I know that it's almost February and Christmas seems like such a long time ago, but this post is about sharing a Chilean Christmas with you!
Each culture around the world has a different story about Santa Clause. In the US, Santa comes into the house through the chimney. In Chile, Santa comes in through the window! To decorate for Christmas, it is common to see Santa hanging outside the house trying to climb in through the window.
So how would you feel if suddenly Santa broke in through the window?? I don't really know how I feel about it... but then again someone breaking in through the chimney is pretty scary as well.
Aló! Classes have just begun again and I am in a whirlwind of chaos. So to calm myself down and to procrastinate a little bit, I decided today is the perfect day to show you a snippet of the beauty of Chile.
Viña del Mar is a beautiful city filled with beautiful doors and I am so excited to share a sampling of them with you :)
So today I am leaving the country to visit my beloved friends that are practically family in Viña del Mar, Chile. Therefore I will be MIA for about two weeks, but when I get back expect some amazing photos!
I love the ocean. I love wild horses. Therefore Shackleford Island is amazing :)
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Me encanta el océano. Y también me encanta los caballos libres. ¡La isla de Shackleford es increíble!
I took what seems like a hundred pictures to get a few good shots. At least I'm persistent!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Les saco muchos fotos y tengo un poquito de fotos buenos. ¡Por lo menos soy muy persistente!
These are photos of the wild horses, and although they are wild they are actually very used to human presence. They didn't even seem to notice me and walked past without giving it a second thought.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Gracias a Díos, los caballos no me dolieron porque ellos no tienen miedo de los humanos.
Anyways, there were other things on the island that interested me too.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Estaba muchos otras cosas que me interese tambien.
One of the most amazing things about Chile is its variety in climates. It goes from dry (but beautiful) desert in the north, to the ideal Mediterranean climate where I am staying, to cold and damp in the south. The eastern border of Chile is lined by the Andes Mountains, which are covered in snow, and the western border is lined by the Pacific ocean. This makes the country very secluded, creating rapid speech and a TON of slang spoken by the native chileans. I have learned this first hand and I am still trying to keep up with my host family! They joke around with me and laugh at my 'horrible' spanish, but it's all in good fun, a broma (joke). Chileans are known for their cleverness, they are true bromistas (jokers).
If you're interested in learning some slang, here are a few things that I've picked up!
Cachai? - "Did you catch it?" basically like "you know?"
This is said at the end of a sentence and doesn't need a reply, but if you would like to reply you can say "Yo Cacho."
Que onda - What's happening? also a way of saying something is really cool. Onda literally means wave.
Pololo/a - boyfriend/girlfriend. Novio/a is used for fianceé.
Po - just a chilean speech habit, it's attached to the end of random words when speaking and doesn't hold any meaning.
It's kind of similar to "like", as in "I was going to the store and like there was this guy there who like really seemed into me." A really dumb example, but whatever. It's said by all ages, not just the young people.
Filete, bacán - both of these words mean "cool."
Fome - boring.
Huevón - this is a term that you HAVE to use wisely, or don't use at all. In some contexts it can simply mean calling your friend "dude/buddy" but in other contexts it's basically like saying "f**k."
Now I only use it occasionally when teasing my host brother because he tried to get me to say it to his friends. When I said it in front of my host mom, to show her what he taught me, she was absolutely in shock... so that shows you how bad it is lol.
I live in Viña del Mar and go to school in Valparaíso. It's winter but there are days when it is really nice and warm. My friends and I walked by the beach in search of a restaurant that served seafood empanadas (a delicious fried bread with stuff in the middle, such as shrimp and cheese).
Here are a few pictures from the walk.
A few sea lions just chillin
A beautiful view of the glittering Pacific ocean
Me!
[photo taken by my friend]
My friend and I.
[photo taken by another friend]
A small sample of the amazing graffiti
This past weekend I went to Chillán (chee-yawn) with my study abroad group. Chillán is a town in the south of Chile pretty much in the Andes Mountains. I have never seen so much snow in my life! We stayed at a really cute lodge for the weekend. I went snowboarding and did a ropes course (canopy). It was really cold and it snowed the last day we were there!
A few friends and myself, I'm in the middle on the ground with the alien goggles haha.
[photo taken by a friend]
The people running the lodge said they had jacuzzi s, so after the day of snowboarding and skiing my friends and I were really sore and cold. All we wanted was to sit in hot water. So we signed up for the jacuzzi.
Little did we know that the jacuzzi was outside. We had to walk through the snow to get to it. At first we were in disbelief and everyone thought we were crazy for going out there in the snow; but as soon as we sat down in the hot water we were in heaven.
The houses in Chile do not have central heating, so in order to sit around the house I wear about 3 or 4 layers of shirts/jackets, sweatpants, a pair of socks, and a pair of knitted booties to go over the socks. Talk about COLD! The lodge had heating and we were loving it.
I won't complain too much about the cold because I absolutely love Chile, I won't ever take central heating for granted again though.
Lets praise GOD!
[photo taken by a friend]
An amazing sunrise over the Andes (above and below)
Behind the lodge. The hot tubs are back there somewhere!
That's right... I not only survived the canopy tour, I mastered it.
[photo taken by a friend]
With so much snow around, it's impossible to NOT make snow angels!
[photo taken by a friend]
Here's an interesting cultural thing that turned into a disaster at the lodge.
Chile is a rising country. It just recently got out of a dictatorship so a lot of buildings have been built within the last 20 years and a lot of things are starting to become more modern. At the moment though some things are still a little behind the US, such as the plumbing. The pipes here are very sensitive, so flushing a lot of unnecessary toilet paper can clog up the pipes or worse. Usually when I go into a public restroom there is a little trash basket next to the toilet for the used toilet paper (it's only for pee, the toilet paper used for the other thing you flush). This cuts down the amount of toilet paper going through the pipes.
I never really understood howimportant it is to throw the toilet paper away instead of flushing it; I don't think the girls living above me understood the importance either.
So one night I ran inside from the jacuzzi to find my room flooded! Water was dripping from the ceiling, covering the floor and the beds. It turned out that some pipes upstairs had either broken or flooded. My friends had already moved our stuff into the other room and we all climbed on the bed waiting for help. Eventually people came to clean it up and change the beds and we got to fall asleep listening to the drip... drip... drip of water leaking into a bucket on the floor.
My theory is that the girls were flushing their toilet paper.
[This picture is not mine, I found it on google images]
So now that I've told the initial story of Burro Creek, you might see how much I love it. I don't know how well I conveyed this in my last story, but Burro Creek holds a spot in my heart with memories that no one can ruin.
Well... almost no one.
My freshman year of high school my family and I moved back to Arizona for some odd reason. I began to date a guy, Mario, who had loved me since first grade. I decided to give him a chance because, well, he loved me since first grade!
This guy turned out to be the exact opposite of what I wanted or should have even gotten involved with, but stories explaining that are for another time. This story is about the time I stupidly invited him along with my family and myself on a camping trip to my beloved Burro Creek.
Oh where to begin.
I was on the phone one evening, listening to him talk about how much he loved me. I wanted to care, but I just didn't. I kind of felt bad about it, and so a stupid thought popped into my head.
"Hey Mario, would you like to come with me on a camping trip?"
"YEAH! THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!" (caps to emphasize his over-excited enthusiasm)
"Okay, let me go ask my parents."
I think I asked just to make him feel good, I did not really want him to come on this trip. I also thought my parents would object, him being my boyfriend with raging hormones, and me being their innocent daughter. To my surprise they said it would be a great idea.
At that moment I knew it was a horrible idea.
We picked him up at his house. He got in the car and insisted on sharing my headphones while I listened to my CD player (which was meant to help tune him out). He smelled gross and he wanted to put his arm around me. This was going to be a long night.
We got to camp and I jumped out of the car, taking a seat near the fire while Mario and my dad set up camp. He thoughtfully brought a Johnny Cash CD. I despise Johnny Cash and my dad loves him, so of course it was played loudly and sung loudly by both of them. My stomach churned, I looked to my mom for help and she just shrugged and looked at me with pity.
'Whyy did I do this to myself?' I groaned internally.
The night passed with little to no events. I sat as far away from him and as close to my mom as possible.
I climbed into the tent shared with my sister and went to sleep.
I woke up to him "tickling" my feet; this did not go over well. Then his soot covered hand grabbed my favorite pillow and began to playfully beat me with it. I glared at him angrily and tried to rescue my pillow, but the soot left a nasty hand print.
We all ate breakfast prepared by Dad and got ready for our hike down to the creek for a swim. When I arrived at the creek I jumped in and swam to the other side where Sarah, my sister, and I took refuge on a ledge only big enough for two.
We stayed there for awhile, keeping our distance from him.
After awhile I decided to explore downstream. I was hoping to sneak away and be alone for awhile, but nothing escaped his eyes. He followed me as I waded through the shallow part of the creek. I realized this and picked up my pace hoping to lose him. I went around a bend, got back on the shore, and made my way back through the trees and shrubs.
Not good enough, he was still there. This pissed me off more, so I began to run in bare feet across the scorching sand and from shady spot to shady spot. He thought this was a game, so he chased me all the way back to my families spot next to the creek.
Surely he couldn't be missing all the signs! It was obvious that I did not want him there!
I hated myself for inviting him.
We started to pack up our things to head back. I had just dried myself off when he grabbed a handful of mud and threw it at me. It landed on my arms and face. By this time I was extremely pissed. I grabbed a handful of hot sand and slung it in his face, gave him the evilest glare that I could muster, then tromped back into the water to wash off.
He laughed and dared to venture,
"Hahaha... women!"
to which my not so oblivious dad replied,
"I wouldn't say that if I were you..."
The rest of the day I spent sending glares in his general direction.
On the car ride home he fell asleep and slid onto my shoulder, smelling of everything gross, mouth wide open, causing my anger to flare.
Unfortunately, I was too nice back then to push him off of me onto the floor. If I could do it over again, I would tell him off earlier in the story (or not invite him at all...); but being as it was, I let him rest his grimy head on my shoulder for the first and last time.
Later that evening after dropping him off, he called me from the theaters wanting to know the average "What's up?"
I told him that I did not want to date him anymore, and asked if he was going to be okay.
He very maturely replied,
"Oh yeah, I'm tough, I ride bikes."
I laughed to myself and hung up the phone, knowing very well that he was going to hate me for the rest of his life, or at least for the rest of his high school years. He deserved to hate me, after all I did invite him on the trip.
So I feel like I need to tell a few short stories that have happened in my life. I want to get them down somewhere so I won't forget.
A Night in New Mexico.
The family had just finished a visit to relatives in Las Vegas, Nevada and we were on our way back to North Carolina, driving across country in a car. We spent the whole day driving through Arizona and we had just made it into New Mexico. It must have been around 10:00pm because I remember it being extremely dark. One thing about my family and long trips is that we never buy a motel for the night, it is cheaper and usually more fun to find a campground off the highway. Needless to say, after a few of these long road trips, we were getting pretty good at camping. On this particular night the campground that we were looking for ended up being farther away from the highway than we had originally thought. We kept driving on this dirt road, traveling deeper and deeper into the dry and dark wilderness of New Mexico. Eventually we gave up trying to find this mysterious campground and my parents decided to find an open spot on the side of the road to camp out under the stars on our air mattresses.
11:00pm We set up camp, turned off the lights, said our good nights, and sleepily stared up at the beautiful night sky packed with bright stars. As I was drifting off to sleep, I remember looking off into the distance filled with dark shapes. My over-active imagination began to create menacing animals out of the black shapes that were most likely trees, shrubs, or rocks.
12:00am We were rudely awaken to a park ranger asking loud questions. 'Have you seen anyone driving a red truck?' (apparently someone was on the run from the park rangers) 'No, we have not seen anyone else on this road.' I vaguely remember this conversation, as I was in the hazy mode between sleep and consciousness. I do remember him getting into his car while throwing out a last humorous word about wild bears. 'Oh, and be careful of the bears! Hahaha, have a goodnight!' Bears? He was joking, whatever, I'm so tired...
1:00 or 2:00 a.m. Dad woke me up. "Lydia. Get your stuff and get in the car. NOW." The urgency in his voice told me to not ask questions and it caused me to move as fast as I could. I sat in the car with my blanket and pillow clutched in my arms, my sister sat beside me with the same look of fear and question on her face. Outside my dad worked quickly, deflating the mattresses in record breaking time and stuffing everything he could in the trunk. My mom helped then got in the car and shut the door. Silence. Dad got the last things in the trunk and jumped into the car. The engine roared to life and we pulled onto the dirt road, traveling in stunned silence. After a few long minutes of this, my dad finally spoke up. "I do not want to scare you girls, but there was a bear in our campsite." What?? A bear?? The ranger wasn't joking after all. "I woke up with a strange feeling, I could smell it before I heard it; you know it's a bear when you smell it. Then I heard something big moving around, sniffing, close to us. I did not want to frighten it because that would make it attack, so I just started to make small sounds. I moved around slowly, letting the bear know that I was there. Eventually it left, but I wasn't sure how far it went. That's when I got you girls up."
Sometime between 1:30 and 2:30 a.m. We drove down the road for a few miles and suddenly came upon the campground. It was surrounded by a tall fence. My guess was that its main function was to keep out the bears. The next morning we woke up to the bright New Mexican sun, feeling good to have survived the night. That morning I learned the importance of one minute detail, I was on my period. I was 14 and not willing to use a tampon, so the only other thing to use was a pad. Another thing, bears can smell blood, they love blood. Mom and Dad pulled me aside, "Lydia," said my Dad in hushed tones, "the next time we camp out and you're on your period, let me know." My 14 year old self was mortified, humiliated, and embarrassed.
Several thoughts ran through my head at once.
'Tell Dad that I'm on my period? Are you serious?! And Mom told Dad that I'm on my period? I could have been killed by a bear last night!"
Wow.
Now I look back and laugh at this story, I love telling it to friends and family.
I still love camping, but needless to say, I never want to camp out in New Mexico without the protection of a tall fence... or a tampon.
