Yo Corro Por CHILE!

hey y'all!! I hope you're doing well! It's been a while since and update and I feel like I have so much to catch y'all up on.  I'll go backwards and try to not forget anything.

alright so yesterday me and 5 other of my WT vols participated in a 10k sponsored by orbitz gum which raised money for the terremoto.  I'm not sure how many people actually ran the race but I would guess around 2000 people? It was super awesome!  It felt good to make some sort of contribution towards the effort as well as run 6.2 miles (and if anyone knows me well, they would know that I literally have run 5x since October, one of my lazier moments in my life....) and at that, i ran it in 1hr 3 mins! that's about 10 min miles!  Also, it was up a mountain (google cerro san cristobal to get an idea). More importantly, I think we were able to raise almost $94k (50,000,000 CLP) which is awesome (i think this conversion is correct but it seems like SO MUCH - which is great)! here's the link: http://www.orbit10k.cl/.  With that said, the smog here is slowly killing me.  I'm a lil flemmy and snotty today and i think it's because of the run yesterday and generally runs in the smog (and living in the centro makes it hard to avoid smog ie lots of traffic).

After the race we went to a gringo bar (which is so strange!). Everyone in there talks to each other b/c there's this weird gringo connection that you automatically have to almost everyone in there (convo goes like "where are you from? howd you get to chile") it was awesome i will say to watch some of the NCAA games (we have a baylor graduate with us and who would not want to see duke go down). unfortunately it was not in the cards for us be we got some delish tacos and chilean beer (which is DELICIOUS, they have some really good dark beers down here and a brewery in valpo so i should be a happy camper :)) We also went there friday night to watch another NCAA game and stay out a lil later drinking pisco gingers and piscolas (the national liquor i guess you would say?).

Last week was pretty intense and why i have not been able to update as frequently.  We were in class from 10am till 530 almost everyday with 4 of those days following with spanish class from 6-730pm which was then followed by trying to find a quick and easy dinner.  It was funny, one night we went out for sushi which was full of all chilenos except us.... until about 6 German/Scandanavia/Danish (dunno?) enormously tall dudes walked in (im talking INCHES taller than me) and i just found it funny.  Also, i sorta expected this, but i am MOST definitely the tallest woman in in country (i mean, maybe not... but i wouldnt be surprised ha!) and i would say that probably 1 in ever 50-75 Chilenos are taller than me, and it's funny b/c if they're taller than me, they are significantly taller, or so i feel like ive noticed. who knows.  but as also expected, i get starred at A LOT.  it's frustrating sometimes and difficult to ignore, but other times i just put on my blinders and ignore it back which i prefer.  but sometimes it's hard not to notice.  let me share with you a brief scenario: i am standing at the bus stop.  the man directly next to me is just starring at me. not at my legs (like others) but at my face, and i randomly notice him, again like 1.5 feet, call it 16 inches from me, and he just keeps starring. i look away and still he is starring and doesn't look away until it's time to cross the street.  in america this would be different because upon being caught starring at someone, one would either do the awk smile and look away, or just immediately look away trying to play it off. i experienced the starring culture a lil with baldricks.  but im slowly coming to terms with it. they are not necessarily looking in a sexual way, it's just a place where starring is not considered rude and that is just something that i need to get better at.

This last week we learned about teaching and wow am i in for it! it is definitely going to be a challenging experience! i will probably have about 350 students who i will see for 45 mins per week! wow. how am i supposed to teach anything much less get to know their names.  with that said, if anyone has teaching games/classroom management/general teaching tips i would love to hear them!! we did lesson plans last week and they are so much more difficult than i imagined but at the most i will be making 2 lesson plans a week and we also have a book of good lessons from the vols last year as well as all of our group's lesson plans from last week.  but i will be teaching (most likely) VERY beginner English.  I will say that last week was super stressful at the beginning (imagine learning 'everything you need to know to teach' in about 4 days. yep, it was A LOT of info at one time. but i feel much more prepared. and imagine this: the ministry of eduction vols get ONLY one week of orientation before going to teach. at least with world teach i got three weeks!  So on Sunday, i think, we will be moving to a new hostel in Barrio Brasil with all of the other Ministry vols and begin Ministry Orientation on Monday.  We will go to our home-stays on the following Saturday, April 10 and then begin actually teaching the following monday April 19 I think.  I am becoming increasingly ready for it all: I'm ready to get a little bit out of the city and 'thrown to the wolves' so to speak.  I am definitely learning spanish and my comprehension and vocab are improving but i entirely too easily rely on other better speakers in more complex situations.  we have spanish class which is helpful but i definitely need a lot more!  additionally, i'm ready to see more of chile! i sometimes forget that I'm in south america in Santiago.  There are a few things that make me realize where I am: reggaeton music, the stray dog population, and the 10k which helped me to realize "wow! im really here!" Chile is such a beautiful country and I cannot wait to see it! I hope that I can see as much of it as possible but wow, I am totally stoked to start traveling and hiking etc etc so on and so forth for the next 8 months :D

Check this out:
http://www.sonyericssonopen.com/News/Tennis/2010/Tournament/Miami-Champions-For-Chile.aspx

and another interesting article in a totally different way:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/world/americas/13chile.html

PS: earthquakes are terrifying.  I've experienced two aftershocks, one last night (6.1).  They have been hardly anything comparatively (obviously) and I just cannot imagine going through an earthquake.  How awful and absolutely horrifying.

Algas Fotos!

Downtown Santiago and the Mapucho River

La Modena, The Presidential Palace (though he doesn't live here)

A Cemetery

The Memorial for Chileans Detained and Executed during the Pinochet Regime

Las Flores

A Memorial to women detained and executed at the Villa Grimaldi

Spiky Tree

Awesome mural!

My WT people chillin' in a park!

finally, Estoy aqui!

So I made it to Santiago Chile! After 8 months of planning, an earthquake, confusion, uncertainty and about 11 hours of air travel, I have finally made it:) The city is very very beautiful.  I really like it here, it sorta feels like a large European city but with a lot of car/bus/taxi/moped traffic and some serious smog issues.  You can sometimes see the Andes and hills around the city but the buildings are really tall and it's difficult to get a good view, and when you do finally get that view, it's like a foggy, hazy shadow of a mountain.  There's a lot of old and new buildings right next to each other which is totally cool and the national library is in the hugest and most beautiful building of them all!!!!! pictures to come of course.  So the first day we got here we checked into our hostel, had some empanadas (delish) and then hit the streets.  El Centro de Santiago is the downtown area and VERY walker friendly and super super super crowded with Chilenos taking their long lunch breaks in the early afternoon.  So many people on the streets constantly.  We discovered the Plaza de Armas (think the equivalent of Jackson Sq) but it's bigger, all cobblestoned, fountains, benches, artists painting and selling, pigeons, palm trees and lots and lots of chilenos.  On one side of the park there is this beautiful church that rivals the most beautiful ones of Europe.
Wednesday was essentially our first full day in orientation which was totally exhausting, as was Thursday and Friday.  Friday we went to the American Embassy via metro which was a really cool experience.  I'm not actually entirely sure why it was so cool/interesting to go to an American Embassy, in fact it was rather boring.  But maybe it's just the fact that only certain people are allowed in and/or it's just not someplace I've been before. hm dunno.  I was extremely impressed with the metro, it was awesome, clean, easy to manage and the metro literally came every 5 minutes!!!!!!! i just think that is amazing! certainly better than the DC metro i think.
Ugh, I'm so worn out.  My lifestyle of going to bed at 3am and waking up at 11am is really making me struggle right now! I hardly slept on the overnight flight to Santiago, no surprise there, and since then I've had a lot of trouble sleeping for some reason, probably because I sharing my room with 4 other people and one bathroom! crazy.  and stuff is all disorganized, not unpacked but not really packed neatly anymore either and if anyone really knows me, they know that when i travel i literally unpack everything immediately, into a huge pile on the floor! and since i have no room and 4 roommates and im confused.
anyhoo, earthquake: so there's not that much visible damage here in Santiago, or at least in el centro.  there are some cracks in some of the buildings and caution tape marking off areas where falling parts of building could be possible.  But I'm really interested in seeing other parts of the country.  The region around Concepcion was hit terribly bad, and the earthquake has affected 2 million people which is a huge proportion of the Chilean population (16 million i think in the country).  All of the area between Santiago and Concepcion to the south were severely affected.  I will be doing more research about the facts and about how to help out and donate! I don't think the earthquake got enough press in the states, in fact i would say that after 3 days, information about the earthquake was hard to find, which is really really frustrating! There is a lot of help, donations, and money needed so when i get the information, i'll bring it to ya so if you'd like to help out, you'll know how.  It just reminds me so much of Katrina and it just breaks my heart because I can feel like i relate with these people affected.  I hope that i can assist in some way as things get organized and worked out.  Who would've thought that my life would include more disaster recovery!? maybe this is a sign.....
anyhoo, i'm going to try and update this more frequently so that i can totally capture chile for y'all to understand and somewhat experience.  but know this, a decent bottle of chilean wine can go for a cheap as 1,990 chilean pesos, ie. 4 dollars!!!!  living the life.
also, went out for the first time last night to experience the way chileans party, and they rival new orleans, i'll be honest. bars don't close, certainly a plus.  lots of reggaeton, also a plus. pisco sour, superbig plus. we went to pio nono which is a street sorta comparable to bourbon but with car traffic and outdoor seating, and less douche-y.
battery dying! chau!

onwards!

So it's official, I'm rolling out tomorrow, leaving DC at 330pm and then not leaving Miami until midnight! Nothing like a great layover!  I think I'm pretty ready to go.... I so thought that I wouldn't be taking all that much but even after packing all little that I did (or so i think) I was still at about 45lbs for EACH of my bags.  That shit fills up quickly.  Having said that, all the clothes I'm taking are 3 pairs of jeans, 3 pairs of slacks, 8 tops, 3 sweaters, 3 cardigans, 2 dresses, 2 skirts, one jacket, 2 fleeces and 5 pairs of shoes. UGH so much and yet really, so little too: 8 months on that! I cannot tell you how many hours I spent getting it down to that too... it's kinda embarrassing actually, who would've thought I'd be such an anal packer.  I'm totally stoked though to put up my three calenders in my new room: Glimt artwork, Lara's awesome feminist one and of course, the one of the beautiful city of New Orleans.  And I can't wait to give my host family my gifts from the US: dark chocolate Hershey kisses, Louisiana hot sauce and mardi gras beads! I hope they like it!

I'm still questioning what I'm getting myself into! Just gotta roll with it.

Alright, What's the plan!?

So as I'm sure all of you have heard (I hope all of you), there was an earthquake in Chile last Saturday morning.  As of that day, I was supposed to be flying out to Chile on March 16 to teach English for a year. Well.... as of now, I still cannot really say whether or not I will be in Chile in 12 days.  What I can say however, is that I have received now 3 very noncommittal emails from the program, the latest of which was the most positive ie. saying that they are trying everything within their power to make sure we still teach down there but they are not sure yet A. if we will continue with the program in Chile for sure and B. if so, if we will be flying out on March 16 or not.  The area that I would(/will??) be teaching is not the most affected region of Chile but it definitely received some significant earthquake damage as far as I have been able to gather.   I would be teaching in Santiago or just to the north of Santiago and the earthquake's main devastation was much further south. Anyhoo, pending my future, you can keep up-to-date with my travels and adventures here.  As you can tell, I really have no idea what will happen or where I will be going, so here goes nothing!

At least I'm stuck in Leesburg and not some completely boring, suburb of DC....

Mardi Gras is the BEST! WHO DAT!