Salsa, Caballos, y Comida

June 29, 2008 (Sunday)

Thursday I had another meeting with my language exchange partner, Jorge. We met at Café Enjoy, a lovely restaurant that sits directly opposite the street that runs along the ocean. Tori, Emily, and Victoria came with me. Jorge didn’t know that it would be me plus three others, but he didn’t seem to mind. We all asked him a lot of questions about certain phrasing in Spanish, and Tori and I interviewed him for our Chilean culture class. We were given the assignment to interview both a foreigner in Chile and a native Chilean to ask about cultural perceptions and various other things. The café was so wonderful! I had a café cordato with lemon pie (amazing) Additionally, our waiter was incredibly patient with us as we tried to ask questions and order in Spanish. He would answer very slowly and distinctly (not a lot of people go out of their way to slow their speech down). After we ordered, he told us that he actually spoke English-not only English but Portuguese, French, and Japanese. This brings his fluency total to five languages. Pretty inspirational to me-to say the least. He also wasn’t more than thirty.


Friday was a really fun day as well. Class went well, and I went out in the evening. The club is called El Huevo (The Egg). Each floor has a different genre of music playing. I spent all of my time between the floor with Regetone and Salsa. Two of the other guys in the program are very good salsa dancers, so they gave some of the rest of us lessons. I even did a flip (was flipped)!


There was a scheduled event with the ISEP program yesterday, Saturday. We went to Con Con, a little town about thirty minutes away, to go horse back riding. We went to a ranch where there were a lot of horses waiting for us. Everyone got to go out together. I believe there are twenty nine students in addition to an advisor and a student assistant. The ride took about three hours, and my hose was relatively old and probably underfed. He did his best, but I really felt bad having him carry me. We rode up and over massive sand dunes to the coast. I felt like I should be in a dessert because of the dunes. The ride was wonderful! And galloping along in the coast as the waves rushed over the sand was pretty incredible! In order to get back to the ranch we backtracked along the coast and then along an unused railroad. We arrived cold and hungry to a large campfire, two banquet tables dressed in white table cloths with full place settings and bottles of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon, and an absolutely delicious meal. For an appetizer while we waited for the beef and pork to finish over the open grill we were served chori pan (sausage in bread). Chori is a traditional type of sausage here. It is made with pork, seasonings, and onions diced very finely. The bread bun (pan) was home-made with a very soft inside and lightly toasted outer part. The meal consisted of two kinds of salad, yellow rice, a potato dish, a tomato and onion salad and the beef and pork. Delicious. After the meal tea and coffee were served while we stood around the fire staying warm.


Today was yet another wonderful day even though it was very foggy. Rosemary and her sister, Carol, took Victoria and me on a day trip to some nearby cities. We drove along the coast for

about two hours, stopping intermittedly to take pictures. For lunch, we went to a place that literally just sells empanadas. I had two-one with all different types of seafood and one with scallops and cheese. Oh my goodness, they were so good! I could write a page about each one starting with the texture of the actual empanada to the ingredients that must have been used and then the temperature at which they were fried-but I won’t. I’ll just make them when I get home! I don’t think Victoria and I said more than five words through the whole meal. After lunch we drove a little more and stopped to get out where there was a nice view of the cliffs. This stop happened to be a cemetery. It was nice though. Rosemary and Carol had packed tea and cake, so we enjoyed that as we walked and looked at the scenery.