Swimming

I couldn't help but notice the contrast between my weekend weather and what I saw back home in Wisconsin. Here's some pictures from my Sunday body-boarding session.


(Riding the waves into the beach)

(Waiting for the next riding back to the beach)

(After eight months in Chile, I'm still amazing at the wires and cables found on the streets. Maybe in five years, Chile will go wireless, but until then, it looks like a game of guess and check)


A friend of mine sent me a message asking if I wanted to go at watch the WS game tonight. I guess I'm even more out of touch with baseball down here in Chile, because it took me a good minute or so to figure out this WS code my friend sent me. Finally I realized WS stood for World Series. Needless to say, I politely declined since after figuring out World Series I was completely at a loss for what two teams were playing.

Busy Times

Although we didn't do much in Mendoza, Argentina, it was an excellent time. I arrived at 5:30am Friday morning and met up with three friends shortly later who were coming from Viña/Valpo.

(This map shows how close Mendoza is to Santiago. I think it's a six hour journey with about an hour spent at the border)
Friday we spend the day in the parks and eating.

(Big kids in a huge park. Steve, Kat, Andrea, Me)
The quality and price of the food there is amazing. We had steaks, Italian food that our friend from Italy gave his approval to, and stumbled upon a Spanish Cultural Festival Friday night in the main Plaza. This provided us with traditional Spanish dance and music while we ate tapas, paello, and drank some sangria. Of course the Argentinians take their nights seriously, which we saw as we returned to our hostel around 12:30 and saw all of the outdoor cafes filled with people still eating, and drinking before they head out to the dance clubs. We decided you only spend one night in Mendoza on October 10th, 2008, so we might as well go out to one of the clubs. When in Rome, right? It was a fun place that showcased amble beautiful women. We were in heaven, even our girlfriend that we were with was shocked at the difference of the women between Chile and Argentina.
Saturday we signed up to go paragliding and were waiting for the company to pick us up when someone came up in a van telling us it was too windy to do it Saturday. So, we spent the rest of the day walking around the city, checking out the main five plazas, and of course eating.

(I guess we'll eat some food?)
Saturday night, we met up with my friend Dylan's friend who lives in Mendoza. They met in Vail, CO and she was very excited to meet me and my friends, so we had dinner with her and her friends at a very Argentinian time of 11:00pm. Then the eight of us(3 US, 1 Italian, 4 Argentinians) joined tables with some other friends and all of a sudden we had a group of about 16 people and we then wen to a birthday party with all of our new friends.

(The eight of us at dinner. Dinner was a pizza, but the crust was a juicy steak. I know, very healthy)

(Here we have the four of us with our new Argentinian friends. We did some "cultural lessons" at the table, like how to say "slam it" in Chilean, Argentinian, and English)
This birthday party was not at all what I was expecting. I thought there would be 15-20 people sitting around drinking a little, talking, eating some Lay's potato chips, and that it would be awkward when our crew of 16 showed up, but when we arrived to this ranch style house, we discovered that the party was more like a dance club with about 100 people dancing with a dj, lights, food and drinks under a carnival tent. Then when we thought it couldn't get any better, a kiddie blow up slide appeared out of nowhere that delightfully entertained us.
Sunday, we woke up with the intention of getting a bus ticket home for Sunday night and to visit the vineyards, since that is what you typically do in Mendoza. About 70% of Argentina's wine is produced in the Mendoza area. This vineyard plan was thwarted by our lack of planning as almost all the vineyards were closed due to it being Sunday. So what did we do? Yup, ate and walked around, then eventually found a cafe to watch the Chile/Ecuador World Cup Qualification game with other Chileans.
I got in Monday morning, exhausted from a long uneventful weekend, and then Tuesday we had our Duoc 40th Anniversary Dinner at a huge conventional hall. It was like being at the Oscars, there was a live band, cameras on huge booms, and stars form the popular soap operas MC'ed the event. We were served extremely good food for about two hours then a famous Chilean comedian came on stage around 11 and performed for us. His specialty is impressions, which was great for me, because not only did I not understand his Spanish, he was impersonating people I didn't know. But it was a fun event and I got to wear on of my ties that I haven't used in about 4 months.
Wednesday night was filled witnessing History happen live. While I will regrettably admit I wasn't at the "Ice Bowl" and have the unfortunate luck of being born 15 years after man walked on the Moon, I can proudly claim that I was there when Chile finally beat Argentina in an official Soccer Match. Wednesday night marked the first time in the history of the Universe that Chile was victorious against Argentina and it was amazing. The energy in the Stadium was electric. Everyone was filled with optimistic hope, and when Chile scored their goal about 20 minutes into the game, the 80,000+ crowd erupted into cheers, songs, and chants for the next hour and a half.

(Celebrations after the goal. From http://www.santiagotimes.cl)
The game was intense with plenty of shots on goal, and good passing, but once the ref finally blew his whistle signaling the seemingly impossible had just happened, it was like a bomb blew as everyone celebrated. Well, actually there were a few explosions that went off. I think they were some kind of fire works. No one wanted to leave and people started light their newspapers on fire in celebration.

(The celebratory flares after the game was called)
As we left every vehicle joined in a chorus of beeps and honks of Chilean chants and songs. People were walking around proudly waving their Chilean flags and gleefully shouting.
Now, I'm trying to catch up on some work, and figure out what to do this weekend. I'm frustrated with my students' lack of motivation right now. For example, we had our Midterm last night for one of my basic classes, and we had reviewed the previous class, we did a two page review, and they have known about this exam for at least three weeks. Despite all of these preparations, I had student fill in two answers and tell me, "nope, I didn't study" shaking his head. I was shocked. How is that possible? This was my night class as well, the students that should be motivated to learn English to help advance their careers. I guess this was the first time I took a students failure personally. I know it is completely their responsibility, and I did what I could, but it was strange. I still compare my UW-Madison experience to where I'm at and need to realize they have different expectations and experiences shaping who they are. My Duoc students are now UW-Madison students. I mean, I don't think UW-Madison would hire someone who graduated from a Universtiy in China who majored in Chinese literature to teach Chinese without any certification.
I hope all is well back home. The weather is amazing here, we had our daylight savings last weekend, so the sun now sets at 7:50pm giving me the summer feeling that I missed in June/July/August.

Full Marathon 10K

Last weekend I had a wonderful time on the coast relaxing on the beach, hanging out with friends and running my first 10k race. This 10k was a Chilean experience.

It was similar to what you would find in the US, but there were some distinct Chilean moments. To start, the port-a-let followed the Chilean rule of efficiency. There were 5 for the estimated 500 people competing in the race, and there wasn't any tp in them. Then about at about 8:30 a Richard Simmons style guy takes the main stage by the starting line and leads maybe 50-80 people in jazzersize to "warm up." These people were getting into it, practicing some salsa, hip-hop and even country dances to warm up. Then at 9:00, when the race was scheduled to start the director stated that we had to wait 5 more minutes, "Cinco minutos más, solo cinco minutos, no más" Five minutes more, only five minutes, no more. Then he explained the entire course turn by turn, and finished by explaining our numbers needed to be showing to get a time. He also had this direct quote, "For you gringos: No number, no time." At about 9:10 we started and the first 2 or 3 km we had a pack of street dogs barking along the side of the road as they were wondering why hundreds of people are running down their streets. At one point things got a little intense as three dogs ganged up on another, in the middle of the street, almost taking out three runners ahead of me. Then the only thing of interest to me was that the people would run on the sidewalk instead of the six laned road we had. Unfortunately my stomach was feeling a little crappy and at km 7 I had to duck out and frantically use a gas station bathroom. Sometimes you just have to go.

(I finished with a time of 43:44, and I have this flattering picture from the finish line to prove it.)
Also, one of my "students" told me the beginning of the race is on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBwxyPQzxLo See if you can find me. I have a look of concentrated focus on my face, and a little bit of confusion.
Overall, it wasn't to bad. I had a goal of 40 minutes, and at 5km had a time of 20:10, so I think I could have clocked in close, but with a potty break, I'm not too disappointed. I also got a free dryfit t-shirt!

Tomorrow night I'm heading to Mendoza, Argentina for vacation. Everyone has told me Mendoza is beautiful and being Spring, I'm sure it will be. I head out Thursday night, and will return Monday morning. I think it's about a 6-7 hour bus ride.

Springing around

Teaching is still going well. Yesterday our director came in a took some pictures, so I may be on the CIEE Teach in Chile brochure in the near future. I think that's pretty funny. Anyway, I'm really enjoying this semester. I have a good variation of students: some who are in lower level classes than they should, some just at about the right level, and some that can't understand a word I say. Also I have accumulated some private classes which are always fun. The weather has been beautiful here lately, and I just checked today and realized sometime in the last month Wisconsin and Santiago have done a complete flip. We're having low temperatures in the high 40's and low 50's with consistent high temps in the low/mid 70's, as the days continually get longer.

I added the pictures from "Winter Break" from San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, and Peru.
http://picasaweb.google.com/bjcreagh

September

Well I've been pretty good about updating my blog, expect for the last few weeks. A lot has been happening, and I've been trying to plan out my future, or at least my next year, or couple months. September 16th, I went to see Medeski Martin & Wood. The show was good, but not fantastic. It was great to see a jazz/funk band from the US in the Chilean environment. Normally at their shows you have the hippy/dancing crowd, but September 16th the norm was sport coats for men, and dress pants/skirts for women. I actually heard someone "shhhhhh" someone else. Definitely a cultural experience.

Then the parties of Chile began. The fiestas patrias are what drive Chileans to live. It is a combination of Thanksgiving, Spring Break, Christmas, the State Fair, and July 4th. This year September 18, their Independence Day, and September 19th, their milatary day happened to fall on Thursday and Friday, so the party got started on Wednesday night. Many schools were closed all week and people left Santiago on the Sunday before. I say it is like our holidays for these reasons
Thanksgiving: It is centered around eating. We had bbq's every day, and ate empanadas every day.
Spring Break: It is getting nice down here so people are antsy to get outside, and the beach towns are flooded with vacationers.
Christmas: We put up decorations, banners, flags, and people just had a general giddiness about them that reminded me of the last day of school before Christmas Vacations. I saw students running up and down the hallway giggling gleefully on the Tuesday before "the parties"
The State Fair: All around Santiago and the country there are huge "Fondas" which are basically huge fairs with games, live music, tons of food and drinks, dance tents and a fair like atmosphere.
July 4th: The whole country shows their patriotism during the entire month of September. In the grocery stores, in the little corner shops, in the pharmacy, there are decorations, banners, flags, and national colors hanging proudly. In the major grocery stores there is Traditional Chilean music playing non-stop. Now I thought people may get sick of these songs, but every time I went in, I'd see fathers singing to their children, couples happily reciting the lyrics and generally loving the music.
I didn't leave Santiago for the vacation but instead hung out with my "family" down here and enjoyed hanging out with them.


(Carne galore. Meat, meat and more meat. I think I ate more meat that week than I had in the previous couple months.)


(The cueca, the traditional dance that is performed during this week, but otherwise sort of forgotten about. There was a show on the street outside my apartment in front of the Municipality Building)


(Military parade outside our apartment. They really take their armed forces seriously down here. The parade started in the center of the city and lasted about 3 hours. Then each section of the military marched back through their communities.)


(José-Tomás continues to entertain me, or I entertain him. I'm not sure, but it is fun to have him around the house. He always walking into my room and trys to pull down everything from my desk and investigate.)


(Teaching Angie how to make cinnamon rolls. My "family" is obsessed with the rolls. They think I should sell them outside of Starbucks for $2 a roll. They swear I'd make a ton of money)

José-Tomás and Me

(Via my computer camera)

La Roja

(Craziness for their national anthem)


(The crew, with the funny man in the background, who demanded to see his photo after. It made me feel comfortable that I wouldn't get stabbed during the game, which is a legit fear.


(The opening minute, kick-off, face-off, first pitch, or whatever you call it. The beginning of the game)


(Token cute kid picture. José-Tomás with Angie)