Thursday, September 20, 2007
Pictures
I am having trouble posting pictures to the blog page right now. I have a bunch of new pictures, but as of now you will need to click the link below the post (or copy and paste it into your browser) in order to see them.
Back from Vacation
Hello All,
I am writing on this second to last official day of winter (gotta love the Southern Hemisphere!) having just returned from a five day vacation. Last Friday, our group traveled to the Chilean wine country near the towns of Curicó and Lontué in Chile's Central Valley. We visited two vineyards, Viña Requingua and Viña Correa Albano. The wine country was picturesquely beautiful with pristine fields fading into rugged hills on the horizon. We saw the large vats in which the wine is fermented (I learned the difference between making red and white wine - the skin is left on during fermentation to make red) and the climate controlled barrel cellar where the reserve wine is aged. Most all of the wine produced at the two vineyards is exported around the world. Viña Requingua exports to Europe, South America and the U.S. If you ever see the Puerto Viejo brand, I visited the vineyard where it was made. Viña Correa Albano exports mostly to China. It was amazing how technology dependent the winerys were with their automated bottling machines and computer monitored fermentation tanks. This is a very recent phenomenon in Chile and a sign of the modernization of Chile's export economy.
The wine country excursion was just a day trip (about 3 hours each way) and when I returned home it was back on the road with my family. As I mentioned before, Sept 18 is Chile's Independence Day, called the Fiestas Patrias. Since it fell on a Tuesday, the government, in one of its most popular decisions ever, decided to give everyone Monday and Wednesday off, as well. My host family and I spent the vacation at the house of a family friend in the coastal resort of Viña del Mar. The house was really nice and a constant stream of aunts, uncles, cousins and friends came and went throughout the course of our trip. The constant conversation was great for practicing my Spanish. I played a lot of small sided soccer games with my brothers and various family and friends, ate delicious grilled meats and drank fine Chilean wine. One of the soccer games took place on the beach itself. After playing in the heat with my host brothers, some friends and their Norwegian exchange student, the Norwegian decided that he was going to go swimming in the frigid ocean. He was from Norway, after all. Not to be outdone, I decided to go in as well, to the horror of my host mother. It was cold, but not as bad as I expected. Nevertheless, I decided I would save the extended swim for later in the year. The night of the 18th we went to a Fonda, which is a traditional Chilean carnival consisting of tons of booths that all contain the exact same things: grilled meat, pisco (Chilean brandy), chicha (a sort of Chilean cider) and dancing. A fantastic experience all together.
My brothers and I came back yesterday on the bus, while my mother is staying in Viña until Saturday when the owners come back. We men are therefore fending for ourselves and doing a pretty good job, although I had to stop my one brother from microwaving metal last night. On Sunday, my group leaves for a week to visit the southern city of Concepción and spend some time in an indegenous Mapuche village. I will post again upon my return. Until then, enjoy the pictures on the blog as well as this Facebook album.
http://rice.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032546&l=be871&id=300462
I am writing on this second to last official day of winter (gotta love the Southern Hemisphere!) having just returned from a five day vacation. Last Friday, our group traveled to the Chilean wine country near the towns of Curicó and Lontué in Chile's Central Valley. We visited two vineyards, Viña Requingua and Viña Correa Albano. The wine country was picturesquely beautiful with pristine fields fading into rugged hills on the horizon. We saw the large vats in which the wine is fermented (I learned the difference between making red and white wine - the skin is left on during fermentation to make red) and the climate controlled barrel cellar where the reserve wine is aged. Most all of the wine produced at the two vineyards is exported around the world. Viña Requingua exports to Europe, South America and the U.S. If you ever see the Puerto Viejo brand, I visited the vineyard where it was made. Viña Correa Albano exports mostly to China. It was amazing how technology dependent the winerys were with their automated bottling machines and computer monitored fermentation tanks. This is a very recent phenomenon in Chile and a sign of the modernization of Chile's export economy.
The wine country excursion was just a day trip (about 3 hours each way) and when I returned home it was back on the road with my family. As I mentioned before, Sept 18 is Chile's Independence Day, called the Fiestas Patrias. Since it fell on a Tuesday, the government, in one of its most popular decisions ever, decided to give everyone Monday and Wednesday off, as well. My host family and I spent the vacation at the house of a family friend in the coastal resort of Viña del Mar. The house was really nice and a constant stream of aunts, uncles, cousins and friends came and went throughout the course of our trip. The constant conversation was great for practicing my Spanish. I played a lot of small sided soccer games with my brothers and various family and friends, ate delicious grilled meats and drank fine Chilean wine. One of the soccer games took place on the beach itself. After playing in the heat with my host brothers, some friends and their Norwegian exchange student, the Norwegian decided that he was going to go swimming in the frigid ocean. He was from Norway, after all. Not to be outdone, I decided to go in as well, to the horror of my host mother. It was cold, but not as bad as I expected. Nevertheless, I decided I would save the extended swim for later in the year. The night of the 18th we went to a Fonda, which is a traditional Chilean carnival consisting of tons of booths that all contain the exact same things: grilled meat, pisco (Chilean brandy), chicha (a sort of Chilean cider) and dancing. A fantastic experience all together.
My brothers and I came back yesterday on the bus, while my mother is staying in Viña until Saturday when the owners come back. We men are therefore fending for ourselves and doing a pretty good job, although I had to stop my one brother from microwaving metal last night. On Sunday, my group leaves for a week to visit the southern city of Concepción and spend some time in an indegenous Mapuche village. I will post again upon my return. Until then, enjoy the pictures on the blog as well as this Facebook album.
http://rice.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032546&l=be871&id=300462
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
11 de Septiembre
Hello Everyone,
September 11th is a date that everyone now knows around the world, but in Chile it has had special importance since 1973. That was the year that the democratically elected Socialist government of Salvador Allende was deposed in a military coup. The resulting dictatorship, led by General Agusto Pinochet, ruled Chile for almost 20 years and commited numerous human rights abuses. The anniversary is usually marked by street protests in Santiago. Although many people are still upset about the lack of persecution of military and police leaders after the return of democracy, the protesters are mostly students and other young people who are protesting the social ills of the moment, or simply looking for trouble.
A couple friends and I went down to La Alameda, Santiago's main thoroughfare, to watch the demonstrations. The atmosphere was fairly calm, although the Chilean riot police, the Carabineros, were out in force. The wore full body armor and many were on horseback. There were also large armored vehicles mounted with water cannons. South American protests have a tendency to get violent and many protesters wore masks and carried lemons to suck on if they were tear-gassed, a common anti-riot tactic. All was calm in the day time, and I got a few pictures of of the scene. I posted a few on the blog and more (including some from a hike I took later in the afternoon) can be found by following the link below. The protests did turn violent during the night in several poorer Santiago neighborhoods. Rioters set up barricades, lit bonfires, destroyed property and threw molotov cocktails at riot police. One Carabinero was shot and killed and over 200 were arrested.
As I mentioned before, these protests really had nothing to do with the coup, other than pro-leftist leanings among many of the rioters. Most are simply impoverished young people looking for trouble. It is interesting to look at this form of political expression as a result of Chile's neo-liberal economic program, which has helped the country grow economically but also increased the gap between rich and poor and forced many rural peoples to move to Santiago to find jobs. These urban poor see the current government as controled by America and the West, and as a "new dictatorship" because of its continuation of economic policies begun during the Pinochet regime. Their heroes are Allende and Che Guevarra, and they believe that free market economics have failed the Chilean people. On the other side are the Chilean middle and upper classes, many of whom believe that Pinochet, despite his brutality, was the best thing that ever happened to the country. Among the more well-to-do youth, a sort of political apathy has set in, as they are more concerned with making money and buying the lastest Western gadgets or clothes than with continuing the ideological battles of the past.
The coming weekend is an exciting one. On Friday, my group is going to visit the Chilean wine country and tour a few vineyards. Then, I am going to go with my host family to the coast to celebrate the Fiestas Patrias, which last until Wednesday. I should have lots of pictures to share with you guys. Speaking of, here are the ones I took yesterday.
http://rice.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032118&l=f44bc&id=3004624
Once again, I love and miss all of you.
Daniel
September 11th is a date that everyone now knows around the world, but in Chile it has had special importance since 1973. That was the year that the democratically elected Socialist government of Salvador Allende was deposed in a military coup. The resulting dictatorship, led by General Agusto Pinochet, ruled Chile for almost 20 years and commited numerous human rights abuses. The anniversary is usually marked by street protests in Santiago. Although many people are still upset about the lack of persecution of military and police leaders after the return of democracy, the protesters are mostly students and other young people who are protesting the social ills of the moment, or simply looking for trouble.
A couple friends and I went down to La Alameda, Santiago's main thoroughfare, to watch the demonstrations. The atmosphere was fairly calm, although the Chilean riot police, the Carabineros, were out in force. The wore full body armor and many were on horseback. There were also large armored vehicles mounted with water cannons. South American protests have a tendency to get violent and many protesters wore masks and carried lemons to suck on if they were tear-gassed, a common anti-riot tactic. All was calm in the day time, and I got a few pictures of of the scene. I posted a few on the blog and more (including some from a hike I took later in the afternoon) can be found by following the link below. The protests did turn violent during the night in several poorer Santiago neighborhoods. Rioters set up barricades, lit bonfires, destroyed property and threw molotov cocktails at riot police. One Carabinero was shot and killed and over 200 were arrested.
As I mentioned before, these protests really had nothing to do with the coup, other than pro-leftist leanings among many of the rioters. Most are simply impoverished young people looking for trouble. It is interesting to look at this form of political expression as a result of Chile's neo-liberal economic program, which has helped the country grow economically but also increased the gap between rich and poor and forced many rural peoples to move to Santiago to find jobs. These urban poor see the current government as controled by America and the West, and as a "new dictatorship" because of its continuation of economic policies begun during the Pinochet regime. Their heroes are Allende and Che Guevarra, and they believe that free market economics have failed the Chilean people. On the other side are the Chilean middle and upper classes, many of whom believe that Pinochet, despite his brutality, was the best thing that ever happened to the country. Among the more well-to-do youth, a sort of political apathy has set in, as they are more concerned with making money and buying the lastest Western gadgets or clothes than with continuing the ideological battles of the past.
The coming weekend is an exciting one. On Friday, my group is going to visit the Chilean wine country and tour a few vineyards. Then, I am going to go with my host family to the coast to celebrate the Fiestas Patrias, which last until Wednesday. I should have lots of pictures to share with you guys. Speaking of, here are the ones I took yesterday.
http://rice.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032118&l=f44bc&id=3004624
Once again, I love and miss all of you.
Daniel
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Just back from the coast
Hello All,
Today our group took the hour and a half bus ride from Santiago to the Pacific coast. The ride itself is beautiful as you cross "La Cordiera," a series of rugged hills that separate Chile's central valley from the coast. We began the day at Isla Negra, the seaside former home of Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda. The house was amazing. Neruda collected strange and interesting things from around the world and jammed them into his small bungalow perched atop a steep hill overlooking the ocean. Inside the house we saw everything from model ships in bottles to giant beetles and moths (dead and mounted) to a carving of the Polynesian demon god of hunger and cold to asorted ornate pipes and wine glasses to a life size wooden carving of a horse just outside Pablo's bathroom.
Our next stop was the seaside villeage of Concon, where we ate lunch at a local restaurant. As has been the case several times during my stay thus far, I had no idea what the food I ordered was acutally going to be. This time I was faily certain it was seafood, and indeed it turned out to be a kind of soup with mussels, oysters, fish, shrimp and possibly scallops in it. And it was pretty good. After lunch we drove up the coast through Renaca and into Viña del Mar, the prinicple seaside resort in Chile. In Viña, we visited the Quinto Vegara, a palacial residence built by a rich Spanish colonist that has since been turned into a park. Viña seems like a fun place, especially during the summer, and fortunately I am going to have the opportunity to spend more time there next weekend when I will go with my host family to celebrate the "Fiestas Patrias," which are essentially the Chilean July 4th holidays.
From Viña we drove around the point and into Valparaiso, Chile's largest port city. Valparaiso is a fascinating city, built on a series of steep hills surrounding a natural bay, similar to San Francisco. We stopped briefly to ride one of the city's many gondolas up to a hill overlooking the harbor. From Valpo it was back to Santiago and the end of our whirlwind day trip. I am excited to spend more time in the coastal cities, from what I was today, there is plenty of exciting things to see and do.
My day to day life is going splendidly, as well. I am quickly becoming a master of Santiago's massive bus/subway transit system. It is extremely convient, as it goes everywhere and all one needs is a plastic "Bip" card that one presses against a sensor upon entering a metro station or boarding a bus. The Bip card is charged with money and deducts automatically when used. Chileans are forever complaining about how crowded the buses and subways are, but after living in Houston I find the system delightful.
Classes are also going well. Our usual schedule is a lecture in the morning at the University of Chile (in Spanish by a Chilean professor) and three hours of Spanish classes in the afternoon. I find that I can understand the lecturers fairly well, as they talk slowly and write key points on the board. Understanding my host mom and brothers is a different story, as they talk extremely fast and often use slang. I usually have to make them repeat things more slowly at least once. My family is simply amazing and goes out of their way to make me comfortable. I have a great time just talking to my host brothers, or losing to them in FIFA 07 on Xbox 360. I promise that I am trying to be a helpful and easy guest.
I also enjoy spending time with the other kids in the program. We are a very eclectic group from colleges big and small across the country. The North Carolina connected contingent is rather large, however, as we have a Duke student from Chicago, a UNC Robertson scholar from Conneticut, a Winston-Salem native that attends U of Richmond and a Davidson student from Georgia, plus myself. All of us enjoy exploring eveything Santiago has to offer, although we are pretty conspicuous when all 21 of us go out together.
Thats all for now, I love and miss all of you. I have posted a few pictures on the blog site, but more can be found at
http://rice.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031931&l=5a8c7&id=3004624
Until next time,
Daniel
P.S. Mom and Dad, I would love to work out a time to call you guys through Skype, an internet telephone service. Its free computer to computer, but I think I can pay a few dollars and download Skype Pro, which would allow me to call the house phone from my computer, which solves the problem of our home computer not being microphone equiped. I'm going to look into this further, like, tomorrow, so I'll be in touch about the possiblity soon.
Today our group took the hour and a half bus ride from Santiago to the Pacific coast. The ride itself is beautiful as you cross "La Cordiera," a series of rugged hills that separate Chile's central valley from the coast. We began the day at Isla Negra, the seaside former home of Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda. The house was amazing. Neruda collected strange and interesting things from around the world and jammed them into his small bungalow perched atop a steep hill overlooking the ocean. Inside the house we saw everything from model ships in bottles to giant beetles and moths (dead and mounted) to a carving of the Polynesian demon god of hunger and cold to asorted ornate pipes and wine glasses to a life size wooden carving of a horse just outside Pablo's bathroom.
Our next stop was the seaside villeage of Concon, where we ate lunch at a local restaurant. As has been the case several times during my stay thus far, I had no idea what the food I ordered was acutally going to be. This time I was faily certain it was seafood, and indeed it turned out to be a kind of soup with mussels, oysters, fish, shrimp and possibly scallops in it. And it was pretty good. After lunch we drove up the coast through Renaca and into Viña del Mar, the prinicple seaside resort in Chile. In Viña, we visited the Quinto Vegara, a palacial residence built by a rich Spanish colonist that has since been turned into a park. Viña seems like a fun place, especially during the summer, and fortunately I am going to have the opportunity to spend more time there next weekend when I will go with my host family to celebrate the "Fiestas Patrias," which are essentially the Chilean July 4th holidays.
From Viña we drove around the point and into Valparaiso, Chile's largest port city. Valparaiso is a fascinating city, built on a series of steep hills surrounding a natural bay, similar to San Francisco. We stopped briefly to ride one of the city's many gondolas up to a hill overlooking the harbor. From Valpo it was back to Santiago and the end of our whirlwind day trip. I am excited to spend more time in the coastal cities, from what I was today, there is plenty of exciting things to see and do.
My day to day life is going splendidly, as well. I am quickly becoming a master of Santiago's massive bus/subway transit system. It is extremely convient, as it goes everywhere and all one needs is a plastic "Bip" card that one presses against a sensor upon entering a metro station or boarding a bus. The Bip card is charged with money and deducts automatically when used. Chileans are forever complaining about how crowded the buses and subways are, but after living in Houston I find the system delightful.
Classes are also going well. Our usual schedule is a lecture in the morning at the University of Chile (in Spanish by a Chilean professor) and three hours of Spanish classes in the afternoon. I find that I can understand the lecturers fairly well, as they talk slowly and write key points on the board. Understanding my host mom and brothers is a different story, as they talk extremely fast and often use slang. I usually have to make them repeat things more slowly at least once. My family is simply amazing and goes out of their way to make me comfortable. I have a great time just talking to my host brothers, or losing to them in FIFA 07 on Xbox 360. I promise that I am trying to be a helpful and easy guest.
I also enjoy spending time with the other kids in the program. We are a very eclectic group from colleges big and small across the country. The North Carolina connected contingent is rather large, however, as we have a Duke student from Chicago, a UNC Robertson scholar from Conneticut, a Winston-Salem native that attends U of Richmond and a Davidson student from Georgia, plus myself. All of us enjoy exploring eveything Santiago has to offer, although we are pretty conspicuous when all 21 of us go out together.
Thats all for now, I love and miss all of you. I have posted a few pictures on the blog site, but more can be found at
http://rice.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031931&l=5a8c7&id=3004624
Until next time,
Daniel
P.S. Mom and Dad, I would love to work out a time to call you guys through Skype, an internet telephone service. Its free computer to computer, but I think I can pay a few dollars and download Skype Pro, which would allow me to call the house phone from my computer, which solves the problem of our home computer not being microphone equiped. I'm going to look into this further, like, tomorrow, so I'll be in touch about the possiblity soon.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
So I got this blog...
Here it is, my attempt at blog. Unfortunately I spent all my free time figuring out how to set this up, so I wont write a full update yet. In the mean time, enjoy a few more pictures.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
