second biggest island in america

chiloé. the biggest is tierra del fuego, which i probably won't be visting, at least i'm not planning on it now. just posting this to say i'm doing well, didn't die in the class V rapids i was rafting or anything like that. all the whitewater fun i had in futa was amazing. a great vacation in and of itself, but i'm not quite done traveling. icha's going to arrive here in castro in little bit, so i won't be traveling alone anymore. so that's good - sokmetimes it's nice to share experiences. time to go find her and then some good chilote seafood.

still in futa

still here, waiting to run the whole river. they say we are going tomorrow. if not, i'm leaving. in any case, i'll be in castro friday or saturday, where i'll meet up with icha. should be wonderful.

time to find the argentinian kayakers and go read a book by a beautiful river.

futaleufú

so i'm in futaleufú, playing on some amazing rivers. went kayaking for the first time yesterday and rafting today. both boats flipped, but without any complications. i'm doing great and enjoying myself and the beautiful scenery.

gotta run. expensive slow internet.

puerto montt

i'm in puerto montt (hence the creavtive title) for the day. tomorrow at 1 i take a ferry to chaitén, where i'll stay the night. monday at 3 or so i take a bus from chaitén to futaleufú, which is built next to some of the best whitewater in the world. there i hope to run the river 2 or 3 times, depending on how much they charge for such an amazing experience.


time to go explore puerto montt

first 2 days of traveling:

yesterday i rented a mountain bike and rode about 20 km to some waterfalls called los ojos de caburgua. very pretty, though i was pretty tired when i got there.

today i went to the top of volcano villarrica, and also made it back down. it took about 4 hours to get to the top - not technically challenging, but definitely tiring. it only took about 1 and half hours max to slide down. the biggest slide i've ever seen, and for that matter used, in my life. walking around the inside (and rim) of the crater was incredible. i saw real molten rocks. yay lova. and even sometimes the volcano spit some up into the air. let's hope the photos of that turn out. we also ate lunch there in the crater. such and amazing few of the area.


now i'm off to find food, and in the morning i head to puerto varas.

travelling, finally

yesterday i bought a bus ticket for pucón. i leave tonight at 9:45 (7:45 EST), and will arrive about 9 hours later, or at about 7 in the morning. that should give me time to find a tourism agency and hopefully go to the top of volcano villarrica tomorrow. should be a fun time - if i'm lucky i'll actually get to see molten rock.

from there, the plans are just an outline. i'm going to go to puerto varas, but i'm not sure how long i'll stay. there i'll look into rafting on the futaleufú and maybe sea kayaking. if none of that pans out, i'll head on to chiloé via puerto montt. in any case, should be a good time.

since i'll be using the internet a bit to email a few people (those who are looking after me ;) i'll maybe give all of you an update.

for now, time to go get ready, buy those last minute items, pack, clean, etc.

mmm cheese

i got my first package in the mail about a week ago (i suppose, i don't remember the date). the only negative was the postal worker waking me up at 10 AM on a saturday to deliver it. but the package was wonderful - sharp cheddar cheese (which i'd forgetten is amazing), swiss cheese, and colby jack cheese (also incredible), some nice pocket moleskine notebooks, and reese cups. so many wonderful things - thanks again for sending it.

promted by the cheese, i think, i made french toast for icha to try. thankfully, she liked it, and i was happy to have made french toast for the first time ever - it wasn't that bad, which is probably due to the utterly simplicity of the recipe.


i've gone to 3 or 4 street theatre plays this past week. one, called eureka! theatre laboratory was amazing. they did a good job of doing lots of things with limited props, while successfully conveying a range of emotions, with unpredicatble plot twists. so much fun to watch. the others i saw weren't bad persay, just not nearly as good.

yesterday i went to a feria to buy some fruits and vegetables. a feria is basically an outdoor, impromtu market set up on a block or two of a street. i bought a kilo of peaches (peach-bannanas, a variety that had whiter flesh than most peaches), 2 large tomatoes, lettuce, and a green pepper all for $1.15 or so. a nice deal, and yummy too.

alright. not much else going on. just enjoying the summer, trying to make travel plans. i'll keep you informed.


time to make a salad with the aforementioned vegetables, and the creamy french dressing i was lucky enough to find, and some of that amazing cheddar cheese. if only i could find croutons . . .

address

a new discovery: chile does have postal codes, i just didn't know about them. so here's my address with the postal code:

Lucrecia Valdes 333
Departamento B
835-0485 Santiago, Chile

alright. that's all i've got for now. time to drink some ice water since i've got a working fridge.

happy new year

yeah, i know it's been a while since i updated this. apologies.

there's new photos in internetland for you to look at, but i've yet to fix them up with photoshop or give them real titles and captions. hopefully i'll get around to that soon. if you have questions about them, just send me an email (note: excuse to get you to send me an email).

new year's eve was lots of fun - as i said, i went to valparaiso (port city, about 2 hours from santiago) for their carnaval cultural. i saw some interesting photo exhibits, a play Beckett y Godot, the band Congresso (one of those aging bands that was popular in the early seventies and forced into exile (in France) by the military regime), and a modern Baroque dance. great fun, and all free, of course. on the night of the 31st, icha and i went to a really cool cafe for tea (they have over 40 varieties of tea there . . . oh so hard to choose what too drink) and then watched the fireworks over the bay from a mirador (one of the places on top of a hill where you have a good view). there were fireworks in valparaiso, viña del mar, and reñaca, the three cities that surround the bay. there were so many people in the streets there to celebrate, and a wide variety of people: kids, teens, adults, and the parents of said adults. after the fireworks we went for tea again - just had to try a different one.


monday i went and saw the santiago symphony orchestra (for free), yesterday Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and tonight i'm going to see the nutcracker (also free).

the apartment is nice, i should be getting a working refrigerator within the next half hour.

oh, i went yesterday and got my formal letter of acceptance from la católica where i'm going to be studying next semester. sure is nice to know that that is finalized.

i'm working on making some travel plans, though still nothing definite.


alright. time to read some of this book my math professor lent me, and maybe do some problems. looks intersting . . .

...rush...

sorry this has to be brief, but i'm going to valparaiso to celebrate new years (and enjoy the carnaval they have there before hand) today in about an hour and still need to get everything ready to go.

once again, happy christmas, and new years too.

i spent christmas eve and christmas day with icha's family and had a great time. the turkey al cubano, cooked by icha's cuban uncle, was really good - interesting flavor i'd never tasted before.

i'll try and write more and post some photos (once i fix them in photoshop) when i get back.

apartment jazz

writing this post from my new apartment. i'm almost moved in now. still have a few bags of things to bring over from the other apartment, but that should be done today (it sure is annoying taking the metro and buses with huge bags, but i suppose that's life - a taxi would be pretty expensive, and not really worth it).

the apartment's nice - well, i like it at least. the other people who live in the building are pretty nice - all in their 20's. they've been helpful so far, telling me things like where the not-quite-nearest but cheapest supermarket is, and the fastest way to get to places i need to go. the only problem thus far is the refrigerator - it doesn't quite work, but that should be fixed today or tomorrow. and i figure i can live without such convenience for a few days, especially when the grocery is within walking distance.

this post is also being written from my newly installed ubuntu system (linux, for those of you who don't know ubuntu, and for those of you who don't know linux, it's another operating system, like windows, but free, and somehow better in some indescribable way). new, fun toy. and, as i suppose is obvious, the internet (included in my rent :-) works. it's not a direct line, though; appears to be through a router, which is fine, except i'm not sure how to get bittorrent working well. but i've plenty of time to play with it and try and figure that out.


definitely doesn't feel like christmas is 3 days away. i'm sure that's mostly the weather - somehow summer != christmas in my mind. i suppose that makes sense. the displays in the mall with fake snow look so, umm, fake.

still not sure what i'll be doing to celebrate the holidays - my host family invited me to come have dinner with them, so we'll see - that seems the most viable option, especially if i don't leave santiago. i thought i might be travelling with a girl from the program, but i've yet to hear from her, so we'll see.

time to take a shower . . . wait, that's not the best idea if i'm going to be spending hours in public transportation dragging large bags of belongings across the city. so i suppose i'll postpone that and instead get dressed and try and finish this moving bit.


oh, almost forgot: happy holidays to all of you; i miss you and am sorry i can't be there with you.

things a'changin'

i signed the lease on an apartment today. i'll probably be getting the keys and starting to move in wednesday. so i guess you could start sending things there now seeing as it takes a few days for things to get here.

Lucrecia Valdes de Barros 333
Departamento B
Santiago, Chile

it looks to be a nice place, but i guess that's obvious since i signed the lease. $250 monthly, including internet, cable (though i don't as of now have a tv), and water. i'm going to have to buy things for the kitchen, but i figure if i cook mcgyver-style i shouldn't need too much.

yesterday my eye got some cat fur/dead skin in it and got all inflamed. allergic reactions are no fun. but the pharmacy gave me some anti-inflammotory anti-biotic drops, and that made it better in about 40 minutes, and about 6 hours later it felt normal. well, a bit tired and strained, but not swollen or painful anymore.

alright. it's sweltering in this apartment so i'm going to go outside and write some letters or read a book.

same old

not much new here. still looking for an apartment (got some visits scheduled for tomorrow), still yet to take that one last exam. otherwise, school's over and i'm free to do whatever i want, once i decide what that is. as for today, i'm going to go get some coffee and a french press from a friend who's going back to the u.s. and doesn't need/want them. later i'm going to a moive - drops of water falling over hot rocks, or something like that is the title. we'll see how it goes. i also talked to that professor who's willing to teach me things over the summer - tuesday or wednesday i'm gonig to go talk to him and get a book, and start learning, i guess. hopefully i'll be able to fulfill a graduation requirement for free while giving myself something to do all summer.

alright, i'm hungry. lunch time.

oh, and for those of you who want to talk to me (yes, with your voice and not via written words) you should get a microphone for your computer and download skype (user name: aschwieter). it's great fun.

school's out . . . almost

so it appears that all i have left for the semester is one essay on globalization (which i'm writing with another gringa (well, a gringa since i'm a gringo, gender, you know) [ed. note: gringo = pale skinned person, sometimes used to refer to an english speaker; unlike in mexico, it carries no negative connotation in chile]) since you've forgotten what was before the parenthesis, i'll just say that all i have left for this semester is an essay which is half done and an exam. the paper is due tuesday and the exam the following tuesday. hopefully all this time means i won't have to work for hours the night before it's due to finish it, but you never know what heights procrastination can reach.

tomorrow i'm going to go look at an apartment, actually two in the same building, in which i might live the coming semester. rent is $284 a month, including utilities, or so i am led to believe. we'll see if that information is amended tomorrow.

what else . . . tomorrow i'm also going to go talk to my math professor about the summer - he offered to lend me a book and help me learn it over the summer, which would be great not only to give me something to do but also because when i get back to the u of i i can take a proficiency test and get credit for whatever it is i learned. great way to get free credit that counts towards graduation. also in my plans for the summer, besides traveling, are maybe teaching some english - the director of my program says she knows someone who wants conversational english lessons, which i don't think would be very hard, since i can converse in english and all. there's also the potential for house/apartment-sitting for people rich enough to pay for such a service. i can act like i live in someone's house (in fact, i've been doing it all semester).

not much else going on . . . other than all that jazz with my mom. the internet sure is wonderful, allowing my dad to send me updates on her (although i'd love to hear more). it sure is hard being 5000 miles away when your mother is in the hospital.

ok. i guess i should work on that paper since i haven't all day. what better time than now to fight procrastination.

thanksgiving

yesterday was the first time i've ever eaten thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant. it's not something i'd recommend. you miss out on some of the best parts of thanksgiving, such as seeing the platter piled high with turkey, getting a choice between light and dark meat, eating until you couldn't possibly eat anymore, the sense of family, and, of course, the leftovers. here's what the main plate looked like - some mashed potatoes, turkey with a bit of gravy and stuffing, and a bit of what i assume was cranberry sauce. the food did taste pretty good, and was preceeded by a caesar salad and followed by pumpkin pie, so it sufficiently reminded me of thanksgiving. but it was in no way the same. oh, and i forgot to mention that it's almost summer here so it was warm out too.

classes are winding down, so that means i get to write a couple of papers this weekend. i'm so excited. yay . . . well, i suppose i don't have much choice. it looks like i'll only be taking exams for two of my four classes since i'm exempt from the other two, so i guess that's good.

time to go work on those papers and then go see a photography exhibition.



oh - in case you didn't notice, over there in the sidebar of this page, underneath the stuff about the past, is a link to some photo albums i put in internetland.
--->

ultimate photos

it's late, i have to get up early to go to the beach tomorrow, but here's the link to the photos from ultimate on the beach. photos let me know if it doesn't work, or if there are problems viewing this blog. i'd be glad to fix them for your viewing pleasure.

APEC

just a quick update: there's all sorts of interesting things going on in santiago because of the APEC meetings - lots of detours, protests, and universities being closed. of course, none of this really affects me personally since i live so far from downtown and i'm certainly not going to be doing any protesting (i'm told to do so would risk my visa being revoked, and i wouldn't want any of that).

today's been a nice day so far - went to look at an apartment which was pretty nice, though i'd like to find somewhere a bit cheaper or maybe a couple blocks off the main street so it isn't so loud. after that i went to the museum of beautiful arts (museo de bellas artes - maybe i should translate it as fine arts, but i prefer the literal translation) and saw a couple really cool photography exhibitions.

now it's time for some reading and/or a short nap

beet

back from the beach with a sore body and some sunburnt feet. yes, i know, sunscreen. trust me, i put it on. but apparently i didn't reapply appropriatly, and there is also the possiblitlty that the ocean washed of some of the sunscreen, as well as the other alternative that the sand, known for its exfoliating properties, exfoliated the protected layer of skin and left me with softer yet more vulnerable feet. in any case, they are nice and red now - we'll see if wearing shoes is possible tomorrow - it might be a few days of sandal wearing for "medical" purposes.

don't think that this hot sun burning my feet in any way affected my weekend. i quite enjoyed myself. we played probably 5 or 6 games (5 on 5 with 1 or 2 subs, play to 7) on saturday and another 3 sunday. i was right about the beach being windy - luckly though the wind was essentially parallel to the field, so we didn't have to deal with the oh so annoying and unpredictable crosswind. instead, the team that was throwing with the wind just had a tremendous advantage. this led to a number of games being point for point races, and the winning team was the one that could score into the wind. we played on the beach (so a couple discs did land in the surf when thrown particularly horribly) on a field marked off with some white elastic bands staked into the sand. at first, the field was nice and flat, relatively well-packed sand. that of course changed after one or two games, making all those muscles in your feet have to work extra hard to run, well, as close to running as you can get on the beach. after a long day of playing ultimate, we had an asado at the cabañas (read cookout at the cabins). chorripans, antichuchos, y pollo (sausage-on-bread, shish kabobs, and chicken). quite satisfying.

it's getting late, so i am going to get to sleep - i slept well last night, but all that exercise made me a bit tired. my body needs to rebuild all the muscles i tore.

oh, i suppose i forgot to mention earlier that i'm probably one of the worst players who went to the beach. it could be that i'm out of practice, but i blame it more on my overall lack of athletic ability. but not to worry - it was still a good time, and maybe i learned a thing or too, or at least found people with which to play in the future. they play once or twice a week, so hopefully that practice will allow me to improve.




i suppose i'm not supposed to comment on the title i just decided upon, but it makes me wonder: how is it that i never ate any beets before i came here? not that i've had a lot here, but i did have them for dinner 2 nights on my trip to the south - and they are good, not to mention beautiful to look at. such a rich color.

ice cream

well. i am officially bad at keeping an up to date web log, even though i am probably on the internet every day. somehow the urge to update this site doesn't come to me when i am at the computer, and when i am not it is a bit tough to do so. yeah, i could right these posts on real paper and then post them later, but i don't much like that idea. well, rather i like it but don't do it. i think i fear the electronicization process, and the fact that i would want to change what i had written to such a degree that there really is no point in writing anything out before i sit down at the computer. now, if i had a secretary, or a voluntary secrectary, things would be different. or maybe if i actually wrote things here that i felt expressed anything more than the moment i am writing them - i mean, if i put some really well-written things in a notebook, i don't think it would bother me much transfering them. but this page isn't so much well written, and i don't see that changing in the near future.


enough blather. you are reading this not to find out about how i write these silly posts but instead to find out about this city and country i am living in, or at least my actions in this strange place. hmm. well, today i went to a couple classes, read a really good story on the micro (micro=bus)("cuello de gatito negro" [translates as "the neck of a little black cat"] by julio cortázar), and went and saw some bad music performed by a group of musicians who wear clown noses. don't ask. the tickets were free. that is definitly the only reason i went. now i understand why they were giving away tickets. beware of free tickets found on the internet: there is a reason they are free.

i asked my math profesor if there were any math-related things i could do in the summer in the city. short answer: yes, but they are boring or unofficial. long answer: i could be a ta or something, but the word on the street is that in the summer that is not the best job to have. lots of discussion sessions, lots of papers to grade, and students who don't care to much and just want to pass the class they failed so they don't get behind. so my profesor offered to lend me a book which i could work through and learn things, and he'd be about to help me and talk about things. while this might be nice, it is in no way something i can use in any official sense in the future. well, i realize now as i write this, i could take a proficiency exam when i get back to school and get credit for a class about what i learned. so this idea just got a bit more attractive, but i'm still looking for something better to do with my summer. and there's always traveling . . .

this saturday i am taking a little trip to the beach to play ultimate on the beach. never played frisbee on the beach - i fear it might be a bit windy, but we'll see how it goes. this is related to the fact that on sunday i played ultimate for 3 hours or so with a bunch of americans and a handful of chileans. they are a group who plays 2 times a week (though i have class during one of them), made up mostly of americans who are in santiago for various reasons, but in the past it was apparently half chilean and half estadounidense. {now is as good a time as any to point out that this whole continent is america, and chileans are americans too. i can't say "i want to go back to america" because in reality i never left. that being said, it is hard to refer to residents of the united states in english in any other manner. so i will most likely continue to do so, but you should be aware there is a cultural issue here, and i cringe every time i am forced to call my compatriates americans.}

yesterday i saw some really amazing improvisational jazz (and free too). the piano player played the inside of the piano, something i hadn't seen before, and also put a piece of paper in the piano to make it sound differently. good music. tomorrow i might go see another trio in the same program.

hmm. i seem to have run out of words to add to this mountain. just one more to top it off:



cherry

books and movies

sorry for the excessive delay in posting anything.

last week i had to write a paper and give a presentation on "anything that has to do with latin america." obviously the idea was that we chose topics that were interesting to us. i chose to write and talk about nicanor parra, a chilean poet, or, as he is known, antipoet. antipoetry is just poetry that breaks with the erudite poetic tradition and brings poetry to both everyday life and coloquial language. basically, makes written poems be like the poems we see an experience every day. quite a good poet. he also makes, well i guess he still does though he is 90 years old, artifacts, which are objects together with a few short verses, for example, a bottle of cocacola and a little card that says "message in a bottle." the idea is to mix common objects with common phrase and create an altogether uncommon result that he then procedes to call art. the mere act of calling it art makes people look at it differently. i could obviously continue on for 7 pages about him, but i'll refrain from that for now. i'll post any poems i find that he wrote entirely in english (since he has a graduate degree in physics from brown university and speaks english fluently).

friday (and i guess saturday too) i went to a 24 hour movie marathon, cine adiccion, of movies that are hard to find in chile. unfortunatly i fell asleep during the one movie a really wanted to see, the holy mountain, directed by aleandro jodorowsky, so i'll just have to find it somewhere and watch it again. another good movie was the tulse luper suitcases, and also i will walk like a crazy horse. 24 hours is a long time to spend in a movie theater.

tonight, or rather in about 10 minutes, i'm going to the 24th international book fair, where i'm hopefully going to hear a professor of mine talk since he is one of 14 new chilean poets there is a presentation about (and i know he will be there since he cancelled class so he could go). hopefully i'll also find some more good books to read - i'm almost done with the perfume: story of an assasin that i'm reading in spanish, translated from the original german. if not, i'll just go to the library - i want to read more by jodorowsky and parra.

time to go.