Back in the USA

So after a 9 hour and 32 minute flight I'm back in the USA. The flight was good, even though the movies were terrible, and immigration and customs was a breeze.....kind of too easy really. To be honest Chilean customs were more difficult to pass than US customs today. Immigration took about 30 seconds during which a highly uninterested agent scanned my passport casually asked me how long I was out of the country and the reason for my travels. Next all of the passengers of my flight were waiting around a baggage claim for about 20 minutes, then they made an announcement that they had changed the baggage claim machine (what do you call those things?) so everyone frantically ran over to find their luggage. Next was customs. I showed the agent my form, he asked if I had any food, I said no, I kept walking without putting my luggage through any screening or anything - I feel like I could have just smuggled in cocaine or something (I do have student loans to pay off you know...).
Now I sit in an incredibly crowded airport waiting for a few hours for my flight to Louisville. While waiting in line at Moe's (the airport Moe's has amazing breakfast burritos) I was talking to a flight attendant. Apparently it was raining early this morning and the airport was basically shut down last night form a storm and, according to her, when it rains the planes have to land every 3 mins rather than every 90 secs. This results in complete chaos in the airport as everything gets a little backed up. The business men (aka guys who travel a lot) are all on their cell phones telling their friends that they've never seen ATL's airport this busy (seriously, the walkways are shoulder to shoulder). Beyond being crowded half of the people are highly pissed off - every airline I walk by is announcing that they oversold the flight and that they don't have room on any flight anytime soon for extra passengers - I'm really hoping that doesn't happen to me (if it does I'll surely be pulling the "I've been on a plane for the last 14 hours" card).

So I feel the need to reflect a little on my trip. First and foremost, it's really weird being back in the states. Americans are very very easy to pick out of a crowd - we just have this appearance that's different from anyone else. It's also awkward to be speaking only in English, I find myself starting to speak in Spanish and having to switch languages. More or less, this trip has made me highly aware of my "Americaness" even thought my "americaness level" is less than most. My Spanish has improved although the Chilean accent (yeah, I pick up accents very easily) has ruined my pronunciation - I no longer feel the need to pronounce 90% of my "s's" and answering everything with "sipo" is somehow ok in my mind. I've also learned that I'm more than capable of suriving in a forgein country on my own and that I can handle most situations that come my way. Really to sum it all up, this trip has shown me one thing - I love to be abroad. I have a feeling that before I graduate I'll study abroad again, and who know's what I'll do after I graduate (teach English in Temuco? Fullbright in a Spanish speaking country? foreign master's program?)

An Unexpected Shower, A Slight Let Down and Tons of Smog

I wrote my last post while waiting for Eric on Saturday; however, I left out something that happended on Friday. So while heading to Boca de Lobos I got an unexpected shower. You see the drainage system in Temuco isn't the greatest; when it rains the streets tend to flood a little. As cars drive by some make huge walls of water splash onto the sidewalks. I was one of the lucky ones that got literally drenched by one of these lovely "showers" of drain water.....let's just say I was drying my hair with paper towels in the bathroom at the bar.

Now on to the slight let down. It never stopped raining in Temuco, sure it would calm down for a bit but it was always gloomy and foggy. Thus when Sunday rolled around I decided, along with Eric, not to head to Pucon as the weather was the same there - more or less it wasn't worth the money nor the time to get there and see more rain and fog and maybe, just maybe a bare outline of a volcanoe shaped form. Although, all together I had a ton of fun in Temuco and I'm very very happy I went there - at the very least I got to see where some of my friends are from and begin to explore the possbility of applying for the teaching position at the Colegio Bautista.

The Smog...
After class today we went to Wasabi, an amazing (and super cheap, for lunch at least) sushi place. Next we headed to San Cristobal, a sort of overlook up a mountain with it's own statue of the Virgin Mary - very South American. We took a gondola ride to the top which was quite fun. After exploring for a little while we headed back down in a type of train type thing that was very "Jurasic Park" like. However, the most interesting, and disturbing, part of this trip was the amount of smog. Pollution is a huge problem in Santiago. The government tries to fight it by heavily regulating cars (each day a certain number of people, based on the last numebr of their license plate, can't drive) and making things such as chimenys illegal. However, the government doesn't regulate factories as they think it will hurt the economy. The result is a permanent layer of blackish gray smog over the city. I took some pictures (which should be on flickr soon) but all you can really see is the smog.

I only have 4 days left in South America as I leave on Sunday night. On the list of things to do is visit the city center, visit the city cathedral, by some things, eat (maybe cook) Chilean Sea Bass and eat in a Chilean restaurant.

Temuco

I arrived at the bus station on Thursday night around 11pm. I went to platform 8 to find a huge double decker bus; the same bus I would be sitting on the second floor of for 9 or so hours. For $40 round trip I was able to travel 9 hours south....I really wish this luxury bus thing would catch on in the US. The bus pulled into Temuco around 7:30 after which I met up with Eric Blair and one of his Chilean friends. We headed back to the house Eric is staying at, a house of one of the English teachers at Colegio Bautista, and had breakfast. Next we headed to the Universidad Catolica to see Carolina. At 11am we headed to Colegio Bautista for an "acto" in honor of the 4th of July. In all honesty we didn't stay for the whole thing, but it was interesting, and to be honest comical, to watch a few Chilean students get on stage and sing Six Pence Non The Richer's "Kiss Me" (a British song on the 4th....). Afterwards we headed downtown to explore a little, but it was raining so we didn't get to see much. I checked into my hostel and we went out with Carolina and a friend of hers; which was a lot of fun. I slept in today (Saturday) and I'm currently waiting for Eric to meet up with me at my hostel. Who knows what we'll do as it's been raining all morning long with no signs of stopping. Hopefully the weather forecast it right and it won't rain tomorrow, then we can go to Pucon.

Just a reminder....

So I'm in the process of adding more pictures as I type this post. Just a reminder, this is the link to my pics (and there's a nice little slideshow of some of them on the blog):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jsnider88/

An amazing day

Yesterday, Saturday, I went on a day trip with the school to Isla Negra, Valparaiso and Vina del Mar - it was amazing. Isla Negra is a tiny little cost town with amazing scenery. Many Chileans head to Isla Negra for the summer so it's not too touristy, at least not for forgein tourists. After touring the house of Pablo Neruda, a very famous Chilean writer, which is right on the cost and very very interesting we headed to another site just to see the beach. There we hiked the rocky cost line which was tons of fun. Next was lunch at a place right on the cost with amazing food. We hiked around a little after lunch and then headed to Valparaiso (Valpo). Valpo reminded me a lot of Buenos Aires in that it's a little on the dirtier side and more dangerous than other Chilean cities. There wasn't really that much to see on any day, but espeically no on Saturday as it was extremely foggy. We did a little walking tour and then headed out for a tour on a lancha (small boat). Valpo is first and foremost a major Chilean port city, which is very obvious in the photos on Flickr. Next we headed up the "acensores" which are rather ancient (they were built in the late 1800's) but still somewhat fun. They took us to the top of the city, which had it not been so foggy would have made for great view. After that we all, all 15 of us, got back into the minibus (think a little bit larger than the "Lil' Miss Sunshine" bus...but still bright yellow) and headed to Vina del Mar. Vina del Mar is extremely touristy and very expensive. We really didn't do too much there but it was fun to see. After the two hour bus ride back to Santiago I went with a couple other people and got some sushi, which is extremely cheap and good in Santiago. What would normally cost $60 or so in the US costs about $20 (including tip) here. Next was bed. Yesterday was probably my best South American experience to date and was definitely worth the $50.

Being chilly in Chile

So while I love Chile I do miss one thing - heat. The concept of central heating hasn't caught on here. As a result, the houses are cold all of the time. Sure, they have little propane heaters and such but they don't really help much. I sleep with about 5 blankets and in long sleeves and sweatpants - something very very weird for me. On the brigher side of things, the school here is amazing. Right now I have afternoon classes which means I don't have class until 1. At 1 I have one hour of private class during which we talk about anything and everything and he points out my mistakes; something that's been extremely helpful. My "group" class is from 2-6; however, I'm the only one in the class so it's four more hours of conversing, reviewing grammar, writing, etc. Next week I'll have morning classes and I'll be able to see more of the city and participate in more activities - with afternoon classes you sleep in (not to much to do in the morning and most places don't open until 9 or 10), eat breakfast (well more like lunch), go to class and then it's dinner time. I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing this weekend but I'll probably end up going to Vina de Mar, Valparasio and Isla Negra with the school. Next weekend I'll be in Temuco with a trip to Pucon - I bought my bus tickets last night.

Apparently I'm American

So I had my first experience in defending my country and my goverment to someone from another country. Tonight after dinner I began talking to Walter (the "father" of my house who is about 70 and is Dutch but has lived in South America for around 40 years but still doesn't speak Spanish extremely well) about 9/11 - to be honest I don't remember how the topic got started. After a few minutes of discussing he proceded to tell me that planes didn't crash into the Pentagon that it had to be missles and that my government was orchestrating some huge cover up. Furthermore, that Arab terrorists, in his mind, are incapable of planning something so complicated. He didn't say that 9/11 didn't happen (although it was implied once and I surely jumped on that one.....in Spanish actually) but that our, the US government, had something to do with it and now the government was involved in some huge cover up. Yes, he actually believed this and had his "facts" from the internet to prove it. Of course I, and the other US girl that lives in this house were pissed. We proceded to argue for quite a while about this topic in a rather heated discussion. It was the first time I've ever even thought about defending our current goverment as I typically have a very "un-American" mindset about internationl things. Let's just say it was an experience and if I didn't live under his roof for the next few weeks the argument would have been much more intense and he would not have won. I have to say that this was surely an experience for me as I've never had someone talk about 9/11 like that (and it's been brought up a lot since I've been in South America). Furthermore, I told him it was a sensitive topic for an American and that he was pissing me off yet he continued. I don't talk about hot topics in other countries, especially topics I know nothing about. If asked my opinion I might, keyword being "might", give a little of my opinion but I would certainly qualify it by saying I don't know much about the topic and stating that I was talking in generalizations. It was certainly an experience that I will remember.......and for those of you who are interested, after this conversation he brought up Chavez and proceded to tell me he couldn't understand why people didn't like him. Ah, and I just remembered this, during the conversation we talked about internet credibility (as his sources were from the internet). I told him you can find anything you want on the internet, and if you can't for some reason you can type it yourself on wikipedia and claim to be an expert. He brought up a PanAm flight that was shot down going from NYC to London in 1988 that he thinks we know all the facts about. I said I'm sure I can find something on the internet that disagrees; to which he responded would be impossible. Hmmm, why don't you click this link: http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com/keytopics/PanAm.shtml