Sunday, June 24, 2012

How to mathematically explain why things always speed up when they are about to end?

If I were to invent a formula (perhaps there already exists one that I am unfamiliar with) for that phenomenon of time speeding up unnecessarily and unfortunately...this would be it.

5 months = a long time right?
4 months go by
5 - 4 = 1

1 month left.

Where did the 4 months go? I have no idea, but here I am with a little under a month left of my study abroad experience and I don't understand why time seems to go by so much faster now. Of course it has its slow moments like when I am freezing and studying or when I am trying to get home via public transportation, but on average it has speeded up exponentially and unexplainably.
Al fondo, this is a very philosophical math formula, making it more theoretical and likely, impossible to prove in any way, but I have a feeling that the majority of people would agree with my proposed theory despite the lack of cited literature, research or fact.

It is purely based on human feeling in relation to time. Time is relative until we put meaning to it. These 4 months past have meant so much to me, but now I am forced to recognize a real and imminent end to the experience that I know as study abroad. It is confusing really. I havn't seen my family in forever so clearly I am excited to see them, but what about my chilean family? When will I ever get to see them again?

Clearly we have diverged from the mathematical into the pathetically sappy and preoccupied frame of mind. I shall leave you with this, the whole business of time speeding up? it's good. it means that the time spend was good, it meant something to you and now that time has relevance. Before it was just the passing of units that we call minutes, the sun rising and setting in the southern hemisphere and gravity pulling the waves of the pacific in and out. Now it is my past, memories and and whole year of experiences worth so much to me. And there is more to come, hence the unnecessary-ness of this sappy sappy post.

 thinking man (made of tape) aside the polluted Mapocho river

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

exams are creepin'

Y'know that feeling at the end of the semester when it feels like every single professor in your life has realized that they only have about 6 class days left to give you homework? Result being that you are drowning in a sea of paper and notes and books. Yea well that feeling exists in Chile as well.

it is raining

this is actually a good thing in Santiago seeing how in the 4 and a bit months that I have been here I think it has rained ONE other time. It doesn't rain much here. Did you know.....Chile is home of the driest desert in the world! The Atacama desert. real dry

Hopefully I will be going skiing next week in the Andes!!! That would be the epitome of awesome, I just have to buy the ticket. Also rent skis, no way did I bring those down here.

My host family continues to be the cutest and best host family every, me and my 'brother' went running yesterday with the dog. My sister is going to the states this friday with her boyfriend and my host parents are just the nicest. It is now cold enough, however, to merit using the little portable gas stove (THANK GOD) I love that stove, LOVE IT! It saves me from sitting in the living room and studying/freezing simultaneously.

Anyways, I gotta go catch the D18 (bus) to get to the metro to go to class. I only have one class today (Narrativa Chilena y hispanoamericana) and we are going to talk about Roberto Bolaño's book Los Detectives Salvajes. It's a pretty good book I only wish I had been able to read more of it as of this point in my life....only read like 80 pgs. before the quiz. shoot.

this is study abroad
<3

Monday, June 4, 2012

What is a chori-pan?

I just realized that my blog is not on the SMC study abroad bloggers page. hmmm, what to do

Anyways, what is a chori-pan?
that is a fantastic question because it has two main answers
1) delicious
2) chilean
and this is why I love it

Basically, there is this bread here (BREAD HERE IS SO GOOD) called a Marequeta.
Secondly, there is this thing called a chorizo which SpanishDict defines as: cured pork sausage, flavoured with paprika...
that is mostly accurate, however, to further define this wonderful food that I have no idea why the states has not yet lied about inventing...


it is a little sausage thing that is almost too orange to be considered real meat, but very tasty, best eaten with ketchup and mayo and possibly palta (squashed avocado)
You put said sausage-thing inside a halved marequeta and BAM: choripan


~because without the bread, it's just chori
and without the chori, it's just pan~


choripan.jpg  here it is...the magical food of chilean asados

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Chiloé, how I wish I could stay

So, sorry I havn't written in my blog for so long. I know all you very dedicated followers await with baited breath my chilean adventures and yet, I continue to disappoint with blank spaces in the months and months I have not written. jk, thank's mom for being the only one who reads this.

Anyways, so I went to this island last week called Chiloé, which is about as close to Patagonia as you can get without exactly being in patagonia. It was absolutely amazing! I went down there with two friends, a backpack, some noodles and no return ticket. Unfortunately there was a set return date as there are these things called classes that we sometimes have to go to despite being abroad and fancy free.

I am going to elaborate mostly on Chiloé so as not to overwhelm all of you with the significant amount of things that have happened since I last wrote. Besides, Chiloé is by far the most interesting thing that has happened to me since the last time I wrote. Today I am just doing homework, case and point. Going to Chiloé also means returning broke apparently, so I'm out of the mix for a little bit, I even needed to beg some pesos of a german tourist just to get on the metro to go to class...that's a lie. It would have been funny though.

We took an overnight bus ($20.00US) to get down there which was significantly less comfortable than my bed, but adequate for broke travelers, plus they wake you up in the morning by handing you a little alfajor cookie (which are super delicious). Arriving in Puerto Montt was extremely exciting as would have been arriving in the middle of an uninhabited desert....just to get OFF THE BUS. We walked around Puerto Montt for a while, artisans markets, fish markets, etc.
We decided to eat lunch near the fish market, fresh seafoood right? So one of my friends says "let's get erizoz and locos because they are tipical food here! yay!" Mistake #1. didn't ask what erizos were, Mistake #2. said yes anyways. Erizos, for all of you who don't know are in fact sea urchins, raw, with some lemon and salt. disgusting. I ate one and then had to gulp down some bread and pisco sour just to get the extremely nasty flavor OUT. But yea, the locos were pretty good.
After this adventure, we got on a bus to Castro, a little town in Chiloé which is famous for it's palfitos (houses on stilts in the water..they are probably the coolest things I saw in Chiloé!) Stayed there two nights, visited the Parque Nacional Chiloé...it was pourings, but nice. We stayed one night in Ancud at the best hostal ever! visited the Fuerte San Francisco there....ate some Curanto which is again, typical food of the region. And after all this we made our way inland to Puerto Varas, and Frutillar- a cute little german town...literally, the cute little children go to cute little german school and everything is tiny and cute.

Conclusions:
1) People from the south of Chile are kinda like the southern states...really hospitable and nice. Some man invited us on a journey to the island Quinchau simply because he had room in his jeep. We could have been a band of young, seemingly feminine murderers for all he knew. good thing we weren't.
2) Curanto is actually good despite it's somewhat strange and disgusting sounding presentation (all forms of meat cooked in a pot...chicken, pork, beef, clams, muscles, other stuff)
3) I must go back!!

pictures to follow, however as a result of this trip I have a mountain of homework the size of volcán Osorno...entonces, nos vemos más rato.