it was time for bed, and I went home around 7:30 to go to sleep for a little.

After a lazy Saturday and early Saturday night, (Carlos left for Spain in the early afternoon) Sunday came around, and Andy and I went to the opera! We got dressed up (even though a) it was a matinee, and b) no one really dresses up for the opera in Avignon) and saw Manon. It was my first opera, and there were some parts that literally took my breath away. The duets between the male lead and female lead were so beautiful I was in a trance. A wonderful afternoon! After the opera, we went out to a delicous dinner with delicious red wine and we tried the things you have to try at least once in France: escargot (ok) and foie gras (amazing though I hate to admit it). The rest of the dinner was amazing! All around a wonderful weekend!

But it doesn't end there! On Monday, Andy, Carly and I went skiing at a small mountain about an hour away from Avignon. Andy and Carly have not really skied before, so I was showing them how to do the snow plow and turn. It was really cute! We decided to brave the intermediate slope, and so we got on the lift (which is actually a pole with a circle at the end and you put it between your legs and it drags you up the slope, called a tire-fesse in French, which means butt pull). Andy did not make it up as he lost a ski early on and then fell off the tire fesse trying to grab it! But Carly and I made it up only to be nearly blown off the mountain by a ridiculously strong wind. It was terrifying! We didn't know what to do and couldn't figure out the best way to get down. Carly took off her skis and crouched down with her head between her legs, and I tried to look around to very little avail. We couldn't see more than 5 feet ahead of us, and the wind was blowing snow and ice up the mountain that stung our faces if we tried to look down. Finally, the ski patrol came up and told us that we had to go down the slope, but the wind was so strong that I had to use my poles to go DOWN the run! Finally we made it past the windy section and skied down the rest of the mountain, and Carly got rewarded with some hot chocolate. We finally found Andy, and the three of us finished off the day with some sledding in rented saucers. Quite the adventure.

Andy moved back to England a couple days later, and I left for Barcelona, but that will have to come in another post. Thanks for reading!

France, January 2009 - #10

Sur le pont d'Avignon, on y danse!

Sing along if you know the song!

I saved this moment for when Mariel came, and I think I did well! I don't care if this is as tourist as you get, I'm embracing it!

France, January 2009 - #9

Some pictures from Christmas vacation (in backwards order)

New Years Eve at Sushi's house in St. Rémy, where Mariel and I were perfectly dressed.

The giant head in the luxembourg garden - photo taken by someone I thought was speaking Spanish but was definitely speaking Italian (I discovered this only after I told Mariel to speak Spanish to her).
Myrto's family in Nemea, Greece. So hospitable and such good cooks!
Picking an olive in Greece! Cooool!
Myrto and I at the ruins in Nemea, actually in the ancient bathhouse (Can't you tell!)
Npafoli (I think) at night - gorgeous
The New Balance store in Athens after the riots
Mryto and I taking advantage of the storybook children's walk set up in the National gardens.
Me, as a politically active Greek. Viva la Revolution!
The Theatre of Dionysis - I was really excited to see it since I've studied it so many times!

France, January 2009 - #8

Improving my Greek vocabulary

First of all, Happy New Year! Although I didn't send out any e-mails or cards, I was thinking of all of you and hoping that you were thoroughly enjoying yourselves! (Better late than never, right!)

So it is high time I wrote about my Christmas vacation, during which I went to Greece for 5 days and Mariel came to visit me in Avignon. I'll start with Greece. As you know, there have been crazy riots and a lot of violence in Athens recently because an innocent teenage boy was killed by the police, sparking a lot of anger and demonstrating against the government. This all happened about a week before I went to Athens. But once I got there, the violence was on temporary hold and Athens was doing its best to put on a happy face for the holidays. It was really cool to be there at that moment, because in addition to seeing the Acropolis and other Greek monuments, I got a little taste of what was actually going on in the country, and very modern movements which starkly contrasted the majestic ruins that cover the city. It showed that although Greece is famous for it's antiquity, it is still very much alive and changing and trying (still!) to improve its democracy!

I stayed with my housemate, Myrto, who's mother lives in Athens and who's father lives in a town about an hour and a half away called Nemea. I hung out a little with her friends and it was really interesting to hear their take on it. The young people in Athens are really frustrated by the government, who, for example, completely encircled the christmas tree in the central square in Athens with riot police, but did little to protect the store owners or citizens during the rioting and fires just a week before. This boy who was killed seems to be the straw that broke the camels back, and people are finally fed up with the corruption and negligence of their government. I went to the street corner where the boy was shot, and people have taped letters to the walls across the whole corner, and there are candles and gifts and flowers all over the side walk. In the letters, people wrote to the boy, saying that they would miss him, or that they would not forget what happened. Others were more militant, criticizing the government or vowing revenge. Half a block on both sides of the corner building are covered with these letters. It's really impressive, and touching too. I saw a lot of grafiti as well, and stores with broken windows or tape over the doors. There was a New Balance store across from the National Archeological Museum that was completely burned out. There was nothing inside and it was all charred and destroyed. Despite all of this, Athens did a pretty impressive job of cleaning up for Christmas (which agravated Myrto's friends because to them it is just symbolic of the gov't's corruption and superficiality.) And all around, Athens is a really cool place.

After we spent a few days in Athens, we went to visit Myrto's family in Nemea. Nemea is a cute little town, and Myrto's family took great care of me! I have never eaten so much in my life as I ate for the 3 days we were in Nemea! They kept feeding me different delicious home-made Greek dishes, and I couldn't say no because I wanted to taste everything! By the end of those 3 days I thought I would never have to eat again. There were meatballs, stuffed vegetables, spinach, pork, cabbage salad, really good oil and vinegar (you know how I feel about vinegar!) and of course endless christmas desserts! And Myrto's grandmother makes fresh bread every day, so we always had homemade bread with every meal. Her family was so hospitable, and even though I had only learned about 10 words of Greek and they didn't speak English or French, we figured out a way to communicate (with lots of gestures and guessing! it was fun!) Myrto and I took a couple day trips to nearby towns and visited the ruins of Nemea which were really interesting because we got a little tour of what they're doing to restore them. Overall a wonderful Christmas vacation.

Then on Christmas I flew back to Paris, and stayed with my mom's cousin, France-Lea. It was great to spend time with her because I haven't seen her since I was maybe 14. Claudine (France-Lea's sister) and Reine (her daughter) were there too, so I got to spend some time with family that I really never get to see! We went to a museum, saw the view from Sacre Coeur, and had chinese food (which I have decided is not worth it anywhere in France). Then they went to their parent's house, and Mariel flew in for a quick stay in Paris (wonderful!) and then a few days in Avignon! Highlights of the trip were:

1.Discovering that the hotspot for lunch in Paris on the weekend is an American themed restaurant with pictures of JFK all over. They have a very good cheeseburger with REAL cheddar!

2.Dancing on the bridge of Avignon as a family stared and laughed. But it was tooootally worth it, and I have a video!

3. Delicious beat and cheese salad with fresh bread, all from the local baker and the local market

4. Being absolutely perfectly dressed for New Years - almost every girl at the party was wearing a little black dress and black shoes! We were so French!

5. Discovering a hidden circus behind the Vieux Port in Marseille.

6. Almost peeing in my pants laughing as we tried to figure out how to eat the most disgusting bouillabaisse in the world!

I was sooo happy to have Mariel here! We laughed so much and I finally had a shopping buddy!

So that is the story of my Christmas vacation. This Friday I fly back to the states for Inauguration, which surely will give me lots to write about! Miss you all! I love hearing from you, so leave me a comment or drop me a line and tell me how you're doing!

Bisous!