More bicentenario photos!

¡Bicentenario Feliz!

The Chilean bicentennial was exactly what my family and friends had promised: 5 days of non-stop partying. Chileans party like there is no tomorrow....there will be days when I am up early (not many) and I see groups of people beer cans in hand walking around town. If José asks me what time I got home after a night of partying and I say 3:00-4:00am, he'll say '¡Temprano!'/ Early!. In order to celebrate the bicentennial to the fullest all schools and most companies/businesses were closed Friday-Monday. Going into the bicentennial everyone informed me that I would gain 3-4 kilos (7-8 pounds) from drinking and eating.....this proved to be painfully true....and very delicious......

I was lucky to be able to celebrate the bicentennial weekend with both my Chilean family and members of my bad-ass girl posse (called TEAM MAGALLANES). We started the weekend early by taking a ferry across the Straight of Magellan to the town of Porvenir on Tierra del Fuego island and partying there for a couple of days. Chileans celebrate their independence day by going to venues called 'fondas,' where they eat, drink, and dance for hours on end. There were fondas all throughout town classified by profession, neighborhood, socioeconomic standing, etc. On the actual bicentennial I went to an Army fonda that was decorated 'camo' style in addition to pine branches and colors of the Chilean flag (red, white, and blue). Two of my friends here are dating men in the Army, so we were able to tag along and check it out. I proceeded to drink and dive into the local gastronomy after making a fool of myself dancing. The traditional dance of Chile is the 'Cueca,' and is supposedly based on the courting rituals of a rooster and a hen. I really like the fact that people from all walks of life here participate in this dance-skaters, goths, flaites (wannabe rappers), etc. When danced well, the cueca is beautiful. Ladies, I have a new appreciation for male dancers........

The day after the bicentennial there was a huge parade honoring the various branches of military in Punta Arenas. Parades in Chile are more serious and usually consist of groups of soldiers marching. There were so many people lining the streets that my friend Carly climbed a pretty tall/sketchy fence to see. I wasn't as brave and hoisted myself up high enough to see the action. Afterward, José drove me and Carly out to his family's house in the countryside right outside of Punta Arenas. My favorite part about Chile hands down has to be my family, they're amazing people. There house is right by the water and is the perfect getaway.......and perfect party house! As soon as we arrived we were offered food and drink and got to watch my aunt María Ercillia make her delicious empanadas. Carly and I ate such a big lunch that we took a nap and had my sister Natalia read us fairytales in Spanish. After the nap we ate and drank again, repeating this cycle until José drove us back to Punta Arenas around 9:30-10:00. Not wanting to waste a second of the bicentennial weekend, José immediately drove us to a fonda called 'Gatitos del Sur'/'Kitties of the south' (I love this name!!!!) so that we could see a fonda hosted by the 'real' people of Punta Arenas. I taught José the expressions 'white collar,' and 'blue collar,' so he was excited to say that we were going to a 'blue collar' fonda. He had to enter the fonda before his two gringa companions could enter to make sure it was safe for us to go in....José was worried that there would be too many drunk cowboys that would get rowdy and touchy-feely. After giving us the green light we went in. Inside there was the most adorable boy band dancing and singing traditional Chilean music while wearing matching white suits, they were precious! A couple of rowdy guys did ask us to dance, but after a couple of rounds with them we pretended to be tired in order to avoid them. We both danced with José as well, who informed us that we were bad dancers and weren't dancing with our hearts. I don't know where José gets his material, but he seriously needs to have his own TV show or at least a made-for-TV movie. After this, we continued on to José's favorite bar, Celebrity to hear more live music and continue dancing (badly).

The last day of the bicentennial break was spent recovering and walking around the elaborately decorated cemetery...

Here are some of the foods I ate/drank in mass quantities:
anticuchos-a nice greasy shish-kabob containing a variety of meat (usually chorizo and hot dogs), onions, and peppers
empanadas-A hispanic take on the calzone. Empanadas come in a variety of flavors and sizes. The most common are queso (cheese) and pino (meat, a hard boiled egg, an olive, and a raisin).
choripanes-Chorizo sausage cooked into a link of greasy-goodness then slapped on piece of either toasted or fluffy bread. 'Pan' is Spanish for 'bread,' 'chorizo,' is spanish for 'ball of heaven'.......just joking. 'Chorizo' is Spanish for 'chorizo.'
chicha-Usually made from grapes or apples, chica has a slightly milky appearance, and a slightly sour aftertaste, reminiscent of hard apple cider. It is drunk either young and sweet or mature and strong. It contains a slight amount of alcohol, 1-3% (The word itself refers to any kind of fermented beverage)
pisco-A liquor distilled from grapes that can range anywhere from 60 -86+proof. Weaker piscos tend to taste more like watered rum where aged pisco tastes more like bourbon.

Question: What would be the traditional dance of the USA be? The traditional foods? The traditional drinks??

I'm curious to hear what my fellow Americans (Estadounidenses) think about this....


¡Besos y abrazos!

Keeley

Pictures in this blog:
1. Some of the fabulous members of Team Magallanes
2. Cazuela-A Chilean take on chicken soup and quite possibly my favorite Chilean dish under 3,000 calories
3. Aunt María Ercillia making empanadas del horno
4. A Chilean parade...the kid in the cherry picker is one of my students!
5. A student at my school in her Cueca dress

Puerto Natales: A Patagonian Fairytale of a Town Part 2

Believe it or not, I managed to stay pretty warm throughout the night.....it also helped that I slept in the middle! We woke up early the next morning to hike up to the base of the Torres del Paine, where we immediately proceeded to scream like buffoons and drink glacier water. The hike back to the pickup spot was a lot easier because our packs were lighter and the majority of the trail was downhill. I was a little disappointed that I didn't see any pumas, but I think that was probably for the best.

Doing this trek was such an amazing experience, I knew as soon as I left that I had to go back...........And now I am!

This time I am doing a seven day trek full of camping, hiking, beautiful scenery, and dried fruit. I am going to do a trek/hike called 'The Circuit' with my friends Merrette and Carly. I leave next Friday! Here is our itinerary:

Friday Night:
Arrive in Natales- Buy food- Sort gear

Saturday:
7 - 10 am bus to Hosteria Las Torres in Torres Del Paine
HIKE Hosteria Las Torres to Campamento Serón (4 hours, 5.5 miles)
CAMP Campamento Serón

Sunday:
HIKE Campamento Serón to Refugio Dickenson (6 hours, 11.8 miles)
CAMP Refugio Dickenson

Monday:
HIKE Refugio Dickenson to Campamento Los Perros (4 hours, 5.5 miles)
CAMP Campamento Los Perros

Tuesday:
HIKE Campamento Los Perros to Campamento Los Guardas (9 hours, 11 miles) * This will be the hardest hike but it will have beautiful view of glacier grey.
CAMP Campamento Los Guardas

Wednesday:
HIKE Campamento Los Guardas to Campamento Italiano (7.5 hours, 14 miles) *A lot of miles this day, but it will be on easy terrain.
CAMP Campamento Italiano

Thursday:
HIKE Campamento Italiano to Campamento Británico & Lookout then back to Campamento Italiano (6 hours, 8.5 miles)
CAMP Campamento Italiano

Friday:
HIKE Campamento Italiano to Campamento Torres (10 hours, 14 miles)
CAMP Campamento Torres

Saturday:
HIKE Campamento Torres to a lookout of the towers (1 hour) and then back to Hosteria Las Torres (3.5 hours) Total miles= 6.

FINISH!!

¡Besos y abrazos!

Keeley

Puerto Natales: A Patagonian Fairytale of a Town

Before coming down to Chile I had thought that I would literally have to navigate my way through forests and glaciers, fighting off wild dogs and befriending penguins in order to get to school let alone a grocery store. Hah! Ok, so maybe I didn't think it would be that adventurous, but I did think that there would at least be hiking trails that I could easily access from my house and that I would have many handsome gauchos/lumberjack-esque men ready to hike them with me.

Needless to say I was surprised to be living in a town of 150,000 people, many restaurants/bars, paved roads, and a duty-free shopping district. And even though I love my Patagonian metropolis by the sea, it was time to get out and start getting dirty (and burn off the pan and chocolate I have been eating non-stop). Insert Puerto Natales, home of the the world-renown Torres del Paine national park. Paired with two lovely members of Team Magallanes, Megan and Brooke, we took off one Saturday afternoon for a whirlwind of a trip. The bus ride to Puerto Natales from Punta Arenas is around 3 hours, stopping to pick people up alongside the highway (who seem to come out of nowhere, there is literally nothing but great expanses of land between the towns) throughout the trip. After arriving in Natales, we quickly checked into our hostel, and figured out our game plan.

Erratic Rock, the name of our hostel, can be summed up in two words: buena onda. The employees are highly knowledgeable about the park (they are guides), funny, can cook a mean breakfast, and are pretty easy on the eyes....Since we decided to trek through the park during the end of winter, only a few routes we available and in order to make the most of our time in the park we decided to camp overnight at a site about 9 kilometers in the forest. We also had to rent, hiking poles, backpacks, a cook stove, sleeping bags, a tent as well as buy gas and enough food for 4 meals. In order to have a good meal after an entire day of hiking, we precooked chicken, peppers, and onions the night before as well as made sure that our bags were well-packed with plenty of dry clothes/layers.

Sunday morning at 8am we took a bus to get to the park, which is about an hour/hour and a half outside of Natales. Due to the various breaks that the driver took for coffee, to chat with other drivers, and the unexpected 30min stop at the cueva del milodón (which we didn't know was going to happen) we didn't get to our starting point until 12:30pm. Trying my best to 'lighten the mood,' I decided to inform everyone in our bus/party every time I saw a guanaco (like a deluxe llama) by shouting 'GUANACO!' (guah-nah-ko) which happened pretty much every 2 minutes. Try shouting this at home, it's a pretty fun word to say/yell. Here's what's not as fun to say: Ñandú (lesser rhea in English, like an ostrich). Moving along.....

As we were walking the 7 km just to get to the start of the trail, I noticed that I couldn't see guanacos anymore....After going through every possible option as to why they had disappeared, it finally clicked. There could only be one reason why there weren't any guanacos in this region.....PUMAS. The combination of my active imagination and the fact that I was hungry for lunch led me to create a scenario that would have made the writers/cartoonists behind the 80's GI Joe cartoon proud. I won't share all of the details because I intend to capitalize on them one day in the future, but I'll tell you it involved a puma mafia that has their headquarter in a puma-shaped dome on a hill looking over their turf.....and all the pumas wear berets.

We briefly stopped for lunch and began the second and hardest leg of our hike. I was so grateful that we had rented hiking poles (even though I did look like a short non-stripey version of 'Where's Waldo') because they helped carry my weight up the vertical climb and took some of the tension off of my knees when we ascended the other side of the hill we had climbed. We stopped briefly at a refugio to get more water and relieve our backs from the weight of our packs, the surged on to our campsite. We arrived right at dusk and immediately set up our tents and prepared for dinner. I wasn't cracking as many jokes on the last leg of our hike the first day because I was pretty tired, sore, and a little grumpy at myself for wiping out and accidentally tossing my camera in a stream (it turned out to be ok). Due to a huge wildfire set my a camper a couple of years ago in the park, fires are not permitted so we had to use flashlights/head lamps in order to be able to see anything. Night closed in and we braced ourselves for the dark and the cold of a Patagonian forest in the winter.........

Stay tuned for Puerto Natales: A Patagonian Fairytale of a Town Part 2/I can't walk without pain

Photos in this blog:
-Guanaco!
-Me wearing my trekking gear...I bought new waterproof pants that you can make into shorts! Sweet!
-The Torres del Paine reflected in a laguna before we got on the trail
-Me posing on the bus ride to the Torres

¡Besos y abrazos!

Keeley : )

The man, the myth, the legend: Papa José

One night while we were sitting down having a glass of wine (or was it pisco.....) José asked me, "After seeing all of these decorations in my house, what did you think I would be like?"

Without hesitating I replied, "Ridiculous."

I really nailed it with my predictions of what José would be like, although I believe he prefers to be considered more as a roommate than my Chilean father. Papa José, who informs me that he prefers to be called 'José Carlos,' has been a great host and constantly keeps me entertained simply by his unpredictability. When he first came back from his vacation, José informed us that he kept a very strict routine and liked to have everything in order. Five minutes after that spiel we started drinking pisco.

One Tuesday evening after declaring that he was going to karate practice for two hours, José packed up all of his karate gear and took off.....only to return an hour later with several bottles of wine and two friends, and proceeded to have a party until one a.m.

Wanting to take full advantage of his situation (having a gringa living in his house), José has decided to learn English. As I was sitting down trying to write one afternoon, he dropped 18 'Let's Learn English!' CDs on the table in front of me and asked me to review them for him so see if they would be helpful. Fortunately, he has settled for me writing down words and expressions for him.

After flipping through his 'cuaderno' (notebook) the other day I realized I am teaching him the English equivalent of the Spanish that a restaurant employee can learn from native Spanish-speakers in the back of a restaurant. José is going to be fluent in 'dirty English' in a couple of months. I think I have created a monster. And it only gets worse when my friends come over...they all want to see the expressions and words that he knows and then give me even more suggestions (which are always hilarious and always dirty). José did buy a great book (I forget the name of it) that includes a self-monitoring system so he can give himself tests and quizzes on the material he learns. In fact, he has already taken one quiz, although he informs me he could have done better. My favorite part is when we sit down and he repeats and practices his pronunciation, because we usually end up yelling the word.

me (normally): January
José (normally): Jan-u-areey
me (slightly louder): January
José (slightly louder): Jan-u-ary
me (a little louder): January!
José (same level): January!
Together (yelling): JANUARY!!!!

I have a feeling that the neighbors don't like it when we do that........

José has been very great to not only me, but my friends here as well. He has let 3 different people come stay with us and is always going out of his way to make us feel comfortable. He gave me rides to school a couple of times when my back was hurting, helped me find an open ATM one night so I could get money to travel, and even dropped my friend's huge travel backpack off to her yesterday so she didn't have to haul it around Punta Arenas until her bus left at 5pm. José is a very sweet man, and even though he claims to be like Charlie Sheen's character in 'Two and a Half Men,' it's obvious that he is a softie. I'll have to just include all of his hilarious expressions as they come along, but they are mostly about beautiful women, alcohol, and bathroom humor......I'm such a great influence!!!!

Picture: José giving the shaka this weekend while eating an empanada and dancing with his niece (my cutie-pie chilean cousin) Natalia (la Nati)

Besos y abrazos!

La Keeley

Brokedown palace aka MY LIFE

Bah! After my tragic fall down the waxed stairs in my house life got pretty poopy for yours truly. I thought that everything would be alright and that I could go back to my normal routine after applying a pack of frozen corn to my back, but lord was I wrong! I tried to do my exercise routine the next day and was in such incredible pain that I had to leave the gym. I went to a clinic that night and had to get an injection in my butt (all of the female nurses seemed to disappear when it was time for the shot) and some x-rays taken but got nothing for the pain. I couldn't/didn't work for a couple of days to get some rest and relax (called a 'reposo') but when the pain didn't get any better I had to visit a back specialist who informed me that I had fractured the cartiledge around my ribs. This specialist also gave me a perscription for more effective medicine and told me that I needed to wear a back brace for a month (which is as you can probably imagine, muuuy sexy). I have been a little sad about my stupid accident and have kept a pretty low profile. I haven't been able to walk without discomfort until yesterday and that paired with the poor weather has prevented me from getting out around town. I'm not supposed to go back to the gym until next week but after a weekend of emotional/bored eating I returned to the gym yesterday (I'm only doing cardio this week and it's VERY necessary).

I have a very fun two weeks ahead of me, Chile's bicentennial is coming up and I am traveling to Puerto Natales and Porvenir/an estancia (farm) outside of Porvenir. I am going to try my darndest to keep current with the blog this week, so keep your fingers crossed with me. I would write more write now but José keeps talking to me and telling me to focus on what he's saying/showing/playing. He is absolutely ridiculous and so funny, I had it right on the money when I said that he was going to be an amazing host dad. Here is a little teaser for my next blog:

A couple of words and expressions that I have taught José (that he has asked me to teach him):
-foxy lady
-Beer me!
-Sometimes I am a bad boy!
-I can't wait for Halloween!

Blogs to come:
-A Chilean is born/Papa José: the man, the myth, the legend
-My hilarious students/I work with hard knocks (wannabe hard knocks)

Pictures in this blog:
-The stairs where I had my tragic fall
-My distractor aka Papa José!

Schoolioolio

¡Hola!

I had my first couple of days solo-teaching last week and it went pretty well. I will be working with seven different classes at different levels/grades. Some classes I meet with three times a week and some classes I only see once a week. Each class has at least eight students and it will be my job to focus mainly on speaking and listening exercises. I really like the fact that once students are in the third/junior year of high school they got to focus on either medicine, tourism, or another area of interest (I forget the other options). Two of the classes I will be working with are English classes designed for tourism purposes. One of my co-teachers (I have two) helped to write the 4th year (cuarto) textbook, which is more of a in-depth, historical guide to the Magallanes region of Chile! This means that I can design fun, interactive lessons which have my students taking me on tours around town...for free....haha! I am meeting more and more students with the most interesting knick names, such as 'beaver,' 'bad angel,' 'grandpa,' and 'little crazy girl.' The knick names are all pretty accurate.....especially the last one.....if I ever decide to go back and teach in the United States I will have a pretty easy time after these next four months! The students are all pretty respectful and truly want to learn and improve their English. My first time meeting with with each class was pretty simple. I asked everyone to make name tags for me and write down their full names (they have 4-ex. María Elena Villega Muñoz), their interests, and why they want to learn English so that I can design lessons that they will find interesting. I was very pleased and taken aback at how well and sincere they were in their responses. One student wrote me a short story breaking down what a sentimental young man he is......which I don't if I fully believe because part of his email address is 'team alcoholicos'.....Friday afternoon proved to be very educational. I got to know more of my students and I had them teach me more naughty words and expression.

jugar a la pelota-to play around with a soccer ball (like juggling the ball)
estar arriba de la pelota-to be tipsy (halfway to 'drunktown')

Thank you for the lesson, 'little crazy girl.'

When I asked to work at the secondary level, I forgot that the legal drinking level in Chile is 18. According to my Chilean sister Gabi, the eighteen year-olds all hang out at the same discoteca and many pubs don't let anyone under 21 in (thank goodness).

I fully intended to write more tonight but I am going to put myself to bed early. I was carrying my dried laundry to my room (the laundry drying room is on the second floor, mine is on the first) and slipped down the last four stairs, smacking my back and butt pretty hard. I am going to have huge bruises. I should have been more careful and not worn my bedroom slippers to walk down the polished wood stairs...oops. I should have also been more careful because I always get bruises in three's....I already had one on my scalp from attempting to do an elaborate dance move on the floor Friday night and smacking my head on the wall (don't ask). I am writing this post with a bag of frozen corn on my back and 5 advils (two of them are advil pm...ooooooh) in my belly. Since you can't watch TV online here, I have had to download movies from itunes...so I am going to watch the movie I rented (which took 22 hours to download).

Note to the women:
Do not watch Pride and Prejudice (Keira Knightly version) more than once a week.....I have become a disgusting hopeless romantic and can now feel my heart aching for my true love before I go to bed (¿¿¿¿Dónde está mi Señor Darcy????) I even downloaded the soundtrack to the movie on itunes today....I know, it's a new personal low, but it is also the most beautiful, romantic music I have ever heard.

Alright, time for bed.

¡Besos y abrazos!

Keeley

Pictures: the main entrance of my school and the stoplight skate park near my house