Tag Archives: Santiago

Visits to Santiago and Valparaiso

The program officially ended June 24 but due to the fact that I studied at a local university, Torcuato di Tella, my stay got extended until July 1. Exams at the university, where I took two classes, weren’t very difficult and honestly di Tella is one of the most organized universities in Argentina. I highly recommend attending that university although it is 45 minutes away from the program headquarters.

Since I booked my departure back home two weeks earlier I decided to visit Chile specifically Santiago and Valparaiso. Santiago, the capital, is vastly different from Buenos Aires with more modern architecture and of course a free-trade economy. Santiago’s nightlife is a bit lacking though, my guide said that was due to the many years of dictatorship in which people were afraid to live freely.

Palacio La Moneda

On my second day there I took a ‘Find Waldo’ tours for tips tour. We meet at the Museo de Bellas Artes, which by the way is absolutely gorgeous and free. Our tour guide was a young 20 year old woman who was very helpful and showed us some of the most iconic places in the city. We visited the Moneda, the presidential palace and learned about the history of the dictatorship, a subject I thoroughly studied at di Tella. We also visited the Plaza de Armas, the central square in Santiago, and a couple of neighborhoods.

View from Cerro Santa Lucia

View from Cerro Santa Lucia

I spent three days in Valparaiso, a port city protected by the UNESCO and I honestly liked it better than Santiago probably due to the fact that its closer to water. It is a very picturesque and calm city somewhere you can probably retire to. I also to a ‘Find Waldo’ Tour and it was also very informative.

Valparaiso

Valparaiso

 

Valparaiso

Valparaiso

The food especially seafood, something not very good in Argentina is fantastic. While I stayed in Chile I tried to eat as much seafood as possible including ceviche, a seafood dish cooked in lime juice. I also tried chorillana, a typical hangover plate with french fries, caramelized onions, and meat (sausage,beef, and sometimes chicken). The cazuela de vacuna (a soup with meat, potatoes, corn, and pumpkin) is also very delicious, I had it on my last day. It is especially good with the fierce cold weather in Santiago.


Location: Santiago, Chile

I’m crazy.

I’m crazy. I’m actually certifiably nuts. Let me give you a little peak into the mind of an Emma, but you’ve been warned.

This story starts with me researching what I need to pack for my semester in Chile. This story ends with me looking up the Spanish words for asparagus and rape.

So I get back from work today and open up my computer. There’s an email from IES with the details for my new host family assignment (long story short…my original host family assignment has a cat and I recently discovered cats make my eyeballs feel like they need to be soaked in Selsun Blue). Along with my housing assignment was information on being picked up at the airport and a caveat to dress warmly due to the cold weather in Santiago recently.

Thought 1.) I should research what to wear. What do Chilean’s wear? Do I have to dress fancy? I don’t like dressing fancy? I like dressing like a slob. I’m a slob. I’m ratchet. I should shower. Meh, I’ll shower later.

I google what I should wear in Santiago, and after 2 truly grueling minutes looking at blogs written by the self-proclaimed tourist fashion connoisseurs of Chile, I come to one conclusion: Dress like a cake. Because in Donkey’s words, “Not everybody likes onions.”

Thought 2.) I really do love cake. Sugar is great. Maybe I should eat a cookie. Man, that cookie was delicious. Maybe I should work out more so I can eat more. Working out makes me sweaty. I’m gross. Ok, I definitely need a shower.

I hop in the shower and start mentally going through my wardrobe trying to think of layers for my cake outfit.

Thought 3.) Sweaters are good layers. Oooo my comfy purple sweater! But that looks like a Bill Cosby sweater. Do Chileans know who Bill Cosby is? What if I have to explain to my host family who Bill Cosby is? I don’t think I know the word for rape in Spanish. I need to look that up. My host family is going to think I’m crazy if I know the word for rape but not for something dumb, like asparagus. What if they ask me if I like asparagus and I say no because I don’t know what they’re asking me? Then I won’t have any asparagus! I do like asparagus. I like food. Maybe I should eat another cookie.

So here I am, writing this post to inform you all that the first 3 words on google translate for rape are la violación, la colza, and el estupro. Asparagus is el espárragos. There you have it. I’m crazy. And no, I have not decided yet if I’m going to pack my purple sweater.


Location: West Chester, PA

Visitors

A few weeks ago I had two different friends visiting me. You usually don’t think of having visitors from home when you study abroad. But it really is a great opportunity, especially in a place like the Dominican Republic. When most people think of the Dominican Republic, they think of going to the beach. The DR is much, much deeper than that, and I truly think it’s a shame that people rarely see any other parts of the country. My first visitor had the same mindset as I do, and he proved this to me when he told me about how he wanted his vacation to go. He told me “get me as far away from Punta Cana as you can. I want to see how real Dominicans live”. The fact that Santiago and Punta Cana are practically on the other side of the country did not make this feat too difficult. We rented an apartment in the city of Santiago, and for 5 short days, I gave him a taste of my life here. If we forget what I just recently said about the beach, a vacation to the DR would still be incomplete without one. Here my friend Greg and I are pictured at Playa Sosúa right after lunch.IMG_0225

The other days that my friend had here were spent in the city of Santiago. Pictured below is my friend walking up to the famous monument in the center of the city.

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Although there are some very nice restaurants around the city, Greg insisted that we eat like locals. So I took him to the places that suited his request. Although we were very out of place, I was able to use my Spanish to get some great meals. Dominicans are also not shy when it comes to portion sizes. They definitely give the US a run for our money. I have gotten used to the portion sizes by this point, but Greg had trouble finishing his piles of rice a few times.

I had another opportunity to see a friend from the US, but this one has Dominican roots. I met up with Pavel as he was passing through Santiago. We headed to his uncles house in Santo Domingo for a night, where I met his aunt as well as three of his cousins. I had never spoken Spanish with Pavel before this trip because I had never spoken Spanish at all before this trip. However, I needed to speak Spanish with him when I was around his family. This was a really weird experience for me, because I never imagined that I would speak anything with Pavel besides English. However, this experience broke down a little mental block that I had. If I know that someone speaks English, it becomes hard for me to speak Spanish with them. However, there are situations where I need to speak Spanish with someone because someone else involved in the interaction doesn’t speak English. The next day, Pavel and I headed to Juan Dolio, a coastal town west of Santo Domingo. We had a great day at the beach, and somehow were only able to snap one picture.

Juan Dolio

I’m really glad that I got to have a taste of home through the visit of my two friends. It was very cool to experience the best that the DR has to offer.

Photo Of The Week

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This past weekend I went to Laguna Dudú. There were cliffs that you could jump off of into the Lagoon. Here is a picture of people right after jumping. It was quite high, as you may be able to see how far I am from where the picture is taken. See you next time!


Location: Santiago, DR

Carnaval

In this post I will write about a Dominican tradition that actually spans many more countries, including the US. It is carnaval!

You may have heard of Mardi Gras in the US, but here in the DR we call it carnaval. Carnaval is a festival that takes place every Sunday during the entire month of February in the Dominican Republic. Every Sunday in a number of different cities across the country, people dress up in costumes that resemble the devil, and dance in the streets. It seems odd that such a catholic country would celebrate the devil, but they are actually doing the exact opposite. This whole festival is dedicated to making fun of the devil. It is for this reason that the costumes and decorations are way over the top, and people can be very “sinful” without fear of consequences. The DR tends to be very conservative, so carnaval is a way for people to let loose from social norms and either show who they really are or just go wild without judgement. There were people that simply dyed their hair crazy colors, all the way to cross dressers that were a bit more convincing than I would like to admit. I was able to experience carnaval in two different cities. First in La Vega, and then in Santiago, where I am currently living and studying. Each region of the country has their own characters and versions of the devil, but for this post I’ll just focus on the two that I witnessed.

La Vega

In La Vega, the masks that dancers wore were very scary looking. They had multiple horns sticking out of their faces and also had very sharp teeth. To get a better understanding of this, I have a picture below.

Carnaval La Vega

Here I am pictured with a street dancer as well as fellow Big 10 student Emily King (IU). As you can see in the background, there are people hanging out on the roofs of houses nearby, and many more in the street behind us. There are so many people in fact, that sidewalk space is limited. Dancers carry vejigas, or inflated cow bladders. They hit people on the behind who are not paying attention as well as those standing in the streets. Some of the vejiga hits we received were not too bad, but some hits actually hurt a bit so it’s best to avoid them all together if you can. The stores and businesses along the loop where carnaval takes place were all open and bustling. As many things as possible were themed along with the devil theme of carnaval. I even found a local store where a man was selling drinks called the “Red Devil”. I’m not sure exactly what was in it, but I ended up going back for another because it was so good. I’ve heard that La Vega has one of the most boisterous carnaval celebrations in the entire country, so I’m glad that I was able to experience it.

Santiago

The other city where I experienced carnaval in was where I am currently living, in Santiago. The costumes here have a more elongated nose as well as longer horns. The overall design of the mask is simpler, but their clothes are just as elaborate. My neighbor from across the street was a dancer in this year’s carnaval, so I was able to get a good shot of him putting on his mask.

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As you can see he is holding a whip in his left hand. The dancers in Santiago’s carnaval are famous for their whips. As they dance down the street, they crack their whips all while dancing and not knocking their masks over. It’s quite an impressing sight to witness. My neighbor was practicing with his whip before heading down to the center of the city, so I was lucky enough to get a video of him practicing. Here it is below.

Lechone Whip Practice

Carnaval is one of the craziest and most famous street festivals in the world, and I’m glad I got to experience it twice.

Photo of the Week

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Here is one of the many examples of the awesome nature of the Dominican Republic. Last weekend, we went to the peninsula of Samaná. On the way there, we stopped at a roadside cave. The cool thing about this cave is that it was not known about until the highway was constructed. Later in the weekend, we visited other caves further down the peninsula. That’s it for now, see you soon!

 


Location: La Vega, Dominican Republic

Avocado Sandwich

Now that you know a little bit about my life here, I’ll provide you with a bit more of a detailed update. I’m sure you would love hear about my classes, but instead I’m going to talk about a few of the things that I’ve been doing outside class.

Sosúa

The first day that we had to ourselves was spent in a town called Sosúa. We were on the beach the entire day, and I did not even get a chance to explore the town. However I was still so glad about escaping the cold weather of State College, it did not even matter for me. That whole day was a bit of a “this is it” moment for me. The fact that it was January and I was on a beautiful beach with some newly made friends all seemed a bit dreamlike to be honest. Since then I have been back to Sosúa twice, to a beach called Playa Alicia. From what I have seen myself, Playa Alicia seems to attract more tourists than locals, but definitely has opportunities to meet both when wondering into the town for lunch. My most recent time there was last Friday, which is where I took the picture below. As you might be able to see I am holding an avocado sandwich. However, the “avocado sandwich” concept is not a thing that people eat here. I wanted to keep it simple for lunch; something cheap that I could throw together and eat relatively easily while sitting down. Not to mention the avocados here are excellent so any chance you can eat one is a good opportunity. After some quick browsing in the local supermarket, I grabbed an avocado and a roll and ended up with this.

Sandwiche de Aguacate

It’s not difficult to see that I was immersed in a blissful moment. I was enjoying my avocado sandwich on a beach and it really was as simple as that. I had heard stories all last week from home of friends having to battle snow and wind chilled temps to get to class. This picture is a great image of why studying abroad can be a great experience at times. Now, of course I am taking classes here, as well as learning Spanish. But I am also having the time of my life here. What I am getting at is that studying abroad has the ability to give you moments like this that you simply wouldn’t get anywhere else, like at home.

Santo Domingo

Another trip that I did was an overnight excursion to the capital of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo. Our first stop was a visit to an ingenio (sugar mill). This particular ingenio was the site of a slave driven revolution which ended up being the event that sparked the ridding of slavery for the entire island on which the Dominican Republic is situated. It was very humbling to be in the same spot of such an important event for the history of the Americas. Below I have a picture of the main building of the facility. The right half was restored to show what the building used to look like and the left half of the building has remained untouched.

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The second day of our excursion had a couple more things lined up for us. We took a walking tour around the Zona Colonial in the city of Santo Domingo, which has buildings and other incredible sites from the time of Columbus. We also went to a national park near Santo Domingo called Los Tres Ojos (The three eyes). It is an open air limestone cave with three small blueish green lakes. There were scenes from the Jurassic Park films that were shot here. Towards the end of the park, there was a pool that contained doctor fish. You may have heard about these fish as the ones that nibble dead skin off of your feet. I couldn’t resist after hearing this and had to dip my feet in for a few minutes. Sometimes it is the unexpected things while traveling that have the ability to turn a great day into an unforgettable one.

Playa Ensenada

The following weekend we took a day trip to a beach called Playa Ensenada. It is located on the North Coast of the Dominican Republic, west of Puerto Plata. At Ensenada, we went snorkeling; a boat took us out to an area, far away from any land mass. The spot we were taken to was an oasis of very shallow water. We were able to stop there for a quick swim break before heading to our snorkeling destination. The reef was located off on a tiny, tiny island, which measured approximately 25yds x 15yds. It was a very cool site to see. There was barely enough room to walk on this island because of the amount of people and snorkeling gear occupying it. After getting adjusted to my gear, we swam out to the reef. It was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. There were so many fish swimming past me as I floated along. The colors of the reef were absolutely exploding. I felt completely weightless as my body and the flexible parts of the reef seemed to grab the current and sway back and forth in unison. I tried snorkeling once as a kid and hated it, but my day at Ensenada completely changed my mind about it. I finished up the day with some beach side pescado frito (fried fish), and a really nice nap on the ride home. My day at Playa Ensenada was one of the best days I have had here so far.

Video of the Day

I know I said in my last post that I’ll have a photo every week, but a photo could not do this moment justice. On the property of the ingenio, we found these plants that had fern like leaves, and looked pretty normal otherwise. However, when you touched the leaves with your finger, the fern folded up immediately. Here is the video of this all taking place. See you next week!

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Location: Santo Domingo, DR

The Big 3

Today marks three weeks that I have been here in the Dominican Republic. As I look over my first two blog posts I realized that I really did not give too much background info on my living situation here. Now that I have been here for a little bit, many of my first impressions have subsided so I think I’ll be able to explain things to you in a better way than I would have done so before. I’ll explain the three main aspects of my daily life. For the rest of my time here, I will share a photo at the end of my posts with an interesting experience that I had and would like to share with you.

Home

I live in a neighborhood of Santiago called La Zurza II. It is a middle class neighborhood situated about a ten minute walk from the University. The houses in this neighborhood are beautiful. I don’t have too many photos of the houses here but I will be sure to take some and share them with you in future posts. I live with my host mom and my host brother, Jorge. Jorge is 12 years old. Last week, Jorge adopted a puppy Chihuahua, Nikki. At the moment she is about as big as a guinea pig, and couldn’t have more energy. She is very fun to play with and gives me another reason to love living here.

School

I take all my classes at the University close by. It’s called La Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra, but since that is an absolute mouthful to say, we just say PUCMM in daily discussion (Pronounced PU-KA-MAI-MUH). I am majoring in business, so I cannot take classes which will count towards my major. However, I am minoring in Spanish, so I have come to a perfect place to focus on that. A few of the classes that I am taking are Dominican Folklore, Political Processes of the Dominican Republic, and of course Dance for Foreigners. These are all taught in Spanish by local professors. The professors here are very experienced at working with foreigners, so they are extremely patient and realize that struggling through conversation is the best way to learn a language.

Spanish

This brings me to the next aspect of my life here. You may be wondering how I could possibly live and function in a world where I can’t even use my own language. Well it’s not as scary as it seems, but still pretty tough. Although I have a couple years of classroom experience with Spanish, it’s a whole different ball game when you need to converse. As of now and for the most part, I am still hearing things in Spanish, translating into English, thinking of a response, then translating back to Spanish. Even then I still always seem to get something wrong. It can get frustrating at times, but I have wanted to learn Spanish for a while, so the fact that I can actually use it is a few years of hard work finally coming together. A whole day of classes thinking like this takes quite a toll on your head. However, it has definitely gotten easier since I’ve arrived. I can’t wait to see how much more my Spanish will improve while I am here, as it is more or less the inspiration behind my trip.

Photo of the week

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I apologize that this photo is a bit blurry. I came home from class one night, and my host mom had left dinner for me. Next to the plate there was a piece of tree bark on the table. As I looked closer I realized that it was actually a moth. I was instantly out of my comfort zone and started considering my options.  I’m usually pretty calm around bugs but this thing was huge! I carefully went to my room to grab my camera and something to use as a size comparison. All of what I just described amounted to this photo. See you next week!


Location: Santiago, DR

The Full Experience: Conchos

Since my last post, most of my week has been orientation. Much of it involved info sessions in a classroom type setting at the university, but some of it was very hands on. One of our afternoons was spent doing a scavenger hunt around the city in order to get to know our home a little bit better. It involved getting phone numbers from local medical clinics, stamps from the post office, and various other things. The most beneficial part of the scavenger hunt was learning how to get around the city. To rely solely on walking is pretty unrealistic. Like any city, Santiago has buses and taxis, but the one method of transportation that really stood out to me was conchos. Like buses, they follow set routes but what is different about conchos is that you can enter or leave the concho anywhere along that route. Each route also has a countless number of conchos in order to accommodate the demand. Conchos consist of many different makes of cars, but every one that I have seen has been a sedan, which has 5 seats. However, due to less enforced traffic regulations in the Dominican Republic, it is not uncommon to see more people than seats in a concho. In fact, I have seen as many as nine people in one concho. Concho drivers are paid based on how many fares they get throughout the day. So the more people they can fit in their car, the more money they can make. To be honest I think they are extremely efficient. It is without a doubt very dangerous to be in a car without a seatbelt, but it is just another part of life here in Santiago. Conchos allow people to get around the city very cheaply. People don’t seem to be bothered by the fact that they are potentially dangerous. They just need to get to where they are going.

If you are thinking about studying abroad, I hope this type of thing does not sway you from doing so. When I used a concho for the first time, I was absolutely out of my comfort zone. There were four people in the back seat and another two in the passenger seat. The temperature usually hovers around 85 during the day which definitely made it more uncomfortable.  But these are the type of experiences that I live for in a way. These are the moments that I will remember for a long time coming.

I will be starting my classes tomorrow, and am very excited about them. They will all be taught in Spanish which seems a little scary but I am looking forward to them. This and more in my next post. Until next time!


Location: Santiago, DR