Let's get this started!

A little background: I arrived in Santiago on February 11th for a study abroad program (CIEE)with 50 other kids from the states. We stay with a Chilean family and we can take classes at both La Catolica and the Universidad de Chile. I came with one of my bestest friends, Charlotte, and a few other kids from Clark. For the past 8 weeks we've been exploring Chile and Santiago...

So for our first real week here we took a class called Contemporary Chile. Paula (center, with Lindsay, left, and Maureen, right) was our amazing "tutora", our tutor/teacher, for the class. The final project for the class was a 7-10 page paper on a topic of our choice - I wrote mine about Salvador Allende and CADA, el Colectivo de acciones de arte (the Arts Actions Collective, roughly translated). I talked Salvador Allende's famous act of the "medio litro de Leche" where they distributed a half liter of milk daily to the children of Chile. CADA decided to commemorate Allende while also critiquing the horrible Pinochet dictatorship by distributing milk to the children of one of the poorest barrios in Santiago while also publishing and distributing information and art critiquing the "blank-ness" - la blancura - under the Pinochet regime. So, basically, there is at least a little bit of actual school work going on here.

Here's an example of a typical Chilean meal - protein (fish) cooked without too many spices, greens (green beans) cooked with lots of salt, tomatoes, and palta (avocado). And of course (in the upper right corner) Pisco Sour and wine. Pisco sour is a verrry sweet cocktail that includes Pisco (a Peruvian and Chilean liquor a lot like whiskey) mixed with sour mix and topped with a sugary egg-white foam (sounds gross, actually very tasty). And, as you probably all know, Chilean wine is very good, but there really isn't the wine culture that we have in the states - Chileans simply know their wine is good - so they drink it.

Here's a good example of Chilean street food and fast food - the famous "completo" which in English means, um, roughly translated, "the complete". Its basically a hot dog covered with tomatoes and then slathered (and I reaaally mean slathered) in avocado and mayonnaise. Sounds gross, but you have to try one. This one is massive and I have to say Alex did a great job devouring it. As for me, I'm kind of "completo-ed" out. Ugh.

So that's all for now, I need to sleep so I can go for a good long run and go to the library before my History of Chilean Photography class tomorrow morning. I have tons more photos so check back soon for more! Buenas noches!