I Hate To See You Leave But I Love To Watch You Go

Typical
Beach in Pucon
My 3 favorites!
Con el Rafa
I will miss her!

Well I can’t believe it. I’m sitting here surrounded by my empty room and half packed suitcases. It’s been 6 months and as of Thursday I will no longer be a Santiago resident. I don’t think I have ever felt such a strong combination of emotions. I am so sad to leave and will miss my friends turned family here more than I ever thought possible. At the same time the thought of traveling through South America for 2 whole months gives me butterflies in my stomach. And yes… I am so excited to return to Chicago. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about my friends and family at home. Most of all I feel so blessed to feel so conflicted. Reflecting back on these 6 months…they have been nothing short of amazing. I have three favorite parts of every big life event and my time here in Chile was no exception.

1) The beginning. I love the feeling of starting something new and knowing that for better or for worse I will never be the same. That feeling in my stomach that was 1% nerves and 99% excitement knowing that the next 8 months were mine to do with as I pleased.

2) The middle. There were so many times throughout my trip when I would just look around and think “Wow, I did this.” I remember being at Bicentenario with people who I had just barely met yet somehow considered close friends and having the absolute best time. Or having a conversation in Spanish and thinking “Wait…you just understood what I said?!” Or just having a bad night (or a bad haircut) and having friends to just sit with.

3) The end. I still have this to look forward to. But I absolutely love plane rides home. I love reflecting on people I’ve met and things I’ve learned. In this case I think I am coming back a little more confident, a little more Spanish speaking, a little more blogger friendly and with a handful of friendships that I hope will last a lifetime. I have so many people to thank. So for my last blog entry I am going to do exactly that.

Special thanks to....

Los Bravos- For hosting me for the first month. For feeding me and for not getting upset when I woke the entire family up at 4 am because I couldn’t get in your house with the stupid key.

Anna, Andrea, Josh, and Igor- For being my first friends down here and being a great time to go out with. Also a special thanks to Igor for being the sassiest and most out of control person I know.

My teachers at Escuela Bellavista (especially Marie-Christina)- For getting me started on my life long journey of learning Spanish. And for teaching me the difference between the words “butthole” and “age.”

David and Carlos (my bosses at Bridge)- David for being awesome. And Carlos, for moving to Argentina never to be seen again.

My students- Especially Carlos Mena for being so beyond inappropriate each and every class. And my KITek crew for constantly making me laugh. Also to Elizabeth for paying me to watch Modern Family with you.

Carly’s Student, Pablo- For treating me like a friend and for sharing your house and family with us for the New Year.

Ruben, Mariella, Kike, Luis, Rafa, Claudio, and Christian- For making Bicentenario the best weekend of all time. And also for making every other time we’ve hung out a close second. A special thanks to Rafa for being hilarious and fun to look at. I'm also gonna go ahead and thank Claudio on behalf of Jackie. Again..for being fun to look at.

The Governor of La Serena- For not kicking us out of your town after Jackie punched you.

Flaco, Rorro, Richi, and Eduardo – For being terrible at beerpong.

Jackie's "roommates" (Alia, Camillo, Kevin etc.)- For hosting "la previa" so often. Especially Alia for loving Suecia as much as Jackie.

Joe the British traveler- For letting me steal your money and being such a nice and goofy bloke.

Adrian- For treating me like a friend from the minute I met you. And for being the single coolest person ever.

My conversation buddies- For listening to me struggle without judgement. Also especially Nico for being a friend as well as a conversation buddy.

Caitlin, Casey, and Kate- For all of our dinners/ apples to apples tournaments. Especially Caitlin for being the best listener on this side of the Equator.

Random roommate- For not caring that I lived with you for 5 months and had NO idea what your name was. Also, for potentially stealing 200 dollars from me. In other words….thanks for NOTHING.

Dustin, Zach, and Joe- For letting me play poker with you guys and for supporting my need to hear “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” at least 10 times a week.

Katie and Derek- For hosting the best Chilean gringo Thanksgiving celebration possibly ever.

Elias- For being a great friend and letting us take pictures of you when you lost your tooth.

My wonderful friends from home- For visiting! And in advance for letting me sleep on your couches for several months after I get home.

My family- For being so supportive and interested in what I am doing. A special thanks to my dad for not freaking out when I told him I was going to Brazil and Bolivia....Oh wait....

Fro- For having this bright idea in the first place.

Jackie and Carly- For everything. I could not imagine my trip without you guys.

You- For reading this far into this blog post. Get a life.

So that’s all she wrote. Obviously, I will miss so much about Santiago…from its fresh fruit to being surrounded by the Andes everyday. But obviously, it’s the people I have met that have really made this trip what it is. I will not be blogging when I travel. I have to have something to tell you guys in person!!! See you suckas March 8th!

A Google of Gringos

Christmas frat/ Hostel party in Mendoza
Vineyards in Mendoza
Me and my New Years P.I.C.
Are we adorable or what?
Google of Gringos

I can’t believe the holidays are already over but oh man what a holiday season it has been. Carly, Fro, and I kicked off the holidays with Christmas in Mendoza, Argentina. Home of lots of really good wine. This year I got to spend my Christmas drinking copious amounts of vino, attending a frat party, and eating one very large steak...in 85 degree weather. Friends, food, and frat parties….isn’t that what the holidays are all about?

For New Years, a group of us went to Valparaiso to experience the worlds 2^nd best display of fireworks. Carly, Fro, Jackie, and I had been debating what to do for New Years for some time. The issue? Valparaiso is the place to be for New Years. However, this means expensive hostels and extreme crowds. We thought about staying out all night and taking a morning bus back; but considering we have an affinity for drinking early, we were well aware that this could be a recipe for disaster. During all this debating of what to do/ where to go…we clearly forgot to factor in one thing. We happen to be 4 very good looking gringas who also so happen to be very popular. We were worrying for absolutely nothing. Our solution? We would hitch a ride to Valpo with Pablo (Carly’s student) and stay with his family on December 30th where we would allow them to feed us wine and fajitas, lend us their children’s beds, and feed us a delicious breakfast. Then we would stay with brothers Keane for the 31^st. Our friend Joe has 3 brothers who just happened to be visiting for New Years. His family got 2 hotel rooms. One for the brothers and one for the parents. Somehow we weaseled 6 more people into this situation. Jackie, Carly, Fro, Danny (Fro’s brother), Elias, and myself happily found ourselves sleeping in a very nice hotel located in the center of Vina del Mar for New Years. Of course.

We started off our New Years celebration with a bang. We went to the beach around 4 pm for piscolas and vodka. Jackie managed to steel some oversized glasses from a drunk man on the beach and I proceeded to remove the lenses of my sunglasses to match Carly and Jackie. Sunglasses with no lenses/ clear lenses have become the unofficial party uniform for Carly, Jackie, and I ever since Bicentenario. Afterwards we moved ourselves to a house party in the hills of Valparaiso. The house party came equip with a spectacular view of the fireworks without the overwhelming crowds. The only thing missing from this New Years celebration was a respectable countdown. New Years pretty much went down as follows:

Random person #1: Hey, what time is it?

Random person #2: I’ve got 12:02…what do you have?

Random person #1: Mine says its 12:01. So I guess it’s the New Year?

…confused group hugging and kissing ensues until everyone catches on that it is indeed the New Year. Followed by the typical champagne bottle popping/ excessive champagne spraying.

I have to admit…I really missed the standard “It’s a Wonderful Life” song when the clock struck midnight. Next year. After the fireworks, we went back to the house party for a while. And by everyone I mean everyone except Elias, Jackie, and I who got lost within a block of the party. When we finally did find the party it took us another 10 minutes to get inside since all 3 of us insisted that the door was locked. False. The door was not locked as was proved by the 80 year old man who opened it using only his pinky finger. New Years ended in typical North American fashion. With 2 casualties. One puked on a bus and the other in a bowl of guacamole. You can take the gringos out of the USA but you can't take the USA out of the gringos. Heres to hoping that 2011 is half as great as 2010 was!!

God Bless America

Before poker/football we went to "La Vega" and only bought food we had never bought before...genius
Igor!!!!!!!!
Me and Jackie > Rorro and Igor (by far)
No bouncing on Jackie's watch!

With the Holidays nearing, it is only natural that many of my friends and I have started missing certain things from home. For starters... it would be nice to enjoy a white Christmas with friends and family. Although, being in 85 degree weather with friends ands beer pong is not a bad alternative. I always say that I don’t get homesick. I miss people and food. I frequently have week-long cravings for deep dish pizza and/or brunch and I am constantly called out for bragging about my friends from home…but I wouldn’t describe it as homesick. Part of this could be because I have an uncanny ability to bring the best America has to offer with me no matter where I go. Turns out my friends down here do too. For the past 2 weeks the boys (Dustin, Zach, and Elias) have been so kind as to allow us to crash their poker nights. I have been nicknamed “balls of steal” (courtesy of Joe)…because I have next to no idea what I’m doing and am always out first. I bet way too much on cards that are way too bad. But at least I sound cool saying things like "big blind" and "pocket Jacks." Fro and Carly, on the other hand, are actually very good. Poker nights usually coincide with football nights and lots of beer. If I didn’t know better, I would swear that I was in good ol’ Champaign Urbana. A personal highlight of mine has been that for the past 2 football/poker nights…whenever anyone does anything at all notable (this can be anything from going to get a round beers out of the fridge to sacrificing the sound of the Jets game in order to listen to the Bears game) …the entire party bursts out into “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow…” Gets me every time.

As if nights of poker, football, beer, and chanting weren’t American enough…last Friday Carly, Jackie, Alia, Fro and I had an all day BBQ and beer pong extravaganza complete with guacomole and IGOR!! (Igor is back for a 3 week long stint in Santiago and I couldn’t be more excited about it) Now this was no small feat. Anyone who has ever tried buying ping pong balls and solo cups in a foreign country can attest to that. Well worth the trouble though. Jackie and I reigned victorious and remained undefeated for a record breaking 8 games. God bless Chileans. They are good at a lot of things but beer pong just isn’t one of them. In true American form, we got kicked out of Carly’s apartment at about 7 pm and were forced to reek havic on Jackie’s apartment as well. Ho ho ho Merry Christmas to Carly’s landlord!

Volcano Climbing, Bike Riding, and Hydrospeeding...Oh My!!

Loving life
Bike ride to the waterfall
Pre Hydrospeeding
Volcano Villarica
Volcano shot

If getting attacked by dogs is cool …consider Elias Miles Davis. Despite Elias’s run-in with a 150 lb Newfoundland dog our weekend was a success. A group of 11 of us (mostly from Bridge) traveled 10 hours south to Pucon this weekend. Pucon is the adventure capital of Chile. In 4 short days we were able to ride bikes to a waterfall, climb an active volcano, go hydrospeeding, relax at the hot springs, and drink coronas by the beach. Not too shabby. The 11 of us arrived to Pucon early Friday morning after a 10-hour night bus. I am proud to say that I slept through the entire ride. This is quite the feat and not everyone in our group was so lucky. We decided to take Friday relatively easy and go on a “leisurely” bike ride. Not so much. The bike ride was 40 kilometers of what seemed like never-ending hills. The bike ride led to a beautiful waterfall where we were able to relax and regroup for a bit. Several injuries, 2 lost shoes, a flat tire and a short hitchhike later we made it back to our hostel just in time to barbeque and watch Elias get mauled by a dog. Our hostel and home for the weekend boasts 2 very large bearlike dogs. Apparently when we checked in the owner forgot to mention that the larger of the 2 doesn’t take kindly to men getting in his face. Elias learned this lesson like he learns most other lessons …the hard way. He made it out of the fight with just a scratch on the nose and in true Elias fashion was back to playing with the dogs (minus the getting in his face) in no time. Saturday morning 6 of us got up bright and early to climb the active Villarica volcano. I’m not going to embarrass myself by saying that I found it extremely difficult and can’t remember my legs ever hurting so bad. So I will just say that it was incredible. Anything that calls for full winter gear and an ice pick is fine by me. The climb took us about 4 hours. Despite the beautiful day on the ground, the winds were treacherous on the volcano. I spent most of my time singing the Rocky theme song to myself because it was that extreme. By far my favorite part of the volcano was sliding down. We were given mini sleds and literally got to sled down the entire volcano. The rest of our Saturday was spent day drinking and going to hot springs with our entire entourage of 11. Dare I say it was the perfect day? Sunday was spent doing next to nothing. We woke up, we drank, we ate …a lot, we drank a bit more, and then we drank on the beach. Just a little something I like to call “Perfect Day Round 2.” 1/2 of our crew went back to Santiago Sunday so we were down to 5. The remaining 5 of us spent our last day in Pucon hydrospeeding. This is like white water rafting in your own styrofoam boat. It’s not exactly street legal in the states…which officially makes us badasses. Nevermind that I practically had to have my own guide because I couldn’t control my “boat.” If a video of us hydrospeeding put to Snoop's “Nothing but a G-Thing” doesn’t scream harcore…I don’t know what does. After hydrospeeding we indulged in a huge dinner before our 10-hour bus ride back to “reality.” I don’t even think I know the meaning of that word anymore.

You Can't Teach This

Day drinking
Our Thanksgiving Feast
Thanksgiving in the summer!
Jackie and Carly on the bus to Creamfields
Fro and I in the entrance to my favorite restaurant in Santiago

Part of being a good English teacher is developing good relationships with your students. Not only does it make learning English a lot easier…but it also makes class a lot more fun. For the most part, I pride myself on being professional, responsible, and making sure that my students know the material. As an English teacher, I want nothing more than for my students to leave class a little more confident than when they came. Psych! Don’t get me wrong… I genuinely love seeing my students improve. But you know what I love more? Being the cool English teacher. What can I say? I love being loved. Teaching English to adults is different than teaching elementary school. 5 years from now these adults won’t look back on their time with me and think “Wow, Stephanie was strict but it was in our best interest”, as could possibly happen with an “uncool” elementary school teacher. Realistically, these adults go through several English teachers a year and if I want to be remembered at all I need to strike a balance between fun and "wow she knows so much about the English language." Considering my very limited knowledge of English grammar terms and my excessive use of words that I have made up, I see nothing wrong with teetering on the line of appropriateness every once in a while to up my fun factor. Is it appropriate to spend an hour of class time teaching “bitch work”, “streaking”, and “threesome” to a group of middle age male professionals? No its not. Will I do it if it means they like me more? Yes I will. Is it appropriate to spend an entire private class discussing fooseball moves? No its not. Does it make me cooler than their last teacher? Yes it does. See how this works? I have recently realized that I will stop at nothing to be liked by my students. What’s that? You want some of the test answers? Well that seems like a victimless crime to me…Done! Coffee instead of class has become a ritual and exchanging inappropriate slang words has become a daily warm-up exercise. The funny thing is…I might just be on to something. I think there is a lot to be said for having a plan when teaching. I love structure, and it’s nice to be able to follow a book. But lets face it, some of the topics in the books are big time lame. Spending 2 hours talking about piggy banks and ways to save money? I'll pass. I will stick to discussing things that people actually talk about, thankyouverymuch. Next week’s topic is still undecided…but I am strongly considering following in Jackie and Carly’s footsteps and teaching “that’s what she said.”

The Hangover

Eating seafood soup -- Chilean hangover cure

Creamfields!!!!!!!!!
Our "Conversation Exchange" group!

Conversing
My dance partner

Most of my friends and I are members of a conversation exchange website here in Chile. The website is great because you can really make of it what you want. The website pairs strangers who speak different languages together, so that both people can practice a language they are learning with a native speaker. A standard conversation exchange takes place at a park or a café, lasts for about 2 hours, and is organized so that the first hour is completely in one language and the second hour is completely in the other. As you can imagine, people veer from these unspoken regulations quite frequently. Take for example Miguel, who clearly thought this was a dating website. We spoke absolutely no English, he repeatedly asked me about my dating life here, and then proceeded to pay for my meal and escort me to the metro despite my best efforts to explain to him that he REALLY didn’t have to do that. Needless to say we won’t be meeting up again. But for every weirdo out there, there are an equal amount of conversation exchange mavericks. People who just throw the unspoken rules aside and say, “Who cares that we are complete strangers? Lets just get drunk, learn a little something about languages, get crazy and dance?!”

Carly happened to come across one of these so-called mavericks about a week ago. He boldly suggested that she get some of her friends together, he get some of his friends together and we do this conversation exchange the fun way. Our group conversation exchange took place Thursday night. Fro, Carly, and I dragged ourselves down to El Centro to meet our potential new friends at a dive bar. As soon as we walked in, we were warmly greeted by our “new friends”. We knew it was them because they were pointing at us and motioning for us to come sit down. They even saved us seats. Hugs and kisses were exchanged and we were about to sit down when we were awkwardly informed that the group we had friendlied up to was actually not at all who we were supposed to meet up with, but instead, a group of strangers who had simply never seen someone with blond hair before and didn’t know how to react. Not to worry. Our actual new group of conversation friends turned out to be awesome. After having a couple of beers, we went to see a traditional Chilean dance band a couple blocks away. Another friend of the group, Adrian, met us there. Let me tell you a little about Adrian. If I could invent the perfect friend …he wouldn’t hold a candle to Adrian. He is a speech pathologist by day, traditional Chilean dancer by night. Speaks very minimal English. And to top it all off he has a very serious mustache. Friend of my dreams. Anyways, when we got to the concert, we put our Spanish and English aside and started communicating in the one language we all spoke fluently…ridiculous dance moves. Unfortunately for me, this bar happened to serve terremotos. As I’ve mentioned before these drinks are a deadly combination of fermented wine, hard alcohol, and sugar. My limit is 2, but I am all about pushing myself these days. I had a record breaking 3 ½… which would explain the video of me dancing with a toothless homeless man. I woke up the following morning with the worst hangover I’ve had here, although it was definitely one of the most worth it. If loving terremotos is wrong…then I don’t want to be right.

Friends with Benefits

Rafa, Kike, Jackie, Carly, and Christian
Leo and I after the race. I have hung out with this exact dog both times I have been to Viña.
No clue
Kooch sporting a serious mustache
Carly and I after the race!

Student/teacher friendships are dangerous territory here at BridgeLinguatec given our strict policies regarding handing out personal information to students. I, however, like to live dangerously. My student, Carlos, and I realized that his friend, Pablo, has been taking English lessons from Carly. From there, we discovered that the 4 of us so happen to all love eating and drinking, And even better…Carlos and Pablo love to pay for things, while Carly and I love to get things for free. Friendships made in heaven. Thursday night, the 4 of us went to a vegetarian restaurant for pizza, Mexican food, and all the tequila sunrises we could handle. 3 ½ hours, quite a few drinks, and several requests from Carlos that I “not judge him” later, a friendship had been born. As a first order of business in our new friendship, Carlos and I came to an agreement on how our classes would be run from now on. In exchange for me “being less responsible” (direct quote from Carlos) and doing less work from the company mandated books, we will speak a little Spanish in each class. In other words, in return for doing less work, I get to learn Spanish. Sure Carlos. Whatever you say. We have since had our first class, and I can assure you it went as promised. I even took the liberty of ending class significantly early so that we could grab coffee. Second order of business in our newfound friendship? Translate as many inappropriate things as possible from Spanish into English and vice versa. Listening to Carlos describe his boss in language far too crude for this blog in perfect English…I’ve never been a prouder ESL teacher. After dinner, completely disregarding the fact that I had an 8 am class the next morning, Carly and I decided to meet up with Jackie and the Bicentenario crew. As usual, this was a terrible decision that resulted in dancing until way too late and getting roughly 3 hours of sleep. Thankfully, all I had to do after class the next morning was pack for my weekend trip to the beach. As an interesting sidenote to our evening/testament to the quality of men in this country: someone we were out with attempted to hit on Jackie by telling her that he was amazed at how bad her Spanish was (for the record Jackie speaks great Spanish). In an attempt to recover from what was obviously very offensive to Jackie he followed her out of the bar and said “No…really. I’m confused. How is it so bad?” Immediately following this comment he asked for her number so they "could see eachother again". Wow Chilean men. You’ve done it again.

Friday afternoon, Carly, Fro, Nico & some friends from work, and I headed to Viña del Mar for the weekend. We rented a condo that had 2 pools and was 2 steps away from the beach. Not exactly roughing it. Elias and Zach were in Viña for the weekend too. The entire weekend was spent relaxing beachside and eating empanadas and avocado. This was well needed given that I worked a record breaking 14 hours the week before. It’s a rough life but someone has got to do it. Just incase you were thinking that I have gotten lazy, I will have you all know that Carly and I ran a 10K Sunday. Fro was unable to run due to the near 3^rd degree burns has on her lower legs from trekking without suntan lotion last weekend. Apparently there is a hole in the ozone layer over Chile right now? Anyone who knows Fro’s pigmentation knows that this is not good news. Last, but definitely not least…I locked myself out of my room this morning only to find out that I do not own the key for my door. The silver lining? I can now efficiently break into any locked door using nothing but a credit card. Na ha.