Global Crossroads Study Abroad Blog

Wandered around some more today, found Wolff Castle, which was pretty cool. It’s this big stone castle right on the ocean surrounded by bigs rocks and lots seagulls and pelicans! The pelicans are huge and a little scary looking. I also walked on another beach (further down on the coast) for awhile and played with some of the stray dogs. It was a good 4-5 hours of walking. I am already getting sunburned, which is not a good sign since it’s only been about 4 days now! Damn my pale skin! I also found a random place that you could rent an airplane from…it looked a little shady, but who knows it could have been an airplane museum … I also found a place filled with sailboats! It was so pretty even though the men working on their boats were yelling things at me. 

I found some really beautiful rock formations and old abandoned structures on the coast. I also wandered around in the Shariton Hotel for awhile. It is HUGE! And really fancy. There were these big glass elevators that faced the hillside and the other side of the hotel faced the ocean (the hotel hangs over the ocean). Even the bathrooms were fancy, they had these big wooden doors you had to walk through, but it doesn’t take much to impress me. The people working there kept staring at me wandering if I belonged, which I obviously didn’t, but in Chile it seems like you can pretty much go anywhere and people don’t care. For example, I saw a guy fishing off of an old abandoned building by the ocean/in the ocean (it looked really dangerous), but no one seemed to care or really even notice. 

I tried some Chilean pasteles today! I tried another cheese empanada (a bigger one this time..haha). I also tried a blondie and a berlin. The blondie was this pastry with lemon filling. It was really good! Plus they were only around 50 cents each, which isn’t too bad. Plus, this morning I tried this fruit that is shaped kind of like an egg and it is green and purple and tasted like a cucumber mixed with a melon. It was interesting, but very good!

I went grocery shopping again and bought myself some milk, it tastes a little weird, but it will do! Made myself some banana pancakes with it, but sadly syrup doesn’t exist in Chile, so I had to top them with orange marmalade, which still ended up being delicious!

Also, let’s see if I can use this gas heater without blowing myself up. William (from the international center) showed me how to use it this morning, but now everytime I try to turn it on the flame shoots out and goes out (I think too much gas must be coming out of it before the spark can light it…) How I miss central heating!

Tomorrow I am going to try to go on a trip to Valparaiso to see one of Pablo Neruda’s many homes. We shall see how that goes!

Randomness:

• The grocery stores are very strange here. You have to weigh your fruit at a weight station before going to the cash register and all of the topping (salsas) are in squeeze bags. Like, ketchup, mustard and tomatoe sauce are all in these weird squeeze bags.
• The milk is wierd too, it is UHT milk or ultra high temperature milk so it comes in a tiny box that sits at room temp on the shelf. They last for a long time, but the high temp treatment makes it taste strange.
• I bought myself some Chilean wine and am currently drinking it right now! It is pretty good. I am also watching some hilarious Chilean tv and learning how to glue plants to a log…haha and do arm exercises with babies.
• I also cleaned my apartment today since I don’t think that they clean the apartment between students or at least not very well. There was a bunch of used food and bathroom products still here from other people, so now it is clean! Hopefully I don’t offend the maid…since supposedly there is a maid that comes once a week, but I am starting to question if she actually exists considering the state of the apartment…
• Nothing is heated with central heat (at least not that I’ve seen). It’s all heated with a gas heater. It’s basically a box on wheels with a propane tank that you turn the nob, which makes a spark and then lights the gas, which then heats the apartment/the room it’s sitting in.

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