barbecues and bowling balls

So this is kind of from awhile back, but we thought we'd offer you a glimpse into some of Santiago's more simple pleasures.

Just like the States, Chile likes its bowling as a form of diversion. So Mads + Mary + Alison + Allyson (neither of them with last name Buterbaugh) and I went bowling on a Friday night at the mall and had a blast. 

(I maybe had more fun than others because I rocked at bowling ... which never happens.)

The setting: Alto Las Condes Mall. Possibly the swankiest mall in which I've ever set afoot.

Y'all ... those are real stuffed reindeer and bunnies. Ew.

Alison brought her championship bowling medal for good luck (jk ... it was some championship swimming medal from a class she took at La Católica ... maybe even cooler than a bowling medal).

I caught Mary singing to herself ...

Then I caught Mary snuggling with the late arrival.

Mads has a cute "I just got a spare" dance.

Abby wins. Boo-yeah.

The day before our crazy night on the town bowling, Allison Buterbaugh hosted an asado (Chilean barbecue) at her lovely Las Condes home in celebration of the last day of classes. Good times were definitely had.

That fruit is tossed in vanilla, folks.

Allison's host family makes their fortune off selling gourmet cheese. There's always an ample supply at her home. This kind is cherry-flavored!

Speak of the grill-master: Allison makes some excellent longaniza (sausage).

We thought we'd support our buddy back in the lake-district town of Villarrica (y'all remember that post?) by buying his Crater cerveza.

We made soooooo much rice.

So, if you can't tell, we've been trying to soak up Santiago-time during out last couple weeks in the country. We probably won't post again for a little bit, seeing as we're sticking around town for a couple more days and then leaving for our Patagonian backpacking/camping adventure on Tuesday. We hope to bring back some of the most magical pictures and stories yet. All for you, readers.

Oh, I guess I should mention one other thing I did recently. Allison Buterbaugh scored us tickets to a Universidad de Chile vs. La Católica soccer game a couple weekends ago. Well, the day before the game, Madeline is about to hop in the car with her host family for a luncheon outing when her host mom asks her where her overnight bag is. So Mads had to go on a surprise weekend vacation (which turned out to be quite fun, I hear), hence giving up her ticket. While the game was quite the fun cultural experience, Mads might have a couple reasons to be happy she didn't go:

1. We were told by multiple sources we'd get knifed leaving the stadium by the opposing team (didn't happen, but it was on the brain the whole time ... and maybe it would've happened had they not segregated the teams completely and dismissed us by section at the end of the game).
2. Little 10-year-old rascals wearing striped t-shirts like to steal your tickets right out of your hand (yes, this happened to me).
3. We added at least 27 new gringa cat calls to our vocabularies.
4. We watched an un-muzzled police dog bite-tackle a La Chile fan who happened to punch a La Católica fan in the face right behind us.
5. I'm not sure about Madeline's host family's soccer allegiance, but my host family told me I wouldn't be welcome in the house if I brought home a jersey (the Gonzalez family is loyal to the team Colo-Colo to death). Rosi sternly threatened me, "Abby, don't you dare bring that trash home, or else no dinner for you ..." Sheesh. 


HASTA PRONTO! 


PS: 11 days til we're HOME!

AlfajOreos

The day after our unconventionally wonderful Thanksgiving, Abby and I (along with our friends Erica and Alexis) went to check out the city of Mendoza, Argentina. Mendoza is a big attraction for Santiaguinos like ourselves because it lies just a short bus ride away, and the best part is that the bus trip involves driving up and over the beautiful, still-snowy Andes.

We arrived at our hostel on Saturday morning, wandered around the city for a while, took a power nap, and headed to see Mr. Hugo, the famous (among cheap travelers) Mendocino bike-wine-tour man. We spent the afternoon tasting chocolate, olive oil, marmalade, dulce de leche, and of course, wine. It was a beautiful day, and we got to hang out with our new British friend, Julia, who is traveling by herself around the world for the next 7 months. Every time we start thinking we're adventurous, we meet someone like her. Sheesh.

We spent Sunday just walking around (the plazas, the mall...), relaxing, and treating ourselves to a nice dinner. Then we got up early on Monday and headed back to Santiago. Although this trip was pretty uneventful, it was super enjoyable, and really great to finally see Argentina. 

Abby joined in a high-stakes card game with the mural on the wall of our hostel.

As of Monday, these bloggers are both done with school! And it's December?! Abby's real padre (as he calls himself) is here for the week, I'll be headed to Viña del Mar tomorrow, and on Tuesday we're finally going to Patagonia! 

Aaand I almost forgot to explain the title of this post. Oh man.

Conclusion: Chile is even better when we don't have to pretend to "study" all the time.

PS- I stole all of Abby's pictures. Except for the super-impressive AlfajOreo shot. That was me.

turkey time

To keep y'all on your toes, Mads and I are going to be posting about several significant events over the next couple days, but not in any special order. Our days and weekends have been so busy recently (after all, we DO come home in 13 days, remember?) that everything is kind of blurring together. My first assignment? THANKSGIVING.

About a month ago, we started to plot what we wanted to do on this oh-so-cherished holiday. The most obvious thing we could do would be to replicate the yummy family-style meal we have every year in the States, right? But Chile kind of complicated our plans. 

First of all, no one here understands you can cook a whole turkey. Like, whole turkeys exist in grocery stores, but our host families have no idea why. I had to repeat, "Yes, you can cook a turkey ... yes, you eat a cooked turkey ... yes, those frozen birds are food ..." for 5 minutes straight at dinner one night, and I was just met with blank stares and, "No entiendo ..." My host mom also voiced that she didn't understand what turkey had to do with the Virgin Mary. She seemed tiffed that this "holiday" of ours was so senseless. After a brief pilgrim and Indian lesson, dispelling visions of turkeys being sacrificed to the Mother of God, we finally came to a common understanding. So Rosi conceded that she'd allow the turkey experimentation in her home, and we bought a turkey. Geez. Obstacle number one overcome.


We then set about harvesting (yes, I'm trying to use Thanksgiving-y vocabulary) recipes from Momma Hannifan and TasteSpotting (WARNING: Don't click here unless you want to be eternally condemned to distraction and discontentment with your mediocre cooking skills). And so, our Thanksgiving spread was to look as such:


- Yummy turkey
- Broccoli-cheese-rice-watered-chestnut casserole
- Cranberry apple cobbler
- Sweet potato crumble casserole
- Pumpkin pie


Looks pretty tasty and well-rounded right? 

After streaming the Macy's Day Parade online ...

That's some Thanksgiving joy on her face if I've ever seen it ...

 ... we went to the grocery store and returned home for our 7-hour baking marathon.
 

Before I describe what we ended up cooking, here's your 2010 Thanksgiving Bake-Off Team.


MARY
Known for her great olfactory sense.

ERICA
Great at sampling things. And being cute.

Anddd of course, yours truly, Mads and Abby.

OK, so here's what we cooked:

- Yummy turkey
We had NO CLUE how to cook a turkey. After thawing it all morning in its package, we finally read the instructions and it said, "NEVER, under any circumstances, thaw the turkey in its package." Woops. The only "suggestion" in the "suggested recipe" was to inject pisco (Chilean vodka) into the turkey. Of course. We did cognac instead because the only pisco in the Gonzalez fridge was mango-flavored. But problem: no needle for the massive syringe my mom whipped out of the utensil drawer. So she told me to run to the pharmacy and ask for a 4-inch needle. Good thing I covered those track lines on my arms (kidding...), otherwise the pharmacist would've given me a weirder look than she already gave me. I thought I was going to have to explain again that no, the Virgin Mary had nothing to do with my desire to inject cognac into a turkey, but she finally just shrugged her shoulders and coughed up the needle.


We also added some lemon and let it baste (is that the correct cooking term? So much taste-spotting terminology in my head and no sense to it ...) on a bed of apple slices.


It ended up being seriously the tastiest turkey I've ever eaten. Everyone at the dinner (Madeline + Erica + Mary + host parents + my host sister) agreed. My host dad gave us a 7.0 (highest mark you can get in the Chilean academic grading system ... sadly the only authority figure who thinks so highly of our work down here).

Scandalous.

LOOK AT THAT.

- Broccoli-cheese-rice-watered-chestnut casserole
OK, here's the deal here: Chile doesn't have the Velveeta cheese, nor the cream of chicken soup, that this heavenly casserole requires. So we improvised by buying what looked to be nacho cheese paste in a plastic tub and mushroom soup powder mix. And how does one describe a watered chestnut? Needless to say, they were nowhere to be found. But this too, miraculously, turned out quite well.

Notch-yo cheese?

- Cranberry apple cobbler
Chileans think cranberries exist here. When you type "cranberry" into WordReference.com, it spits out the word "arándano." That's also the word for "blueberry," at least in Chile (but I'm starting to doubt Chilean's fruit proficiency ... the guy at the fro yo place told me the other day that what we consider to be blackberries are actually the love babies of blueberries and raspberries. SO WRONG.) "OK," we thought, "We'll just use blueberries instead. NBD." Then we couldn't find brown sugar for the crumble on top. We asked lots of store clerks for it, and they all presented us "azúcar moreno," but it was turbinado (yeah, I used to work at Smoothie King). I'll give Chileans a break on this confusion ... it was, in fact, the color brown. It just wasn't brown sugar. So we found some maple and brown sugar oatmeal and used that instead. Aren't you getting proud of our creativity?

That's Madeline's decapitated body mixin' some cinnamon and sugar and apples and blueberries.

- Sweet potato crumble casserole
Sweet potatoes do exist in this country, but only through some vendors at this one special market. So Rosi picked some up for me one day. They're not as orange as the ones in the States, but still, quite delicious.

This was luckily as close to disaster as we got. Just a little burnt on top. Still delissshhhh.

- Pumpkin pie 
This was a huge concern. We were so worried that this would be the one and only year out of our 21 (20 for some) years of life that we hadn't eaten pie on Thanksgiving (I've heard stories, myth or truth no sé, of Poppa Hannifan rubbing pie on my gums at age 1 month). But have not fear ... the Buterbaughs (alllllll six of them) are here! Well, they were here, for a six days to be exact, and they smuggled us in some pumpkin pie in a can (jk, Mrs. Buterbaugh called Delta and they gave her the green light to bring it on down). Hallelujah. The only problem was we couldn't find pie crust, so we had to use this puff pastry stuff that burnt easily ... but hey. We study abroad kids are all about adaptability and adjustments now, right Mads?

There's that beacon of Great American Food (excuse me, Great United States Food ... we're all Americans, now).

Nom.

 And when all was done, we sat down to a table sprinkled with plastic pumpkins (compliments of Momma Hannifan), and went around the table and gave thanks. It was quite the magical moment. Heartfelt words were said.

See that Christmas tree peeking around the corner? It was listening to Mads say she's grateful for Chile.

We let the man of the house cut the turkey.

We really do look like a scene out of Norman Rockwell's Thanksgiving utopia, don't we?

And what made this day even more spectacular? Christmas music (gracias, 98.1 KUDL Christmas radio online) AND Christmas decorations AND Love Actually.

Maybe some "Santa Baby"?

Gosh, Chile. Have I told you lately that I love you?

happy happy joy joy

It's almost summer here, and that means cherries are everywhere. And that means I'm one happy camper.

What brings great joy is Rosi's encouragement for the study bug (that's me). Mads and I have finals this week, and my host mom is making it an extra-special time with some chocolate gifts for "mental reinforcement."

More updates to come. Teasers: Sausage. Gringo bowling. Pumpkin pie in a can. Christmas. Madeline as avatar/smurf.
 

Why the 504 is really the best bus ever...

Quick story:

Last night, I was making my way home after the midnight premiere of HARRY POTTER (go see it!!). Since this was around 3am, I was the only one on my bus. When we pulled up to my stop, I was standing towards the back of the super-long bus, expecting to exit through that door. As the bus came to a stop, however, the driver turned around and said to me, "Mejor bajarse acá..." ("It'd better for you to use this door in the front..."). Weird? I guess he only wants to open one door, since it's just me? So I headed up there, and as I was about to step down onto the curb, the cute young bus driver handed me this:

That's right. It was a beautiful flower. At 3am. What a great surprise. I beamed all the way home, and even forgot to be terrified of Bellatrix Lestrange for a little while. 

Chile, have I told you lately that I love you?

Swayzes in Santiago

Remember that time Carol and Scott Swayze made their way to Chile to visit me? No? Well that's because I've never told you about it, even though it happened way back in October. Serious blogger slacking down here. Better late than never? Ok great.

On the morning of October 20th, my phone buzzed in the middle of Quechua class, meaning that my real mom and dad had arrived in Santiago!! I grabbed my books, scooted out of the room, ran to the metro, and impatiently waited for Transantiago to get me home. Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough, and Mom and Dad beat me to my house. Meaning that they got to spend some quality time with la Teresa who speaks negative zero English. And my parents? They speak "un poquito español," as Dad told several people during their week here. But they managed just fine until I got there, and it was all uphill from there!

We got to do so much while they were here, including:

1. Tours of Santiago, led by Madeline:

Plaza de Armas

The Pre-Columbian Art Museum

Plaza Italia and Bellavista

Cerro San Cristobal

My university campus at San Joaquín:

The market at Los Dominicos:

 

 La Vega and Mercado Central 
(sorry... no photograph evidence... just trust me. We went there.)

2. A tour of the beautiful Chilean wine country in between Santiago and the coast:

 

3. A day exploring Viña del Mar and Valparaíso:

 

4. A weekend getaway to Temuco:

When my parents booked their flights, back in August, I was unaware of a trip that was already planned for October 22-24 with my study abroad program. When I realized my mistake, I thought about just skipping the CIEE trip, but it was already paid for, and Temuco (in Chile's southern lake district) is supposed to be beautiful, so we just decided Mom and Dad could come along. I had no idea what to expect, but the fact that we were traveling in a group of 40 and going to very non-touristy Temuco meant that it was definitely going to be an adventure. And I, at least, had the best time! I was so glad Mom and Dad had the chance to meet some of my friends in the program, and to see a part of Chile that can't be found in any guide book.

First we were in Temuco, spending time learning about the Mapuche (the indigenous people of Chile) culture. Mom and Dad were really patient with all of the Spanish tours and my abbreviated translations.

 

They even managed to entertain themselves just fine when I ditched them to spend a day with the program painting, making S'mores, and playing Capture the Flag at a local school.

After Temuco, we headed to nearby Puerto Saavedras on the Pacific Ocean, where we got to do some hiking, and see some beautiful views.

5. Dinner and bonding with the host fam: Sadly, there are once again no photographs to document this event, but it was awesome. I had been nervous about this interaction for a while (language barrier? hola?), but my host parents and real parents got along great, thanks to a collaborative translation effort by my host sisters, my host sister's boyfriend's mom (don't ask...), and me. It really was so much fun to have them all together. And my host family still can't stop talking about how enchanting my parents are, and just how much I look like my dad.

(Wow this post is getting long. Sorry.)

Having my parents down here for a whole week was just the best. After three months in South America, I was definitely in need of some North American lovin', and it was so fun for me to get to show them everything about life down here. They ate some Chilean food, learned some Chilean words, and got to see a lot of this wonderful country.