Esta noche, tenemos que ganar!

Hi everybody! A lot has happened in the past week or so - here's a quick run-down...

(1) Last weekend there was a gourmet food festival a few blocks from our apartment. Pretty awesome - a few dollars to get in and then tons of 'free' samples of fancy cheese, wine, ice cream, beer, bread, and meat.


(2) Chile vs. Argentina. We had the chance to go to the final home World Cup qualifier of the year, against Argentina (who Chile had NEVER, ever beaten in a competitive match of any kind). Chile is doing very well in the South American standings right now, and they played extremely well. Chile went up 1 - 0 in the first half and then held the score for the rest of the game. It was incredibly exciting, with lots of opportunities for both sides, and the crowd (and entire city) went crazy for the rest of the night. The stadium is miles from our house, but even after we got home we could hear car horns and people screaming for hours.

(3) Parent conferences. This should be prefaced with the following: if we haven't mentioned it yet, the standard way to greet someone in Chile is with a kiss on the cheek (except for when it's two guys, who shake hands). In any case, you can imagine all of the hilarity that goes into being an American and never being sure whether you are supposed to be kissing or not. Well, the kissing custom mixed with Parent-Teacher-Student conferences at school this week heightened all of said hilarity (and oftentimes awkwardness) to a new level. LPHS teachers who might be reading this: think about typical conference days. Now think about kissing all of those parents before (and after) the discussion. Now imagine if students were expected to be present as well, and if the kissing custom were extended to them (because usually it is). (Ex-LPHS students, picture the same thing - kissing all of your teachers on the cheek before they talk to your parents about how you need to focus more in class and study harder for tests and quizzes. Pretty weird.)

(4) We spent yesterday in Cajon de Maipo checking out a valley across the river from where we explored the last time we were there a few weeks ago. It was a perfect day and the hike was great - a larger overall elevation gain than on the other side of the river, but also a much more gradual one. It was a hot day, but we were eventually blocked on the trail because of too much snow, so we're excited to get back and explore further once some of it has melted (although it's called San Francisco glacier, and so I imagine there's a fair amount of snow/ice throughout the summer as well).



This was another hike with TONS of lizards...


We've been trying to keep up with new music, but it's a little difficult being so far away (unless you're into Kylie Minogue or re-mix after re-mix of American pop songs, which they play constantly at our gym). I'm still getting a lot of ideas by listening to podcasts of Sound Opinions, but here's some of the new stuff we've been listening to lately: The Avett Brothers (it's not new at all, but it's still super-awesome), Or, the whale (pretty awesome alt-country stuff from San Francisco), and Benji Hughes (has a new double-cd with some good songs). Plus I've been listening to the songs that Aaron (of the internationally lauded and critically-acclaimed superband Beardog) has been recording - you can check them out at his website: http://www.myspace.com/mymoonyacht. Aaron also just filled me in to the new album by Margot and the Nuclear So and So's, which might be the best of anything I've mentioned so far - check out 'As Tall as Cliffs' and 'Broadripple is Burning' first.

Besides that, we're getting ready to perform some songs together at a fundraiser show next month in November. We're allowed about 20 minutes of time (and there won't be any drums, so it will just be guitars or guitar-and-mandolin). Right now we're planning on the following...

1. American Music (Violent Femmes)
2. Paradise City (Guns n Roses)
3. Strangers (the Kinks)
4. Any Way You Want It (Journey)

...but we're still looking to add a few. Ideas are welcome.

Finally, the mullets of the week! The first is in honor of Chile's liberator, the red-haired Chilean of Irish descent that led Chile to its independence. It is the O'Higgins Mullet:


The second is another in my series of I-know-you're-taking-a-picture-of-me mullets. A lot of teenagers have it, and so we can call it the Angsty Mullet:

I hope everyone is doing well! Talk to you soon...

Two things I don't want to forget to tell you...

1. A student in my class has repeated told me, "Mees, this is a real sideball" or "Mees, this [US history concept, idea, event, etc.] is a real sideball." Finally today the following interaction occurred:

Mees: Ok, today you are making political cartoons about Jacksonian Democracy.

Student: Oh Mees! You are throwing me a real sideball. I can't draw--I'm really terrible.

Mees: Wait...do you mean I'm throwing you a "curveball"?

Student: Yes. Whatever. I like to say sideball.

2. During the same class, one of my Mexican students pointed to the following image and insisted that this cartoon MUST be depicting the Mexican eagle stabbing Jefferson in the heart in outrage over the outcome of the Mexican War. It might be my nerdy US history teacher side, but I thought this was hilarious.

Cajon de Maipo

Greetings all! Another week in Chile and we are still finding new and cool stuff all around us. School continues to go well. I learned that as part of our school's Week Without Walls program (where students go out on week-long trip aimed to get them outdoors, learning about the environment and/or doing community service), I will be going on the "EcoSurf" trip. That's right. I'm getting paid to go to surf camp. And maybe learn about some marine life. This would be an upside of teaching in a private school. The best part about this is that while I am a chaperone for students, another one of the chaperones is my principal (and incidentally all-around great guy), so the kids will hopefully be scared into behaving by his mere presence. Score!

We're playing basketball every week with a group of teachers and other Americans in Santiago. The group includes some fathers of students (one in particular is here on a Mormon mission but spent the last 25 years coaching and is AWESOME) and marines stationed in Santiago. It has been really fun for us both to get to play again. The games are friendly but a good workout. I'm the only woman (not that shocking), and despite going 1 for 79 the first week shooting, I think I'm actually remembering what it feels like to play. I actually might buy a pair of basketball shoes (right now it's a running shoes with ankle braces set up). If I do, I'll be sure to buy a quality Chilean basketball shoe. Which I'm sure they specialize in...

The past two weekends have been great. We fell behind a little bit last weekend with our blogging, so here goes. We took a salsa dance class on Saturday with a bunch of other teachers. It was much fun and very sweaty. I think we're naturals. No seriously. We're really awesome. Why are you laughing? On Sunday morning we headed to Valparaiso for Justin's half marathon. It was a really gorgeous day and the run was basically down on the port (with one brutal hill thrown in just so the runners didn't forget they were in Valparaiso). If you don't remember Valpa, check out the pics from one of the first blogs. Here is a picture of Justin next to a runner that was slightly below the average height of the other runners.

Yes...she was a wee one. Justin was also hilariously "interviewed" by an enthusiastic man with a video camera that we think was working for the folks who ran the race. We're not sure though. Somewhere some guy has two gringos saying "Bueno!" and giving a corny thumbs-up on camera.

Last week was uneventful at school. A true sign that we are deeply in the flow of things. I have some kids who are getting very excited to see Millencolin (and old American punk band), who is coming to Santiago next week. They pronounce it "Mee-LEN-co-LEEN." We had a good time watching the VP debate on Thursday, as well as the subsequent SNL parody. We love NBC right now for making the latest SNL skits available. Hopefully that won't go away.

Last weekend was absolutely terrific. We took off on Saturday morning and drove for about 2 hours southeast to get to Cajon de Maipo. Below is the German run hostal that we stayed in (called Lo Valdes). Germans are all over the hospitality industry here. If you remember, the folks that ran the last place we stayed were Germans. The owners of Lo Valdes were significantly less entertaining, however. No stories involving sailing from Africa to Australia or about people sticking fingers up other people's butts and pretending that it was gun. However, they had showers, clean beds, and a great breakfast (and cats that hung out in the bathroom with you while you did your business) so we were pretty happy. No electricity after 10, but we were knocked out by then anyway. It was quite lovely.


We went on a great hike immediately when we got there to the banos colinas. They are thermal hot springs. The hike should have been easy except there was snow over lots of the trail and some of us (ahem--Justin) were wearing converse all-stars.

We would have love to have gone in, but we were without towels and it would have been a COLD hike back. Next time!


The next day we did a spectacular scramble up a mountain behind the lodge. I say scramble because you had to pick your way up this steep hill to get to the trail. There was plenty of slip-sliding, especially on the way down, because the footing was basically dirt and loose stones with some low shrubbery. I'd show you the bruise on my butt but that would result in my mother being disappointed in me.


This reminded us of being in Denali in Alaska where there are no trails to speak of. There is a feeling here that you basically go anywhere and do anything you want. After a tough climb the view was the most incredible we've seen since we got here. Can you believe this is real?

Justin found a fossil...

On the way home there were goats...

And empanadas for empanabrahs...

And here we are again. Probably no adventures this coming weekend because of the end of the quarter grading, but we are angling to get back to Cajon de Maipo next next weekend to do a hike we were drooling over from across the canyon. We want to do it before too much of the snow melts. The days just keep getting nicer here. I think I can safely say it is spring.

Hope everyone is doing great. Lots of love, C/J

Sr. Smarty-Jeans

Hola amigos! We're finishing up our first week back after what was an incredible dieciocho week (and spring break).

Our friends Chris and Erin flew into town from Oakland overnight and arrived on Saturday morning (virtually every flight from the States to Chile is a red-eye).


We spent the first couple of days hanging out around Santiago, and then on Monday morning we started a road-trip north, towards the Atacama Desert. We drove about 5 hours, almost all of it along the Pacific coast, on Monday and got to a major beach town called La Serena (a big summer vacation spot for Chileans). The next morning we hopped back in the car and kept going north until we got to Bahia Inglesia, a much smaller beach town at the very beginning of the desert. The drive was extremely cool - we went from green mountains to an almost completely desolate desert within a couple of hours. It was incredibly dry and dusty in all directions and then all of a sudden we re-connected with the Pacific and arrived in Bahia Inglesia. The town is a tiny one - probably only a couple hundred residents - and the beach was beautiful, with the desert coming right up to it.


We spent two days in Bahia Inglesia, and on the second day we took a boat ride out to see some penguins (pinguinos!) that were supposed to be on a rocky outcropping about a mile from town.


We were skeptical, but after about twenty minutes in the boat we were within thirty feet of penguins, seals, condors, and a bunch of other cool animals.

The water in Chile comes up from the south, and so the water is cold this time of year.


We stayed in a funny hostel that rented geodesic domes (glorified tents) out...


Bahia Inglesia is about 3 kilometers from a larger town called Caldera (which we were excited about because we had read in a guide book was the home of an empanada restaurant called "Empanapolis"). Caldera ended up being what we're finding to be a pretty typical town - large square, some impressive-looking churches, small markets, and well-kept soccer field (even in the desert!) among other things.


And it also Empanapolis, which ended up fulfilling expectations and being awesome (partly because of the empanadas and partly because they had exactly two framed pictures on their wall - one of Elvis Presley and one of Freddy Mercury. You can see them in the upper-left corner of the 2nd picture below.).


From Bahia Inglesia we drove about 7 hours south (and east) into the Elqui Valley region of Chile. Along the way we were lucky enough to drive through the desert during its periodic flower bloom (there were noticeably more flowers on the way back down than on the way back up - only 2 days later). The bloom apparently lasts a couple of weeks and only happens every few years, so we were extremely fortunate to drive through while it was happening. Even though the land is incredibly dry, these tiny little pink flowers manage to grow and bloom and cover enormous expanses of desert.


Here we are in the desert on September 18th (Independence Day), trying to be as patriotic as possible in red. Everybody gets into Independence Day, and you can actually get a fine if you don't hang up a Chilean flag outside of your house!


Along the ride we came across a bike gang that had an english name written on their jackets (and a pretty poor choice of font). I was positive it said "dork riders," which would have been a way awesomer name that "dark riders"...


A pic of the landscape between Bahia Inglesia and the Elqui Valley:

Here's one from a 40 km piece of road that took over 2 hours to drive through because it was on a single line dirt road that winded through the hills:


The closest town to where we stayed in the Elqui Valley was Hurtado. We stayed in a very cool hacienda and got to do a lot of hiking, looking at stars (there are a number of well-known observatories in the Valley because of its 300+ days of cloudless skies per year), and listening to ridiculous stories from the german guy who owns the place (i.e. helicoptering around Australia, sailing from Africa around the tip of South America, controlling horses with a radical form of "tail massage"...). Here are some pics of the Hacienda Los Andes:


Again we lucked out and the mountains were full of color because of the flower bloom.



Parrots flying around in Elqui Valley:


On Saturday morning we made the drive back to Santiago and sadly had to say good-bye to Chris and Erin, who we missed immediately and we wish were still here!

The weather has definitely taken a turn for the better, and we no longer need to use our little kerosene-powered heater in the office at work to stay warm. It's been in the 60s and 70s in Santiago the past couple of days, and we're hoping it stays this way.

Here are a couple of spring break mullets. The first, for obvious reasons, is the Baby Mullet:


The next is on a dude that is running for president here in Chile (clearly the mullet is a distinguished hair-style here). This one can be called the Presidential Mullet (although if he wasn't running for president I would probably call it the Lionel Richie Mullet):


Finally, the title of this post comes from a conversation I overheard among two chilean students at school today. The first made a joke about the second, and so he responded by calling the first a "meeh-ster smarty-jeans." After a couple of confused seconds, someone said "I think you mean smarty-pants." The kid seemed pretty unfazed, and just said "yes, a smarty-pants, a smarty-jeans. Whatever." Awesome.