The Newes From Chile

Tales of the Chilean Ski Bunny

This weekend I decided to try out the more “cuico” side of Chilean life…that is, snobby. I went to the Andes with eight of my friends to ski. I had to keep saying it to myself to believe it: we’re skiing in the Andes. It was Lucy Alta (tall), Lucy Baja (short), Jenn, Jeff, Rob, Lauren, Ashley, Byron, and myself. We started out with a trip to Santiago on Friday. Renting ski stuff on the mountain, which is about an hour from Santiago, is really expensive, so you have to go to the rich area of Santiago to rent it, and hire a van to pick you and your ski gear up and then take you up. Which you can only do during certain hours of the day, because, to better handle traffic, it’s been mandated that you can only drive up in the morning and down at night. If it sounds like a lot of work, it is. But in the end, it really wasn’t any more work than skiing in the states (I’ve been told, since we all know I’m no real ski bunny), and tons of fun. After trying on sizes at the ritzy ski shop in Santiago, we left our stuff to be picked up the next day (because who really wants to ride the bus and metro with skis?) and headed to Jumbo, a Cosco like store in Chile, to pick up cooking supplies for the weekend. We then headed back to our adorable Hostel Indiana, which the owner described to us as our second home, for the night. I must confess hostels aren’t exactly my thing when you’re in Chile, the land of no heating, and the windows of your room don’t fully close and there aren’t exactly sheets on top of the hard mattress on which your sleeping. But really, for about $5, I was happy to have a place to rest before sleeping, and since we were all crammed into our rooms in little bunk beds, it was very much like summer camp in a fun way.


Making plans for the weekend at the Hostel Indiana

Fast forward to Saturday morning, 6:30 a.m. when we have to get up to meet our ride. It’s amazing how little you care about how you look when it’s early in the morning, you’re about to get dressed to go skiing, and you have to walk outside to get to the more than shady looking bathrooms. Showers were definitely and unanimously vetoed, and we hopped into the van perhaps a little smelly, but not really caring anyway. A quick stop at Ski Arroho to pick up our ski stuff, and we were off, up a windy path to the mountain ski slopes, El Colorado. I definitely had never seen real mountains before coming to Chile. It was amazing to climb from Santiago, where it’s chilly but never below freezing, up above tree line in the matter of an hour. Because there were nine of us, we had the van to ourselves, and the diver was very helpful. As soon as we got up there, he helped us look for a place to stay on the mountain, since it would be a real hassle to have to go back down to Santiago for the night. Knowing that it might be expensive, Lucy and Byron set off with the driver to see what was possible. And lucky for us, somehow they found a crazy man who was for some reason willing to rent one of his apartment/hotel rooms out to nine college kids. Who would have guessed? It had a kitchen, cable TV, one and a half baths, two bedrooms (one with two bunk beds = sleeps 4 and one “matrimonial bed”, shared by Jenn and Lucy), and a living room with two day beds and a trundle. And most importantly, because it was in a place where the pipes could actually freeze, it had heat!


Ready to ski! My nickname for the trip was Edward the Turtle. Quite fitting, no?

We quickly got changed and hit the slopes. I, not having skied in about five years, somehow thought it would just come back to me and threw myself over the edge of the somewhat steep bunny slope, apparently with the notion that “turning” was out of the question. Sure, the first few times down the slopes consisted of nothing more than me rapidly gaining frightening amounts of speed and then just tipping over when I felt it was time to stop, but I persevered. As Lucy said, I fell a lot in the beginning, but every single time I hopped back up and started skiing (terribly) again. Of course, my spirits were broken a little when Lucy and I ended up mistakenly on a very steep, very windy Intermediate slope without really realizing it. I had made the error of following Jeff to what he thought would be an Easy slope. That it was not, and Lucy and I freaked out, and proceeded to make, what can only be called gallant but fruitless, attempts to walk back up the mountain. Two Chilean women stopped and, rightly, informed us that we simply could not do what we were attempting to do, and kindly helped us put our skis back on (a problem since in the mess of snow I was trying to do it backward) and make it down the hill safely. Of course, at the bottom of the hill, Lucy and I thought that the ski lift would take us to a point where there were easy hills, like we hadn’t learned our lesson at all. So we naively hopped on and found ourselves in aforementioned steep and windy situation. Nowhere to go but down, we began our descent, Lucy taking slow wide turns, and I alternately throwing myself down the hill and then falling. I know you’re wishing you had the video. At one particularly bad point, I threw myself off my skis, the action of which then threw my skis into random parts of the hill, difficult to encounter in the mess of wind. Upon finding both of them and trying to put them back on, several familiar faces whizzed by me on the mountain, shouting always encouraging words. It was, of course, my fellow gringos, one of whom was Ashley who, thank God, taught me how to turn and took the hill very slowly down with me, shouting things like “Looking good,” and “Don’t worry, I’ll pick up your poles!” I fell a couple of times, but luckily made it almost to the bottom of the hill without major event.

And I say almost, because despite my recently acquired turning abilities, I apparently had not yet mastered creating a stop from a turn. And decided that the best thing to bring me to a halt was an orange fence. Being the good sport that I am, I allowed pictures to be taken, and Lucy and Byron decided it needed to be captioned…


Crash, crash, crash into a fence!

(from the Outkast song Roses, which I only know from my nine-year-old sister Brianna, because yes, she is that much cooler than I am.) Ashley, after snapping the photo, helped me out of the fence, and from there I progressed to master my turning so that the next day I could progress from the Bunny Slopes to some intentionally skied Intermediates.


This is where we were skiing!

Before I could move on up the skiing chain of command however, I had to spend an awesome night in our mountain apartment. Definitely homier than our “second home” Hostel Indiana. It was one of those nights you always thought you should have in college, with everyone just hanging out, so happy to be there together. Everyone was able to take a hot shower as we watched the sunset over Santiago and the beautiful view of mountains that we had on all sides. While watching the Chilean tennis doubles at the same time. I have to say, I’m still American through and through, but it was routing for the Chileans. They’ve never had a gold medal, and the tennis player is from Viña del Mar! Plus you just can’t help getting sucked up into the excitement of the whole thing while here. When we drove back to Santiago Sunday night, the streets were literally filled with people and cars flying the Chilean flag and screaming/honking horns. It was outrageous. But don’t worry, I’m routing for home sweet United States in the rest of the games. My allegiance is true.




The views from our apartment.


Lucy Baja, Rob, and I, Post-skiing

We cooked pasta and soup, alternated hydration with pisco, and played a little MASH (you know you remember the fortune-telling game of 3rd grade fame, don’t pretend you don’t) and never-have-I-ever Chambers-style (absolutely no pressure to drink) because you can always get to know people better. After a full day though, we were pretty exhausted and went to bed by 10:30. Which still didn’t make it any easier to wake up to ski at 9:00 the next morning, but we did it. The second day was equally amazing, especially since I managed to make it over to some Intermediate slopes. Ashley even tricked me into going on a Red Diamond, which here is in between Intermediate and Expert, with the label of “Difficult”. The best part of the whole trip was just how positive everyone was. Despite the fact that we were all different levels of skiing, from Lauren who had never skied to Lucy who’s a Coloradoan expert, we were all skiing our hardest and being incredibly supportive of each other. Laughing with others and at oneself is always a must! I must say, after the CIEE Learn to Ski in a Day program, I feel quite confident in my skiing abilities and can’t wait to show them off in the states! Ski trip anyone?


Reentry

Unfortunately, our amazing weekend made reentry into daily life a little difficult. I returned Sunday night to find my room rearranged because my family had cleaned the house while I was gone. Which shouldn’t be too big of a deal, but it’s still weird. Especially the fact that the bedside lamp that I moved to the desk so I could use it while working had been replaced on the bedside table. I love my family, but sometimes I get a little frustrated. There was also something wrong with our calefont, so I was unable to shower Sunday night or Monday morning. After a pretty bad knee bust-up from skiing, I could have really used a nice warm shower. On top of it all, I had a lot of homework that I probably should have been working on over the weekend. Luckily, I had my crucial Wednesday night pick-me-up with Ashley. Our Wednesday night outings are starting to become a routine since neither one of us has morning classes on Thursday, and we both have busy days on Wednesday. Wednesday is so the new Thursday. Every week, we go to the gym that I just joined with Ashley for our Pilates class (did anyone say Yogalates?!). After, we’ve been going out for a little bit to some local bar or another. This week we went to J. Cruz (not sure I spelled that right), a whole in the wall restaurant that looks super shady. You may ask why on earth we chose to wander down the back alley to such a place, but the food’s reputation had preceded it. Now, when I write “food”, you may imagine several options, however it’s important to emphasize that at J. Cruz, you order one thing, and that is a huge plate of french fries with cooked onions and bites of steak on top. This does not necessarily sound like it should be Ashley and my kind of place, but it is awesome. Hands down the best french fries I’ve ever had, I desperately wish I could share them with all of you. Save money. Buy plane tickets to Chile. The fries’ll be on me.



Queer Eye anyone?

I also had a change of attitude toward my room yesterday that I’m incredibly excited about. When I first moved in, I wasn’t exactly enthralled with my room, but, like several things here, I told myself it was only five months, and that I would just live with it. Finally, a month and a half into my stay, I was getting a bit weary of the stained comforter on my bed and the mildewed walls. Constantly complaining to myself in my head, my frustration was growing. Finally, Tuesday night, I snapped to it. “Am I not an American?” I asked myself. “Was I not born in the land of Trading Spaces and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? Surely I can make something of this situation. It’s the American thing to do.” So today began my quest to remake my room. Granted I can’t do much with it seeing as my family doesn’t even like me to move my lamp around, but what can be done, will be done. (P.S. Mom and Dad, perhaps this would be a good time to tell you that the credit card bill that will be coming to the house this month includes a few house making items such as pillows and throws to cover up aforementioned stained comforter. I figured this would not be something to which you would object.) Perhaps not the most exciting thing to be happening in a foreign land, but for the home decorator in all of us, I will post some before and after pictures in a couple weeks. And if anyone has suggestions of how to remake a somewhat barren room (with a large and unidentified object sitting in the corner), I would be in your debt!

Finally, a quick apology is in order for my especially poor writing quality of late. I’m always writing blog entries late at night, the only time I really have the opportunity to, saving them to my computer, and then posting them when I’m able to sneak online. My family loves the internet, and there’s almost always someone who’s not really willing to give it up. Also, the constant switch between Spanish and English means I really don’t speak either language well. What all this amounts to is me constantly writing entries in a semi-drugged state of exhaustion. Hopefully the grammatical errors aren’t great and the interest-level of posted material isn’t completely miniscule!

The week in review

Well, the title was originally going to be “The week in review”, but I guess at this point it’s been more like two. To those to whom I promised an update at the beginning of this week, I am quite sorry. I had a huge exam on Wednesday (which I most certainly did not do well on), and had hundreds of pages of reading to do for it. And the one time I took a quick study break to blog some short proof of life, Internet Explorer died and I lost what I had written. And to those with whom I was trying to talk online early this week, I sincerely apologize for disappearing; the internet at my friend’s house died and we couldn’t figure out how to fix it. At any rate, it’s been an exciting two weeks, and if you have the stamina to read about it, then continue.

I left for Santiago immediately after posting the last entry and got to see my host family’s family. First we visited my host cousin and her newborn daughter. My host cousin and her husband also have a two-year-old son who was in that cute trying-to-talk stage, and the grandmother was there as well (my host aunt? it’s hard to keep track) to help out. I finally had my first Chilean Mama experience. I am the third student my host mother has had, so I think she’s accustomed to not forcing food down poor foreigners throats, which is usually quite pleasant. It was great to have the experience, however, of being in a house where the food was just overflowing from the table. Let’s not joke around, it’s my equivalent of heaven.

After my host cousin’s house, I went to my host grandparents’ house where we spent the night. It wasn’t huge, and it certainly wasn’t warm (in case I’ve forgotten to mention it, buildings here don’t have heat, and Santiago gets COLD at night), but it was so homey. It was really nice because it reminded me a lot of visiting my real grandma in the Pocono’s – a house that seems not to have changed in ages, with all the colors of the ‘70s in all the furniture. But more than anything else, it was like Grandma’s house because of the cousin’s that lived right next-door, just like Bridget and Maggie do! It was so much fun to feel like I was interacting with a big family again, with tons of people talking and laughing and eating tons!

This week was slightly less easy. I have to say I felt a few more pangs of homesickness than usual. Most of that is because on Wednesday, it was finally decided that I definitely had fleas. That’s right, fleas. You may have thought only dogs get them, but here in Chile, it’s quite common for people to have those itchy, pesky insects – you often get them from the micros (busses). That was definitely a Caitlin-where-the-heck-are-you kind of day. I’m certainly not the first person in my program to have them either, which makes it slightly easier to laugh about. I hope you are all able to do the same with me and not disown me for my parasitic visitors.

And on that note, an amusing conversation relayed to me by Lucy, from when she told her mother over the phone that she had fleas…
Lucy: Mom, I have fleas.
Lucy’s Mom: Fleas?
Lucy: Yeah, a lot of us on the program have them. You can get them from the micros.
LM: Do people, like, bring live chickens on?
Lucy: No, Mom, the people here have fleas.
LM: Oh. Wow.

A change of sheets later, however, I’m moving on. And quite in time, since the Fiesta Naval military ball was on Saturday night. Rewind for one moment to Friday night, when Sara, Ashley, and I went out with our dates to a bar since Ashley and Sara hadn’t met theirs yet. (Sara was originally going to go with Luis, whom she danced with at the club last week, but he decided not to take her after she dodged every one of his kiss attempts.) We had a relatively good time, a group setting where there was much less pressure to avoid awkward dancing. The only highlight of the night was when my date asked me if I liked my hair the length it is and then had a short but direct discussion with the other two guys about how girl’s hair should be longer. Cool.

So Saturday night when we went to the ball, my expectations weren’t high, but I was at least excited to be getting dressed up. I knew there would be good reason to bring my Chambers dress to Chile. Ashley and I headed to Sara’s house to get changed and do makeup, hair, etc…basically to be girly for a little bit. We got there around 7:40 because our dates told us Friday that they would pick us up at 8:30. As soon as we walk in the door, however, Sara tells us that Luis called to say he’s be there at 8. Not optimal, but 20 minutes is still plenty for a girl to get ready, so we set to work. Then, around 10 or 5 to 8, we got another call saying that Jean Pierre would be coming to pick up his date too. Now, our dates were named Christian, Matthias, Luis, Sebastian, and Benjamin. There was no Jean Pierre. It turns out the military isn’t real big on advanced warning, and they wanted us to find another girl to go to the ball with this last guy. Super. Luckily, a friend of Daniela’s was at the house, and we threw her in a skirt and black shirt with some makeup quickly and were ready to go. Us American chicks are resourceful.

We were taking a van-type car with driver that the boys had rented, which made us all quite happy since we had been nervous about what we would do if our dates drank too much, something that we knew was almost a definite. Of course, the boys showed up in full uniform, being a formal military event, which just made the whole evening a lot more comical. Overall, it was a really great time. The food was good, the music was fun, and the whole place was really well decorated. Sure, maybe we weren’t the perfect dates in terms of what military men are looking for – Sara scolded them as being culturally insensitive for saying Chinese and Japanese food are all the same thing, and I attempted to explain to my date how anti-gay policies in the military are discriminatory and wrong – but we still made it through the night with smiles on all faces. I was also happy to have gone out with them the week before – I knew all of Cristian’s moves so that I could easily dodge kisses and attempts to grind. Sometimes it’s definitely in a woman’s advantage to have a bad dancing partner, especially if she’s the type who naturally tries to lead. I made up my mind early on in the night that there would be no making out on the dance floor, no attempts of his to put my hands on his ass (who dances like that?!), and we were all better off for it. I was also much more comfortable knowing that we had had the pololeando conversation the week before – the we’re-not-dating-and-here’s-why conversation…I thought.

Towards the end of the dance, Christian began trying to tell me something. The music being really loud (and the language being Spanish), I could barely make out what he was saying. So I dragged him outside to some tables and said, “Alright, what are you trying to say.” What follows is a loose translation of the whole conversation since it’s just too good to miss out on. I decided to be firm, I decided to be strong…I decided to lie my heart out. I took my little white lie of an “andandte” (boyfriend) from the week before and made it a theatrical work (and played the part rather well I must say).

Christian, Chilean Military Man (of a whole 19 years of age): Remember what we talked about last week?
Me, US Seductress that you know I am: We talked about a lot of things last week…other American students… (he gives me a look)…pololeando (dating)?
C: Yeah.
M: What about it?
C: Are we?
M: I told you last week, I have an andante (less serious boyfriend).
C: Yeah, so?
M: Well (and this is where I decided to pull out all the stops), Christian, I don’t know you very well, but I’m going to confide something in you: I think I’m in love with my andante. We’ve been talking a lot, and I really just want to be with him. And while I’m not sure yet if he feels the same way, I just can’t go out with anyone else while I’m so in love with him.
C: But he’s very far away, and you’re here until December.
M: Yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m in love. It just wouldn’t be right for me to go out with anyone else right now. (He looks frustrated.) Besides, you don’t like short hair.
C: That doesn’t matter.
M: It’s just not right. But you’re my friend, right?
C: (He corrects a grammatical error I made in the last sentence, and then,) yeah, sure.
M: Let’s go dance…

And that’s the point at which he started looking moody. Luckily there were about 10 minutes of songs left, and then a short drive home, but he was not exactly a happy camper. I’m hoping the fact that his friend made fun of him in the car had more to do with it than I did, but you never know. I’m quite the heartbreaker :-P. He was able to perk up enough on the way home to ask how old my blonde sister was…I quickly told him not old enough (not to mention way to far away). My estimation of the whole situation is lonely military boys who have to move fast given that they only have the weekends to do any moving whatsoever. Still, it’s certainly a funny story to write home about.


I wonder if they realize how funny we all think the uniform makes the situation…This was taken at the end of the night, after Sara sat her date down and told him a similar story to mine that wasn’t a lie, he got drunk and decided to test out his English, and Ashley effectively dodged attempted kisses and “you’re super beautiful” compliments. Really, who says that? And yes, those are stuffed dogs in our hands – presents from the military academy.


Ashley and I decided to have our own after-party at her house, formal dress optional.

One lesson to take from the whole experience is that dating in Chile is just not an option for me. The male-female relations here are so foreign to me that unless I found a really progressive man, I can’t ever imagine fitting the cultural requirements of a girlfriend, nor can I imagine wanting to have a culturally adequate man. And these are not the type of norms people step out of a whole lot. While Chile is a very modern country in many ways, women are still expected to serve men, men to look after women. Men are always given their food first at meals (thank God I live in a house of just women and don’t have to see it every day), the women are to make sure they are comfortable and happy. It was not acceptable for me to go to the bathroom by myself at the naval ball, Christian had to accompany me and wait at the door. And while I was going out with some pretty rigid boys in a rather strict setting, even in the most seemingly normal of houses, girls go as far as to break their boyfriends crackers apart for them, because that’s what is supposed to be done. Perhaps I’m not describing it very well, but please believe me when I say the interaction is just completely foreign to me.

And to end, because I’ve once again blabbed on for quite a long time, I’ve ventured into the Pacific Ocean for the first time! I’ve been told that it’s never really warm enough to swim here and that the water is some of the coldest in the world, but I’ve at least put my feet in. And really, just the fact that the weather is getting better and I can walk and sit by the ocean is good enough for me!






Sooo much cooler than Chilean Military Men. When Lynnae and I were on the beach taking these pictures, a little girl about Brianna’s age came up to us and asked if we were “on holiday”. Woohoo for little kids with British accents and being by the beach.

Hair Cutting Parties and Carretear-ing

It is absolutely gorgeous in Viña del Mar today. The weather has been positively chilling at night, but during the day, the sun comes out and it feels like mid-Spring. The last couple of days have been quite busy, and I thought I would write about them quickly before I take off on a bus for Santiago.

In Chile, there seems to be a peluqueria, or hair salon, on every block. So it did not make the most of sense when Jenn and I decided to cut our hair together, but any excuse for a party that costs absolutely no money is hard to turn down. Besides, I was just aiming to get rid of the femullet (translation: female mullet) that I seemed to be quickly acquiring and was wary of trying to explain that to a hair cutter in Spanish. So cut we did, in Jenn’s bathroom. Jenn’s was a dramatic change – she had been growing her hair long in anticipation of her wedding, but decided she liked her hair better short and could still do fun things with it and a veil. I approved :). Then the two of us together worked on my mullet situation, and I have to say I’m confident that we did a good job. Sure, the next hairdresser I go to will probably be appalled at how uneven everything is, but I have wavy hair, these things aren’t important to me. Bottom line is, in case you were wondering, hair cutting parties are where it’s at for a good time in Chile. For your own party, try to make sure your host mother comes home right in the middle of the process so she can try to explain to you in Spanish why she thinks you’re crazy.

A few hours after the hair-cutting extravaganza, Jenn and I were partying again, but this time at a real carrete. Explanation: in Chile, people don’t say salir (to leave or go out) as much as they do carretear. It’s one word to say go-out-drinking-and-dancing-until-at-least-five-in-the-morning. Basically, party Chilean-style. Not exactly my every-night cup of tea, but dancing is fun, staying up late can be too, and I definitely feel I need to embrace some Chilean youth culture while I’m here. So Friday night, 16 gringos and Sara’s host sister Daniela headed to what is fast becoming our regular place, Olé. Sure, it sounds very Cheers-meets-resort-town-alcoholism to have a “regular place” so quickly, but it has really cheap happy hour prices (which for weak foreigners like us, is fine since we always go out super early anyway), a fun atmosphere, and karaoke! What could be better? So after a few drinks and some karaoke, we headed from there to Scratch (pronounced, like all things beginning with “s” here, with an “e” at the beginning, sounding more like “escrech”). It wasn’t amazing, especially since the dancing, the only part I was really interested in, was hindered by the tons of people there. One guy started dancing with me and then announced proudly that he had some joints for later if I was interested. It’s funny the things “blonde” hair will attract here. Still, it was an experience, and I made some new friends in the bathroom: two drunk girls who thought it was great that I was from Pennsylvania and quickly told me they had a friend in Texas, what a coincidence. I woke up the next morning (yesterday) glad I did it, but not anxious to do it again.

Which was why I was not totally pleased to learn that a bunch of marines wanted to carretear the following evening. But perhaps that requires a bit more explanation. I, Caitlin, slightly skeptical of military schools after friends dated VFMA guys, am going to a military ball. I know, pretty crazy. The Chilean naval school is here in Viña del Mar, and since men have to come from all over Chile to attend, they often stay with neighborhood families on the weekends instead of going home. One such marine lives with another student on my exchange program, so his host mother began to search among the gringas for dates for a few of the boys. Sara, Katie, and I were the lucky ones. Last night was our getting-to-know-each-other night. All we knew was that we were going over to the apartment at 9:30 to meet them, and we were desperately hoping that after the previous evening we wouldn’t be out too late. We got into the elevator with our new boys, whose accents were painfully thick, and found out we were heading to a pub and then Valparaíso to dance. Reluctant, but eventually willing, we decided to go along with it and knew that we could all head out together if necessary. We were lucky we decided to go because the discotheque in Valpo ended up being much more fun. The music was good and there was plenty of room to dance.

Still, the night wasn’t without it’s own interesting side effects. It turned out that my marine was also a big fan of pot and had been missing it ever since joining the academy. Not my favorite topic of conversation, but we didn’t have to talk that much since we were all dancing at that point. That didn’t stop him from poking at my belly and calling me fat though. Now, it’s not uncommon for Chileans to affectionately call each other things like “little fat one”, but it was still a little uncomfortable since he was obviously not impressed by my constant need to eat. Soon after calling me fat, he also was sure to tuck in my bra strap that had slipped out from under my tank top a bit, making me think he thought I was both gluttonous and a slut. The American slut strikes again! Not that I really cared what he thought, but I certainly couldn’t imagine spending the rest of the night dancing with him after that. He obviously couldn’t have thought I was that unappealing though, because then we had a ten minute conversation about why I didn’t want to date him, finally ending with me saying, “let’s just go back and dance.” In the end, it really was a fun night, but certainly comical. When we left the club and Sara and I announced that we really needed to buy hot dogs at the same place the guys were buying their sandwiches, they seemed positively disturbed that I would want to eat again after making everyone wait while I bought cookies before the club. Some social things here I will just never get used to.

That ended up being quite a bit longer than I expected, so I hope it wasn’t too boring. Expect more pictures soon…the military ball is in a week!

My little home, or mi casita, as we would say in Chile. You notice quickly here the phenomenon of making everything small by popping “ito” on the end of it. This is my living room area, complete with drying laundry. My family is one of the few in this area that has a dryer, but we don’t use it because it takes a lot of energy and is quite expensive.


The view from my balcony, which is directly behind the curtains in the previous picture. You can see much of Viña de Mar from our apartment, and a little bit of the ocean on the left.

I left my little house this weekend for an adventure in La Serena, another coastal town about 7 hours north. I knew it wouldn’t be that much warmer, but my friends and I figured anywhere north was better than south, and we had a long weekend, so we took off. Due to some technical errors (I got confused about what time the bus was supposed to leave and we missed it), we didn’t get on the road until Sunday morning at 8 am. It wasn’t a huge deal though and, as promised by other Chilean travelers, the bus was amazing. It was cleaner than any bus I’ve ever taken, the seats reclined quite comfortably, a movie was shown and food was served. Of course, I was asleep for the food, but at least I got to see a bit of Misión Imposible II.

We arrived at the La Serena bus stop at around 2 and hopped a cab to the hostel where I had booked a room. That’s right, this was a hostel where we got a triple to ourselves, along with cable and a private bathroom. All for 6,000 pesos a piece per night, or about $9 US. Not too shabby. Unfortunately, it was Sunday afternoon when we got there, which meant a lot of things were closed, especially in a smaller town like La Serena. We walked around the center of town a little and then headed to the market to get an early dinner – we’re lucky there were still places that catered to US tourists who get hungry much earlier and for much more food than the any Chilean when it comes to dinner.


So the view wasn’t great…our hostel was still cute and run by the sweetest family. Plus, breakfast was included, so I was sold.


A street corner in La Serena.

The next day, Monday, we took off on a tour of the Valle del Elqui. Ricardo, our driver, spoke virtually no English. Hector, our guide, had studied abroad in Michigan in high school, and remembered enough English to give the tour. We were fine with the Spanish, however our tour-mates, two girls from the Czech Republic, were not. They had met each other in Ireland taking English classes, and decided to take off on a daring vacation to Chile without speaking any Spanish. All this meant that we were seven people, with five languages between us (English, Spanish, German, Czech, and Swedish, the last three compliments of our new friends), and not a single commonlanguage. Hector did most of the translating, but the rest of us tried our hands at it as well, and had a good time of it actually.


We stopped by a dam built in the Elqui Valley to supply water to the people of the surrounding area.


We went on a tour of the Capel plant, the biggest producer of Pisco in Chile. Pisco is a sort of un-aged whiskey that has become the national drink of Chile. I’m not such a huge fan, but it was cool to see how it was made and do some sampling. The company also makes some tasty wines that they were nice enough to let us try.


Jenn, myself, and Michelle, where the clear and muddy rivers join into one in the Elqui Valley. It’s really cool because you can still see the waters separately for several yards into the joined river.


Our new Czech friends who, it should be mentioned, spoke English with the most adorable Irish accents!


My new friend, Nico. He was a six-year-old boy sitting on the side of the road by his mother’s little shop. We stopped to take pictures of the valley and I talked to him for a little while. The people of Chile won’t often open up to you right away, but if you initiate, almost anyone will have a conversation with an interested gringa.

We also did a little Gabriela Mistral touring and saw her gravesite, a replica of her house, and the museum dedicated to her. The restaurant at the museum was quite tasty! Overall, the tour was beautiful and fun, and a great break from endless orientation. Jenn and I decided we need to be doing a lot of touring since our bus ride was so cheap (about $15 US round trip) and comfortable.


Jenn and I on my bed in our little hostel room.

The return trip was unfortunately bad and made us seriously reconsider some of the bus trips we’d been planning. I don’t think the majority of busses are like this one, from what I’ve heard, but it was certainly not the comfortable, clean, and climate controlled bus we took to La Serena. “Sketch Express” would better describe the vehicle we rode on. The air conditioning was obviously not working, which was a disappointment due to the fact that the bus smelled stiflingly like a bus or plane bathroom. The whole time. There were several screaming children, not improved by the fact that the father of the crying baby was obviously a few parenting lessons short of necessary…the things he said to his baby were not things I wanted to hear, let alone hear said to a child. Our bus also seemed incapable of traveling over 50 miles per hour, which meant that we didn’t arrive in Viña del Mar for over 7 hours. The moment that took the cake, however, was when our bus driver missed our exit and began to drive in reverse on the shoulder of the highway. Three cheers for traveling in Chile. At least there were gorgeous views the whole time. The country’s natural beauty seems to make up for a lot, and I’m using it to stay positive and have a great time. Next stop: skiing in the Andes! August is supposed to be the best time for it!

Adventures in Chile

(*note: Luckily, since writing this entry, I have purchased a USB Key (and made friends with the two people that work in the little computer store near my house) and obtained a chair for my desk. I just didn’t feel like going back and rewriting, so you can mentally edit.

Well, despite the long break, I am alive and well in Viña del Mar, Chile, or Vineyard of the Sea. (How perfect, from one Vineyard to the next.) I am, however, quite without regular internet access, so I am trying to encounter a USB key so I can write at home, and then transport pictures, blog entries, and e-mails to the computers at school. If anyone knows how to say USB key in Spanish, it would be much appreciated, because that is one thing I will not be able to describe to a salesperson. Put that as number one on the list of things I wish I had brought with me to Chile.

Anyway, things are going very well here despite the lack of internet. My family is very nice and our apartment is becoming homey for me. I have my own room with a bed and a desk (but no chair, which I don’t fully understand). I live with a mother and three daughters, not too different from my family at home, which I suppose is somewhat comforting. On the first day, their aunt and uncle came with their cousin from Los Andes (a town, not the mountains, though it is located in the mountains), and we all went driving along the beach where I live. The dunes are like mountains, really, not like our Martha’s Vineyard two-foot tall ones, and the all the beaches are public, so you can go to the beach literally along the whole country. It’s one of the most beautiful things that I’ve seen here so far.


My Chilean family and me, on the beach

My orientation class has been going well so far. I get to the University via a bus called a micro, short for microbus. They are all old busses, usually Mercedes, that shake like an earthquake and cost all of about fifty cents. You can take them just about anywhere in Valparaíso or the surrounding area, but there is no central way of finding out which bus to take, let alone a website describing the routes, it is just general knowledge. I think I’ve finally learned the essentials of taking the micro to the necessary places – school and the mall (which, I have to say, isn’t a shabby place to shop at all).

Our orientation class has been several lectures, about half of them interesting, and “activities in the field”. The trip to Pablo Neruda’s house was one such activity, which we repeated for his Valparaíso house, as was a tour of the Valpo port on a boat. You can see from the picture I took the hills on which the city is built.



There are ascensors that travel up the hills. We took one to Pablo Neruda’s Valpo house. On top of the hills you can see a marvelous view, but you also get a first-hand glimpse at much of the poverty in Valpo - many of the poorest people I’ve ever seen live there. The word “house” is a charitable description of the less-than-shacks that many people on the hills live in. Many people near Neruda’s house gather to sell things to tourists for very cheap prices and try to make a living.


the view from the ascensor

Another activity in the field involved a trip to a tiny pueblito in the hills called Rabuco where a family invited all thirty-three of us into their home and fed us empanadas and some of the best bread you have ever tasted. There is one discoteca and one school in the next town over, and that’s pretty much what happens in Rabuco. And while I would never want to live there, the people are some of the nicest, most welcoming and inviting I’ve ever encountered.


The house our big group of gringos is about to squeeze into. And yes, that sign does say “There are cheeses”, though I really have no idea what it is supposed to indicate besides perhaps that the family sells cheese.


And the whole trip would have been much cooler if our hungry group, on the way to the empanadas and good bread, hadn’t been in the bus that broke down on the side of the Chilean highway…


…although, with I view like this, I suppose there could have been worse places to be stuck next to speeding cars.


Caitlin, Guster, and the Andes, all united in the Chilean countryside.

Besides the endless school orientation activities, I’ve been trying to live up my time in Chile by going out with friends when I can. Of course, all this is made more difficult by the fact that I’m a big dork and don’t like dancing until all hours of the night, and would much prefer spending one night at a pub talking and the next at home watching a movie and calling it a thrill of a weekend. Luckily, half of the students in my program seem to feel the same way (I knew there was a reason I was becoming such good friends with some of them), and all of the students are exhausted from our never-ending orientation activities combined with the drain of constantly trying to think in Spanish. Which means that after about two drinks, we’re all ready to go home and pass out. So much for fitting into the Chilean culture, which dictates that young people stay out dancing until 5 in the morning. At least that means we go out earlier and thus get happy hour prices.

Many nights, we’ve gone out with plans to start at a pub and then move on to the discotecas. As of yet, the latter hasn’t occurred, but we’ve still had our fair share of adventures. I will not bore anyone who has actually made it this far through my interminable entry with too many details, but one particularly and short story is that one night my friends and I found ourselves approached by a very drunk, very weird British man. Being that we stick out to just about anyone as rubios and gringos (blondes - which every one of us, including the brownest brunettes, get called – and foreigners), this Englishman could quickly identify us as non-Chileans and decided that we would be more sympathetic to an English speaker and would give him money for his long cab ride. Trying to ignore him and head back to Sara’s house, we found ourselves followed by the slightly belligerent bloke. Sara’s host sister’s thirty-two-year-old boyfriend had to walk each of us home, her family was so worried about us getting home safely! It probably doesn’t sound that amusing, but for those of us that had to deal with it, it’s become a pretty amusing Chilean adventure.

Ashley has also finally arrived and we’ve been keeping good company, even if that only means trips to knitting stores or watching TV over onces (which is a small snack in place of dinner, if I haven’t yet explained that) in my house. Many a knitting party and traveling adventure should ensue in short time! Ashley has also given me a new nickname: American Slut. Apparently the disappearance of some of my favorite underwear from the laundry sparked concern that I was too scandalous for my sweet Chilean mother and she had taken to throwing away some of my dearest possessions. Never fear, however, the underwear has all reappeared folded in my laundry a week later, and the temporary self-imposed moratorium on putting thongs in the laundry has been lifted! I still wish I could do my own laundry, but I suppose it’s not the worst thing to have to get used to in a foreign country, having someone look after you. See, Ashley, my family can handle me…as long as they stop making comments about my tank tops showing “too much chest” (a little translation for my non-Spanish-speaking friends). Oops.

And that pretty much brings me up to the current date. I’m leaving tonight for La Serena, a town 7 hours north on the coast, so hopefully it will be a little warmer. Wednesday I start classes and should get into a somewhat normal schedule, enabling more frequent posts. I’m planning on writing a little bit each night after I finish my homework and then posting it at least once a week at an internet café. Hopefully meaning no more marathon entries! Kudos to those who made it to the end of this one! I miss everyone a lot (and peanut butter, I really miss peanut butter :-p), but am truly having a great time here. Thanks for all the e-mails, keep them coming!


Jeff and I with a mule on the street in Valparaíso. Because where else would you expect to see a mule than in a major urban environment? I feel like this should be a post card home. “Missing you in Chile!”

There have been some questions regarding my "Chile Blog", so here's the deal. If you're looking for a PG-rated version of this blog while I'm in Chile, just hit up caitlininchile.blogspot.com. But if you want the whole story, it's all here. The Chile Blog is basically all the entries from here with an occasional sentece (a very occasional sentence) cut out so that I can give the address to my parents. But if you're already a reader of this blog, I trust you to handle the occasional mention of a hotel room fiesta, so please, go ahead and continue reading here and you can diregard the other.

In other news, I've moved in with my family, and I'm hoping to get some pictures up soon. I've never been a big fan of blogging in busy computer labs with people waiting semi-patiently for you to finish as I'm doing now, nor do I like trying to type on confusing international keyboards, so I'm trying to figure out how to hook my computer up to the internet at home so I can post quickly from there. Until then, I'm sure you know that I miss you all and hope you're doing well. Besos (kisses) to everyone!

The view from the restaurant last night... a little glare from the window, but in real life, it was beautiful

Today was a bit warmer than my first two days in Santiago. I've learned that in Chile, it's all about layers. Not all buildings are heated, so you must be sure to wear enough clothing to keep yourself warm. And you must be sure to be able to remove clothing if it gets too warm wherever you are. Luckily, today I felt comfortable walking around the city in just a sweater, but I brought my jacket so I could have it for when I was eating in cold buildings...it's still cold when you're not moving around.

We went to Pablo Neruda's house in Santiago this morning. I would never want to live there, but it was still very interesting, and we finally had a guide that I could understand! He was very interested in the ocean and sailing, and there were many parts of his home taken from boats. Also, he had symbols of all different parts of Chile decorating his house. And the view was amazing!


The view from Neruda's balcony


Kendra, Sarah, Jenn, Jeff (of Chambers fame ;)), and Byron in front of Neruda's house


The dog that followed us to Neruda's house. One thing that has been difficult to get used to has been the dogs wandering the streets. Chilenos tend to believe that it is wrong to remove the cajones of animals... in other words, there's no fixing the dogs here.

After the tour of Neruda's house we went to the Mercado, the street market, for lunch. I had a seafood soup that was a bit strong and took some bravery to eat, but wasn't bad. We went to the National Museum of Fine Arts for a little, where I just crashed on a bench for most of the time and watched some weird modern art video with sound effects that I must admit were a little unsettling.


About half of the group sitting in el mercado

After the museum, we returned to the hotel and learned about our families. I am going to be living in Viña del Mar, which is the resort-ish town, with a woman and her three daughters. She is a school bus driver, and her daughters are all students, two at universities and one in secondary school. Their ages are 22, 20, and 14. I'm moving in with them tomorrow, so I hope it goes well!

We were free to go where we wanted for dinner, so a big group of us went out for sandwitches at a local cafe. Afterward, we picked up some ice cream at the Big John, a convenient store on the way from our hotel to the main restaurant area. We stopped for ice cream and ended up leaving with pisco and Coca Cola as well. They were having a sale, and though none of us really like pisco (unaged whisky, part of the national Chilean beverage, which is a pisco sour), we decided that we were not above cheap alcohol. We all returned to the hotel and had a little card-playing party in Lucy and my room to end our last night in Santiago.


Our last night fiesta

I need to be awake early tomorrow to go to Valparaíso and meet my family, so it's bedtime for me. Hopefully I'll be near some of my friends from the program, because we've been having a lot of fun so far!

My first chilean lesson: it is more difficult to sleep on planes than I once thought. But besides that, and the very sudden awakening at 6:30 am, the flight wasn't too bad. Waking up early was hard, but it payed off when I looked out the window (I was on the east side of the plane) and saw the sun rising over the Andes mountains. The first day was busy - it felt five days long. The program staff met us at the airport and took us to the hotel, which was somewhat comforting. There we had lunch and began our orientation before leaving for the Cerro de San Cristóbal. Cerro means hill or mountain, and the Cerro de San Cristobal has a lift you can use to access the middle and top of the hill. Everywhere you look, you see city, because Santiago is absolutely enormous.

After the Cerro, Jeff, my roommate Lucy, and I went out to find some dinner. Chilenos tend to eat dinner very late, so us US-ers felt pretty stupid trying to find dinner at 6:30. I have a feeling I will love the 9:00 dinners when I haven't been awake since 6:30 in the morning, but last night, all I wanted to do was get some warm meat in my stomach (there are a few vegetareans on the trip, so our provided meals have been mostly vegetables), and go to bed. We finally found a restaurant that would be considered fairly pricey, and had our meal in pleasant solitude as no one else was eating yet. The bill? 22,000 pesos, which is about $11 US per person. I went home and was asleep by 10 pm.

This morning Lucy and I were up at 7 to get ready for breakfast. The hotel breakfast was quite tasty, and afterward we all went to the campus of El Mercurio, one of the major Chilean newspapers. The grounds were huge, and the building we went through was so extensive. Much bigger than the tour I went on of the Vineyard Gazette... all two rooms of it. We had lunch at the hotel, vegetarean again, and then had more orientation sessions and a trip to the Precolumbian Art Museum. While I must admit my interest in Precolumbian South American art is somewhat low, the trip was still fun. We were all really tired though, so it was good to get back to the hotel before our welcome dinner.

The dinner was great. The location was a surprise: a restaurant in the center of the region of Santiago in which our hotel is located, Providencia. It was on the top floor, and slowly spun around for a view of the whole city. I had turkey (meat again!), and they served us pisco sours (pisco is unaged whisky, and a pisco sour kind of tastes like a strong margarita... not something i would order on my own, but it's the national drink of chile) and wine (i had red, because come on, it's chile!). The view was beautiful, but my pictures don't do it justice because of the glare from the window.

Overall, orientation is somewhat exhausting, and I miss my friends and family back home a lot. The highs are really high and the lows are really low, but I am still glad to be here. Santiago is a very interesting city, and has some beautiful buildings, but others are somewhat dilapidated. The architectural variation is extensive, mostly due to earthquakes which have given way to a need for rebuilding during many different time periods. The city is home to 5 million people, and is absolutely enormous. In some part because of this, I'm sure, it is one of the most polluted cities, which makes me glad that I'll be moving to Valparaíso on Sunday. Providencia is a very nice area, however, and all of the government buildings are quite impressive in their architectural style. (Sorry for the boring tourist information!)

The people in my program are very nice, and it's also great to have a familiar face in the other Georgetown participants. I would love to get e-mails from people at home, though, because I am missing everyone more than I ever imagined possible. Just to assure you that I am in fact having a good time, though, here are my pictures...



The CIEE group waiting in the Santiago airport. Don't we blend in.


Lucy and my room... so cute! The maids even straightened up our stuff, putting our books in piles and organizing our shower supplies!


Me on top of Cerro de San Cristóbal. Picture taken by Jeff :)


One of the views from the Cerro. One of the most interesting things here is the great variety in plant life. There are evergreen trees alongside palm trees and cactuses, and some trees are bare while others have all their leaves. There are cactuses (or cacti... which is correct?) in the bottom of this picture.


Believe it or not, those are snow covered mountains through the fog and smog. The view was clearer today, but I wasn't able to get a picture of the mountains without power lines or construction blocking the view.

written on the plane to chile...

And she’s off! Despite a rocky start – my flight to Atlanta was cancelled – I am finally on my way. After finding out that bad weather all over the country had cancelled numerous Philly flights, and some begging with the Delta representative, I was able to get the last seat on an earlier flight to Atlanta than my originally scheduled one. There was only one difference…this seat was first class! So I got bumped on the first stretch of my flight. Sure, I was a left a little frazzled from the shock of seeing my flight cancelled, being told that I probably couldn’t get a flight until the next day, and then being (yet again) one of the few, the proud, the randomly selected and carefully searched passengers, but I think the cushy seats made up for it. And since the new flight was an hour earlier than my cancelled one, I had time to grab some dinner at the Atlanta airport at a restaurant which described itself, quite charitably, as having “Chinese Food”. Well, it was something. Now I’m lucky enough to have an empty seat next to me on this huge flight, so I’ll be able to stretch out and get some sleep. Yay for being short! As long as I can endure the father and son hunting travelers sitting behind me (really, I need to get a better understanding for some of the things people do for fun), and as long as the movie is better than the corny self-help guide to flying they’re playing right now (actors sitting in fake flight seats demonstrating how to swallow and gargle water to stretch your jaw while flying), this flight should be great! A “morning after” post will have to follow! Chile, here I come!

many apologies for the long break! there are several posts to update... first the ones i wrote in martha's vineyard:

I’m finally here. Have you ever felt completely delirious with relief, combined with the fear of the possibility of losing that comfort at any time? I’m practically shivering with it, mostly because I know that any time is in one and a half weeks, and that the vineyard isn’t the only comfort I’m losing. Sometimes I wonder if that is how it feels to be loved - an all embodying, exhausting sense of contentment trimmed with fear. For now, I’ll just let Martha’s Vineyard love me, comfortable in this house I adore for at least a few nights more before I leave for uncertainty.




back in massachusetts

just over 24 hours after hearing guster sing those very words live, in the DC suburbs, that’s exactly where i am, back in massachusetts. it was a crazy two days, but totally worth it. ashley, otherwise known as kerra, and i left for DC at 1:30 on tuesday (june 29th, since i have no idea when it will be when i actually get to post this), and arrived at georgetown in record time. we made a pit stop at tim’s to get into concert-going-attire, and then the two of them put themselves into my competent driving hands as i hurled us into the virginia suburbs in my father’s station wagon. so we got a little lost, but thanks to tim’s navigational skills and my driving abilities (but, let’s face it, mostly the former), we were able to make it to the concert before they were even seating in the “luge” section, which is exactly where we were sitting. it turns out this section was suspended above the stage, looking down. the view was great. especially of guster, who looked amazing. who (besides tim) is surprised?

rufus wainwright, guster, and ben folds later, we were sitting in the parking lot, at a stand still, for at least half an hour. but we had guster on the radio and green, fuzzy llama guster t-shirts in hand, so there were really no complaints. at midnight on the way home, we hit the only traffic in our two day travels since I-495 was under nighttime construction and concert traffic at the same time. oh well. once again, our music choice for the trip home made the whole thing totally bearable. after some reheated leftovers and an episode of queer eye, we went to bed, ready to wake-up bright and early the next morning for the return journey. before we left, ashley got to see uncommon grounds and meet the creepy roommate, all good times, and then we headed back to PA so that kerra could work and i could catch a 4:30 flight to boston.

granpop took me to the airport with plenty of time to spear, which was smart seeing as the line for security was 40 minutes long. my flight got me to logan at 5;45, where i had to wait for a 7:30 bus to the cape. that arrived just in time for me to catch the 10 pm ferry to vineyard haven. where i was met by my dad, uncle jerry, and brianna, who took me to see the links (my mom’s twin sister’s family) and the rest of my family. like i said, it was a very busy 48 hours, but it was all so worth it. i got to be in so many of my favorite places, with so many good friends, in such a short amount of time. and one and a half amazing weeks at the vineyard await me.




today (jjuly 7), i got to dip my toes in the water of the life i desperately wish to someday live. our family friends are visiting us in martha’s vineyard and staying in the carriage house. unlike the many other visitors we’ve had, though, they did not fly, train, or drive up here, but rather came by way of boat. which they were happy to take us out in today. it was amazing. we went all the way around the island, stopping at cuttyhunk, off of gay head, to get some lunch. so many times i’ve been swimming on the beach and looked with envy at the boats that passed us by, and today i got to be one of those boats.

cuttyhunk was quite an experience. it’s one of the elizabeth islands, the only one with a real town, and that town is inhabited by only about 40 year round residents. the only way to reach the island is by private boat, which means there aren’t really cars – people drive around on golf carts. it has a pizza place that opens at 5:30, a market, two harbor side food carts, and not much else besides spectacular views. i had always been interested in seeing the island, and now i can finally say that i have.

we finished off the boat trip by dropping anchor between edgartown and oak bluffs and going for a quick dip. the water was refreshing and the sky was serenely clear. it was a perfect day. the only negatives that have come out of the trip are: 1) i now want a boat more than ever, and 2) i have very sun burnt knees.

while scanning pictures to keep on my computer, i picked up a baby picture of myself, and said,


see, i've always tried to put big things in my mouth

that's totally not how i meant that one...

flower girls

what do you get when you take four friends and dress them head to toe in flowers? no, not some "children of the flowers" porn movie (ashley's confusion... "it gives 'deflowering' a new meaning"), but rather an ikea campout in an attempt to win $100 a piece gift certificates. so only the first 30 people were going to be eligible, and seeing as we arrived at 1 am and the first person got there at 9 pm, we didn't exactly win, but we did get to put fake flowers all over ourselves and then go to a 24 hour diner as a consolation. and we got good pictures. and that's really all that matters.


in front of ikea

today the man at home depot who asked me to get a cart for the carpet he was holding for my mother gave me a look as if to say, "your ultra-suede jacket, ann taylor neck scarf, and cute handbag inspire no confidence in me that you can actually get the right type of cart," and he told me to get a "flat cart". there are different types of carts? who was i kidding? i have no business being in a home depot.

ready, set, blog! this past weekend needs an update, and here it is... in headlines!!! (there were going to be images, but sadly my pictures seem to be lost somewhere on my computer. because i'm the technological equivalent of a monkey. so much for digital cameras...)


Georgetown Student Shocks and Surprises With Unexpected Descent Upon City

Twenty-year-old Georgetown rising junior, Caitlin M________, made an uninvited visit to friend Tim's Georgetown townhouse on Friday the 18th. The visit was in honor of Tim's twenty-first birthday, and consisted of dinner at Bangkok Bistro, also a bit of a surprise, ice cream at Thomas Sweet, regalement with oompa-loompa tales from renowned story-teller J. Gubbins, a Saturday afternoon about campus, and a trip to the Olive Garden. The festivities were joined by members of Georgetown University's most fantabulous a cappella group, the Chamber Singers, and one Meaghan Baron, another rising junior and co-conspirator in the birthday planning. Despite the unsolicited nature of Caitlin's visit, Tim was gracious enough to lend his couch to the traveler. All involved hope that this proved to be a great twenty-first for Tim and that he was not too upset to have unexpected guests, since she had quite a great time on her squash racquet trip.


Homeless Drunk Terrifies Georgetown Students

this story is really not as good without the picture of said drunk man making his way toward tim's townhouse. yes, that's right, the random man tim discovered sitting on a rolled-up mat, drinking beer and eating a sandwitch, in tim's backyard, decided after loitering for a while that tim's basement door looked like a good thing to go through. as i was peering through the blinds of the first floor, wondering if it were wiser to allow him to leave, ask him to do so ourselves, or let the folks at dops handle it, he stood up, appearing to be ready to go. but unfortunately go meant head toward the basement, where tim's roommate chris was cooking meatloaf with no knowledge of the situation. i ran downstairs to make sure the door was locked, because really, what do you do when a drunk stranger enters your house?, and he saw me in the window, stumbled around and left. when retelling, the story does not seem as freaky, but i ask you to imagine a scraggly and intoxicated gentleman sitting in your backyard deciding he wants to come in and say hey, and then decide if you would have thought the whole thing a little insane.


I Can't Think of a Good Headline to Say: Caitlin Misses Her Georgetown Friends Lots and Lots and Lots

it was amazing to see everyone this weekend. more than i can even say. i'm going to miss everyone so much next semester, it practically hurts. thanks for a great weekend, and i can't wait until spring '05. there will be some amazing times i'm sure. until then, have a great summer, enjoy first semester, and keep me updated on any and all happenings. i had a great weekend, thanks to all for such great times at georgetown!

hmm... not sure how i feel about the ego and anger, but crazyness, success, and ambition are cool. and who wouldn't add some caring and lovability? (big caitlin smile)

How to make a mccaitlin

Ingredients: 3 parts anger 5 parts crazyiness 1 part

Method: Layer ingredientes in a shot glass. Top it off with a sprinkle of caring and enjoy!

Username:

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

How to make a Caitlin

Ingredients: 3 parts success 3 parts ambition 5 parts ego

Method: Layer ingredientes in a shot glass. Add a little lovability if desired!

Username:

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

there is something inherent that lights up with the recognition of a white package with pink writing on one's doorstep. nothing like a victoria's secret delivery to brighten a day!

finally, the moment all have been waiting for, the victoria's secret semi-annual sale began today. not being one to miss a beat - let alone great, cheap underwear - i went to the mall soon after work. any day when you spend $40 on lots of fun underwear is a good one!

to give you an idea of what my life is of late, i'll describe an exciting day i recently had.

it was wednesday, and i started the day "purging" files, my least favorite office activity. sometime midmorning, however, i received a different assignment: putting new documents in chronological order and typing them up. you have no idea how great this is to me. and i get to bill for it. of course, i don't actually make money for the hours i bill, but the practice does, and that's pretty cool.

now if that wasn't enough to drop your jaw, that afternoon, my employer (a.k.a.: dad) invited me to sit in on a meeting. and not just any meeting, but an interview for a new attorney. crazy!

it's amazing what thrills me these days. hehe!

i realized tonight, i really want a home with teacups and a little seat by a window. regardless of what type of home i end up living in, teacups and a window seat will be there. i'm not really sure what sort of emotionally destructive state has brought on this sudden urge, but i'm really excited about drinking tea and reading by the window!

the AP makes sure we don't miss a beat

sandwitched between NATO's future role (or non-role, as the case may be) in Iraq and agreements reached at the recent G-8 summit:

"I can tell you that over the last few days, this cuisine here in America was certainly on a par with French cuisine," Chirac said.

"He particularly liked the cheeseburger he had yesterday," Bush said.

"It was excellent," Chirac said.

Bush later said he had conveyed Chirac's compliment to the chef. "It's a whole lot better to hear the food is good from Jacques Chirac than from George W. Bush."

getting more international by the minute!

woohoo! or as monica would say, woot woot! it is because of her that i now have a hit from india! in honor, i now send her a shout out: hope you're having an amazing time monica!

finally prepared to be a world traveler!

okay, so maybe not a world traveler, but my passport, which previously only contained one stamp from the bahamas, now has a visa. a visa to chile. and a little word, "gratis" that says, i've payed my dues (or rather, a $100 money order made out to the consulate general of chile) and i'm good to go. overwhelming excitement and apprehension are now overtaking me. countdown... 35 days until i leave, 36 until i arrive. (because yes, i'm finally going on a plane trip that will take more than 3 hours. woohoo, they'll probably even show a movie!)

my sister's close attention to local sports

my nine-year-old sister brianna's brush with fame, in her own words:

carolyn's dad's secretary's step-daughter is dating smarty jones' owner's grandson and stood in the winner's circle for the kentucky derby.

now, i have no idea which of the above people actually stood in the "winner's circle", nor do i quite understand what exactly should be so exciting about a winner's circle, however brianna seemed thrilled.

my office listens to the radio station known as "sunny". in the next room, just now, came on the song "wind beneath my wings". now there are some songs that you never really listen to the lyrics of. "wind beneath my wings" is one of them for me. but today i just caught the first line for the first time: it must have been cold there in my shadow. what? now knowing a grand total of two lyrics from this song - that one and, "you were the wind beneath my wings" - i'm left to believe that the song is saying, i'm better than you, but thanks for lifting me up from down below.

elements of a good summer day:

meeting really good freinds for really good, really cheap chinese food. with a funny waiter. (even though one of said friends is leaving for india tomorrow :(.)

baseball game. complete with bright lights that make you feel like in that little pocket of the city, it's sunny all the time. and a footlong hotdog. and ice cream. and a schmidter. (you'd be sooo surprised how good a sandwitch with roast beef, bologna, cheese, and thousand island dressing can be.)

and to top it all off: a sporadic rain storm.

so the phillies lost. to the mets of all teams. it was still a pretty good day. it had all the essentials :)

i am so tired of this endless state of leaving, this continuous saying 'goodbye'. i just wish there was something, anything in my life that i didn't have to be desperately afraid of losing, some nugget of constancy to hold on to.

they almost let me down...

(warning: this post is much too long -- and boring -- for its own good. just so you know.)

4:30 in the afternoon, tuesday. the air is thick with a storm that just passed and another soon on the way. it's late spring in pennsylvania.

i've just left a particularly horendous doctor's appointment (this from the girl who is fascinated by medicine and enjoys getting shots). i'm cruising down 30 - scartch that, crawling - down 30 so i can stop at wawa before going back to work. i am in need of rejuvination.

baba o'reilly comes on just as i pull into wawa, and i stroll in with the confidence of a girl who knows she is just about to get exactly what she wants. this is WAWA after all. the beverage refridgerator. i'm in the mood for a sweet iced tea... and what do they have but Nantucket Nectars Half & Half. of course they do. it's wawa.

now onto food. i contemplate what i'm in the mood for... and then it hits me: chocolate covered pretzels. so i begin searching the snack aisles (of which there are many). no sign of the choclatey, salty goodness. i look again, it just cannot be. i walk the whole store, but simply cannot see my dream snack food. frantic at this point, i turn to the man behind the counter who has noticed my search efforts. "do you know if you have chocolate covered pretzels?" "we only sell them in winter." what does he mean they 'only sell them in winter'?? this is wawa for crying out loud.

i settle on my snickers kudos bar, and am checking out at another man's register, when the first comes up to me with three objects in his open palm. "we do have chocolate covered pretzel rods?" "ooo, i'll take all three!"

phew. and i had almost lost faith there.

sign on the wall in heather's office, where i am currently working: Well-behaved Women Rarely Make History.

*original post time: saturday, 29 may ‘04 at 6:45 p.m.

**vineyard gushing warning continues…

there’s a place i go here that i like to think of as my secret place, though the truth is that dad showed it to me, and he would probably know to look for me there should i ever take too long on one of my private excursions. still, he had to search to find it, and he knows the area by maps and experience through and through, so it’s at least not that well known. i won’t write the name here… become friends with me and someday i’ll take you there. for now, i’ll just call it S_____ M_____; i’ve always wanted to play pretentious and write a place’s name like that anyway.

it’s one of my favorite places in the world. a small walking path through the woods, then a clearing and the bay and ocean, right in front of you. mom tells me not to go there alone, she’s always so afraid of people, but the truth is you’d have to know about S_____ M_____ to attack anyone there, and few people do. those that i’ve seen there could hardly be characterized as creepy: a few older people who can only be described as both salty and crunchy. plus, honestly, who is going to attack me on martha’s vineyard? a rich tourist? an artsy islander? unlikely.

so off to S_____ M_____ i biked, in search of some quiet and alone time. i was glad for the sweater i decided to bring as i biked by the fire and police stations near my house since there was still a cool breeze today. i ditched my bike behind some brush, since S_____ M_____ is only for walkers. then i walked, not paying any attention to the time even though i told my sisters i’d be home within the hour. there are some places where time doesn’t really matter. it was late afternoon, and the sun was shining through the tall trees to make the path glow green. it had an element of magical perfection to it. i can’t wait until i can take someone i love there.

maybe i’m just too emotional a person; maybe it really is just another bunch of trees, water, and dirt; maybe i’m totally full of shit. but even if all that is true, it doesn’t change the way i feel about that place.

*note: this post’s date and time are incorrect as i am on the vineyard and do not have constant internet access. (i know, shocking.) anyway, this was actually written friday the 28th at 7:30 p.m.

**second note: this post and the next few will likely be quite boring as they will be almost entirely sentimental crap about being here again. if you have a weak stomach for that sort of thing, or if you are disgusted by those who own and love vacation houses, either get over it or don’t say you weren’t warned ;)


first outdoor shower of the season

i took my first outdoor shower of the year as soon as we arrived today. it was somewhat cool and damp out, due in part to the rain that conveniently ceased just in time for my shower. somehow that made it even better, the sharp contrast of the warm shower and the cold air, the way the hot water almost instantly created a steamy mist that surrounded me in a cloud of fog.

i sometimes wonder if outdoor showers are the same elsewhere. i think i was too young (and let’s face it, too afraid of bugs) to fully appreciate the little outdoor shower at the house down the shore that grandpop used to rent for my maternal family. everything logical about me says that the presence of water, wood, and fresh air should make the experiences virtually identical, but somehow something inside me still insists that it is quite different here. that it’s more invigorating, more fun, and more free. somehow everything is just more comfortable here, like a person sits better within his or her own skin. combine all that with hot water and fresh air, and you get something that i don’t think can be replicated anywhere.

to any who may have been concerned about the previous post, i am, in fact, fine. in a fit of honesty last night, i wrote the previous post and told myself i would post it when i got back online. it is true that i let myself cry more (a good thing, i swear), and that i did so yesterday, but that does not mean that there is any serious problem other than stress and lack of sleep here. and with that, i'm off to spend my first night in my "apartment". g'night!

one thing i've finally learned: sometimes you need to just give up, give in, and cry. really cry. soak your face, soak your pillow, soak yourself to sleep. a sleep that is less of a daily rejuvination and more a complete lack of ability to do anything.

my digital camera finally arrived, and i got to do what i've always wanted to do...

i fooled around with different settings and took pictures of myself taking pictures. okay, so it's pretty lame, but when i was really young i always thought it would be cool to look at yourself in a mirror through a camera. so tonight i finally did. and now everyone can see me being a dork.



and not to worry: the digital camera marks the dawn of an age of more cool pictures on the blog, not just weird ones. i promise. :)

OH. MY. GOD.

not having spent much time showering in previously blogged pool-house/office/apartment, i didn't realize...

removable, massaging showerhead.

reasons i should not get pedicures...

for emily's birthday, we took her to berwyn nails (and several other places). we all got pedicures, emily's complimentary on us. :) in the process, i realized several reasons why having someone else attend to my feet is a bad move.

1) they're OOffensive
2) i'm ticklish. very ticklish. you'd think those files that they use on the dead skin on the bottom of your feet would do anything but tickle. but not for me.
3) not only am i ticklish, but i have somewhat active reflexes. when triggered, they make me appear as if i'm having a seizure, but localized to whatever part of my body happens to be involved. in this case, seizing legs.
4) i'm a wuss. a wuss who hates having her cuticles cut. a wuss who hates having her cuticles cut but can't say anything about it because she's a little afraid of the woman who is rapidly snipping at her toes.
5) while most girls would be thinking, "wow, my feet are going to feel so nice and smooth when all the dead skin is cut off," some little part of me is thinking, "it's taken me years of running to develop those calluses."

really, in the end though, i'm such a girl at heart and just love feeling my smooth, pretty feet and looking at my shiny, lilac (that's right, lilac, not purple) nails. final verdict on pedicure - good.

me: i still have dial-up
becca and elie: i do too
becca: chesterbrook is dumb, and i have to connect at 26.4.
kelly: 26/4?
becca: yeah, like, how fast i connect?
kelly: oh! i thought you meant like 24/7, but you were just dumb!

surprise surprise...

whether you chose to call it the office, the pool house, or some other name, the little building behind my house is finally becoming mine! and i shall call it... my apartment. it has a nice ring to it. sure, there's not exactly a closet, and tons of my parents' stuff is currently living out there with me, but it just a couple more days, it will be mine. and i will no longer be living with a nine-year-old. woohoo.

aside: for those of you who don't know, it is simply amazing that my family has decided to finally let me move out there. it's the kind of thing that your parents say "sure" to, thinking that it's too much work to ever follow through on. and now it's happening.

i think an apartment warming party may be in order... let me know what you think :)

in other (and even more surprising) news, my parents finally decided that four drivers was too much for two cars, and bought a third. sure, it used to be owned by a smoker, but it is neither a mini-van nor a station wagon. i am quite happy. (for those of you who desire more information than that, it is a toyota camry, and i have no idea what year... i know nothing of cars.) in usual my-parents-fashion, they said they were vaguely considering buying a car two days before i came home and saw it in our driveway. brings back memories of a certain summer vacation when they said they were "looking at houses to possibly buy in the very far future..." and then left two weeks later with a bid in on the house we now own. talk about impulse shopping.

new apartment, new car... my life is good. not to mention the fact that this may help facilitate visits to dc in the not-so-distant future. woo woo :)

realizations of the night:

1. my sister has been to more proms this year than i have been to in my life.
and
2. it doesn't really bother me. :)

one cool thing about blogger commenting: it e-mails you when you get a comment. so you know right away and can check it out. and feel popular for getting comments and e-mail. :)

one notsocool thing about blogger commenting: it e-mails you when you get a comment. so there's no more eager checking of your own blog to see if someone may have commented. because, let's face it, some of us do that.

on my way to emily's tonight, i found the copy of the most righteous cd ever: volume ii that i made for my mom. now celine dion's greatest hits had really been tempting me, but how could i not whip out all my memories from last year in the form of one mix cd and blast them? i'm so cool, i know.

picture it, if you will, i'm cruising down route 30, a.k.a. lancaster avenue, metallic light green winstar, windows down, music shaking. such songs as "best i ever had", "one", "could it be any harder", and "stop crying your heart out" made appearances. i am so the epitome of cool. it's funny how some songs you can never detach from specific memories and emotions, and others change so easily, taking on a completely different meaning, surprising you with the change you never thought could occur.

i was craving ramen (i know, already... it's only been a week), so i decided to stop at the grocery store before emily's. funny thing though, i couldn't remember where one was. i mean, i knew of several on 30, but couldn't seem to locate them exactly. i finally made it to the acme and picked up ramen (they only had the bad kind, and they were charging $0.20... can you believe it?!?), some crushed red pepper flakes (it wouldn't be ramen without them), and strawberry popsicles. mmmmm.

the independence of the (not so open road), good music, cheap college food... what a night.

so, i considered a big long update on nc fun, but it's been far too long, and tim did far too good a job. plus, i don't think that many people really care :-p.

breathe

friday: my last two finals
saturday: packing at the hands of my mother and a chambers gig
sunday: out by noon, and finally on the road - ahem, train, for 7 hours - to alex's in north carolina

and now, monday night, i'm finally able to relax. can't really think enough to write now, but more about durham fun will surely follow upon return to good ole PA on wednesday.

so tim and i are sitting in his room. and i'm not studying for the two exams that i have tomorrow. and we just heard someone scream from the hall...

where's my penis!?!?

it's like everyone, even friendster, is telling me not to procrastinate and to KEEP STUDYING FOR MY MAP EXAM!!!


Scheduled Maintenance On Wednesday, May 12

The purpose of this maintenance downtime is to make improvements to the system, such as adding new hardware or making changes in software to offer new features. We will try to make improvements as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your understanding.

Regards,
Friendster



Dear Friendster,

some students are freaking out and need easy ways to avoid studying. besides blogging about your outages. please consider that next time you take your site down. Thank you for your understanding.

Regards,
Caitlin

now i know i said i was going to try out different templates and see if everyone liked them, but then i realized that this was my favorite one. and i realized that everyone else seems to like it as well. so i think it stays. :)

15:44:17 aseaturtle: don't reply to this im...
15:44:17 themccaitlin: 1.5 hours, 2.5 pages to go...
15:44:20 aseaturtle: GO CAITLIN, GO!
15:44:21 aseaturtle: :)

i <3 monica


oh, and monica, it's not just your writing style that gives your anonymous comments away. it's your whoa's.

shock and amazement... i've changed my blog's template. but don't worry, the old one is saved. in the next few days, i'm deciding what i want to use, so i'll switch it up a bit. please feel free to comment on which one you like best. (and no, i'm not whoring for comments... this time. i really want to know what you think.) basically, i'll probalby pick a new template anyway, but i may end up altering the colors to be my old color scheme. so let me knwo if you spot a template you like and what you thought of the old colors.

my apologies for that being far too long of a post for that boring subject. i chalk it up to working on an ilaw paper at 5:30 in the morning.

also, temporarily disregard the previous comments post since i haven't added the old comment html to the new template and won't do so until i finally decide on a template (if i bring back old comments at all).

okay, i think i'm done now :-p sorry!

so i'm trying out blogger's comments, which are cool because they e-mail me to let me know when you comment on my blog. and i like getting comments AND e-mails, so it's a win-win situation. (unlike no winn situations.) but anyway, until i make up my mind, my old comments will still appear as the second comment option... please use the first if you're nice enough to leave me a little shout-out. thanks!

things that can happen twice at georgetown

last night was the last 8pm mass (aka: hippie mass or kumbayah mass) and, being that it was during finals time, i was somewhat preoccupied with thoughts of seven papers/exams. toward the end of the 8pm mass, everyone moves around the alter, making for a slightly less organized communion than at most churches. as i was milling through people to receive communion, i looked up and thought, "oh, president bartlet."

at which point i did a bit of a double take and thought, "neither he nor martin sheen is supposed to be here right now." after church he was quite swamped, and i decided that, since i was able to get a picture with him last year, there was no point in me bothering the man i admire so much. upon returning to the quad though, i thought about the fact that meaghan had never met him, and i did not have a picture of myself with martin sheen and the two of them. so needless to say, we shamelessly ventured back to dahlgren quad where we caught mr. sheen on his way out.

someone jumped in the picture as we were taking it, but thanks to the magic of photoshop, tim fixed the picture perfectly :) now if seeing martin sheen isn't good finals karma, i don't know what is!



jed bartlet is still my president

things that should happen once in college

about a week ago, i decided to take a night shower. because i am of the sophistication level of enjoying and savoring my showers, i may have taken a little longer than is customary for most people. i left my roommate watching alias around 9:30, and returned to the room at 10 to find it... locked. not exactly sure what to do, and definitely not wanting to go to the rho in what tim describes as a somewhat "frumpy" towel (it's one of those towels with the elastic and velcro at the top so you don't have to hold it up... yeah, it's pretty frumpy), i decide to try random doors of people on my floor to see if i can use their cell to call tim. because, after ordering chinese food on someone's cell phone multiple times per week for a year, you kind of memorize their number. i finally find someone nice enough to let me use her phone however (gasp!) she only has a landline. so i make use of our university's fabulous "conversant directory" to get tim's number and call begging to borrow some pajama pants and a t-shirt until i can get a key to my room. tim came to my rescue, and said i could just stay in his clothes until my roommates returned rather than pay the $10 or whatever to get into my room.

that, with my summer-at-brown's fire-drill-in-a-towel have to be up there with my top collegiate experiences.

(and no, i did not write this post to avoid an ilaw paper, i merely did it to get in the "writing mentality" as i like to call it. oops!)

chambers saturday night

yes, i'm blogging right now. when everyone and everything, including my away message, says i should be writing my ilaw and usfp paper. but what's it to you?

last night (when i probably also should have been writing my paper), i went out with the chambers following what was a fun little "study break" if i do say so myself. what else could you ask for on a saturday night during finals time than 45 minutes of a cappella in copley crypt? as some would say, for that "you're-dead-and-don't-know-it-yet feel". that can't be called an actual concert because of school rules escaping all logical understanding. oo, and visits from amazingly cool maryland folk. good times, good times. it was great :)

so afterward, there was some chair moving, some time debating, some picture taking, and we were off! to get dressed for bangkok fun. it's always good to show up at a crowded restaurant, ask for a table for 14, and be seated right away, and, miraculously, we pretty much were. after dinner we were joined by a certain ms. gubbins for thomas sweet enjoyment (where i was "fired" for owning and using flower pens... of all the crazy things...), after which we headed to the chambers single for one last hurrah. we watched jurassic park, a few of us were scolded for our difficulty in handling scary events, and there was a slightly-more-heavy-than-comfortable coversation about school uniforms. let me just say, without any sarcasm or exageration, how much i love our group :) we lost an unfortunate number of people as the night moved on to studying (wtf?!), sleep (pish-ah), and other plans (like there's anything better to do than us), but we can forgive them. because they're awesome.

thanks you guys for a great year!!! i can't wait for spring '05!

chambers has reached an all new level of dorkiness. last night we were talking about when we could rehearse in copley crypt, and i mentioned that there were daily masses held there at night and that i heard there were only about two people in attendance. fred said, "well, whenever two or more are gathered...", and michael said, "two people, it's like a christ quorum."

i love our group!

ashley and i have chile on the brain...

my away message...
ashkazam: if I saw a Chilean on the street today, I'd run away
yes, we're that nervous!

hers...
Caitlin and I will be taking water ballet together in Chile in the fall.

on thursday at lunch with tim, i mentioned that i had seen a girl with really cute short hair, that i would totally sleep with her were i interested in women, and that it would be fun to cut my hair. in true, impulsive fashion, by thursday night i had decided to make the cut on saturday. so it didn't come out exactly as i would have liked (i gave the hair dresser a picture of kerri russell and asked for it to be a little longer since i have thinner hair... you can imagine my surprise when she took a razor to the side of my head!), but i figure it's better to be able to grow it to the length that i want than to have it too long and have to get it cut again in like a week, right? :) i think so at least!





you can see the resemblance, can't you ;)