PHOTO ALBUM 1: Chilean Independence Day (link)
PHOTO ALBUM 2: Pichilemu Festivities (link)
The time of September 18th is the biggest holiday of the year for Chile. It’s the Chilean independence holidays. Beginning about two weeks before, the whole country is absolutely covered in flags. I was told that it’s the law to put up a flag on top of every building and house. The activities for the 18th are empanadas and chicha (really young wine) (link). September 18th is the day of the year where absolutely all of Chile is tipsy from young to old and from rich to poor. There are places called “fondas” throughout the whole country which are places with tents to go and get food and dance the “cueca” (link). I spent the Fiestas Patrias of Chile in Pichilemu, Chile where tons of people go for the 18th to rent houses and spend the weekend with family/friends (link). I went with about 15 people from AIESEC Santiago as well as trainees from Brasil, Slovakia, United States, and Argentina. It was a fun weekend of the beach, dancing in the fonda, enjoying a little chicha. Pichilemu is known for being a city of surfing and vacationing.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
The Porteño Lifestyle
PHOTO ALBUM 1: The Secret World of Mate (link)
I stayed in Buenos Aires with an AIESECer friend and got to see the “porteño” way of life. It’s a very bustling city that is very sprawled out. In Santiago, at least I feel like I can get around, but in Buenos Aires, the city is so spread out that your travel times are very high. It was a good couple days in Buenos Aires. One of the nights there was an @ TM meeting which I went to. Interesting to see how TM is run in many different countries. One day, I was walking around a part of the city, and out of the blue appears some @ers from Concepción, Chile that were in Buenos Aires waiting for the conference. This was quite the surprise to run into people I knew randomly and a huge city like Buenos Aires. We met up with the MC in Buenos Aires and went together down to Tandil, Argentina where the conference was to be held. It was a 6 hour drive and we were greeted at our arrival by the @ers there. They gave us places to stay and everything which was really nice. Tandil is a quaint town that is centered around the university. The next couple days were planning and getting ready for the conference of 3 days with a conference team of people from Argentina, Colombia, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, and United States.
The conference was the first time that I had taken on the role of facilitating which meant leading the sessions, and passing on message for the personal and professional development for the delegates. Met lots of people from 10 different countries that are in and out of Latin America and enjoyed it thoroughly. It made the Argentinean news which you can googletranslate if Spanish is in issue for you (link).
After the conference, we headed back to Buenos Aires where I bought my bus ticket to go back to Chile and head back to world of school. I travelled with my friends from Concepción, Chile who were also in the conference. A 24 hour ride across Argentina from seeing the Atlantic to the Pacific, through the Andes, and back into Viña del Mar, Chile.
I stayed in Buenos Aires with an AIESECer friend and got to see the “porteño” way of life. It’s a very bustling city that is very sprawled out. In Santiago, at least I feel like I can get around, but in Buenos Aires, the city is so spread out that your travel times are very high. It was a good couple days in Buenos Aires. One of the nights there was an @ TM meeting which I went to. Interesting to see how TM is run in many different countries. One day, I was walking around a part of the city, and out of the blue appears some @ers from Concepción, Chile that were in Buenos Aires waiting for the conference. This was quite the surprise to run into people I knew randomly and a huge city like Buenos Aires. We met up with the MC in Buenos Aires and went together down to Tandil, Argentina where the conference was to be held. It was a 6 hour drive and we were greeted at our arrival by the @ers there. They gave us places to stay and everything which was really nice. Tandil is a quaint town that is centered around the university. The next couple days were planning and getting ready for the conference of 3 days with a conference team of people from Argentina, Colombia, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, and United States.
The conference was the first time that I had taken on the role of facilitating which meant leading the sessions, and passing on message for the personal and professional development for the delegates. Met lots of people from 10 different countries that are in and out of Latin America and enjoyed it thoroughly. It made the Argentinean news which you can googletranslate if Spanish is in issue for you (link).
After the conference, we headed back to Buenos Aires where I bought my bus ticket to go back to Chile and head back to world of school. I travelled with my friends from Concepción, Chile who were also in the conference. A 24 hour ride across Argentina from seeing the Atlantic to the Pacific, through the Andes, and back into Viña del Mar, Chile.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
The Secret World of Mate
PHOTO ALBUM 1: AIESEC Southern Cone Tour (link)
PHOTO ALBUM 2: The Secret World of Mate (link)
I went to see the sights in Uruguay with the AIESEC interns that were doing internships in Montevideo. This included two Americans from Yale, one Puerto Rican girl, one French girl, 4 Brazilians, and one girl from Spain all about 22 years old. All of them spoke Spanish very well. Just walking through the streets, you see tons and tons of people carrying their mate and their hot water thermos which is very cultural thing of Uruguay and Argentina (WIKIPEDIA MATE). It was quite frigid during those days considering it was in the middle of winter. We went to the sights of the grand palace where the legislative chambers and congress chambers can be found. Montevideo is on the ocean so it has some great views. One of the nights, the two Yale guys organized an English lesson in their apartment for all the AIESECers of Montevideo so that was interesting. These two guys were working for Non-Governmental Organizations in Montevideo doing planning and organizational development for their AIESEC internship. I spent a lot of time with the girl from Spain and the Brazilian girl during my 7 days in Montevideo.
For the weekend, we made a trip to Punta del Este which is kind of like Viña del Mar in the sense that it’s on the Ocean and it’s very very popular in the summer. I went with 2 of my Uruguayan friends, 2 Brazilians, and the Puerto Rican for the weekend. We stayed in a hotel for $15 for the night and went to the sights such as a hand monument sticking out of the sand, the casino, and a creepy park with tons of statues of random characters. It was quite the international crew.
As I was leaving the country, I was going on a ferry from Uruguay to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I went through the immigration at the port in Uruguay and the Uruguayan immigration officer demanded the slip that everyone receives when they enter the country. Considering that I never talked to an immigration officer when I was entering, of course I didn’t have the slip of paper that said I entered the country. I told her that it was the immigration officers at the border’s fault for not demanding to check documents or anything, but the immigration lady didn’t want to listen to my frivolous lies. She said that would be a $30 fine for having lost the paper which did not please me very much. Not only that, I didn’t even have $30 because I had done everything to avoid leaving Uruguay without Uruguayan currency so I didn’t have to change it in Buenos Aires which would mean that I would lose money. So I was leaving Uruguay with $7 USD cash. I also did not have a credit card because I lost that in January in Chile, so I had been using traveler’s checks for 6 months and I was still using traveler’s checks up until that time. It was about 12:00 in the afternoon, I was at the port with very little cash with the not so cheap ferry leaving in 40 minutes, and the nearest city to possibly change a traveler’s check was a 1.5 hour bus ride away. No good. I spent about 10 minutes arguing with the immigration lady trying to convince her that it’s the government’s fault that I do not have that sheet of paper with no avail. I could not miss that boat because that would mean I would have lost $100 (the cost of the ferry ticket). I had to go from person to person begging to collect the $30 sum to be able to leave the country. I had great luck with that (I have no idea how) and was able to collect the money fairly quickly because people were very kind. Finally, I could pay the sum to the woman and pass through, but that was only half of the problem. The Argentinean immigration man who decides who can enter Argentina and who will be denied was watching this whole event. So when I got to him, he asked to see my bus ticket to leave Argentina. I told him that I would buy it in Buenos Aires. He didn’t like that. He told me that he would not let me enter Argentina for not having an income source that would be sufficient to leave Argentina after being a tourist (which is a government regulation to avoid people entering Argentina and never leaving). I showed my traveller’s checks and my 1 year student visa for Chile which showed my source of money as well as a reason to leave Argentina which was finish my studies in Chile. He didn’t buy it at all with the reasoning that traveller’s checks were not a valid source of money and that if I couldn’t pay a $30 fee to leave the country, how was I going to buy a bus ticket to leave Argentina? He said that he would let me into Argentina with a transit visa which would mean I could enter only to get directly on a bus and return to Chile. This would have meant ruining my trip as well as causing great problems for the AIESEC conference in Tandil, Argentina that I was facilitating. I thought fast and decided to lie to the immigration officer saying that I had left my credit card at a friend’s house in Córdoba, Argentina and that she was meeting me in Buenos Aires with my credit card. So once I got to Buenos Aires, I would have a credit card and a source of money and all would be great. I was arguing with this guy for 10 minutes before he said “Get out of here” by stamping my passport and letting me pass. Through this event, I’ve come across a great way for a government to take money from visitors under the guise of a legitimate reason. When I am president of a country, I’ll get tons of tourists to come to my country, not give them documentation that they entered the country, demand it when they leave the country, and then fine them $30 due to the fact that they “lost” it. It’s brilliant!
PHOTO ALBUM 2: The Secret World of Mate (link)
I went to see the sights in Uruguay with the AIESEC interns that were doing internships in Montevideo. This included two Americans from Yale, one Puerto Rican girl, one French girl, 4 Brazilians, and one girl from Spain all about 22 years old. All of them spoke Spanish very well. Just walking through the streets, you see tons and tons of people carrying their mate and their hot water thermos which is very cultural thing of Uruguay and Argentina (WIKIPEDIA MATE). It was quite frigid during those days considering it was in the middle of winter. We went to the sights of the grand palace where the legislative chambers and congress chambers can be found. Montevideo is on the ocean so it has some great views. One of the nights, the two Yale guys organized an English lesson in their apartment for all the AIESECers of Montevideo so that was interesting. These two guys were working for Non-Governmental Organizations in Montevideo doing planning and organizational development for their AIESEC internship. I spent a lot of time with the girl from Spain and the Brazilian girl during my 7 days in Montevideo.
For the weekend, we made a trip to Punta del Este which is kind of like Viña del Mar in the sense that it’s on the Ocean and it’s very very popular in the summer. I went with 2 of my Uruguayan friends, 2 Brazilians, and the Puerto Rican for the weekend. We stayed in a hotel for $15 for the night and went to the sights such as a hand monument sticking out of the sand, the casino, and a creepy park with tons of statues of random characters. It was quite the international crew.
As I was leaving the country, I was going on a ferry from Uruguay to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I went through the immigration at the port in Uruguay and the Uruguayan immigration officer demanded the slip that everyone receives when they enter the country. Considering that I never talked to an immigration officer when I was entering, of course I didn’t have the slip of paper that said I entered the country. I told her that it was the immigration officers at the border’s fault for not demanding to check documents or anything, but the immigration lady didn’t want to listen to my frivolous lies. She said that would be a $30 fine for having lost the paper which did not please me very much. Not only that, I didn’t even have $30 because I had done everything to avoid leaving Uruguay without Uruguayan currency so I didn’t have to change it in Buenos Aires which would mean that I would lose money. So I was leaving Uruguay with $7 USD cash. I also did not have a credit card because I lost that in January in Chile, so I had been using traveler’s checks for 6 months and I was still using traveler’s checks up until that time. It was about 12:00 in the afternoon, I was at the port with very little cash with the not so cheap ferry leaving in 40 minutes, and the nearest city to possibly change a traveler’s check was a 1.5 hour bus ride away. No good. I spent about 10 minutes arguing with the immigration lady trying to convince her that it’s the government’s fault that I do not have that sheet of paper with no avail. I could not miss that boat because that would mean I would have lost $100 (the cost of the ferry ticket). I had to go from person to person begging to collect the $30 sum to be able to leave the country. I had great luck with that (I have no idea how) and was able to collect the money fairly quickly because people were very kind. Finally, I could pay the sum to the woman and pass through, but that was only half of the problem. The Argentinean immigration man who decides who can enter Argentina and who will be denied was watching this whole event. So when I got to him, he asked to see my bus ticket to leave Argentina. I told him that I would buy it in Buenos Aires. He didn’t like that. He told me that he would not let me enter Argentina for not having an income source that would be sufficient to leave Argentina after being a tourist (which is a government regulation to avoid people entering Argentina and never leaving). I showed my traveller’s checks and my 1 year student visa for Chile which showed my source of money as well as a reason to leave Argentina which was finish my studies in Chile. He didn’t buy it at all with the reasoning that traveller’s checks were not a valid source of money and that if I couldn’t pay a $30 fee to leave the country, how was I going to buy a bus ticket to leave Argentina? He said that he would let me into Argentina with a transit visa which would mean I could enter only to get directly on a bus and return to Chile. This would have meant ruining my trip as well as causing great problems for the AIESEC conference in Tandil, Argentina that I was facilitating. I thought fast and decided to lie to the immigration officer saying that I had left my credit card at a friend’s house in Córdoba, Argentina and that she was meeting me in Buenos Aires with my credit card. So once I got to Buenos Aires, I would have a credit card and a source of money and all would be great. I was arguing with this guy for 10 minutes before he said “Get out of here” by stamping my passport and letting me pass. Through this event, I’ve come across a great way for a government to take money from visitors under the guise of a legitimate reason. When I am president of a country, I’ll get tons of tourists to come to my country, not give them documentation that they entered the country, demand it when they leave the country, and then fine them $30 due to the fact that they “lost” it. It’s brilliant!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Into the land of Argentina
During the week, the Argentinean that is in charge of Sales and External Relations of AIESEC at the level of Southern Cone (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay) came to Viña del Mar in order to give us trainings on selling and making our Local Committee better trained to sell the internship opportunities to companies. I also began work as a Facilitator in planning the sessions for the AIESEC National Leadership Congress that was to be held in Tandil, Argentina in August. In August, I will also be giving the sessions to present knowledge on where do I want to go in life, how do I build a team and create results, and how do I make use of my external environment all to help them in and out of AIESEC.
I then set out for Argentina to meet up with some AIESECers that I had met at conferences and with whom I work with in AIESEC. I got on a bus that took me the 24 hour trip to Córdoba, Argentina, a city in between Mendoza and Buenos Aires a little to the north. The city is rather large and has a little bit of a European flare for me. It has a good number of very old churches that give the city character. The difference in Spanish between Chile and Argentina is very notable and at times there can be some communication difficulties between the Argentineans and me, but it’s all good. We did a tour of the city just to see everything. It seemed like everywhere we walked it was absolutely full of 15 year old kids with nothing to do. Especially in the mall when we were walking around, it was hard to take a step in front of you without stepping on one. I met a German guy at the hostel from Berlin where I was staying for one night who talked about how he had joined the German army for some time to earn the money to be able to go and travel through Argentina for 2 months. He spoke Spanish very well; I almost thought he was Argentinean. The following day I went to one of the team meetings of AIESEC in Córdoba that is responsible for sending Argentineans abroad to fill internship positions in the 107 other countries. I met an American girl from Madison, Wisconsin that was doing an internship through AIESEC with an NGO in Córdoba for 6 weeks. I stayed in the house of one of the AIESECers who lives on the outskirts of Córdoba. In Chile and Argentina, and for the most part all of Latinoamérica, the children live with their parents until they graduate from college and are about to get married. If they go to the university in a city that is different than where their family lives, then they would live in an apartment with other students or something of that nature. Due to this cultural tendency, it’s strange for me to see the relationships between college students and their parents, because for me it looks exactly like high school. And for the most part, mothers in the households do not do work other than that of housewife such as my host mother in Chile. Empanadas are pretty popular in Argentina filled with everything from beef and chicken to corn and cheese. Long promenades in Córdoba are home to those selling newspapers, magazines, umbrellas, trinkets.
I then set out for Argentina to meet up with some AIESECers that I had met at conferences and with whom I work with in AIESEC. I got on a bus that took me the 24 hour trip to Córdoba, Argentina, a city in between Mendoza and Buenos Aires a little to the north. The city is rather large and has a little bit of a European flare for me. It has a good number of very old churches that give the city character. The difference in Spanish between Chile and Argentina is very notable and at times there can be some communication difficulties between the Argentineans and me, but it’s all good. We did a tour of the city just to see everything. It seemed like everywhere we walked it was absolutely full of 15 year old kids with nothing to do. Especially in the mall when we were walking around, it was hard to take a step in front of you without stepping on one. I met a German guy at the hostel from Berlin where I was staying for one night who talked about how he had joined the German army for some time to earn the money to be able to go and travel through Argentina for 2 months. He spoke Spanish very well; I almost thought he was Argentinean. The following day I went to one of the team meetings of AIESEC in Córdoba that is responsible for sending Argentineans abroad to fill internship positions in the 107 other countries. I met an American girl from Madison, Wisconsin that was doing an internship through AIESEC with an NGO in Córdoba for 6 weeks. I stayed in the house of one of the AIESECers who lives on the outskirts of Córdoba. In Chile and Argentina, and for the most part all of Latinoamérica, the children live with their parents until they graduate from college and are about to get married. If they go to the university in a city that is different than where their family lives, then they would live in an apartment with other students or something of that nature. Due to this cultural tendency, it’s strange for me to see the relationships between college students and their parents, because for me it looks exactly like high school. And for the most part, mothers in the households do not do work other than that of housewife such as my host mother in Chile. Empanadas are pretty popular in Argentina filled with everything from beef and chicken to corn and cheese. Long promenades in Córdoba are home to those selling newspapers, magazines, umbrellas, trinkets.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Exams and Ski
PHOTO ALBUM 1: Ski Trip (link)
The semester has finished with exams in two of my classes, in Fundamentals of Social Work and Sociology. I was 0.1 points away from not having to take the Sociology final exam, but unfortunately I had to take it and study pretty hard. Although, all is well now, free for the 20 day break or so. My friends wanted to hit up some skiing near Santiago for some vacationing after the semester, so 7 of us went to one of the ski resorts for a couple days to ski. The place was very beautiful and it’s right on the border between Argentina and Chile. It’s actually the only border crossing near Santiago, so all of the shipping trucks have to go right by the ski resort through the Andes to get to the border crossing. It’s actually a big problem because when the border is closed because of too much snow (which happens frequently), the trucks cannot pass and the trucks have to form a mile long line on the side of the road waiting for the pass to open back up. It’s a problem in terms of traffic as well as trading considering the goods do not reach their destination on time. It was nice to see some snow and bet back on skis after such a long time. I picked up pretty well although I was skiing with professionals, literally. One of the guys raced professionally back in the US. Where we were staying, I had reserved a bed in the cheapest part, but they didn’t have any more of that so they upgraded me for free to a bunk bed room with a private bath and a employee of the resort at my service 7:00am -8:00 pm. It was quite a nice upgrade while all my friends were stuck in the other place. I felt like I was more in Brasil during those days because about 80% of the people at the ski place were Brazilian. There were a number of times where I was listening in on Brazilians speaking in Portuguese and the Chileans speaking in Spanish and there were no problems in communicating considering the similarities of the 2 languages. As you were going up on the ski lift, sometimes you were directly overtop the road and the large shipping trucks that carry materials over to Argentina or trucks from Argentina carrying materials to Chile, to the port to be shipped off to Asia or on the coastline of northern South America or Central America. Also, there were tons of Army people with their special gear doing trainings and I don’t even know what. Some were doing the pizza all the way down the mountain, while others were professionally zig zaging and zipping all over the place. It was quite humorous to see the army men all geared up professionally doing the pizza all the way down. The mountains weren’t crowded at all which made for some nice skiing. I did the challenge of some black diamonds which I did alright with. I certainly wasn’t zipping down the mountain, but I was able to avoid falling more than once or twice which was sweet. We returned to Santiago and I said farewell to my gringo friends as they were heading off to Perú to the Amazon to travel a little more. I headed back to Viña del Mar for the week.
The semester has finished with exams in two of my classes, in Fundamentals of Social Work and Sociology. I was 0.1 points away from not having to take the Sociology final exam, but unfortunately I had to take it and study pretty hard. Although, all is well now, free for the 20 day break or so. My friends wanted to hit up some skiing near Santiago for some vacationing after the semester, so 7 of us went to one of the ski resorts for a couple days to ski. The place was very beautiful and it’s right on the border between Argentina and Chile. It’s actually the only border crossing near Santiago, so all of the shipping trucks have to go right by the ski resort through the Andes to get to the border crossing. It’s actually a big problem because when the border is closed because of too much snow (which happens frequently), the trucks cannot pass and the trucks have to form a mile long line on the side of the road waiting for the pass to open back up. It’s a problem in terms of traffic as well as trading considering the goods do not reach their destination on time. It was nice to see some snow and bet back on skis after such a long time. I picked up pretty well although I was skiing with professionals, literally. One of the guys raced professionally back in the US. Where we were staying, I had reserved a bed in the cheapest part, but they didn’t have any more of that so they upgraded me for free to a bunk bed room with a private bath and a employee of the resort at my service 7:00am -8:00 pm. It was quite a nice upgrade while all my friends were stuck in the other place. I felt like I was more in Brasil during those days because about 80% of the people at the ski place were Brazilian. There were a number of times where I was listening in on Brazilians speaking in Portuguese and the Chileans speaking in Spanish and there were no problems in communicating considering the similarities of the 2 languages. As you were going up on the ski lift, sometimes you were directly overtop the road and the large shipping trucks that carry materials over to Argentina or trucks from Argentina carrying materials to Chile, to the port to be shipped off to Asia or on the coastline of northern South America or Central America. Also, there were tons of Army people with their special gear doing trainings and I don’t even know what. Some were doing the pizza all the way down the mountain, while others were professionally zig zaging and zipping all over the place. It was quite humorous to see the army men all geared up professionally doing the pizza all the way down. The mountains weren’t crowded at all which made for some nice skiing. I did the challenge of some black diamonds which I did alright with. I certainly wasn’t zipping down the mountain, but I was able to avoid falling more than once or twice which was sweet. We returned to Santiago and I said farewell to my gringo friends as they were heading off to Perú to the Amazon to travel a little more. I headed back to Viña del Mar for the week.
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