Ask any Cornell student their favorite, secluded spot on campus and they’ll take no longer than a couple of seconds coming up with an answer. When I arrived on campus, I was confronted with the unexpected yet pleasant reality that I would run into people I knew nearly everywhere I went. This was great for social life, but sitting down in Olin Library’s Libe Café to get some work done has never yielded more than two minutes of concentration. It’s guaranteed that at least two fellow Daily Sun staffers or editors (Sunnies) will be seated nearby; in the blink of an eye, all of us will be talking and none of us will be working. This can be a problem, and that’s where the niche comes in.
My sophomore year, I discovered the perfect spot. Located in the basement of Warren Hall, conveniently two doors down from my advisor’s office, the Alfalfa Room was one of the few cafés on campus where there was always an available seat — a far cry from the hustle and bustle of Libe Cafe. I could escape to this consistently overheated corner of campus to eat, drink, and be merry studious. The staff there was always friendly and the room, while modernized to a degree, still had an old poster in the wall showing the Ag Quad from above — about 50 years ago.
Returning to my niche once classes started up again this semester, I was shocked to encounter locked doors, and through those doors was not a vibrant cafe but a new storage area for excess office furniture. While I’m sure the Alfalfa Room’s closing has to do with university-wide budget cuts and upcoming plans to renovate Warren Hall, I felt lost. I’m still feeling out new spots on campus, but the one that felt like home is now relegated to the history books — if there are history books about obscure Cornell Dining facilities, that is.
After shooting some photos of Cornell’s men’s and women’s squash teams this afternoon, I headed to the Cornell Orchards Store on my way home. While I think it’s under-appreciated to a degree on campus, the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences (CALS) provides the university with a wide variety of pretty unique things, from buildings like the Poultry Virus Laboratory or the Federal Nematode Lab (can’t say I’ve ever set foot in either of them…) to the more widely appreciated Cornell Dairy Bar and Cornell Orchards Store. This is a college in which you can major in Enology & Viticulture, the study of grape-growing and wine production. My major still elicits confused looks from many fellow students when I tell them what my academic path is. Maybe what I’m trying to get at is that CALS is a part of Cornell filled with lots of hidden gems.
What’s happening inside these buildings and out in these fields is changing the world, though. My taste buds can now attest to that.
The main purpose of my trip was to secure some Cornell Apple Cider for myself, but when I walked into the store, there were shelves filled with apples. I don’t tend to think of late January as a time to be eating locally-grown apples, but apparently Cornell has something to say about that with Controlled Atmosphere (CA) technology. According to the Cornell Orchards Store’s website, CA was first developed here as a way to preserve the texture, quality, nutritional qualities, etc of “choice fruit”. Well, I ended up buying a quarter peck of CA Jonagold apples along with a half-gallon of cider. Biting into the first apple when I was home, I really couldn’t believe how good the apple was. It was as crisp, juicy, and flavorful as you’d expect a recently-picked apple in October to taste. Having eaten lots of sub-par Fuji apples during my semester in Chile, I was ecstatic to finally have an apple that tasted like…an apple! A choice apple, at that.
After miraculously making it home without any delayed or cancelled flights and slowly beginning the acclimatization process to sub-freezing temperatures and a sun that sets at 4:30pm, I was able to get my hard drive repaired and continue life as normal. So now, back to that recap of Buenos Aires that’s a bit overdue…
Gülce and I, immediately after leaving baggage claim at Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, were careful to be hyperaware of our surroundings. Everything I’ve ever read about Buenos Aires has emphasized the metropolis’ creative pickpockets who employ a myriad of schemes to make off with your stuff. Having already become accustomed to urban life in Latin America over the preceding few months, we already knew the general rules (no wallets in back pockets, no speaking in loud English on the streets, hold on to your bags, etc.).
Driving into city center from the airport, we passed some slums that looked worse than anything I’d seen in Chile. Seconds later, we were passing by the Four Seasons Hotel. Being an international development student, I guess I see a lot through the development lens, but it was shocking to see the two ends of the socioeconomic spectrum so physically close to each other. Back in Chile, Santiago’s rich-poor distribution stretches from seriously wealthy suburbs in the northeast to the poorest comunas in the southwest, with the most middle-class neighborhoods closest to the middle of the city. Consequently, you’d most likely never see the super rich living a stone’s throw away from the super poor.
Our hostel was located on the top floor (two rooftop terraces!) of an old building on Avenida de Mayo, the main avenue for Spanish colonial interests back in the day. We were surrounded by awesome architecture manifested in buildings like Palacio Barolo (pictured at right), an office building with a lighthouse on top, that I discovered, only after leaving South America, offers tours to the public. A few blocks away, the Congreso Nacional was visible, while further down at the eastern end of the avenue was Casa Rosada (the presidential palace) and the Plaza de Mayo, made famous by being the location of protests by mothers of children who had ‘disappeared’ during Argentina’s dirty war of the 1970s and 1980s.
Food in Buenos Aires, as it was in Mendoza as well, was cheap and incredibly tasty. Not just at some places. Everywhere. After having consumed multiple cows worth of beef in Mendoza, we both refrained from consuming beef in Buenos Aires, but instead ate lots of amazing Italian food. Living in the New York area, I thought the pizza and pasta scene couldn’t be any better away from home except in Italy. Buenos Aires proved me wrong. Argentineans don’t start to show up at restaurants until even later than Chileans typically do, so that meant we were the only ones at an Italian restaurant in the neighborhood of Palermo when we arrived at 10PM. Only when we were finishing our entrees did people actually start arriving.
When do they sleep?
Certainly not after eating dinner. Streets around the city buzzed with life late into the night, with people making their way from restaurants to bars and clubs. After having eluded me in Chile (or just not existing), good electronic music finally made itself known in Buenos Aires. It’s everywhere, and our Thursday night Friday morning clubbing experience in the restaurant and club hotspot of Palermo couldn’t have been better.
After four days that flew by, we found ourselves at the Buquebus ferry terminal on the banks of the Río de la Plata, boarding the boat to Uruguay. Over the course of our stay, Buenos Aires had rocketed to the top of the list of my favorite cities; it’s a stylish city in all senses of the word and its inhabitants are full of life; the tangible plays as much of a role in defining the city as the intangible. Can’t wait to go back.
To be continued…
Slideshow
Below is a slideshow of photos from Buenos Aires. Photos are arranged chronologically.
Gülce and I arrived in Mendoza on Sunday morning after a half-hour flight over the Andes from Santiago. We’re making all of our journeys on this trip on LAN Airlines, save for the segment between Buenos Aires and Montevideo, thanks to LAN’s unbeatable South America Airpass (which gives serious airfare discounts to foreigners in South America who’ve flown down to the continent on select airlines). We’re combining that with hostel stays in the cities of Mendoza, Argentina; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Montevideo, Uruguay.
Over the course of our two days in Mendoza, we found ourselves constantly comparing Argentina with Chile in more ways than one. We don’t feel like we stick out as much as foreigners here in Argentina, probably because there’s a significant number of tourists in Mendoza and because the Argentinean population as a whole is more European than that of Chile. The Argentinean people in general are much more full of life and a bit more outgoing than their neighbors on the other side of the Andes.
That said, we’ve been seriously confused about basic issues such as the correct time. From what we learned tonight, various parts of Argentina have different time zones based on their geographical locations and their ties with the national government. Something like that would be unthinkable in Chile (for both geographical and institutional reasons). Even my computer, connected to the internet, is mistaken as to the correct time in Buenos Aires. Very strange.
The food has been incredible; from the $10 per person all-you-can-eat buffet we went to on our first night in town (which resulted us in eating about 90 cows between four people) to the ravioli dish I had last night that has got to rank as one of the top Italian dishes I’ve ever eaten, the quality and price of food is seriously impressive.
Mendoza was a perfect introduction to Argentina. It has a metropolitan area of about 800,000 people, making it sizable but not too huge. Every street is lined with shady trees, plazas and parks abound, and classic cars fill the streets (there were basically zero classic cars in Chile; strange contrast). While not consuming entire cows, we passed a lot of our time aimlessly wandering through the city, browsing various open-air markets, and we spent much of the day on Monday walking to and exploring Parque San Martín at the western edge of the city.
Despite the hot temperatures, we managed to cover a good 7-8 miles during the day, which included a visit to the seemingly abandoned soccer complex used for the World Cup, last held in Argentina in 1978. We also climbed Cerro de la Gloria, a big hill at the eastern edge of Parque San Martín with great views of the Andes and the city of Mendoza. At the top is a series of statues and monuments to General San Martín (an independence hero in Argentina and Latin America as a whole) and the Army of the Andes.
Those familiar with Mendoza are probably wondering why we didn’t hit a single vineyard during our brief stay in the city; to be honest, Gülce and I had experienced enough wine producution during our excursion to Curicó and Lontué back in Chile in September. We had learned in depth about the process of producing wine, we had purchased high-quality, cheap wine, and we had consumed it, too. There wasn’t much novelty in doing it all over again on the other side of the Andes.
Earlier this evening, we arrived in hot and humid Buenos Aires, where we’ll be until Sunday, when we head to Uruguay. I’ll try to update more frequently, but there’s so much to see and do that I don’t want to spend all day writing about experiences instead of having new ones.
Slideshow
Below you will find an embedded slideshow of photos of our adventures in Mendoza and Buenos Aires. Photos are in chronological order.
While videochatting with my family back in New England over Skype earlier this week, my Chilean host mother walked into my room, letting me know dinner was ready. What transpired was an international and intercultural interaction that was barely possible a few years ago.
My parents had seen a few photos of my Chilean host family on my flickr account, but beyond that, hadn’t gotten to know them at all. While a Skype video chat isn’t exactly a substitute for a face-to-face conversation, the fact that each involved party could see the other end and communicate (with me acting as interpreter) was exciting, to say the least. In the pre-Skype years, I’m sure plenty of college students returned from their semesters and years abroad, wishing their domestic and foreign families could have interacted. The conversation only lasted a few minutes, with my fifteen year-old brother taking the opportunity to practice his Spanish skills and my parents throwing in any of the few words of Spanish they knew.
The experience helped bridge the 5000 mile gap between my Chilean and American families, between the long, sunny days here and the short, gray ones back home, and between eating beef and turkey on Thanksgiving, even if there was an empty chair at the table back in the US.
Our final group excursion of the semester took us northbound to Region II, a region known for basically two things: 1) copper, the backbone of Chile’s export-based economy, and 2) the Atacama Desert, the driest desert on the planet. An early morning flight out of Santiago’s airport landed us in the city of Antofagasta at 9:30AM, less than two hours after taking off from Chile’s foggy central valley.
And what a difference a couple of hours can make. While all kinds of landscapes are visible from the air, this was the first time I literally couldn’t believe my eyes. As we entered a controlled dive of sorts for landing in Region II, two things were visible out the window: the ocean and sand. Nothing else. No sign of civilization save for a seemingly miniscule container ship on the Pacific Ocean. Our approach brought us over the coast, where the driest desert in the world meets the biggest ocean in dramatic fashion. After landing, we immediately went to the coast to see La Portada, Antofagasta’s best known landmark (and only landmark, I think), a natural stone arch surrounded by the sea. It was here that we got a better look at the dramatic transition from land to sea.
The rest of our day was spent free roaming around the very industrial city that is Antofagasta. The main purpose the urban center serves is as a port serving the copper mines further inland. Thoroughfares are packed with eighteen wheelers at all hours of the day, coming into town with sheets upon sheets of copper and leaving the port with pretty much everything (except copper) to keep Region II alive and well. No double decker city tour buses here. After heading to one of the city’s hypermarkets (note: a hypermarket is like a supermarket, but bigger) to get lunch, we spent the afternoon on the beach, which was bordered not by a hotel or even apartments, but the loading dock of a hypermarket / mall complex. Apparently beachfront property isn’t valued in Antofagasta.
The next day, we had a couple of lectures about regional development in the north at the Universidad Católica del Norte. Lunch followed in the university’s ONLY dining facility. Good thing we made it into the one lunch line before most classes got out; judging by the line that wrapped around the building, we would have been waiting for our mediocre food for a good hour or so. The food was what I imagine US public schools had in the 1950s; the cafeteria food that is always stereotyped in TV shows and movies. To give you an idea, the only thing to drink was a fluorescent orange drink not good enough to call Tang. There wasn’t even water. That meal reinforced my decision to attend a university that actually takes food seriously (and how can you not, with a Hotel School and an Ag school?).
After lunch, we ten students and our two directors boarded a full size coach bus to head northeast to the city of Calama. Why twelve people on a fifty person bus? The roads in the Atacama Desert can be iffy at times, especially when a truck carrying cargo as wide as the two-lane highway passes by. Therefore, bigger is better. We took full advantage of our private bus with “Semi-Cama” (half-bed) seats and rested up a bit. Personally, I spent most of the ride staring out the window at a landscape unlike any I had ever seen. There was no vegetation anywhere — not even a cactus — and signs of human life were few and far between.
Three and a half hours after leaving Universidad Católica del Norte, we were in Calama, a city that exists solely because copper mines are in the area. As a result, it has some of the highest rates of marital infidelity and alcoholism in Chile (miners and their spouses are separated for long periods of time…), and judging by what we had read, we gathered that prostitution was one the city’s bigger industries. For that reason, none of us left the hotel after sunset; it was a quiet night spent watching Men in Black with Spanish subtitles.
Come morning, we were out of Calama and on the road to the copper mine Radomiro Tomic, a state-owned mine under the CODELCO Norte group. We attended a video/discussion and tour of the mine with a group of Chilean university students from the Universidad del Mar in Viña del Mar. After our experience at the Arauco cellulose plant in the south, none of us was entirely enthusiastic about once again being fed information straight from the horse’s mouth. Our tour by bus took us to the main open-pit mine at Radomiro Tomic, which was absolutely gigantic (apparently its CODELCO Norte neighbor mine Chuquicamata has a bigger one). I’d be lying if I said that I understand the scientific process that is copper mining and refinement, but our visit was definitely a new experience for all of us.
Below is a panorama of the open-pit mine. Click on the image to be taken to its flickr page, where you can view a larger version by clicking “All Sizes” above the image.
San Pedro de Atacama was our last stop during the excursion. Formerly a small town of indigenous Aymara people, it has been transformed into a larger — but still small — town bustling with countless tour operators and restaurants serving food from around the world. We were there to learn about the impact globalization has had on the town, and also to see the sights that so many Chileans and foreigners come to see. It was shocking to see more foreigners than Chileans, especially out in the middle of the desert. That said, if there are sights, tourists will come to see them.
Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) was our destination for sunset on our last evening in the north. It surely lived up to its name; the landscape in this area only minutes outside of San Pedro de Atacama was, well, other-worldly. Words can’t do the place justice, so here are some photos:
The next day, we drove back to Calama and departed for Santiago (video of takeoff from Calama). It was back to class in the morning.
Slideshow
Below is a slideshow of the excursion’s photos. It’s interactive and linked to my photos on flickr, so click around and discover its features.
Six days of break. Drinking, eating, and dancing. Chicha, Empanadas, and La Cueca, respectively.
Thursday, September 18th was Chile’s most-adored holiday: Fiestas Patrias. A celebration of Chilean independence from Spain, the day tends to seep into the surrounding week or so to allow for ample celebration. Since the holiday fell on a Thursday this year, there was plenty of time for partying.
On an errand to Sodimac (Chile’s equivalent of Lowe’s or The Home Depot) during my first week in the country, red, white, and blue signs hung from the ceiling announcing huge sales on grills, outdoor furniture, and anything else you’d expect to see on sale at home superstores during the 4th of July back in the US. The spirit building up to the holiday was very much the same; nearly 1.5 million Santiaguinos were preparing themselves for a long weekend on the coast, in the country, or otherwise outside of the metropolis. Chicha was popping up on supermarket shelves across the city and it was selling for ridiculously low prices.
After our excursion to Curicó and Lontué on Tuesday, September 16th, the ten of us in my program were set free until the following Tuesday. The break allowed us to spend time with our host families and take part in the celebrations that abounded throughout the city and country. This also meant we had zero qualms about going out til 4AM on a Wednesday night — side note: it was like the United Nations on the dance floor: a Turkish-American girl from my program, A British guy, two Germans, a South Korean girl, and myself.
That said, I forced myself out of bed at 8AM the next day on the 18th to head down to Santiago Centro with my host aunt and uncle to bear witness to the Te Deum processions. Completely foreign to me before that morning, the Te Deum is a special service of thanksgiving at the Catedral Metropolitana in Santiago Centro every year on Fiestas Patrias. Along with a variety of Chilean religious superstars, the president and every other important person in the government attends the hour-long service that’s broadcast live across the nation. However, the spectacle starts beforehand as la presidentaMichelle Bachelet makes her way from La Moneda (the presidential palace) to the Catedral Metropolitana.
Having seen various VIP motorcades in the US, I didn’t expect anything very interesting; just lots of cars with tinted windows zooming by too quickly to see anyone inside. This was different. Much different.
After parking several blocks away since so many streets were closed, we walked towards La Moneda through the deathly silent streets that would be bustling with activity on any other Thursday. The temperature was struggling to make it out of the high 40’s, a light drizzle kept my camera sufficiently moist, and there was NOBODY downtown. Even on the streets that weren’t blocked off by Carabineros, every business was closed and cars were nowhere to be seen. We arrived at La Moneda and stood against a barricade at the edge of the building. What I would consider Imperial Guards were idling on their well-manicured horses as TV and radio crews eagerly awaited la presidenta’s exit from the palace. When she came out a few minutes later, the Escuela de Aviación’s (Chilean Air Force Academy) band played the national anthem as she boarded a classic Ford convertible, standing in the back seat.
With the president in position, the horses, interspersed with secret service agents, proceeded towards La Catedral. Bachelet waved to the small but adoring crowd as even more secret service agents around her convertible kept an eye out for anything suspicious. And so began my first (of five) Chilean military parade experience.
As soon as the president passed, my entire area along the parade route vacated (there were more government ministers passing, but not in open-air vehicles) and a river of spectators followed the parade, a behavior that I observed at each of the subsequent parades over the holiday. We joined this mass of people and walked past the bands of the Carabineros, Carabineras (female Carabineros), Escuela de Aviación technicians, the Army, the Escuela Militár (Army Academy), and others that were stationed along the parade route, each playing a military march or two as the president passed by. Upon reaching a roadblock of sorts along the sidewalk, we couldn’t continue any further so just walked around the streets for a while. Two businesses in the area were open: Bravíssimo Gelateria and Dunkin’ Donuts. Nothing like donuts and ice cream at 10AM (I didn’t indulge in either, thankyouverymuch).
Following the Te Deum service, the whole thing happened again in reverse. While waiting in front of La Moneda for the return of the procession, a Chilean man probably in his late 60s saw my camera and started asking me questions about it. Having been extremely cautious with my camera in Santiago, I wasn’t sure what to make of the situation. However, with nearly 30 Carabineros in the vicinity, I figured I didn’t need to be overanxious about being robbed. We ended up having a great conversation about photography; turns out he used to be a photographer himself but hadn’t made the transition to digital. What struck me most was the openness with which he approached me, especially since I’m obviously not Chilean. Maybe it wasn’t such a big deal, but it brightened the otherwise dreary morning.
Over the next 36 hours, I attended three more parades, all of which were distinct, but relatively similar in their offering: sharply dressed soldiers playing all kinds of instruments and chanting while marching in the only way soldiers march.
Military Might
The last of the five parades I attended was one in the Las Condes comuna of Santiago at night on Friday (Glorias del Ejército, or Armed Forces Appreciation Day). It was here that I got my best glimpse at the Chilean perception of the military.
Starting well before 6PM when I arrived, crowds gathered along a long stretch of boulevard as vendors walked past selling all sorts of food, including peanuts prepared a billion different ways. Lots of families with small children sat on the curb, sucking on popsicles and waiting for the action to begin. As my groupmate Kathleen pointed out so well, the atmosphere was like it is at Disney World before the Main Street USA parade starts. This time, however, Mickey was nowhere to be found.
Instead, pack after pack of soldiers marched soberly and strictly past the cheering masses. Interestingly, a delegation from the Argentinean Army headed up the parade, and they were received with a huge ovation. Following that group of about 30 soldiers and another pack with delegates from throughout Latin America, the rest was Chilean. Spectators cheered and clapped fervently, as if they had to outdo their neighbors in showing their appreciation for the military. Earlier in the week, someone mentioned the following: for a country with no enemies, Chile has a pretty serious military. I had no doubt of that, especially when some members of the navy started marching with a waist-high kick that was all too eerily reminiscent of footage I’ve seen of Nazi German or North Korean troops.
The military as an institution in Chile seems to play a much more serious and integrated role in the lives of the typical citizen than it does in the United States. To my knowledge, the US doesn’t have an event, much less an annual holiday, devoted to appreciation of the armed forces. Memorial Day is as close as we get, but even then, the overarching theme isn’t one of military power, but rather of proud remembrance.
Let’s Party!
Military appreciation aside, the holiday is Chile’s party time. Those of us from the group who stayed put in Santiago for the long weekend went to a fonda (a festival of sorts) at Universidad Católica. We apparently needed Católica student IDs to get in, but the security guards waved us in as soon as they saw one of us pull out a copy of our passport. It’s not often that you receive preferential treatment abroad after you identify yourself as a US citizen. On the campus, students were laying around on the grass drinking beers, while a livelier bunch was dancing the Cueca, the national dance of Chile, to live music under a tent. Fortunately it was dark enough that we didn’t attract too many weird looks, seeing as how we were definitely the only foreigners there. We put our meager Cueca skills to work and danced mostly among ourselves, but occasionally with Chileans looking for dance partners, as well.
Back at the host family’s apartment, I partook in an asado (barbeque) with my extended host family as we all engorged ourselves with various types of meats and other foods. It was a seriously satisfying combination of Independence Day and Thanksgiving. Asado leftovers showed up at every meal for a few days afterwards, and later in the weekend, I went to even more asados at other people’s homes. I’d say a good three quarters of the weekend was taken up by either a) eating, or b) being in a food coma. What a holiday.
Slideshow
Below is a slideshow of the weekend’s photos. It’s interactive and linked to my photos on flickr, so click around and discover its features.
Our second day trip of the semester was one to Curicó and Lontué, neighboring towns in Chile’s central valley, about three hours south of Santiago by way of the Autopista Central, Chile’s main highway. Almost immediately after leaving Santiago, city blocks quickly transformed to endless fields, with the Andes looming in the distance. It was more of the same out the window all the way to Curicó.
While many a Cornell senior has been on a wine tour or two through the Finger Lakes wine trail in the Ithaca area, the experience is usually not looked upon as an educational one, save for learning how much wine one’s body can consume before adverse consequences present themselves. Our trip, on the other hand, was part of the syllabus for our Economic Development & Globalization seminar. On this wine tour, asking questions about export markets and labor issues was considered just as important as tasting and buying the wine, itself.
Our first stop was Viña La Fortuna, an small, family-held, organic vineyard in Curicó. Few vineyards in Chile still have long-lasting family roots, and additionally, the craze for organic products has yet to hit Chile (the majority of the wines it produces are exported to countries where organic certification brings higher prices). Those two factors make this vineyard unique in the world of Chilean wine. The grounds consisted of some very classical buildings with lots of gardens; a nice setting, to say the least. After learning about the production process on our tour of the vineyard, we were invited to purchase wine in the sala de ventas. Our tour guide went through the varieties available for purchase and their prices; the most expensive bottle (which was a Gran Reserva red of some sort) was 3000 pesos, or approximately $6. We couldn’t believe our ears, but it was true. High-quality organic Chilean wine, for $6 or less per bottle.
Lunch was the next event of the day, which we enjoyed at yet another vineyard that had a restaurant on its premises. Restaurant Tierra de Viñas it was called, and spectacular would be an understatement of the meal. It started with, of course, wine. Luis, our tour guide for the day whose specialty is wine and vineyards, taught us the correct procedure for tasting wine: the smelling, the swirling around of the glass, etc. I wished I had taken Introduction to Wines at Cornell so that I could get even more from the experience, but alas, it’ll have to wait for senior year (hopefully). A few minutes later, even more drinks came out, the most memorable of which was the fresh melon juice. The best way to describe it would be the liquid equivalent of the best honeydew melon you’ve ever eaten. The meal itself consisted of some excellent grilled beef (keep in mind, grass-fed beef is the norm rather than the exception down here), typical chilean salad, fresh fruit, and of course, the staple of every meal in this country: bread.
The second vineyard tour of the day was at Viña Requingua, which was less manicured and idyllic than Viña La Fortuna. Requingua is a more typical Chilean vineyard; its operations were a bit more industrial and bit less rustic. There were few, if any, examples of classical colonial architecture. Function took precedence over everything else. I was surprised to learn that many of the temporary workers who flock to the vineyard during the harvest season live in tents on the vineyard’s property…they aren’t even housed by the company. According to our guide, Requingua’s main market is China, and that got me thinking. I recall having Chilean wine during my trip to China with the Daily Sun last winter, and I wondered if I was visiting the vineyard that had produced the bottle we had at lunch one day, thousands of miles away in Shanghai. Our tour, as it did at La Fortuna, ended with an opportunity to buy a bottle or two, with even lower prices than at La Fortuna.
After a day of good food and wine, we passed out for most of the ride back to Santiago. I tried both wines within the next few days with my host family and we thought they were top-notch. Worthwhile purchases, especially at $3 per bottle.
Slideshow
Below is a slideshow of the day’s photos. It’s interactive and linked to my photos on flickr, so click around and discover its features.
One of the major components of the program I’m participating in this semester is field study. Over the course of the semester, we take a variety of excursions as a group to learn about economic development & globalization in Chile. This post covers our first excursion, back on September 11th. As always, you can click on photos to go to their flickr pages where you can read captions and view larger versions of the pictures.
María Pinto, a rural town about an hour and a half west of Santiago by bus, was our first destination in the semester’s series of educational excursions throughout Chile.
Our first stop was at the municipality’s government building, where we were introduced to César Araos, María Pinto’s director of community development, who led us around for much of the day. After a short lecture introducing us to the mainly agricultural area and some of the developmental issues it’s dealing with, we made our way to the municipality’s composting facility. While nothing spectacular to a resident of the industrialized world, María Pinto’s recycling and composting programs are remarkable for what they’ve been able to achieve with access to scarce funds and few resources. Residents in the municipality have grown accustomed to sorting their household waste into different containers for collection. While the typical plastic bottles and similar recyclables are collected, scraps of food and similar organic wastes are also brought to this facility to be composted and then sold back to the general population for use on fields and in gardens.
Our next visit was an unscheduled one of a new agricultural school that hadn’t yet been put into use. Luis Sagues (below), an agriculture teacher at this school that is part of a larger general high school, gave us a tour of the facilities which included areas for learning how to milk cows, tend to pigs, and finally, a new classroom with special entrances that allowed for the entrance and exit of animals as needed for demonstration purposes.
We then continued on to a flower cooperative run entirely by two women (and occasionally, they told us, with some help from their spouses) that caters solely to the local market. They’ve decided against entering the more lucrative Santiago market for fear of not having enough capacity to provide for their loyal customers in the community at the same time.
After lunching on empanadas and beef at the private home of a María Pinto resident, we moved on to our last visit of the day, which was a dairy microenterprise run almost entirely by one woman. After learning about how she produces and markets her products, she provided us a ton of samples of various types of cheese and manjar (aka dulce de leche). I’m pretty sure each one of us went home with at least one container of freshly made manjar. Yum.
We all conked out on the bus ride home to Santiago, where we were met with an abrupt reentry to urban life with the epic September 11th evening rush hour. Thus concluded the semester’s first day outside of Gran Santiago.
While every day of my semester has been unique so far (with the uniqueness to continue all semester long, since we have different class schedules and excursions depending on the week/day), here’s a rundown of today to give you a feel for daily life in Santiago de Chile.
7:30AM: Alarm goes off next to my bed. Snooze.
7:40AM: Alarm goes off next to my bed. Snooze.
7:50AM: Alarm goes off next to my bed. Ok…now I’ll actually get up. As with every day, it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning since the vast majority of Chilean homes aren’t heated, and it’s winter here. The comfort of my four layers of blankets will have to wait until tonight. Put on a Patagonia wool sweater and wearily make my way to the table for breakfast.
7:55AM: Eat breakfast, which has already been laid out on the table by my host mother before she left for work. Heat up some water in the kitchen for the requisite first couple cups of tea of the day. Eat some sliced bananas mixed with yogurt and some white bread with apricot marmelade. Clear table.
8:15AM: Head to the calefont (gas-fueled hot water heater that is typically found in Chilean homes) at the end of the kitchen. Turn gas valve to start flow of propane, light match, stick it in calefont, prepare for shower.
8:20AM: Head to the bathroom, which is always FREEZING in the morning thanks to its perpetually open vertical slit-like window. I guess I could close it one day, but nobody seems to have touched it, so I’ll just keep it as is. Builds character. Proceed to tweak the individual hot and cold water valves until I reach a happy medium somewhere between burn-your-skin-off hot and antarctic cold (harder to achieve than you might think).
8:35AM: Check weather forecast online, get dressed accordingly. Open curtains. Stare at Andes mountains for a bit. Put on layers of warm clothing, even though the forecast says 65 and partly sunny. At this hour, it’s only in the low 40s outside.
8:45AM: Brush teeth, pack up things for class. Make sure I have at least one still camera and one video camera in my bag for whatever might need to be documented that day.
8:55AM: Head out the door, but not before grabbing my bagged lunch on the kitchen counter and turning off the calefont (nobody likes death by negligent calefonting). Walk a couple of blocks east to meet up with Gülce, one of the girls in my group who lives nearby.
9:00AM: Walk 3/4 mile down Avenida Simón Bolivar to Avenida Ossa, where we descend into the Simón Bolivar metro station.
9:20AM: Pass my Tarjeta BIP! by the proximity reader at the turnstile. Card doesn’t register. Works after a few tries. Screen on turnstile tells me I have 880 pesos left on my card — enough for a couple more peak-hour rides (420 pesos per ride). Guess I’ll have to recharge this afternoon.
9:22AM: Wait on the platform for the next Tobalaba-bound train. It’s peak rush hour, so the next train arrives about 45 seconds after the previous one leaves the station. While waiting for the train, catch up on the news being displayed on the several widescreen Samsung TVs that are mounted over the platform.
9:23AM: Next metro train arrives…fortunately it isn’t packed beyond belief. Board train, take backpack off and put it between my legs on the floor, and watch highlights from last night’s World Cup qualifier game between Brazil and Chile on one of the three flat screen TVs in the metro car. Get stared at for obviously not being a Chilean, since I’m taller than a good 95% of the people on the train, and I’m blond.
9:35AM: After three stops, arrive at Tobalaba station, which marks the end of Line 4 of the metro. Disembark with everyone else on the train and join the stampede to connect to Line 1.
9:38AM: Board San Pablo-bound Line 1 metro at Tobalaba and head towards our stop of Estación Central.
9:43AM: Doors have been open at Salvador station for a good two mintues now…everyone on board starting to get fidgety.
9:45AM: Announcement on the train tells us that the train is delayed. I think we’re all aware.
9:50AM: Announcement on the train orders an immediate evacuation of the train. Nobody’s panicking, so I guess there’s no need to worry about a bomb or anything. A second announcement follows, telling us that service between Salvador and Baquedano (the next station) has been suspended. Everyone leaves the station and is handed a ticket with the word “Evacuación” on it by a Metro de Santiago employee.
9:55AM: Make a call to Eduardo, the assistant director of my program, to tell him that Gülce and I have just been evacuated off the metro and will definitely be late for the 10AM start of this morning’s lecture at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH). Upon surfacing to street level, we observe the curbs are crowded with evacuated metro passengers trying to get a ride on the already-packed micros (city buses). There’s no way we’re gonna fit on one of these buses unless we strap ourselves to the roof, so we start walking towards Baquedano station.
10:05AM: Descend into Baquedano station and overhear an announcement that explains that all service between Escuela Militar and Salvador (everywhere east of where I am now) has been suspended. Good thing we’re heading west. Board new metro train and continue to Estación Central.
10:15AM: Get off at Estación Central and make the short walk to the Faculty of Administration and Economics at USACH.
10:20AM: Almost an hour and a half after leaving my apartment, I’m at class (Economic Development & Globalization seminar) in our classroom that is sponsored by Ernst & Young. Lecturer today is talking about agriculture policy in Latin America…right up my alley! Even better, he actually has a good powerpoint presentation, unlike a bunch of the other profs we’ve had in our seminar. Our class comprises of us 10 Americans with SIT and five Chileans who are in the class more for intercultural exchange than for their own knowledge.
11:00AM: Coffee break in the middle of the seminar (10AM-12PM). Walk to the cafeteria in the next building over to get an excellent café cortado that’s dispensed from a NesCafé machine. Can’t beat a 50 cent cup of quality coffee. We’re actually given coffee vouchers every day at USACH, so make that a free cup of quality coffee.
11:15AM: Return to the classroom for 45 more minutes of lecture.
12:00PM: At the end of the lecture, the professor asks us our majors and mine elicits laughter from the group because it is so perfectly aligned with what this guy studies. He gives his business card to everyone in the class and asks us to contact him in the future if we have any further questions. He’ll definitely be a good contact later in the semester when I’m working on my Independent Study Project (ISP). Stick around USACH for an hour as I finish up essays about our summer reading books (technocratic democracy anyone? anyone at all?) that are due this afternoon.
1:00PM: Hop on the Escuela Militar-bound metro at Estación Central. Whatever disruption happened earlier has been taken care of.
1:25PM: Arrive at Tobalaba and go to print my essays at an internet café.
1:40PM: Head back across Avenida 11 de Septiembre to the SIT / WorldLearning offices and eat my packed lunch with some of my compañeros del grupo.
2:30PM: First session of our two credit Field Studies Seminar…one of our less frequent classes. Discuss the process of experiential learning and cultural analysis with Fernando, our program’s director.
4:00PM: Class is done for the day. Head down to the Tobalaba metro station to head back to Simón Bolivar with three groupmates. Recharge my Tarjeta BIP! with 5000 pesos of credit (~$10). Stop by the cafe/bakery inside the metro station to grab a water before heading down to the platform.
4:25PM: Arrive at Simón Bolivar and proceed a block south to CineHoyts3D, a monstrosity of a movie theater located in a relatively boring part of Avenida Ossa (it’s bordered by a gas station and private homes). Get in line for tickets to Tony Manero, a movie about a dancer during the repressive Pinochet era of Chile in the 1970s.
4:30PM: I’ve checked in for international flights faster than the people ahead of me are buying their movie tickets. Turns out if you have Movistar cell service in Chile, you get a discount at CineHoyts, so all of these people are waiting for discount code text messages as they buy their tickets. It’s already plenty cheap compared to the US…about $5.
4:35PM: After getting ticket to Tony Manero, proceed to snack bar. Debating whether I should go to the Dunkin Donuts that’s right next to the snack bar. Nah…gotta have popcorn.
4:40PM: Head upstairs to the third floor of this 16-screen multiplex. There’s a full-fledged café on the second floor, and another full snack bar on the third. Our theater has some serious stadium seating and there around four other people here.
7:15PM: Emerge from CineHoyts with puzzled faces and minds. A serial killer who aspires to be John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever (comically translated in Spanish as ‘Fiebre de Sábado por la noche’)? Really? Was all of that blunt trauma really necessary? Could they have developed maybe ONE other character besides the protagonist? Very strange movie.
7:30PM: Arrive home. Go online, check email, facebook, flickr, etc. Read on the website of a Santiago newspaper that this morning’s metro disruption was caused by a woman falling onto the tracks (or throwing herself onto the tracks) at the Los Leones station. Whether or not it was a suicide attempt is unclear, but she was alive following the incident/accident and was taken to a hospital by paramedics judging by a video I watched online.
8:00PM: My host mother returns home from work, comes to say hi, and starts preparing dinner.
8:45PM: Dinner is served. Tonight: Lentils with parmesean cheese (yum) and a plate of boiled (?) cauliflower or something like it. Followed by some white bread with apricot jam and manjar (’man-har’), which is a brown cream made from sugar and boiled milk that resembles peanut butter in consistency but caramel in flavor. Finished off with a cup of tea and a small cup of Chicha, a slightly fizzy, tangy, and sweet Chilean liquor made from grapes but stronger than wine. Apparently the upcoming Fiestas Patrias holiday on September 18th is all about drinking Chicha and eating empanadas. mmm.
9:45PM: Retreat back to my room and take care of some reading, and this blog post.
Ask any Cornell student their favorite, secluded spot on campus and they’ll take no longer than a couple of seconds coming up with an answer. When I arrived on campus, I was confronted with the unexpected yet pleasant reality that I would run into people I knew nearly everywhere I went. This was great for social life, but sitting down in Olin Library’s Libe Café to get some work done has never yielded more than two minutes of concentration. It’s guaranteed that at least two fellow Daily Sun staffers or editors (Sunnies) will be seated nearby; in the blink of an eye, all of us will be talking and none of us will be working. This can be a problem, and that’s where the niche comes in.
Returning to my niche once classes started up again this semester, I was shocked to encounter locked doors, and through those doors was not a vibrant cafe but a new storage area for excess office furniture. While I’m sure the Alfalfa Room’s closing has to do with university-wide budget cuts and upcoming plans to renovate Warren Hall, I felt lost. I’m still feeling out new spots on campus, but the one that felt like home is now relegated to the history books — if there are history books about obscure Cornell Dining facilities, that is.
