Blogs from Valparaíso, Valparaíso Region, Chile, South America - page 32

Hola a todos! Hey everyone! So I am finally here here in Valparaiso, Chile!! I arrived last monday with a group of 26 students from all over the United States. From Monday until Saturday we all stayed in a small hotel in Vina del Mar, which is the small, touristy, summer vacation city that is right next to Valparaiso. While at the hotel we met our academic directors and a couple professors and sat through hours of orientation material, but not to worry, they made sure to keep it fun and mix it up a bit...plus, they all seem really nice, intelligent, and very well organized. Just yesterday (Saturday), after MUCH anticipation, we all met our host families. These are the people that we will be living with for the next 7 weeks. I absolutely LOVE ... read more

Tänään lähdin käymään naapurikaupungissa Valparaisossa. Menin metrolla, vaikka se olikin bussia kalliimpi kun piti ostaa 1000 peson metrokortti. Pääteasemalta palasin ensin trollikalla Plaza Victorialle. Taksi Nerudan taloon olisi maksanut 2000 pesoa, joten päätin mennä muulla tavalla. Löysin sattumalta rinnehissin (ascensor Espiritu Santo) ja nousin sillä mäkeä ylös. Kävelin siitä sitten Nerudan talolle. Nerudahan eli 1904 - 1973. Hän oli kirjailija ja edusti Chilen senaatissa kommunista puoluetta. Hän ehti olla naimisissa kolmesti. Ensimmäisestä liitosta syntyi tytär joka kuoli 8-vuotiaana. Toinen vaimo oli Nerudaa 20 vuotta vanhempi. Nerudan talo oli nelikerroksinen. Sisäänpääsy maksoi 2500 pesoa, kuvia ei saanut ottaa. Ylimmässä kerroksessa oli tyohuone, kolmannessa kerroksessa taisi olla baari. Suuresta asunnosta tuli mieleen suomalaiset vihreät kansanedustajat, jotka elävät kir... read more

Well it's been a week since they kicked us off the ship kicking and screaming. I've added photos and videos to the previous entries (it works better from home with the faster link!). Our last sea day was busy as usual but we weren't ready to leave so hung onto every moment we could. After our final dinner most of our table stopped by the Explorers lounge for a last drink (ok so Hugh and I did check out the chocolates too!). Just after 11 decided I really did need to go down and finish packing and that took me till after midnight but I got the bags out before the 1 am deadline. I did a bit of shopping on the ship that last day including buying a Lapis necklace with some of the credit ... read more

Valparaiso is an amazing and unique city. Its built on lots of very steep hills (cerros) so has lots of little funicular lifts which are very old, but well maintained (at least the ones we went on). The next thing is that the cladding material of choice is corrugated iron sheet! So houses often look like an old shack with very grand doors and windows. The next weird thing the colours used to paint the buildings - purple, bright green, yellow and so on. Even weirder are the graffiti - more like murals than what we know as graffiti - just look at the photos! There is an amazing mixture of rich and poor all jammed in together and an incredible variety of different building designs - from Californian modern to Spanish colonial. It seems to ... read more

It was very hard, but I finally managed to drag myself away from the comforts of the hostel in Santiago, and went to Valparaiso. One of the guys from the hostel, Olivier, was planning to go to Valparaiso as well, so we ended up going together. That was really good as not only was he good company, but he also spoke a lot better Spanish than me, as he´s half Spanish. (As an aside, it´s not that I´m not trying to speak Spanish, but I just don´t understand a word anyone is saying to me. I´m convinced they don´t actually speak Spanish here in Chile, just some strange language with the odd Spanish word thrown in to make you think you should understand what they´re saying. I spend most of my time looking blank, saying ¿Cómo? ... read more