Return to Santiago!

Hello readers!
I'll have you know that I have survived these past few weeks of actual school. I resisted the temptations of going out on the town and instead got to working. I turned in multiple essays, took a number of exams and completed several readings for my courses. Geeze, it almost felt like being back at CU... 

Mural of Neruda in Santiago.

To cap off the stressful school stuff I went with our CIEE group to Santiago for the weekend. We took off early Friday morning and arrived in Santiago just an hour and a half later. Our group as a whole is split into three groups depending on the course we chose to take. One group focuses on the geography and history of Chile as a whole, one on the history of the city of Valparaíso (my class) and one one Spanish and Chilean literature. Anyway, the Geography group was dropped off at the Mueso de la Memoria y Los Derechos Humans (The one I stumbled upon my first time in the city, reread that blog here). The other two groups went off to visit one of Pablo Neruda's houses in the city. I had visited Neruda's Santiago house the last time I was here too, but I actually got a lot more out of my second tour. I understood a fair amount more and was sure to look for new things. And in an eclectic collection like Neruda's, it is easy to find new and interesting things. 


After finishing up at the poet's house, we walked a few blocks around the neighborhood to find a coffee shop and relax in the cool fall fog :)

Hot Chocolate :-)

The day continued with a lunch feast, checking into our hotel, a dinner feast and a nice walk around the area with Chloe...


The next day my class climbed into a van to go meet up with a Chilean artist who, among other things, has used Valparaíso as inspiration for his work. Essentially what he does is take a plank of wood and etch out parts of it to create an image. As if that work isn't cool enough, he then rolls ink over the wood, marking the places he didn't touch.

THICK black ink.

rolling on the ink...

Then he places that onto a piece of paper and rolls it over with a large pressure machine. The image gets transfered to the paper as well as some of the depressions from the carvings in the wood.

End product, not the best picture, but you get the idea.

Learning this was also an interactive process! We were able to take one of his creations in wood, apply the ink and work the rolling machine.

Evan working the pressure roller.

A pretty fun process, and all of us were able to take with us a free piece of art! If that weren't enough, someone asked if they could try the etching process and it ended up being a group effort that we were able to make a print of! A piece of art that gets to represent our connection as a class.

Collective product!

To check out some other works by this artist, check out his website.
After talking with the artist, we went to grab some Peruvian food, and loaded up in the bus and headed back to Viña del Mar. It was only a few days in the city, but I came back completely exhausted and excited to have another day left in my weekend.

Oh yeah...
HAPPY MOTHERS DAY! :-)
A shout out to my Mom back in Colorado. Who, I am sure, took advantage of the day to get a start on the annual backyard garden in the beautiful start of Spring in Colorado. 

...Zoom back to Chile...
Today my host sister, mom and I went to another town up the coast to attend a BBQ at a friends house. We feasted again, and just enjoyed everyone's company. I really felt today that I have a good command on Spanish. If we had gone to that BBQ my first week here I wouldn't have understood a thing, but today I was able to chat it up with everyone and have real conversations. Success.

This coming week I only have a few things that I need to do for school, and Saturday will begin a month of adventures... First of all, my friend Isabelle and I will be headed to Easter Island! I have been wanting to go there for a very long time and now I am finally going. So excited! Then if that weren't exciting enough, the day after I get back, Nathan arrives to visit me!

It is going to be a fun month... Stay tuned for adventure updates.

~Matt