Happy Easter

So technically tomorrow is Easter, but that’s alright.  My host family is not actually going to church so I suppose I will be on my own tomorrow, which is a bit upsetting.  I haven’t been around much on the weekends to know where to go.  Perhaps I shall just have to celebrate at home?  We’ll see.

All of my work that I’ve been procrastinating on has finally caught up with me.  I spent all day in bed studying my notes and reading, and tomorrow will probably be the same.  I’m a little freaked out now about how much material I have to know for my test on Thursday, and by how horribly disorganized and convoluted my professor’s notes are.  If I dropped the class I would still be taking 14 credits, but I don’t know if it’s too late now.  The thing that worries me most is that if I screw up this test, that’s a big chunk of my grade right there.  Oh well.  I guess I’ll just have to bust my ass…that is what college is about, right?  Learning, forget that.  I may sound a little P.O.’d in this post, so please excuse it.  It happens occassionally.  Frustrations with the language, the cultural difference, being sick, whatever…it wears on you after awhile.  I am still quite content here, but I think the initial infatuation is beginning to wear off a bit.  Vacation is over, now it’s time to work and do what you came here to do.

Elisa and I in Viña del Mar

Aside from that, I have had a pretty good week.  My friend Elisa from UMW is studying in Mendoza, Argentina not too far from here, so she and her friend Kaley came to visit me on Wednesday.  It’s only about six hours by bus, so it was pretty easy for them to get here, and I’m thinking about visiting them in Mendoza next month. I met them at their hostel Wednesday morning and we did a whirlwind tour of downtown Viña and Valpo.  It was a very humid, cloudy day unfortunately, but we had fun none the less.  We walked by the beach in Viña, along Avenida Libertad to Plaza Vergara–a pretty hefty distance.  We ate at a dinky little restaurant that serves completos (hotdogs with avocado, tomato, and mayo dumped on top) and from there took the metro into Valpo.  My favorite neighborhood in Valpo is the Bellavista area and Cerro Concepción.

In Bellavista we walked once again through Museo del Cielo Abierto (Open Sky Museum) which showcases some of the cities’ best murals and street art.  I had already been there before, but it was great to go back again.  I’m always amazed at the street art around here.  It’s so elaborate and well done…it makes me want to grab some paint and find an empty piece of wall somewhere and go at it.  From there we took Ascensor Consepción to Cerro Concepción, a neat area with lots of shops and artsy fartsy things to look at.  There’s also a great lookout there where you can get a view of the entire city.

Don't know who this is, but his face is on the side of a brick wall in Valpo.

Later that evening we went out to get chorrillanas at J Cruz, where I had gone to eat before with friends.  Chorrillanas are basically huge plates of french fries with beef, eggs, and onions on top.  It’ll give you a heart attack, but trust me, it’s worth every bite.  So delicious.  And the atmosphere in that place is unlike anything you’ll find anywhere else.  J Cruz is tucked away in an alley and is filled with collections of interesting junk.  Customers are allowed to write and sign all over everything in the restaurant.  I left my name on a table cloth at our table.  There are old men that sing and play the guitar and accordion in the restaurant and ask you for change.  I love it.

I had been invited by a Chilean friend to go out salsa dancing later that night, so the girls and I headed to a club called Tablon Rufino around 9ish, even though we were exhausted.  At first the place was pretty dead.  Most people don’t really go out in Chile until around 11 at the earliest, and stay out until the wee hours of the morning.  They had some lessons going on though, so I gave it a try.  It’s a lot harder than it looks, let me tell you.  It was a good time though…can’t wait to go back and try it out again sometime.

The next day we didn’t do a whole lot, but we did walk a little around Valpo and got lunch together before the girls left and I went to class.  I discovered that my classes for the afternoon were actually canceled, however, due to Semana Santa.  I went back to Viña and took a very long, very much needed nap.  Perfect end to a great couple of days.  It was really nice to get visitors, and showing them around was good for me too because I got to see and explore some parts of the city I wasn’t too familiar with.  Nothing like being a tour guide to help you get to know a place, I guess.  So when the rest of you guys come visit me, I should be a real pro ;)

Cachimba, Chilean film.

Last night was much more relaxed.  My friend Jena and I watched most of two Chilean movies, one called B-Happy and the other called Cachimba.  Neither were spectacular, unfortunately, but I haven’t given up hope yet up finding some good Chilean films.  B-Happy was a pretty depressing film about a teenage girl growing up in the middle of nowhere in Chile.  She meets her father for the first time when he is released from prison, and a series of unfortunate events happen in her life from that point on.  A lot was left open-ended, which bugged me a bit.  It was pretty obviously low-budget too, but that doesn’t always condemn good movies to death.  I just didn’t know what to think of it in the end.  There were some pretty neat scenes in Valparaiso, though.

Cachimba was a lot more light-hearted, but a bit strange.  I watched most of it without subtitles, which was difficult, but not impossible.  Today I finished it with Spanish subtitles and I got basically everything.  It’s about a man who works for an Chilean art preservation corporation in Santiago.  He’s in love with this woman and they discover this run-down art gallery in some podunk town and he helps revive it, thus simultaneously reviving his relationship with said woman.  Eh, whatever.  I’m still on the hunt for some good ones…I’ll keep you posted.