Mullets, 80s Music and Bad food...CHILE!

Chile…

If I was asked to sum Chile up in a few words it would be

- To much PDA
- Mullets and Fullets
- Constant 80s dance party
- Chilean Cuisine…an oxymoron

Chile is a country that coming in I knew would be interesting for a few reasons the first being that the lady that married my grandfather back when I was little was from Chile, and well she did not leave a very good impression on me, of course this was for more personal reasons. Apart from that, I knew going in that this was probably going to be one of the more expensive/well off countries we would encounter and that was definitely true. Although it doesn’t take much to see right past that well-off exterior and see the same amount of poverty that you see in every other country, it was just a little more hidden.

The weather in Chile is also something to note, as we are in the dead of winter…luckily I packed my Northface jacket and some gloves…Valpo was in the low 60s, but Santiago was a chilly 40-60 degrees!

Coming into Valparaiso (Valpo for short) was beautiful as this town is known for its hillside homes that line every part of the city. It just looked like a twinkling horizon as we approached…breathtaking! The part of town we docked was right near the Chilean navy, we were docked right next to a bunch of navy ships. Tom, the assistant executive dean was joking that when talking to the port authority he was informed that the Navy School was about a 10 minute walk from the port, his response was that most people on the ship would probably be running there.

I spent the first day in port with Anne, Nate and Doug just kinda wondering the city. Our first venture was to try and get some Chilean Pesos, which was actually more complicated then we thought. As we were leaving the port we were told that all the ATMs near the dock were empty because we were arriving on the tail end of a holiday weekend (it was the celebration of some virgin that I can’t remember right now). We ended up going to at least 4 ATMs and started to curse the Chilean economy for not knowing how to keep an ATM stocked. Finally at the 5th ATM we realized that we were just not reading the instructions and that we had to hit a button for a “foreign transaction” to use our ATM cards. Yup…we felt REALLY stupid L

After that we ventured up one of the many Asensores (ass-sensors as my students called it) or funiculars which took you up the hill to the community of brightly painted hillside homes.

Once up here we headed to a restaurant that the Lonely planet suggested which turned out to be a bit more expensive than we wanted, but we stuck it out. My first taste of Chilean cuisine was a seafood gratin which was a mush of shrimp and scallops (which still had what looked like there poop shoots still attached)…I stirred it around and then felt as if I was going to vomit.

The rest of the day we spent in Vina del Mar, a beach town near Valpo, were we went to the Mall and watched the new Harry Potter movie. Trust me I would have rather done something else, but the whole country was shut down due to the holiday!

Dinner was my first introduction to the Chilean gastronomical technique of throwing a fried egg on top of something and calling it a meal…a burger topped with onions, fries and an egg…and yes, this was the beginning of stomach issues I am still dealing with.

Day 2! We hopped aboard a bus and headed to Santiago where we had reserved a hostel (this being Doug, Rasa and myself…actually we found out that some of my favorite students also booked rooms at the same place, so it was fun!) in the area of town called Bellavista which is the art/bohemian center of Santiago. My first impressions of Santiago was that is an incredibly metropolitan city, I can only compare it to New York or even Chicago…of course neither of those cities have the Andes with there snow peaked mountains as there back drop.

Onto Bellavista we found our hostel which was adorable, eclectically decorated and in a perfect part of town full of restaurants and young people mostly backpackers or world travelers. After checking in we realized that our luck was not all that great because our room was the first one by the front door and that our room had no heat…thank god for thick ass blankets!

After checking in we headed off to the El Cerro San Cristobal which was right behind our neighborhood to ride the funicular and the teleferico. On the way we stopped for lunch were we met two Australian travelers who would be come our partners in crime for the rest of the day. Tristan and Byron who were on day 2 of a year long world adventure joined us in some sight seeing around the city. The best part of this was taking the teleferico which is basically like a tram you would find in Disney world which travels the length of the city and gives you one of the best views of all of Santiago.

View of the City


Around 5pm Rasa headed off for a nap and Doug and the Aussies and I headed for a beer…around 7 we met up for dinner at this little Thai restaurant and then continued on for some more hanging out and drinking. Now most of you all know that I am a light weight when it comes to alcohol…so lets just say that when I took myself home at 11:15pm I was not feeling very well. All I am going to say is that the lesson learned is never drink with Australians. Never.

The next day we got up and needed some greasy food (and about 3 advils), Doug had the bright idea of finding the McDonalds we had seen the day before. Nothing like some McD’s to get you going in the morning. The only problem is that in Chile the breakfast menu is not your typical Sausage egg and cheese with a hash brown. Rather it was French bread with an egg…no hashbrown. Not what we wanted. We went next door to doggies for our first and only taste of a Chilean hot dog called a “complete” the picture says it all (and yes that hot dog has guacamole and tomatoes on it).
The rest of the day was sight seeing and phone call making…we did get a chance to meet up with some of my favorite students Shannon, Jesse, Sarah, Brian, Mackenzie, and Ashley for dinner…most of these folks are from big 10 schools or from Pitt. We ate at a French restaurant. Chilean French food = not good.

On a side note I need to comment on the 80s sound track that seemed to playing throughout all of Chile! Every store we entered, every restaurant, every metro station had some 80s hit playing. At some point I started to wonder if the countries pop culture was really that behind, but then I would see some Justin Timberlake or Shakira posters. The fact is that Chile is just one huge 80s party…one hit wonders of the 80s are still going big in Chile!

The other side note is the mullet and fullet (female mullet, thank you Byron) which was the cut de jour of Chile…it wasn’t even a question…it was the average haircut of most people 20-35…a mullet! I mean I know its cold, but folks, they invented things like scarves and turtle necks (although not cute) to keep your neck warm…get rid of the mud flap!

Our last full day in Santiago we spent sight seeing again, local markets, coffee shops, etc. It was nice to have a pretty normal average day in a city not jam packed with stuff! The sad part was that this was the first day of poor Doug really going down hill with his sore throat and mucus grossness that had been going around the ship. That night he and Rasa were out of commission so I headed out with some of my favorite students for some drinks to watch the Chile/Argentina soccer game and then to a bar for some music and dancing. In true Chilean style when we asked the live singer to sing a classic American love song she belted out Sweet Child of Mine…hilarious.

I think my favorite part of Chile was getting the chance to hang out with some really amazing and fun students and have a good time with them. As I was talking with Lisa about this morning, I think unfortunately sometimes we are forced to only interact with our students around bad things like extreme intoxication. But when you have a chance to hang out and get to know students is when you truly start to love this job. And that is what Chile was for me, students becoming friends that I hope and want to keep in touch with after this voyage.