Saturday, October 15, 2011
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Blood In The Mobile
Yesterday I went with some friends to watch an acclaimed Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) documentary from 2010, "Blood in the mobile", directed by Frank Piasecki Poulsen. The documentary exposed the many horrors of the civil wars in Democratic Republic of Congo being financed by the electronics industry through the trade of minerals used for mobile phones and computers. It brought a huge human-rights problem to the attention of many unsuspecting users worldwide, however the movie itself was lacking and not very powerful as far as documentaries go. There was great potential, considering how much work is being done about this issue all over the world, but this film failed to meet the expectations.
Poulsen travels all over the world trying to talk to Nokia people (he focuses on this one company, as it is one of the largest. He usually got to talk to those who didn't make decisions); going to the illegal Bisie mine in Kivu, DRC, where the mineral casserite is obtained under extremely poor safety conditions; talking to various experts in mineral tracking and conflict minerals; and including politicians working towards having conflict minerals become illegal in the US. The questions he asked the interviewees often lacked the depth required to sound like he had done the appropriate research about conflict minerals beforheand. It seemed he just wanted to get the movie done and get the footage he needed for it, and although yes, the footage he got from inside the mine was very interesting and a great journalistic achievement, it was extremely irresponsible for him to take that boy, Chance, down with him to tour him around, especially considering all the negative reactions as the boy helped the 'white man'. Who knows what happened to Chance after he left?
It was saddening to see that although large companies have been aware about these issues for more than a decade, not much has been achieved in solving this massive problem, and I hope having this movie out there will speed up things. Of course, it all comes down to consumers and what WE demand. The Raise Hope For Congo website contains information about the terrible war going on far, far away, but so, so close at the same time, surrounding us, under my fingers as I'm typing this, and everyday as I use my phone. It explains what consumers can do about the problem, and it's a good resource to start off with if you want to become more informed about the place where people live under extreme conditions resembling slavery, where children stay inside mines for days due to the difficulty of going down. Down these poorly-built mines that collapse and kill people every day. Deaths that finance an inhumane war that leads to even more deaths. And suffering that cannot be explained through words.
Poulsen travels all over the world trying to talk to Nokia people (he focuses on this one company, as it is one of the largest. He usually got to talk to those who didn't make decisions); going to the illegal Bisie mine in Kivu, DRC, where the mineral casserite is obtained under extremely poor safety conditions; talking to various experts in mineral tracking and conflict minerals; and including politicians working towards having conflict minerals become illegal in the US. The questions he asked the interviewees often lacked the depth required to sound like he had done the appropriate research about conflict minerals beforheand. It seemed he just wanted to get the movie done and get the footage he needed for it, and although yes, the footage he got from inside the mine was very interesting and a great journalistic achievement, it was extremely irresponsible for him to take that boy, Chance, down with him to tour him around, especially considering all the negative reactions as the boy helped the 'white man'. Who knows what happened to Chance after he left?
It was saddening to see that although large companies have been aware about these issues for more than a decade, not much has been achieved in solving this massive problem, and I hope having this movie out there will speed up things. Of course, it all comes down to consumers and what WE demand. The Raise Hope For Congo website contains information about the terrible war going on far, far away, but so, so close at the same time, surrounding us, under my fingers as I'm typing this, and everyday as I use my phone. It explains what consumers can do about the problem, and it's a good resource to start off with if you want to become more informed about the place where people live under extreme conditions resembling slavery, where children stay inside mines for days due to the difficulty of going down. Down these poorly-built mines that collapse and kill people every day. Deaths that finance an inhumane war that leads to even more deaths. And suffering that cannot be explained through words.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Food post
Three really exciting things are happening this term too! And they are all related. So I'm part now of The Veggie Club, Common Energy's Food Subgroup, and The LFS Orchard Garden. WHAAAT are these things?? The Veggie Club and Common Energy are both UBC clubs, and they both deal with food and sustainability, and the Orchard Garden is a garden two minutes away from my place and Forestry (behind LFS building) where I volunteer every week. A really cool project is in the working, involving these three. Speaking of the Garden, I absolutely love it! When I started at UBC I was like, yeah I want to volunteer at the Farm! Well, guess what, the Farm is SO far away!! It's quite unrealistic for me to fit a Farm trip in my schedule. SOOO the Orchard Garden is the PERFECT solution! It's a joint-management thing between the Faculties of LFS, Education and Landscape Architecture. They grow many many delicious things, and most of the produce is sold to Agora, the LFS Café.
So far, I've harvested onions and zucchini, and we are clearing the beds to plant cover crops for the winter. Last week we composted lettuce which was flowering and was therefore very bitter, and we could take it home if we wanted to. It was too bitter for me, but they looked spectacular - well rounded, fresh, giant. A girl working with me ate lettuce like a rabbit, as she worked. This week I took home the zucchini flowers and made zucchini flower and cheese quesadillas. I have a pepper plant at home (Pepe the Pepper, and Knickers has Pancho The Pepper) and eating the peppers from there is amazing, I just go to the living room and get a pepper from Pepe, and in exchange I only have to water him, clean him and love him. I think it's a good deal, so I decided my goal for when I have my own place is to have a garden with lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes and everything else! Taking care of the garden would definitely require work, but it is so relaxing, rewarding and connected with nature.
So far, I've harvested onions and zucchini, and we are clearing the beds to plant cover crops for the winter. Last week we composted lettuce which was flowering and was therefore very bitter, and we could take it home if we wanted to. It was too bitter for me, but they looked spectacular - well rounded, fresh, giant. A girl working with me ate lettuce like a rabbit, as she worked. This week I took home the zucchini flowers and made zucchini flower and cheese quesadillas. I have a pepper plant at home (Pepe the Pepper, and Knickers has Pancho The Pepper) and eating the peppers from there is amazing, I just go to the living room and get a pepper from Pepe, and in exchange I only have to water him, clean him and love him. I think it's a good deal, so I decided my goal for when I have my own place is to have a garden with lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes and everything else! Taking care of the garden would definitely require work, but it is so relaxing, rewarding and connected with nature.
 |
Zucchini and flower in LFS Orchard Garden |
Back in Vancouver
I'm back and I'm extremely happy! I truly realize how much I love UBC, especially after being away for so long.
2011 was a fantastic year for me and this term will be the perfect way to end it. The Christmas holidays will be spent in San Francisco with Leslie & Mike, and then maybe/maybe not I'll go to Singapore.
First of all, I absolutely love my courses. One of them is FRST 270 Community Forestry. It used to be taught by Ron Trosper, but now he left and we have a PhD candidate, Reem, and she's just amazing. We are learning what community forestry really entails by analyzing different viewpoints, and through case studies we explore how the broad concept of community forest is applied so many different ways all around the world. What is power? Who determines who gets power over the land? Is there a difference between access and property? How can success be defined in the realm of resource management? We explore questions like these ones through readings, class discussions, guest lectures and assignements. Plus we are 11 students, smallest class I've had at UBC!
Other two I really love are CONS 210 (Visualizing climate change) with Sarah Burch and Stephen Sheppard, and FRST 415 (Sustainable Forest Policy) with George Hoberg. We've had very interesting and inspiring lectures for both of these too. For example, we had Valerie Langer from ForestEthics come talk about the success in the Great Bear Rainforest - learning about environmental activism firsthand from and environmental activist was awesome. I have also been introduced to two things I hadn't used before: iClicker and PeerWise. iClickers are like remote controls for answering multiple choice questions and the Prof gets instant feedback as to whether the students are getting the material or not, and it also sparks interesting class discussion. PeerWise is an online tool designed for students to write questions, and then answer, rate and comment other students' questions - great question pool for studying for exams!
My living arrangement is also great. My house is made for someone on a wheelchair, so the corridors are huge and the bathroom is made for dancing with a wheelchair judging by its dimensions. It's first floor, and at first I hated this because I can't leave my windows open when I leave, but I've gotten used to this and my friends come visit my window all the time, which is fun. The residence, Ritsumeikan, is very quiet and organized. We have a tatami room and I was really excited but then Maki my Japanese roomie said she hates to sit there because she gets splinters all over, so I shouldn't wear shorts when I go to the tatami room...
Fun stuff that has been going on:
- I went to Seattle with Sharon for a outlet-shopping-spree (I don't understand brands like Juicy Couture... felt sweat pants with GLAMOUR written on them with gold and Swarovski crystals...really??) and had my first Taco Bell meal
-I went paddleboarding with a bunch of friends to Jericho Beach. Oscar and I decided it would be a good idea to share a paddleboard and stand on it at the same time, so we tried that for quite some time, until I fell on top of some hidden aquatic rocks and scraped my leg.
- We went to the FarmAde at the UBC Farm and watched people square-dancing to the beat and following the instructions coming from the speakers
- I completed one of the unofficial graduation requirements - Day of the Longboat! We were the Shockers and we painted our faces like Kiss, with black and white. So I think every occasion is a good occasion to paint faces, and I especially love it when people let me do their faces! It was a team with random members but we had so much fun and we came fourth, which was good as we were eight instead of ten people. I need an arm and neck massage now, though.
2011 was a fantastic year for me and this term will be the perfect way to end it. The Christmas holidays will be spent in San Francisco with Leslie & Mike, and then maybe/maybe not I'll go to Singapore.
First of all, I absolutely love my courses. One of them is FRST 270 Community Forestry. It used to be taught by Ron Trosper, but now he left and we have a PhD candidate, Reem, and she's just amazing. We are learning what community forestry really entails by analyzing different viewpoints, and through case studies we explore how the broad concept of community forest is applied so many different ways all around the world. What is power? Who determines who gets power over the land? Is there a difference between access and property? How can success be defined in the realm of resource management? We explore questions like these ones through readings, class discussions, guest lectures and assignements. Plus we are 11 students, smallest class I've had at UBC!
Other two I really love are CONS 210 (Visualizing climate change) with Sarah Burch and Stephen Sheppard, and FRST 415 (Sustainable Forest Policy) with George Hoberg. We've had very interesting and inspiring lectures for both of these too. For example, we had Valerie Langer from ForestEthics come talk about the success in the Great Bear Rainforest - learning about environmental activism firsthand from and environmental activist was awesome. I have also been introduced to two things I hadn't used before: iClicker and PeerWise. iClickers are like remote controls for answering multiple choice questions and the Prof gets instant feedback as to whether the students are getting the material or not, and it also sparks interesting class discussion. PeerWise is an online tool designed for students to write questions, and then answer, rate and comment other students' questions - great question pool for studying for exams!
My living arrangement is also great. My house is made for someone on a wheelchair, so the corridors are huge and the bathroom is made for dancing with a wheelchair judging by its dimensions. It's first floor, and at first I hated this because I can't leave my windows open when I leave, but I've gotten used to this and my friends come visit my window all the time, which is fun. The residence, Ritsumeikan, is very quiet and organized. We have a tatami room and I was really excited but then Maki my Japanese roomie said she hates to sit there because she gets splinters all over, so I shouldn't wear shorts when I go to the tatami room...
Fun stuff that has been going on:
- I went to Seattle with Sharon for a outlet-shopping-spree (I don't understand brands like Juicy Couture... felt sweat pants with GLAMOUR written on them with gold and Swarovski crystals...really??) and had my first Taco Bell meal
-I went paddleboarding with a bunch of friends to Jericho Beach. Oscar and I decided it would be a good idea to share a paddleboard and stand on it at the same time, so we tried that for quite some time, until I fell on top of some hidden aquatic rocks and scraped my leg.
- We went to the FarmAde at the UBC Farm and watched people square-dancing to the beat and following the instructions coming from the speakers
- I completed one of the unofficial graduation requirements - Day of the Longboat! We were the Shockers and we painted our faces like Kiss, with black and white. So I think every occasion is a good occasion to paint faces, and I especially love it when people let me do their faces! It was a team with random members but we had so much fun and we came fourth, which was good as we were eight instead of ten people. I need an arm and neck massage now, though.
 |
| Jason my Longboat Shocker friend looking awesome |
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
OrienTREEing
Sharon and I love trees, but more than anything we love to walk around looking for them and identifying them. Yes, sounds geeky - and it is - but it is also SO much fun. For Forestry Week, the Faculty of Forestry Dean's Office came up with a great idea : a tree scavenger hunt. We got clues (verbal and visual), including riddles, to go around campus looking for trees and locating them on a map for about an hour and a half. We got points for strategy, for speed and for knowledge, and we won first prize ($100) :D It was quite a fresh activity, fresher than what the FUS usually does for Forestry Week, and hopefully they will also do it next year. Below: the two of us with arbutus and coulter pine.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
DIALOG IN THE DARK - New York City
Today, Cam and I went to a sensory tour of NYC to experience the city without actually seeing it. The Dialog In The Dark exhibit opened in New York City just three weeks ago at the South Street Seaport with the BODIES exhibition and the idea is that this becomes a permanent museum. However, this Dialog In The Dark initiative is not something new – it has been around for quite some time, starting in the 80s in Europe and expanding throughout the world (been in 22 countries and 130 cities). I had never “seen” something like it! (Yep, tons of puns like this one in the advertisements.)
So the tour is for a maximum of ten people but for our particular shift we were only three: the two of us and this semi-annoying guy we shall call Farid. We had to sign a form saying we wouldn’t sue the Museum if we fell, had a panic attack, or died, and afterwards we were given walking canes and entered a room were we were seated for an introductory video. The lights started to dim and our tour guide, Romeo, walked in. We didn’t see him, just heard his voice. It was pitch-black and we could not see a single thing. ABSOLUTE DARKNESS.
All the tour guides are visually impaired and they guide you through the cities landmarks, making you feel quite safe. Following Romeo’s voice, we did the following:
1) Strolled (well, more like stumbled) through Central Park. We heard the noises from the Zoo, the children playing, discovered bikes and benches, and wet our hands in the fountain.
2) Entered a supermarket. We made a mess trying to figure out what the things on the shelves were. Romeo said that in real life he doesn’t go around the supermarket squeezing ketchup bottles and smelling pretzel packets to figure out what they are, but there are people in the supermarket that help him out. Or he shops online. Online?? How does a blind person manage to see the screen? Well, there are tons of programs and applications that read out loud and respond to voice commands and stuff life that. Who knew you could write an email, read online newspapers and get on Facebook without needing your eyes?
3) Rode on the subway, minus the nasty smells and crazy people #win. The subway was super cool, it had sliding doors and actually moved! The seats were just as the subway ones, and there were speakers all around of people talking on the phone and asking you to get out of the way and stuff like that, very realistic!
4) Experienced Times Square. Even the temperature changed when we left the subway. Times Square without the crazy ass lights was nothing like the real thing, but the noise was still pretty intense. Romeo urged us constantly to discover objects and figure out what they were. Farid was a cheater, he actually got out his cell phone light (which he was not supposed to have with him anyways! And his pants glowed a couple times ‘cause someone kept calling him). WTF, thanks a lot for reminding me I am not blind for an hour, Farid.
5) Had a nice little chat at a Café. This is where most of the Dialog In The Dark took place, and Romeo opened the table for discussion and questions. We could ask him ANYTHING we wanted about his life. This was pretty cool, we learnt tons about what it means to be blind.
One interesting thing was when Farid asked how Romeo pictured himself NOW (he became blind at age two). He didn’t picture himself – didn’t really think about what he looked like. I realized the contrast between his attitude and my attitude if I suddenly became blind – I would need to constantly picture stuff, including myself, because I’ve always been able to see. This is why I also felt the need to picture him throughout the tour, and from his voice, touch and presence I nailed his size (big) and color (black). But really, physical appearances did not matter AT ALL here. In the end I had no interest in knowing what he looked like; I had liked his personality so much already through what he said. In a sense it must be a gift to be blind and get to know people through their voices, understanding their personalities without noticing the outside appearance (although a really dreadful voice must also be a turn-off even if the person has a heart of gold...)
It was great walking through these rooms (which would have probably looked horrible and bare with the lights on) feeling like we were actually surrounded by an imaginary reality. Every tour must be different, as there are many tour guides and they all personalize it their way. The group you get also makes a difference because from the questions people ask the tour takes its shape. Our particular experience was excellent and Romeo was just amazing, really funny and insightful, I loved him. I can’t describe how much I admire Romeo and everyone that lost/never had the sense of sight and still lives their life at the fullest. Dialog In The Dark ($18 for students) was totally worth it and I highly recommend you check it out if you're in New York!
The Big Apple Checklist
THE BIG APPLE? Yes, why New York is known as the Big Apple is a very complicated story that has nothing to do with apples. I would call it The Big Rat, but that’s not a very marketable name.
- Try New York Style Cheesecake (check)
- Visit the Statue of Liberty (check)
Let me tell you, the Statue is way overrated. It’s TINY and we saw it in the distance by taking the (free) ferry to Staten Island, where, by the way, there is NOTHING to do.
- Go to a Broadway Musical (check)
We went to see Memphis, which won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Musical. We got Student Rush tickets for $26 so we were pretty happy. It was a great show with great costumes, music and scenery. It was mostly “black” music, and the story reminded me of the movie Hairspray. The scenery is what impressed me the most, how furniture moved on its own and people came out of the floor. Talking with friends later, though, it was interesting to notice how the level of enjoyment you get from a musical depends on whether you knew the songs from before or not.
- Go to watch a play (check)
We went to The Select (The Sun Also Rises), a Hemingway adaptation in the New York Theater Workshop. It was fantastic, truly a great production.
- Learn how to skateboard (check)
My amazing hosts Juli and Elsa taught me how to do it and now I get the basics and I CAN’T WAIT TO SKATEBOARD AGAIN!
- Fall in love with a Killer Cat (check)
Manola was my cat friend, she was so funny and attacked everyone once in a while.
- Visit the MoMA (check)
There is this really cool exhibition on right now, Talk To Me, which is about interactive technology. I loved how you could get the free Wi-fi and tweet your impressions using the provided hashtags at each stop – even the way of walking through the exhibition was kind of interactive!
- Have a picnic in Central Park (check)
This is a lovely and huge park with trails, ponds and grass! People really do take advantage of it, which is great.
- Go to Times Square (check)
Both at daytime and nighttime. So many shops and lights and people and smells and sounds. Sensory overload.
- Visit Wall Street (check)
No light shines through this street.
- Visit Chinatown and Little Italy (check)
We had dinner at Nagasaki, this tiny little Japanese restaurant you wouldn’t see unless you were looking for it. We entered and there were obviously no seats available, but the waiter made everyone move and rearrange, change table and shift, so that two free spaces showed up. It was funny how people were okay with moving while eating their noodles.
- Survive Hurricane Irene (check)
We stayed indoors Saturday AND Sunday, my only week-end in NYC eating Mac&Cheese and watching movies...
- Go to the SONY WonderLab Experience (check) This sucked.
- Bike along the Hudson and walk along the city’s Highline (check)
- Visit the Frogs exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History (check)
Did you know the largest frog in the world is the size of a newborn baby? And that this tiny little frog, the golden poison frog (Phyllobates terribilis) is one of the most venomous animals (venomous means it kills its predators, poisonous means it kills its preys) and if you touch it you die, just like that. Also, about half the frog species go through the tadpole and metamorphosis stuff, the other half hatch like froglets!
- Shop in SOHO (called like this because it’s South Of HOuston, which is a street) (no check) because everything was super expensive. There was this really trashy couch that was $18 000 and these horrible guy shoes that were $5 000…
- Go to McClaren’s and Central Perk (no check) BECAUSE THEY DON’T EXIST :( I feel stupid.
 |
| Street chairs in SOHO. Everyone leaves their unwanted furniture outside and you can take it home if you like it. I want THESE chairs, they're beautiful. |
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Turin, Cremona and Tuscany
Some more adventures with Caro!
TURIN
We went to Torino - seemed huge compared to Cremona!! - for one day with Vale and visited the Museo Egizio (2nd most important one after the one in Cairo), La Mole Antonelliana (the city's major landmark) and the Museo Nazionale del Cinema. We had a picnic in the park, walked down Via Garibaldi, had yogurt ice cream with fruits (getting quite popular in Italy) and that night we went dancing to a place on the Po river's waterfront. I loved how all these discos and bars were found here along the river, and how nightlife started around 1 am!
CREMONA
The following day we all went back to Cremona. We struggled quite a bit with Trenitalia trying to get the cheapest train tickets, so basically we had to change trains like a thousand times before arriving at our destination. Cremona is known for nougat (torrone) and for the violin-making industry (there are around 130 registered workshops). There is a nice plaza/gardens known as I Giardini o Piazza Roma, where everyone walks eating ice cream.
LIVORNO
After Cremona we travelled to Livorno in Tuscany. The landscapes come straight from those images you see on wine bottles: golden lights over fields of olive trees, farmhouses and vineyards. No wonder it's so popular among the rich and the famous (George Clooney has a villa here or something?) Wines can be quite pricey, there is this Sassicaia wine or something like that, that can be 3000 dollars a bottle... hmm.
We stayed with Vale's friends - Sara, Nico, their five-year-old Isola, and (unborn) baby Libero. They have an Azienda Agricola, Alberelli, where you can rent apartments for your Tuscan dream holiday. This area is beautiful, so you should check it out! They make their own olive oil, they have a vegetable garden, and use firewood from the forest - can it get any better? Our days were spent at the main house, (where there are goats and forest! We had some delicious meals here of bread, fruit, cheese, pasta, wine), at the beach (beaches are not sandy so they are not as accessible and can be quite dangerous but who doesn't love the beach!) and visiting small little towns (eating gelato and buying olive oil). We went to Musica W Festival in Castellina M.ma and traveled along 5km of Viale dei Bolgheri. The food was awesome, and it's so tasteful they don't put salt in the bread (so the bread on its own is not too good).
We felt so so welcome and this family was really warm and filled with joy. I had never seen a more glowing pregnancy like Sara's, and had never liked a five-year old as much as I liked Isola. I realized I truly enjoyed spending time with her and her friend Vale. Would definitely be open to working with kids after this positive experience!
TURIN
We went to Torino - seemed huge compared to Cremona!! - for one day with Vale and visited the Museo Egizio (2nd most important one after the one in Cairo), La Mole Antonelliana (the city's major landmark) and the Museo Nazionale del Cinema. We had a picnic in the park, walked down Via Garibaldi, had yogurt ice cream with fruits (getting quite popular in Italy) and that night we went dancing to a place on the Po river's waterfront. I loved how all these discos and bars were found here along the river, and how nightlife started around 1 am!
CREMONA
The following day we all went back to Cremona. We struggled quite a bit with Trenitalia trying to get the cheapest train tickets, so basically we had to change trains like a thousand times before arriving at our destination. Cremona is known for nougat (torrone) and for the violin-making industry (there are around 130 registered workshops). There is a nice plaza/gardens known as I Giardini o Piazza Roma, where everyone walks eating ice cream.
LIVORNO
After Cremona we travelled to Livorno in Tuscany. The landscapes come straight from those images you see on wine bottles: golden lights over fields of olive trees, farmhouses and vineyards. No wonder it's so popular among the rich and the famous (George Clooney has a villa here or something?) Wines can be quite pricey, there is this Sassicaia wine or something like that, that can be 3000 dollars a bottle... hmm.
We stayed with Vale's friends - Sara, Nico, their five-year-old Isola, and (unborn) baby Libero. They have an Azienda Agricola, Alberelli, where you can rent apartments for your Tuscan dream holiday. This area is beautiful, so you should check it out! They make their own olive oil, they have a vegetable garden, and use firewood from the forest - can it get any better? Our days were spent at the main house, (where there are goats and forest! We had some delicious meals here of bread, fruit, cheese, pasta, wine), at the beach (beaches are not sandy so they are not as accessible and can be quite dangerous but who doesn't love the beach!) and visiting small little towns (eating gelato and buying olive oil). We went to Musica W Festival in Castellina M.ma and traveled along 5km of Viale dei Bolgheri. The food was awesome, and it's so tasteful they don't put salt in the bread (so the bread on its own is not too good).
We felt so so welcome and this family was really warm and filled with joy. I had never seen a more glowing pregnancy like Sara's, and had never liked a five-year old as much as I liked Isola. I realized I truly enjoyed spending time with her and her friend Vale. Would definitely be open to working with kids after this positive experience!
Sardegna Forever
Sardegna (Sardinia in English) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. My mom's friend lives here so my sister and I went there for a week. The flight was about 100 dollars roundtrip with RyanAir. We hadn't been there in ten years but everything was as beautiful as we remembered it. The beaches here are FANTASTIC, with crystlal-clear water, rocks, reefs and sandy beaches.
The first few days Paola took time off work so we went all together, including her boyfriend Claudito. He was a sight! After these first days driving and singing in the car and playing with Claudito beach volley, Caro and I moved around on our own with buses. The first day, after the airport, we went to Cala Sinzias. Our skin color conversion started at that very second! From Impossible White to Beach Baby Tan. Another beach we visited was Solanas, which was quite full of people. This beach was good for playing water polo and things like that in the water, staying close to the shore.
Caro and I visited Chia (AMAZING), Costa Rei (Scoglio di Peppino, this was one of my favourite! Water was very very shallow and you could reach the main rock-island walking in water) and Villasimius (Cala Giunco and a nearby lagoon). In Chia we found our own small private beach, which was paradise.
There were tons of Senegalese guys in the buses with us, and they roamed the beaches selling stuff. It made me sad to see them carrying to much weight up and down, fully dressed under the scorching Mediterranean sun. That night we had pizza at the port with the neighbours and drove around looking for places to go dancing. We found a place called Alta Marea and the Miss Alta Marea Pageant was going on, so we watched the show. So many gorgeous girls competing to be Miss Alta Marea... so funny to see all of them and their acts, for something so stupid.
Typical Sardinian stuff we tried included malloredus (a type of pasta), culurgiones (delicious ravioli with potato filling! I loved them), and pecorino cheese. We also had tequila shots, they call them Tequilla Boom Boom there hehe. It was not even tequila, just a cheap version that tasted terrible! We also prepared Mexican molletes and they were a success.
The first few days Paola took time off work so we went all together, including her boyfriend Claudito. He was a sight! After these first days driving and singing in the car and playing with Claudito beach volley, Caro and I moved around on our own with buses. The first day, after the airport, we went to Cala Sinzias. Our skin color conversion started at that very second! From Impossible White to Beach Baby Tan. Another beach we visited was Solanas, which was quite full of people. This beach was good for playing water polo and things like that in the water, staying close to the shore.
Caro and I visited Chia (AMAZING), Costa Rei (Scoglio di Peppino, this was one of my favourite! Water was very very shallow and you could reach the main rock-island walking in water) and Villasimius (Cala Giunco and a nearby lagoon). In Chia we found our own small private beach, which was paradise.
There were tons of Senegalese guys in the buses with us, and they roamed the beaches selling stuff. It made me sad to see them carrying to much weight up and down, fully dressed under the scorching Mediterranean sun. That night we had pizza at the port with the neighbours and drove around looking for places to go dancing. We found a place called Alta Marea and the Miss Alta Marea Pageant was going on, so we watched the show. So many gorgeous girls competing to be Miss Alta Marea... so funny to see all of them and their acts, for something so stupid.
Typical Sardinian stuff we tried included malloredus (a type of pasta), culurgiones (delicious ravioli with potato filling! I loved them), and pecorino cheese. We also had tequila shots, they call them Tequilla Boom Boom there hehe. It was not even tequila, just a cheap version that tasted terrible! We also prepared Mexican molletes and they were a success.
 |
| I love the Sardinian landscapes. Emerald green, sapphire and aquamarine waters surrounded by cacti. |
Friday, August 19, 2011
Dreams
TODAY I will start my Notebook of Dreams. That is a a Notebook that will always be next to my bed and I'll write my dreams as soon as I wake up. I think it's time to start it (another project that has been postponed for YEARS), as I have been having very vivid dreams in the last few days, whereas before I used to dream black. Just black. Or I wouldn't remember anything at all.
The other day I was talking about "waking up" in dreams, or realizing that you are dreaming, so that you can just do whatever you want in your dream. That had never happened to me before, but it did last night. I think because I had this idea in the back of my mind and it occurred to me to wonder if I was dreaming or not. I tried to float and I could (the little test analogous to the thing that turns and turns and never falls in Inception), so I decided I was definitely dreaming. From then on it was great fun, I could really do anything and also create things... I'll try it again tonight. In either case I feel very ignorant in this whole dream business, but I find it very appealing and want to learn more. Same with hypnosis.
The other day I was talking about "waking up" in dreams, or realizing that you are dreaming, so that you can just do whatever you want in your dream. That had never happened to me before, but it did last night. I think because I had this idea in the back of my mind and it occurred to me to wonder if I was dreaming or not. I tried to float and I could (the little test analogous to the thing that turns and turns and never falls in Inception), so I decided I was definitely dreaming. From then on it was great fun, I could really do anything and also create things... I'll try it again tonight. In either case I feel very ignorant in this whole dream business, but I find it very appealing and want to learn more. Same with hypnosis.
Shopping Stories
SHOPPING WITH MOM
Today a typical shopping incident occurred, which has been happening for as long as my sister and I can recall. When my mom likes something in a store, she HAS to buy it for us. This is how a typical conversation goes:
- Look Carolina/Olivia, this sweater/pair of shoes/blouse is so classy and nice.
- Hmm I don’t know, I don’t like it that much...
- Well, how can you say that if you haven’t tried it, huh? Try it on!
- No Mom, it’s just not my style, I don’t want to…
- Come on, won’t you do your mother this small little favour? It’ll take only two minutes. Just to see what it looks like!
- Mmm okay Mom, but I don’t want it…
- No, just to see what it looks like [pushes us into the dressing room]
[We try it on, and it looks bad]
- See Mom, it doesn’t fit, I look fat and the colours are horrible.
- Wow, what a lady! It looks SO good! But SO SO good…You can’t imagine how good you look, really.
- Well, I’d rather not.
- It would go amazingly well with your black pants. It makes you slimmer. Ok, we’ll take it! It’s only half price!
- MOM, I will NEVER use this, I don’t want it!
- You will one day.
- Mom, it will stay in the closet forever and no one will ever wear it, I don’t like it!!
- Well, if you don’t wear it, I will.
- Mom you always say that, it’s not even your size.
- Well, your sister can use it then.
- Mom, pleaseeee...
- Try it at home, and if you don't like it we can always return it.
[We buy the sweater/pair of shoes/blouse]
THE END
Epilogue: The sweater/pair of shoes/blouse follows one of two fates: a) collects dust in the closet because it really is ugly, or b) we have a revelation and finally see what our mom saw in the first place, so we wear it (“I told you so, Carolina/Olivia”).
SHOPPING WITH MY SISTER
The other day we went to this nice little shop of underwear and swimsuits here in Cremona, one of the typical shops on the main pedestrian street. The owner is an old lady with bleached blond hair and a tan (the characteristic tan of old ladies that can’t hold their sun exposure). My sister got some stuff and this is what happened:
- Great, this will suit you very well. So yes, it’ll be 30 Euros…Great, sign here... here is your receipt… my copy, and here is your card back.
- Thank you.
- AND, before you go, let me give you this nice little booklet with the upcoming fall collection, so that you have a look [takes booklet from a pile and places in bag]
- Mmmm… When exactly will the new collection arrive?
- [Looking surprised at the question] I believe around September…
- Hmm yeah well, we’re not here in September, so you can take the booklet back.
SHOPPING WITH DAD
Last Christmas we were in Vancouver and after Boxing Day found sales and discounts on top of sales and discounts. While we usually drag my dad to the mall and shop while he reads one of his papers at the nearest café, this time he came into United Colors of Benetton and found a hat that costed about $1.68 dollars. This was the price on the sticker at the top of a pile of stickers of ascending prices. Basically the first sticker said ~$40, so my dad was SO proud of this purchase and he went around telling everyone what a deal his one dollar hat was. It’s a really cute hat!
Today a typical shopping incident occurred, which has been happening for as long as my sister and I can recall. When my mom likes something in a store, she HAS to buy it for us. This is how a typical conversation goes:
- Look Carolina/Olivia, this sweater/pair of shoes/blouse is so classy and nice.
- Hmm I don’t know, I don’t like it that much...
- Well, how can you say that if you haven’t tried it, huh? Try it on!
- No Mom, it’s just not my style, I don’t want to…
- Come on, won’t you do your mother this small little favour? It’ll take only two minutes. Just to see what it looks like!
- Mmm okay Mom, but I don’t want it…
- No, just to see what it looks like [pushes us into the dressing room]
[We try it on, and it looks bad]
- See Mom, it doesn’t fit, I look fat and the colours are horrible.
- Wow, what a lady! It looks SO good! But SO SO good…You can’t imagine how good you look, really.
- Well, I’d rather not.
- It would go amazingly well with your black pants. It makes you slimmer. Ok, we’ll take it! It’s only half price!
- MOM, I will NEVER use this, I don’t want it!
- You will one day.
- Mom, it will stay in the closet forever and no one will ever wear it, I don’t like it!!
- Well, if you don’t wear it, I will.
- Mom you always say that, it’s not even your size.
- Well, your sister can use it then.
- Mom, pleaseeee...
- Try it at home, and if you don't like it we can always return it.
[We buy the sweater/pair of shoes/blouse]
THE END
Epilogue: The sweater/pair of shoes/blouse follows one of two fates: a) collects dust in the closet because it really is ugly, or b) we have a revelation and finally see what our mom saw in the first place, so we wear it (“I told you so, Carolina/Olivia”).
SHOPPING WITH MY SISTER
The other day we went to this nice little shop of underwear and swimsuits here in Cremona, one of the typical shops on the main pedestrian street. The owner is an old lady with bleached blond hair and a tan (the characteristic tan of old ladies that can’t hold their sun exposure). My sister got some stuff and this is what happened:
- Great, this will suit you very well. So yes, it’ll be 30 Euros…Great, sign here... here is your receipt… my copy, and here is your card back.
- Thank you.
- AND, before you go, let me give you this nice little booklet with the upcoming fall collection, so that you have a look [takes booklet from a pile and places in bag]
- Mmmm… When exactly will the new collection arrive?
- [Looking surprised at the question] I believe around September…
- Hmm yeah well, we’re not here in September, so you can take the booklet back.
SHOPPING WITH DAD
Last Christmas we were in Vancouver and after Boxing Day found sales and discounts on top of sales and discounts. While we usually drag my dad to the mall and shop while he reads one of his papers at the nearest café, this time he came into United Colors of Benetton and found a hat that costed about $1.68 dollars. This was the price on the sticker at the top of a pile of stickers of ascending prices. Basically the first sticker said ~$40, so my dad was SO proud of this purchase and he went around telling everyone what a deal his one dollar hat was. It’s a really cute hat!
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Good bye Chile, Hello Italy!
July 24th, 2011
I’m writing from a plane again. I did the Santiago – New York flight last night and right now I’m flying from New York JFK to Paris CDG…Then I will take a flight to Milan Linate, where I will be picked up by my mum and sister. When we arrive at Cremona it will have been about 30 hours since I left Santiago, possibly one of my longest trips yet… So I look and feel like shit right now haha
My connection in NY was 9 hours long so I left the airport and visited my friend Julius! It was a sneak peak to what the week in NY will be like when I go back in August. Basically, Julian is super chill and the week will have a good balance of chill and intensity, I think. My first impressions of NY?? I loved it! People are crazy and everyone has their own style, you won’t get bored observing people: how they behave, how they talk, how they’re dressed (I know because I misread Julian’s instructions, went the wrong direction, and spent more than an hour in the subway looking at people. There was this guy that looked Filipino or Hawaiian and he was naked except for a red speedo, pink Crocs, a transparent pareo, a Disney Princess bag, a Betty Book suitcase, and a Yankees cap). Women are really beautiful, and everyone was extremely helpful (three different people lent me their phones to call Julian, they helped me with the luggage, with directions, etc.) Definitely felt welcome those couple hours and I'm looking forward to going back!
I’m writing from a plane again. I did the Santiago – New York flight last night and right now I’m flying from New York JFK to Paris CDG…Then I will take a flight to Milan Linate, where I will be picked up by my mum and sister. When we arrive at Cremona it will have been about 30 hours since I left Santiago, possibly one of my longest trips yet… So I look and feel like shit right now haha
My connection in NY was 9 hours long so I left the airport and visited my friend Julius! It was a sneak peak to what the week in NY will be like when I go back in August. Basically, Julian is super chill and the week will have a good balance of chill and intensity, I think. My first impressions of NY?? I loved it! People are crazy and everyone has their own style, you won’t get bored observing people: how they behave, how they talk, how they’re dressed (I know because I misread Julian’s instructions, went the wrong direction, and spent more than an hour in the subway looking at people. There was this guy that looked Filipino or Hawaiian and he was naked except for a red speedo, pink Crocs, a transparent pareo, a Disney Princess bag, a Betty Book suitcase, and a Yankees cap). Women are really beautiful, and everyone was extremely helpful (three different people lent me their phones to call Julian, they helped me with the luggage, with directions, etc.) Definitely felt welcome those couple hours and I'm looking forward to going back!
The Spicy Pepper Chronicles
July 23rd, 2011
THE SPICY PEPPER CHRONICLES
50 GB worth of work, 5 hotel rooms, 3 months and many great experiences later, my time in Chile has come to an end! The co-op work term really flew by, and I can’t believe how much things changed throughout the summer, how many things I learnt, how many new people I met, and how many places I visited.
There are many differences in forestry here and in BC. In Chile, forestry is all about intensively managed plantation forestry. Chile's forested land is highly concentrated in the hands of a few major companies, principally those connected with the paper industry. Second growth forests in BC are not strictly considered plantations (although they are), and they are less intensively managed: the plantations try to consider the ecology of the site in terms of choice of species and management. In Chile, it involves mainly two species (radiata pine and eucalyptus), and things like thinning, brushing and fertilizing, spacing, etc. are carried out. These trees grow FAST, so rotation periods are way shorter (14-20 years depending on the species. Nothing compared to the 80-200 years in BC). There is also no conversion of native forests anymore (in terms of the company I was working for), which is where big bucks come from in BC (100-year-old red cedar = $$$). The safety for outside contractors really impressed me as well – there have to be special designated vehicles that meet certain specifications (tools can’t go in the same vehicle, for example, they have to go in a box on top of the brand new van). I also worked for a different level in the hierarchy of the company, not at the forest operation level like I did in BC, so I also got to witness how the big-decision-making process worked and how changes slowly trickled down the veins of the company.
If you are reading this you probably have me on Facebook so that’s were the Chile album will be, it’ll be a pretty fat one...
THE SPICY PEPPER CHRONICLES
50 GB worth of work, 5 hotel rooms, 3 months and many great experiences later, my time in Chile has come to an end! The co-op work term really flew by, and I can’t believe how much things changed throughout the summer, how many things I learnt, how many new people I met, and how many places I visited.
There are many differences in forestry here and in BC. In Chile, forestry is all about intensively managed plantation forestry. Chile's forested land is highly concentrated in the hands of a few major companies, principally those connected with the paper industry. Second growth forests in BC are not strictly considered plantations (although they are), and they are less intensively managed: the plantations try to consider the ecology of the site in terms of choice of species and management. In Chile, it involves mainly two species (radiata pine and eucalyptus), and things like thinning, brushing and fertilizing, spacing, etc. are carried out. These trees grow FAST, so rotation periods are way shorter (14-20 years depending on the species. Nothing compared to the 80-200 years in BC). There is also no conversion of native forests anymore (in terms of the company I was working for), which is where big bucks come from in BC (100-year-old red cedar = $$$). The safety for outside contractors really impressed me as well – there have to be special designated vehicles that meet certain specifications (tools can’t go in the same vehicle, for example, they have to go in a box on top of the brand new van). I also worked for a different level in the hierarchy of the company, not at the forest operation level like I did in BC, so I also got to witness how the big-decision-making process worked and how changes slowly trickled down the veins of the company.
If you are reading this you probably have me on Facebook so that’s were the Chile album will be, it’ll be a pretty fat one...
Being a tourist in Chile
July 20th, 2011
Although I didn’t visit the southern part of the country, I was lucky enough to visit many other places. In the three months, I was in Santiago, Concepción, Temuco, Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, San Pedro de Atacama, Constitiución, Chillán, Paine and Cobquecura. Most of the trips were work-related (for meetings, visits to the native conservation forests, and research projects like the Islote Lobería Cobquecura for sea lion monitoring).
SANTIAGO
I had a touristy week-end in Santiago, where I took the 18 000 pesos Turistik bus and travelled around the city. I visited Cerro El Caracol, where you take a cable car to the top and then enjoy the polluted view of the city. I also went to El Museo de La Moda, which houses clothing and paraphernalia from the 80s, and a street whose name I forget but all the fancy clothing stores are located here. And Los Dominicos, an expensive craft market for tourists with chicken running around the dusty streets. On the Turistik bus I continuously saw throughout the day a group of four ladies on their forties that tried to behave like Sex and The City.
VIÑA AND VALPO
I went to Viña and Valparaiso another one of my week-ends in Santiago and had an unsettling trip with a gory, low-budget film that was just repulsive. No one seemed to mind this terrible choice of film for a bus, but I had to ask them to turn it off and get rid of the sound of breaking bones and knives. It was a rainy day in Valpo and Viña, and at the bus central I signed up for a 15 000 pesos tour of the two places. We went to the house of Pablo Neruda, La Sebastiana, and I was impressed by the amazing view of the city and the port, the pastel colours of the houses, and the weird feeling of walking among ghosts. I met two Colombians on the tour, which also made it fun, and we had Telepizza (pronounces Telepisa, obviously) at Reñaca after having visited the place where the Viña del Mar International Song Festival takes place. I had never heard of this (should be ashamed), but they told me it's very famous and promising new talents perform here before becoming famous, like Shakira did.
CHILLÁN
With Carolina I visited Quinchamali, a small town by Chillán that could be considered a street, characterized by their black pottery (turns black when fired with soot) with white decorations. The three-legged chanchito, a three-legged piggy bank, is pretty characteristic. Needless to say, I was fascinated! First of all I love pottery, and second of all they get the clay from their own backyards! This is a really ancient tradition and women have been doing this type of greda negra for generations, selling it on their front porches and going to crafts markets with their pottery. They have a special room in the house where they fire the pieces at different temperatures and with the various techniques to turn the bright red pieces a polished black colour. She also showed us a room piled up to the ceiling with clay pieces, I had never seen so many in my life. A box of stuff was 20 000, so I think it was a good deal, but the best part was the feeling of buying really authentic stuff. When we were looking at the fresh clay, I immediately thought of my soils class and my soils teacher back at UBC, as she always got mad when people called soil "dirt". Well, this soil was definitely NOT dirt!
Chillán was also very nice, with a spacious and well-organized market where I got nuts and dried figs. They have a famous mural in Escuela México of the Mexican muralista David Alfaro Siqueiros. I didn’t see that one, unfortunately, but did go see the González Camarena mural at the Casa del Arte of the Universidad de Concepción, Presencia de América Latina, which was quite gorgeous.
Although I didn’t visit the southern part of the country, I was lucky enough to visit many other places. In the three months, I was in Santiago, Concepción, Temuco, Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, San Pedro de Atacama, Constitiución, Chillán, Paine and Cobquecura. Most of the trips were work-related (for meetings, visits to the native conservation forests, and research projects like the Islote Lobería Cobquecura for sea lion monitoring).
 |
| Pato punk en Paine. Here I visited a firend's friend, JC, who lived together with other nine people in a rented house and they led a pretty chill life revolving around things like permaculture |
I had a touristy week-end in Santiago, where I took the 18 000 pesos Turistik bus and travelled around the city. I visited Cerro El Caracol, where you take a cable car to the top and then enjoy the polluted view of the city. I also went to El Museo de La Moda, which houses clothing and paraphernalia from the 80s, and a street whose name I forget but all the fancy clothing stores are located here. And Los Dominicos, an expensive craft market for tourists with chicken running around the dusty streets. On the Turistik bus I continuously saw throughout the day a group of four ladies on their forties that tried to behave like Sex and The City.
 |
| Santiago City from Cerro El Caracol |
 |
| Metro Station in Santiago |
VIÑA AND VALPO
I went to Viña and Valparaiso another one of my week-ends in Santiago and had an unsettling trip with a gory, low-budget film that was just repulsive. No one seemed to mind this terrible choice of film for a bus, but I had to ask them to turn it off and get rid of the sound of breaking bones and knives. It was a rainy day in Valpo and Viña, and at the bus central I signed up for a 15 000 pesos tour of the two places. We went to the house of Pablo Neruda, La Sebastiana, and I was impressed by the amazing view of the city and the port, the pastel colours of the houses, and the weird feeling of walking among ghosts. I met two Colombians on the tour, which also made it fun, and we had Telepizza (pronounces Telepisa, obviously) at Reñaca after having visited the place where the Viña del Mar International Song Festival takes place. I had never heard of this (should be ashamed), but they told me it's very famous and promising new talents perform here before becoming famous, like Shakira did.
 | |
| Reñaca beach |
CHILLÁN
With Carolina I visited Quinchamali, a small town by Chillán that could be considered a street, characterized by their black pottery (turns black when fired with soot) with white decorations. The three-legged chanchito, a three-legged piggy bank, is pretty characteristic. Needless to say, I was fascinated! First of all I love pottery, and second of all they get the clay from their own backyards! This is a really ancient tradition and women have been doing this type of greda negra for generations, selling it on their front porches and going to crafts markets with their pottery. They have a special room in the house where they fire the pieces at different temperatures and with the various techniques to turn the bright red pieces a polished black colour. She also showed us a room piled up to the ceiling with clay pieces, I had never seen so many in my life. A box of stuff was 20 000, so I think it was a good deal, but the best part was the feeling of buying really authentic stuff. When we were looking at the fresh clay, I immediately thought of my soils class and my soils teacher back at UBC, as she always got mad when people called soil "dirt". Well, this soil was definitely NOT dirt!
Chillán was also very nice, with a spacious and well-organized market where I got nuts and dried figs. They have a famous mural in Escuela México of the Mexican muralista David Alfaro Siqueiros. I didn’t see that one, unfortunately, but did go see the González Camarena mural at the Casa del Arte of the Universidad de Concepción, Presencia de América Latina, which was quite gorgeous.
 |
| Greda negra de Quinchamali |
 |
| Presencia de América Latina at the Universidad de Concepción |
Last week in Santiago
July 20th, 2011
My last week in Santiago was a lot of fun! Everything about Santiago (where I worked, lived, people I hung out with) was very different to Concepción. Hehe for instance, I find that I was way more productive in my El Golf cubicle than in the office in Cocepción. I stayed working late many nights to finish the project, and Carolina visited Santiago one day. We went to the bar The Clinic and I had the best wine I’ve ever tried called borgoña (wine + sugar + strawberries, very yummy). With Carola things couldn’t have been better. We worked together really hard, and she’s an admirable person with a fantastic sense of humour so we got along just great!
Going to the desert alone = amazing last week in Santiago
This is because I met a bunch of people with which I hung out this week back in Santiago. With Tom, the French Sandboarder, and Paige, the Harvard Vancouverite, we had sushi, watched the Argentina-Uruguay football match, went to The Clinic (hmm do we see a pattern here), and then went dancing to a bar called Constitución. It was really fun and they didn’t know each other before this, I was the connecting point and I met both of them in San Pedro.
At the disco Constitución, we started in the centre, with a good amount of dancing space. As the night progressed we were surrounded and cornered by an army of kissing couples holding lit cigarettes while making out. We were encircled, with the couples surrounding us and pushing us around, dancing between us too. Some cigarette burns, annoyed looks and firm positioning later, we regained our territory.
The last night I went out with Andrea and her boyfriend Felipe to Gran Central, where we got a waiter that was socially awkward, he wouldn’t look at us in the eyes. I must say socially awkward people are exhausting.
The following day I ran around looking for exchange houses to get my chilean pesos from my salary changed into dollars. Of course I had waited for the last day to get presents, so I went to Santa Lucía market and bought alpaca sweaters and other presents. That day, I also heard about Amy Winehouse's death while I was eating rice and writing 22 postcards (yes, my hand did hurt after so much writing. And yes, they were all different.) I then spent my last few hours in Santiago packing my bags with my Spanish friends, Nuri and Xabi, which I met in San Pedro too! It was so great to form meaningful connections with really cool people :)
My last week in Santiago was a lot of fun! Everything about Santiago (where I worked, lived, people I hung out with) was very different to Concepción. Hehe for instance, I find that I was way more productive in my El Golf cubicle than in the office in Cocepción. I stayed working late many nights to finish the project, and Carolina visited Santiago one day. We went to the bar The Clinic and I had the best wine I’ve ever tried called borgoña (wine + sugar + strawberries, very yummy). With Carola things couldn’t have been better. We worked together really hard, and she’s an admirable person with a fantastic sense of humour so we got along just great!
Going to the desert alone = amazing last week in Santiago
This is because I met a bunch of people with which I hung out this week back in Santiago. With Tom, the French Sandboarder, and Paige, the Harvard Vancouverite, we had sushi, watched the Argentina-Uruguay football match, went to The Clinic (hmm do we see a pattern here), and then went dancing to a bar called Constitución. It was really fun and they didn’t know each other before this, I was the connecting point and I met both of them in San Pedro.
At the disco Constitución, we started in the centre, with a good amount of dancing space. As the night progressed we were surrounded and cornered by an army of kissing couples holding lit cigarettes while making out. We were encircled, with the couples surrounding us and pushing us around, dancing between us too. Some cigarette burns, annoyed looks and firm positioning later, we regained our territory.
The last night I went out with Andrea and her boyfriend Felipe to Gran Central, where we got a waiter that was socially awkward, he wouldn’t look at us in the eyes. I must say socially awkward people are exhausting.
The following day I ran around looking for exchange houses to get my chilean pesos from my salary changed into dollars. Of course I had waited for the last day to get presents, so I went to Santa Lucía market and bought alpaca sweaters and other presents. That day, I also heard about Amy Winehouse's death while I was eating rice and writing 22 postcards (yes, my hand did hurt after so much writing. And yes, they were all different.) I then spent my last few hours in Santiago packing my bags with my Spanish friends, Nuri and Xabi, which I met in San Pedro too! It was so great to form meaningful connections with really cool people :)
Chilean suitors - they're everywhere!
I had a couple funny incidents with Chilean guys. I had heard from co-workers that Chileans where supposed to be shy (at least compared to seductive Argentinean neighbors), but apparently not.
When I was in Conce for the first time and didn’t know anyone, I went to a classical music concert. Instead of sitting next to someone my age, I had to go sit next to this 45-year-old guy – we’ll call him Peter Pettigrew due to his uncanny resemblance – with whom I engaged in conversation. He was nice and worked for the same company I did and I guess he mistook my normal friendliness for something else because he started emailing the work email the following morning asking to meet up again. With really weird emails. And a lot of dot dot dots, like if he was sighing while writing about music and the coincidences in life… Hmmm. Well, after some carefully-crafted emails from my part and then ignoring his emails altogether Peter got the message and stopped.
After that, I was in Santiago eating at a restaurant, minding my own business without paying attention to anything but the food, when someone taps my shoulder. I turn and this short guy hands me a flower (a rose maybe?) made with a wrinkled and greasy paper napkin – it had leaves and everything! He also gave me a second wrinkled napkin with his email (one of those emails you wouldn’t use with your employer). I stood there with the two pieces of napkin in my hands and a stunned expression on my face of WTF, and he says “Un regalo para ti… a present” (so he thought I spoke English), and then left immediately, looking at the floor all the time. It was very brave of him to have done that, to be honest!!
From these two examples came tons of joke and other funny stories of the sort that happened to Carolina and me.
When I was in Conce for the first time and didn’t know anyone, I went to a classical music concert. Instead of sitting next to someone my age, I had to go sit next to this 45-year-old guy – we’ll call him Peter Pettigrew due to his uncanny resemblance – with whom I engaged in conversation. He was nice and worked for the same company I did and I guess he mistook my normal friendliness for something else because he started emailing the work email the following morning asking to meet up again. With really weird emails. And a lot of dot dot dots, like if he was sighing while writing about music and the coincidences in life… Hmmm. Well, after some carefully-crafted emails from my part and then ignoring his emails altogether Peter got the message and stopped.
After that, I was in Santiago eating at a restaurant, minding my own business without paying attention to anything but the food, when someone taps my shoulder. I turn and this short guy hands me a flower (a rose maybe?) made with a wrinkled and greasy paper napkin – it had leaves and everything! He also gave me a second wrinkled napkin with his email (one of those emails you wouldn’t use with your employer). I stood there with the two pieces of napkin in my hands and a stunned expression on my face of WTF, and he says “Un regalo para ti… a present” (so he thought I spoke English), and then left immediately, looking at the floor all the time. It was very brave of him to have done that, to be honest!!
From these two examples came tons of joke and other funny stories of the sort that happened to Carolina and me.
Cachai?? Sipo!
July 15th, 2011
My last month in Conce, as us locals refer to it (haha), was great!! I was staying at yet another apart hotel (Aurelio, which came after LaFayette, Germania, Dreams, and before Eurotel), going to some fun classes at the gym and meeting people. It’s so funny how networks and connections form, how friendships unravel thanks to mutual acquaintances and coincidences. The friends I made were usually friends of friends. Or I just met them randomly, like this one guy I met at a supermarket (he turned out to be a douche in the end). For example, Edgardo was Andrea’s acquaintance, which in turn was Valentina’s (my roomie in The Van) friend from a one-month camp in Brazil four years ago.
Some things I took note of this last month:
- One of the best things I got from Chile was WWW.CUEVANA.TV. I truly feel like I found a treasure!! Caro my sister thought the same when I showed it to her. And I have no idea why people in Mexico or Canada do not know about this. It’s an incredible website where you basically download a plugin for your web browser and you’re good to go: you can have access to thousands of movies and TV series, all with great quality and no time limits. Could wasting time get any easier?
Also, I became obsessed with a movie, Mr Nobody. It's a mash-up of science fiction, parallel realities and futuristic drama, all with a fantastic soundtrack. Definitely in my Top 10.
- Going to a casino as a poor student CAN be fun if a) you have a lot of luck, b) know what you’re doing so that you get all your money back and leave with either the same amount or more money, or c) find a partner to spend all night walking and running around the casino while the other friends are having fun at the DJs concert which you couldn’t afford. The night we went there, Oliver (the cutest and most amazing guy in Chile) and I stayed roaming around the casino till 5ish am waiting for the others to come out. It’s impressive how some people were making big bucks playing with those machines (but we have no indication of how much money they had lost). When I’m 21 I’m going to Vegas with Talis!
- Pisco sour, the delicious drink I mentioned before, may contain egg whites! Ewww. This version of the recipe uses eggs for consistency, but after witnessing the preparation I felt I was drinking a protein shake…
- Plan ahead when you’re thinking of going to the beach. So yeah, I will be going to the beach in a week, and it’s too late to go on a diet NOW. So I will look like a cow in bikini
- Good-bye parties and gatherings are really wonderful. And writing good-bye notes and letters is something basic; I cannot leave a place without writing everyone a note. I had a couple good-bye events with different people, and at the office I had two. We had a hot chocolate and pastries good-bye breakfast, and we also went to dance to a Tex Mex restaurant called Tijuana. We had Mexican food and I must say dancing with my co-workers till 3 am was something we should have done more often.
My last month in Conce, as us locals refer to it (haha), was great!! I was staying at yet another apart hotel (Aurelio, which came after LaFayette, Germania, Dreams, and before Eurotel), going to some fun classes at the gym and meeting people. It’s so funny how networks and connections form, how friendships unravel thanks to mutual acquaintances and coincidences. The friends I made were usually friends of friends. Or I just met them randomly, like this one guy I met at a supermarket (he turned out to be a douche in the end). For example, Edgardo was Andrea’s acquaintance, which in turn was Valentina’s (my roomie in The Van) friend from a one-month camp in Brazil four years ago.
Some things I took note of this last month:
- One of the best things I got from Chile was WWW.CUEVANA.TV. I truly feel like I found a treasure!! Caro my sister thought the same when I showed it to her. And I have no idea why people in Mexico or Canada do not know about this. It’s an incredible website where you basically download a plugin for your web browser and you’re good to go: you can have access to thousands of movies and TV series, all with great quality and no time limits. Could wasting time get any easier?
Also, I became obsessed with a movie, Mr Nobody. It's a mash-up of science fiction, parallel realities and futuristic drama, all with a fantastic soundtrack. Definitely in my Top 10.
- Going to a casino as a poor student CAN be fun if a) you have a lot of luck, b) know what you’re doing so that you get all your money back and leave with either the same amount or more money, or c) find a partner to spend all night walking and running around the casino while the other friends are having fun at the DJs concert which you couldn’t afford. The night we went there, Oliver (the cutest and most amazing guy in Chile) and I stayed roaming around the casino till 5ish am waiting for the others to come out. It’s impressive how some people were making big bucks playing with those machines (but we have no indication of how much money they had lost). When I’m 21 I’m going to Vegas with Talis!
- Pisco sour, the delicious drink I mentioned before, may contain egg whites! Ewww. This version of the recipe uses eggs for consistency, but after witnessing the preparation I felt I was drinking a protein shake…
- Plan ahead when you’re thinking of going to the beach. So yeah, I will be going to the beach in a week, and it’s too late to go on a diet NOW. So I will look like a cow in bikini
- Good-bye parties and gatherings are really wonderful. And writing good-bye notes and letters is something basic; I cannot leave a place without writing everyone a note. I had a couple good-bye events with different people, and at the office I had two. We had a hot chocolate and pastries good-bye breakfast, and we also went to dance to a Tex Mex restaurant called Tijuana. We had Mexican food and I must say dancing with my co-workers till 3 am was something we should have done more often.
 |
| View of la desembocadura del Biobío, the widest river in Chile. I went with Carola the last week in Conce. |
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The San Pedro de Atacama Experience - The Four Day Edition Special!
[ADRIANITO: Volé de Santiago al aereopuerto de Calama, en donde fui recogida por una caravana de beduinos nómadas. Tenían el campamento cerca del aereopuerto, entre unas dunas rodeadas de palmeras. Como aquí en el Hemisferio Sur el sol está en el norte, nos resguardabamos del sol ardiente en la sombra del sur de la duna. Estaban abasteciendo las reservas de comida en la ciudad, pues salíamos esa misma tarde para El Oasis de Los Camellos, que se encontraba a 100 km de distancia. Iba a ser una larga travesía a pie. Me cambié de ropa en la tienda de las mujeres, y me asignaron una compañera por el fin de semana, Sahida, que tenía mi edad. Dejé todo lo que llevaba y me puse a ayudar a empacar las pertenencias de los que serían, por los próximos días, mi familia. Al final no salimos ese día, pues en el desierto se desató una tormenta de arena de las que no se veían en años. Pasamos una noche intranquila, y en la mañana pudimos apreciar los estragos que el viento había ocasionado en el campamento. Rishan, el padre de Sahida, nos pidió que atendieramos a los camellos. Fuimos a cepillarlos y a darles de comer, para que estuvieran presentables para el viaje hacia el oasis. Antes de comenzar la ruta fuimos a recoger unos cuantos cocos de los cocoteros para tener agua y comida para el camino. FIN]
I just came back from an awesome awesome week-end! I had monday 27th off for San Pedro y San Pablo and I asked for friday 24th, so I had a good amount of time to go to San Pedro de Atacama. AND I discovered how to create slideshows, which automatically put the copyright watermark on all the pictures. And some pictures are upside down. If you can't see the slideshows below just go to the very bottom of the page to access the albums.
DAY 1: Departure day
I flew from Concepción to Santiago at 11pm, got there an hour later. And then waited seven hours in the airport for my morning flight. Yep, SEVEN hours... I couldn't even sleep, it was too cold and there was this commercial going on and on on TV, I wanted to smash all of the televisions with a rock or something... My ticket for Conce-Santiago-Calama and back was 157.000 pesos. I could have saved tons by taking the night bus to Santiago, which would have been smarter cause I would have been able to sleep.
DAY 2: Arrival day
My flight left Santiago at 7am and we got to Calama at 9am. I had ordered an airport transfer to San Pedro, so a bunch of people from different flights were put in a van. We drove for an hour and a half. The scenery was beautiful. Most of the ride was barren land, with not a single plant or animal visible in the distance. Mountains had sharp edges which contrasted with the soft pastel colours. We crossed the Salar de Atacama, the third largest in the world (the first two are Oyuni in Bolivia and Salt Lake in th US). I sat next to a girl who turned out to be from Vancouver so we became friends and we talked all the way. The van dropped all the passengers off at the different hostels. It turns out every single house in San Pedro is either a hostel, a tourist agency, or a craft shop.
My hostel, El Anexo (La Casa de Esteban) was a couple mintues away by foot from the main plaza, which was great because you felt surrounded by nature and a bit less of a tourist. The road outside was a dirt road, and you had to cross a wooden gate that brought you to a dirt walkway surrounded by trees and hammocks, and the trail led you to the hostel.
In the slideshow you can see bits and pieces of the hostel. It was so pretty! The whole hostel was made with adobe, and the roof was made with some kind of hay. So after walking the dirt road, you got to the entrance of the main patio, the hang-out spot. Everyone always gathered here, either around the fire of the oven at night or around the rock table to enjoy the sun during the day. The adobe oven was where this french guy made french baguette every morning starting at 4 am. The reception was a roof connected to the kitchen. Under the roof there was a large wood table and a smaller table with speakers that were always playing chill music and a laptop we could use for internet. The main building had an internal patio faced by all the doors, which were all different colours. We had two shared bathrooms too, and they were always clean. I was supposed to get a double room with shared bathroom for 16.000 a night, but then I became friends with this really nice girl that was living at the hostel indefinitely so we decided to share, which was a great experience. I miss having a roommate! I know because it felt awesome when we introduced to each other's friends "This is my roommate"! So in summary, I payed 8.000 pesos for each night.
After leaving my stuff, I went with Paige (that's the girl that goes to Harvard I met on the transfer bus) to explore San Pedro and to register for an afternoon tour. We had a delicious meal at an adobe restaurant called Las Estacas (everything is made with adobe) for 6.000 which is not super cheap but not that expensive compared to some restaurants in Santiago. So we didn't feel that ripped off. Tours were on average 10.000 pesos each (some, like Valle de la Luna, were 7.000 and some were 15.000) We took a tour that included the following:
LAGUNA CEJAR - this is a lagoon five km south of San Pedro, formed by the accumulation of precipitated salts in an old saline lake. This type of high elevation wetland is known as a bofedal. Two lagoons, Cejar and Piedras, were surrounded by an amazing view of the Andes and especially the Licancabur, Lascar and Corona volcanoes. The lagoons' edges had sharp salt crystals on their shores, so we were not supposed to walk there barefoot. But we did. And we swam in Laguna Cejar. The water was the bluest BLUE because of the lithium in it (apparently), but the coolest thing however was the fact that the salt concentrations were so high that you could float effortlessly. It was amazing to be floating in a vertical position without needing to move your feet. The other really weird thing was that the top of the water was freezing, but the bottom was very warm with hot currents, so our legs and feet were doing great. Isn't it supposed to be the other way round?
OJOS DEL SALADO - these are two artificial holes in the ground created when someone was looking for oil. The cool thing here is the reflection, which is so clear it's like a mirror. Everyone was taking pictures of the reflections from across the opposite side. You could also jump in the water, but everyone was too cold from the salty lagoon.
LAGUNA TEBINQUINCHE - This was a huge lake which was very shallow, so you could walk to the middle of it barefoot and the water would only cover your feet. The bottom of the lagoon was pure salt. And the shores had a combination of salt and hard soil shaped like starfish. I felt what I can assume walking on starfish feels like! We watched the sunset here, with the volcanoes and the pink sky, and then we drank pisco sour, which is only the best drink I've every tried!
We went back to San Pedro and we had dinner with Paige's friends.
DAY 3: Being a tourist day
In the morning I had to wake up at 6 am to go on the tour for Laguna Chaxa. We drove through Tambio, were some llamas were crossing the street. Here there are four so-called 'American camels' : the llama and alpaca are domestic, and the vicuña and guanaco are wild. We saw the llamas eating tamarugo trees, which were apparently brought from India.
TOCONAO - Here I got a hat that made me look even more like a tourist. This town has 500 people living in it and most of them work in lithium mining. Here there is a lithium mine that produces 60% of the world's lithium, imagine that! What is lithium used for? Medicines, batteries, TV, tons of things. Houses were not built with adobe, but with volcanic licarite.
LAGUNA CHAXA - were the falmingos are! We walked through the Salar the Atacama to get to the Lagoon. There are no plants and very few mammals, like a tiny mouse you can see sometimes. But the conditions are right for there to be tons of unicellular algae and microscopic invertebrates, which are the flamingos' food! It was crazy walking through this desert of salt. The flamingos were kind of far and I wished I had a pair of binoculars with me. But we learnt many cool facts! For examples, flamingos live 25 years and they have a baby every year. Also, they are pink because the shrimp they eat is pink. And when they are young they have tons of partners, but then when they get older they stay with their partner for life.
SOCAIRE - a very depressing little town where the most interesting thing was the church. But everything looked abandoned and under construction. Later that day I was trying to remember which town Socaire was, and Nuri my friend from Spain was like "mmm that town where you took off your pants". She meant where I changed from my jeans to shorts, because it was too hot. But that's the most memorable thing, the town where I took off my pants...
A super magical thing happened here too! So there is this point in the highway where "the Earth's magnetic field is reversed" and magnetic objects are moved uphill. So we were driving down a slope, the driver stopped the van, turned off the motor, and slowly but surely the van started rolling UPHILL! And it started gaining speed and up we went. I have no idea how that happened. The magnetic field thing sounds like bullshit so it must have been an optical illusion, where we were really going downhill but it looked like uphill?? I was amazed.
Later that day:
VALLEY OF DEATH: This place is like being in a live geography classroom! Miss David would love it! You could see the enormous mineral sculptures formed by wind and rain all around you. The geological origin comes from an emerged lake, where old layers of sediment and rock where pushed and folded by the movement of the Earth's crust, lifting the Andes Mountain Range. You could see a huge part of the Salar de Atacama (Atacama Salt Plains) from here, amazing white brilliance made up of salt hills, gypsum and clay. The tour guide got us out of the van, collected everyone's cameras, and lined us up in a good spot which apparently everyone wanted, and he systematically took pictures of us. He was a photo machine. This place is called Valle de la Muerte because one of the following (every tour guide told a different story) a) nothing grows here, b) someone died here, c) this french guy Gustavo La Paige wanted to say Valle de MARTE but thanks to his french pronunciation the meaning got lost in translation, or d) cattle died here when people were crossing to Argentina.
VALLEY OF THE MOON: To get here we stopped at the Salt Caves. The guy that was taking us was so clumsy he tripped with his own feet. He was like, "Ok, so we're going inside the cave now. It's dark, so we will divide the flashlights and you follow someone with a light. We will cross an area where we will need to crawl to get through. Follow me, be VERY careful with your head and back.. Ok, let's go!" and he would turn and smack his face against a rock he hadn't seen.
After watching him fall and stuff, we went to a huge sand dune which we climbed in order to see the sunset from here. Then, more pisco sour!
That night I had a great time with these two French couples and a Spanish couple I met on the tours! We went to have dinner and a couple of drinks, and I was impressed by how well I could communicate in French. I had absolutely no problem speaking and I understood everything, even when they were speaking super fast. I really want to continue with that language now!!
DAY 4: The busiest day
GEYSERS EL TATIO: The geysers had been closed for a couple days because the road was blocked with snow. But on Sunday they finally opened! I woke up at 3am to go see them. They picked me up at 4am and we got there at 6am. Ok, so the geysers were my favourite thing!!! I had never seen geothermal activity like that. It was a huge field with water vapour everywhere. And it's only like that in the morning. As the day becomes warmer, the activity stops. It was not that cold but my hands were FREEZING because I was taking pictures. For breakfast we had bread, coffee and hard boiled eggs, cooked in a geyser in a plastic bag! We also went to some hot springs were we could swim if we wanted to. Of course I wanted to. So the brave ones took off their clothes and jumped in the warm water, which is heated thanks to magmatic activity in the Earth's crust. There were parts where boiling water came out of the sand, so you had to be careful. I burnt my foot because I got too close to a boiling point. But it felt so good to be in that water! I thought it would be like an Indian bath with everyone stuck in the hot springs, but most people didn't feel like swimming.
GENERAL SIGHTSEEING: We crossed so many different landscapes that day. We saw vicuña, which apparently produce 350 grams of wool every three years, which is why a vicuña sweater costs like tons of money. People used to kill them before, but now CONAF goes after them, puts them to sleep, shears them and gives the wool to the locals. Another thing we saw from the bus were huge dark spots in the middle of the desert. It turns out vicuñas poop in the same spot all the time, something that has to do with finding their way back. So they have bathrooms! We also went to a lake and saw tons of birds. There's the Tagua, which walks really awkwardly and that's were the Chilean expression for when you're drunk "caminar como Tagua" comes from.
MACHUCA: A town formed by less than twenty houses. No more than ten people live here at any given time. People stop here to a) go to the bathroom, b) have a look at the church, and c) try llama meat. This one is the most popular. Hordes of tourists were lined up to try brochetas y empanadas de llama. It felt weird invading this lost little town in the middle of nowhere, not knowing anything about those eight people that live there. The houses had wooden crosses on the roofs, a sign of religious syncretism.
CACTUS VALLEY: A valley filled with Equinopsis atacamensis cacti. They were HUGE! They can live like 300 years and they can be up to 12 metres tall. The ones we saw were like 8 metres tall. I didn't go all the way to the cacti because I stayed with Patricio the tour guide putting conical shaped rocks on top of other rocks. He called it verticalidad geologica. So we would get any rock with an elongated shape and a sharp tip, and balance it perfectly on top of any large boulder. It was just amazing. He would put one on top of the other too! Another thing that was like magic. VALE: Man is that weird, or what?!!?
SANDBOARD: In the afternoon I went sandboarding! It was so much fun. The only problem was that, unlike snowboard, you had to walk up the dune and there was no lift. The instructor sucked, he was like, "Yeah so you can do it however feels good for you..." Hmm thanks. They made videos of us, but I didn't go pick mine up because I left the following day.
STAR TOUR: At night I went with some other French friends to the see the stars. The stars in the desert are just amazing, in case you didn't know. We were driven to the middle of the desert to an observatory this French astronomer started eight years ago. We were taught about the constellations, and the astronomers would point at the sky with green laser that would reach all the way up! We then looked into telescopes to look at Saturn and specific stars. Really fun. We then had hot chocolare (well, ours was warm because we stayed out too much looking through the telescope). There's this awesome iPhone app that shows you the constellations when you point your phone to the sky. You should get it, it's called Pocket Universe.
I just came back from an awesome awesome week-end! I had monday 27th off for San Pedro y San Pablo and I asked for friday 24th, so I had a good amount of time to go to San Pedro de Atacama. AND I discovered how to create slideshows, which automatically put the copyright watermark on all the pictures. And some pictures are upside down. If you can't see the slideshows below just go to the very bottom of the page to access the albums.
DAY 1: Departure day
I flew from Concepción to Santiago at 11pm, got there an hour later. And then waited seven hours in the airport for my morning flight. Yep, SEVEN hours... I couldn't even sleep, it was too cold and there was this commercial going on and on on TV, I wanted to smash all of the televisions with a rock or something... My ticket for Conce-Santiago-Calama and back was 157.000 pesos. I could have saved tons by taking the night bus to Santiago, which would have been smarter cause I would have been able to sleep.
DAY 2: Arrival day
My flight left Santiago at 7am and we got to Calama at 9am. I had ordered an airport transfer to San Pedro, so a bunch of people from different flights were put in a van. We drove for an hour and a half. The scenery was beautiful. Most of the ride was barren land, with not a single plant or animal visible in the distance. Mountains had sharp edges which contrasted with the soft pastel colours. We crossed the Salar de Atacama, the third largest in the world (the first two are Oyuni in Bolivia and Salt Lake in th US). I sat next to a girl who turned out to be from Vancouver so we became friends and we talked all the way. The van dropped all the passengers off at the different hostels. It turns out every single house in San Pedro is either a hostel, a tourist agency, or a craft shop.
My hostel, El Anexo (La Casa de Esteban) was a couple mintues away by foot from the main plaza, which was great because you felt surrounded by nature and a bit less of a tourist. The road outside was a dirt road, and you had to cross a wooden gate that brought you to a dirt walkway surrounded by trees and hammocks, and the trail led you to the hostel.
In the slideshow you can see bits and pieces of the hostel. It was so pretty! The whole hostel was made with adobe, and the roof was made with some kind of hay. So after walking the dirt road, you got to the entrance of the main patio, the hang-out spot. Everyone always gathered here, either around the fire of the oven at night or around the rock table to enjoy the sun during the day. The adobe oven was where this french guy made french baguette every morning starting at 4 am. The reception was a roof connected to the kitchen. Under the roof there was a large wood table and a smaller table with speakers that were always playing chill music and a laptop we could use for internet. The main building had an internal patio faced by all the doors, which were all different colours. We had two shared bathrooms too, and they were always clean. I was supposed to get a double room with shared bathroom for 16.000 a night, but then I became friends with this really nice girl that was living at the hostel indefinitely so we decided to share, which was a great experience. I miss having a roommate! I know because it felt awesome when we introduced to each other's friends "This is my roommate"! So in summary, I payed 8.000 pesos for each night.
After leaving my stuff, I went with Paige (that's the girl that goes to Harvard I met on the transfer bus) to explore San Pedro and to register for an afternoon tour. We had a delicious meal at an adobe restaurant called Las Estacas (everything is made with adobe) for 6.000 which is not super cheap but not that expensive compared to some restaurants in Santiago. So we didn't feel that ripped off. Tours were on average 10.000 pesos each (some, like Valle de la Luna, were 7.000 and some were 15.000) We took a tour that included the following:
LAGUNA CEJAR - this is a lagoon five km south of San Pedro, formed by the accumulation of precipitated salts in an old saline lake. This type of high elevation wetland is known as a bofedal. Two lagoons, Cejar and Piedras, were surrounded by an amazing view of the Andes and especially the Licancabur, Lascar and Corona volcanoes. The lagoons' edges had sharp salt crystals on their shores, so we were not supposed to walk there barefoot. But we did. And we swam in Laguna Cejar. The water was the bluest BLUE because of the lithium in it (apparently), but the coolest thing however was the fact that the salt concentrations were so high that you could float effortlessly. It was amazing to be floating in a vertical position without needing to move your feet. The other really weird thing was that the top of the water was freezing, but the bottom was very warm with hot currents, so our legs and feet were doing great. Isn't it supposed to be the other way round?
OJOS DEL SALADO - these are two artificial holes in the ground created when someone was looking for oil. The cool thing here is the reflection, which is so clear it's like a mirror. Everyone was taking pictures of the reflections from across the opposite side. You could also jump in the water, but everyone was too cold from the salty lagoon.
LAGUNA TEBINQUINCHE - This was a huge lake which was very shallow, so you could walk to the middle of it barefoot and the water would only cover your feet. The bottom of the lagoon was pure salt. And the shores had a combination of salt and hard soil shaped like starfish. I felt what I can assume walking on starfish feels like! We watched the sunset here, with the volcanoes and the pink sky, and then we drank pisco sour, which is only the best drink I've every tried!
We went back to San Pedro and we had dinner with Paige's friends.
DAY 3: Being a tourist day
In the morning I had to wake up at 6 am to go on the tour for Laguna Chaxa. We drove through Tambio, were some llamas were crossing the street. Here there are four so-called 'American camels' : the llama and alpaca are domestic, and the vicuña and guanaco are wild. We saw the llamas eating tamarugo trees, which were apparently brought from India.
TOCONAO - Here I got a hat that made me look even more like a tourist. This town has 500 people living in it and most of them work in lithium mining. Here there is a lithium mine that produces 60% of the world's lithium, imagine that! What is lithium used for? Medicines, batteries, TV, tons of things. Houses were not built with adobe, but with volcanic licarite.
LAGUNA CHAXA - were the falmingos are! We walked through the Salar the Atacama to get to the Lagoon. There are no plants and very few mammals, like a tiny mouse you can see sometimes. But the conditions are right for there to be tons of unicellular algae and microscopic invertebrates, which are the flamingos' food! It was crazy walking through this desert of salt. The flamingos were kind of far and I wished I had a pair of binoculars with me. But we learnt many cool facts! For examples, flamingos live 25 years and they have a baby every year. Also, they are pink because the shrimp they eat is pink. And when they are young they have tons of partners, but then when they get older they stay with their partner for life.
SOCAIRE - a very depressing little town where the most interesting thing was the church. But everything looked abandoned and under construction. Later that day I was trying to remember which town Socaire was, and Nuri my friend from Spain was like "mmm that town where you took off your pants". She meant where I changed from my jeans to shorts, because it was too hot. But that's the most memorable thing, the town where I took off my pants...
A super magical thing happened here too! So there is this point in the highway where "the Earth's magnetic field is reversed" and magnetic objects are moved uphill. So we were driving down a slope, the driver stopped the van, turned off the motor, and slowly but surely the van started rolling UPHILL! And it started gaining speed and up we went. I have no idea how that happened. The magnetic field thing sounds like bullshit so it must have been an optical illusion, where we were really going downhill but it looked like uphill?? I was amazed.
Later that day:
VALLEY OF DEATH: This place is like being in a live geography classroom! Miss David would love it! You could see the enormous mineral sculptures formed by wind and rain all around you. The geological origin comes from an emerged lake, where old layers of sediment and rock where pushed and folded by the movement of the Earth's crust, lifting the Andes Mountain Range. You could see a huge part of the Salar de Atacama (Atacama Salt Plains) from here, amazing white brilliance made up of salt hills, gypsum and clay. The tour guide got us out of the van, collected everyone's cameras, and lined us up in a good spot which apparently everyone wanted, and he systematically took pictures of us. He was a photo machine. This place is called Valle de la Muerte because one of the following (every tour guide told a different story) a) nothing grows here, b) someone died here, c) this french guy Gustavo La Paige wanted to say Valle de MARTE but thanks to his french pronunciation the meaning got lost in translation, or d) cattle died here when people were crossing to Argentina.
VALLEY OF THE MOON: To get here we stopped at the Salt Caves. The guy that was taking us was so clumsy he tripped with his own feet. He was like, "Ok, so we're going inside the cave now. It's dark, so we will divide the flashlights and you follow someone with a light. We will cross an area where we will need to crawl to get through. Follow me, be VERY careful with your head and back.. Ok, let's go!" and he would turn and smack his face against a rock he hadn't seen.
After watching him fall and stuff, we went to a huge sand dune which we climbed in order to see the sunset from here. Then, more pisco sour!
That night I had a great time with these two French couples and a Spanish couple I met on the tours! We went to have dinner and a couple of drinks, and I was impressed by how well I could communicate in French. I had absolutely no problem speaking and I understood everything, even when they were speaking super fast. I really want to continue with that language now!!
DAY 4: The busiest day
GEYSERS EL TATIO: The geysers had been closed for a couple days because the road was blocked with snow. But on Sunday they finally opened! I woke up at 3am to go see them. They picked me up at 4am and we got there at 6am. Ok, so the geysers were my favourite thing!!! I had never seen geothermal activity like that. It was a huge field with water vapour everywhere. And it's only like that in the morning. As the day becomes warmer, the activity stops. It was not that cold but my hands were FREEZING because I was taking pictures. For breakfast we had bread, coffee and hard boiled eggs, cooked in a geyser in a plastic bag! We also went to some hot springs were we could swim if we wanted to. Of course I wanted to. So the brave ones took off their clothes and jumped in the warm water, which is heated thanks to magmatic activity in the Earth's crust. There were parts where boiling water came out of the sand, so you had to be careful. I burnt my foot because I got too close to a boiling point. But it felt so good to be in that water! I thought it would be like an Indian bath with everyone stuck in the hot springs, but most people didn't feel like swimming.
GENERAL SIGHTSEEING: We crossed so many different landscapes that day. We saw vicuña, which apparently produce 350 grams of wool every three years, which is why a vicuña sweater costs like tons of money. People used to kill them before, but now CONAF goes after them, puts them to sleep, shears them and gives the wool to the locals. Another thing we saw from the bus were huge dark spots in the middle of the desert. It turns out vicuñas poop in the same spot all the time, something that has to do with finding their way back. So they have bathrooms! We also went to a lake and saw tons of birds. There's the Tagua, which walks really awkwardly and that's were the Chilean expression for when you're drunk "caminar como Tagua" comes from.
MACHUCA: A town formed by less than twenty houses. No more than ten people live here at any given time. People stop here to a) go to the bathroom, b) have a look at the church, and c) try llama meat. This one is the most popular. Hordes of tourists were lined up to try brochetas y empanadas de llama. It felt weird invading this lost little town in the middle of nowhere, not knowing anything about those eight people that live there. The houses had wooden crosses on the roofs, a sign of religious syncretism.
CACTUS VALLEY: A valley filled with Equinopsis atacamensis cacti. They were HUGE! They can live like 300 years and they can be up to 12 metres tall. The ones we saw were like 8 metres tall. I didn't go all the way to the cacti because I stayed with Patricio the tour guide putting conical shaped rocks on top of other rocks. He called it verticalidad geologica. So we would get any rock with an elongated shape and a sharp tip, and balance it perfectly on top of any large boulder. It was just amazing. He would put one on top of the other too! Another thing that was like magic. VALE: Man is that weird, or what?!!?
SANDBOARD: In the afternoon I went sandboarding! It was so much fun. The only problem was that, unlike snowboard, you had to walk up the dune and there was no lift. The instructor sucked, he was like, "Yeah so you can do it however feels good for you..." Hmm thanks. They made videos of us, but I didn't go pick mine up because I left the following day.
STAR TOUR: At night I went with some other French friends to the see the stars. The stars in the desert are just amazing, in case you didn't know. We were driven to the middle of the desert to an observatory this French astronomer started eight years ago. We were taught about the constellations, and the astronomers would point at the sky with green laser that would reach all the way up! We then looked into telescopes to look at Saturn and specific stars. Really fun. We then had hot chocolare (well, ours was warm because we stayed out too much looking through the telescope). There's this awesome iPhone app that shows you the constellations when you point your phone to the sky. You should get it, it's called Pocket Universe.
 |
| El Anexo (La Casa de Esteban) |
 |
| DAY 2 |
 |
| DAY 3 |
 |
| DAY 4 |
Sunday, June 12, 2011
The Coolest iPhone Apps
I became obsessed with two things during exam period (great, just great): How I Met Your Mother (what up) and iPhone applications... Most of them are free so there was nothing standing between them and me... Here is a list of my favourite apps:
INSTAGRAM
TWITTER
QIK VIDEO
FLICKIT
TUMBLR
Great for posting and reblogging on the go to your Tumblr blog! I use this blog mostly for reblogging pictures, but this app is great especially if you post your own pictures.
To listen to music
TUNE IN RADIO
REMOTE
SHAZAM
DEEZER
RANDOMRADIO
LADIDA
SNOWTAPE
This is for recording songs off the radio. You just hit record and then you can go back and listen to them as many times as you want.
To be productive
DROPBOX
CAMSCANNER
IBOOK
I love free stuff, and man there are so many free books you can get here! It's a bit hard with an iPhone because of the scree size, but while I get an iPad (yep, so I made up my mind. In Singapore I will get an iPad, seeing as to how I didn't succeed in winning one) the iPhone does a good job.
BUMP
Allows you to share information with other iPhones when you bump them together!
AUTOCAD WS
Great for architecture students and for anyone interested in experimenting with a simpler version of the computer Autocad.
APZILLA
The free version has 16 apps, including Clinometer, Dice and Passwords. If you upgrade you get 100+ apps.
To find your way
NEARME
GEOCACHING
So I've never actually used this, but I LOVE the concept! Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunt where players search for hidden objects, called geocaches, left there by other players. I saw there is a treasure 2.8 km away from where I am so I'll go look for it next week-end.
In order to use my phone abroad, I went to this place to get it jailbroken. The Apple warranty is void for jailbroken phones, but as you update the OS iPhone version the jailbreak disappears. So I am good as long as I don't drop it in the toilet again or do something to it that won't allow me to connect it to my Mac to erase the traces of jailbrokenness. I just changed the theme, but I hear I could potentially downloading I don't know how many other apps that are not in the App Store...
To procrastinate & just for fun
After you download this, you can go to Settings> General> Keyboard> International Keyboard> Add New Keyboard and then you can add emojis in your texts anywhere in your iPhone to better express your emotions with elephants and flowers! No one will see them unless they have an iPhone, though. It's kind of annoying when people overuse them. Very annoying.
MOUTH OFF
MOLECULES
SITUATIONIST
I got this because it's from the creators of This book will change your life, a super fun book that cracks me up. It's to create extremely uncomfortable situations between two people that have this app. You get Push notifications when another person with Situationist is around you, and you get the picture they uploaded of themselves so that you can recognize them. You also get a message with instructions of what to do. They include stuff like "Wave at me like a long-lost friend", "Ask me for my autograph", and "Help me rouse everyone around us into revolutionary fervour and storm the nearest TV station".
YEARBOOK YOURSELF
There are tons of apps for pasting your face on different bodies. This is just one I really like.
To communicate
WHATSAPP
VIBER
FACEBOOK
To do stuff with pictures
PHOTOTROPEDELIC
DYNAMIC LIGHT
TINY PLANETS
THUMBA
PANORAMA
360
PERCOLATOR
For converting your pictures into dot images! Below if a picture of a fruit stand with a girl eating a watermelon in the background.
DIPTIC
With this app you can create different compositions with your pictures. You need to pay for it, and there is another app that does the same for free but I forget what it is called...
COLOR EFFECTS
I love this free app! You can make pictures into B&W and colour only the sections you want, either with the original colour or different colours. All of this using your fingers. The only problem I've had is that images loose quality.
PHOTO DAILY
LIVEFX
This app is for effects similar to the PhotoBooth effects of Macs. You need to take the pictures directly with this app though.
PHOTOMESS
Allows you to create collages with your pictures. On a "cork" background.
PHOTOHYPE
For rotating and straightening pictures. Really simple app but useful for those annoyingly crooked pictures.
TILT SHIFT GEN
For focusing on particular areas in a picture and making the rest blurry. You can get some really really nice shots with this. The only problem is that with the free version you need to take the pictures directly with the app.
STUMBLEUPON
Discover the best of the web, recommended just for you! You can find the coolest things online using this app. It's great when you have nothing to do and you just want to browse the web to find interesting things.
IDAFT
You can play around to make your own combinations of that voice saying things like call it, find it, unlock it, technologic, update it, print it, rename it.
EMOJI
After you download this, you can go to Settings> General> Keyboard> International Keyboard> Add New Keyboard and then you can add emojis in your texts anywhere in your iPhone to better express your emotions with elephants and flowers! No one will see them unless they have an iPhone, though. It's kind of annoying when people overuse them. Very annoying.You get a bunch of monster mouths to choose from, and then you put the iPhone in front of your mouth and speak. The mouths move, it's very funny.
For those science geeks! This app lets you move molecules around, really good for visualizing abstract chemistry concept.s
SITUATIONIST
I got this because it's from the creators of This book will change your life, a super fun book that cracks me up. It's to create extremely uncomfortable situations between two people that have this app. You get Push notifications when another person with Situationist is around you, and you get the picture they uploaded of themselves so that you can recognize them. You also get a message with instructions of what to do. They include stuff like "Wave at me like a long-lost friend", "Ask me for my autograph", and "Help me rouse everyone around us into revolutionary fervour and storm the nearest TV station".
There are tons of apps for pasting your face on different bodies. This is just one I really like.
To communicate
Allows you to message other iPhone AND Blackberry users that have WhatsApp installed. You can send pictures and a map with your location which is pretty cool! It's pretty popular, especially among iPhone users, but it costs $1 so not everyone has it. You need an internet connection to use it.
This one is a free app and you can message and CALL other Viber users for free.
You can set the settings to get Push notifications every time you get a FB notification. Great for uploading pictures on the move.
SKYPE
Skype is the new MSN Messenger. And the new telephone. So having it as an app is very useful to communicate with everyone on the go. You can make calls with Wi-fi and with 3G as well.
To do stuff with pictures
This app is to create cartoon-like pictures with stars and nice colours. There are tons of settings you can change to get the pictures exactly as you want them. Here is a picture of the original and the Photo Tropedelic version.
This app is great for making your pictures more powerful, especially really dark pictures. Especially good for landscapes and pictures of clouds, but not to be used for people. Below is a before and after set of pics.
This app is fantastic. It's to turn landscapes into tiny planets! The first example below is not great but I love the colours. The second is four different tiny planets merged together into a piece called Acceleration.
This is pretty simple, but just to make corrections like saturation, exposure and brightness. Useful to edit pictures here before using other apps.
One of my favourite apps! It's to make panoramic pictures. You take up to five pictures one and then Panorama merges them together.
This one is for taking panoramic pictures too. It's not like Panorama where you take a bunch of pictures, but instead you just move the camera around really slowly, like a video, and the app creates the picture.
For converting your pictures into dot images! Below if a picture of a fruit stand with a girl eating a watermelon in the background.
With this app you can create different compositions with your pictures. You need to pay for it, and there is another app that does the same for free but I forget what it is called...
COLOR EFFECTS
I love this free app! You can make pictures into B&W and colour only the sections you want, either with the original colour or different colours. All of this using your fingers. The only problem I've had is that images loose quality.
Nice filters.
CAMERA BAG
Many interesting filters to apply to your pictures.
LIVEFX
This app is for effects similar to the PhotoBooth effects of Macs. You need to take the pictures directly with this app though.
Allows you to create collages with your pictures. On a "cork" background.
For rotating and straightening pictures. Really simple app but useful for those annoyingly crooked pictures.
For focusing on particular areas in a picture and making the rest blurry. You can get some really really nice shots with this. The only problem is that with the free version you need to take the pictures directly with the app.
To share your life
I had never heard of Instragram, but this is not just a normal app. When I got it, it was like opening a door to this close-knit community of IGers. They are super intense about the whole thing, and there are even IG meet-ups and stuff like that. You basically upload pictures and you can use many cool filters, and then people like your pictures and leave comments (with an over use of emojis). You can follow people and people can follow you to get your pictures on their feeds (my name is ladylaser, if you want to check out my feed). If you get a lot of likes for the number of followers you have in a short period of time, you make it to the Popular page. And then more people see you pictures and follow you. That's the ultimate goal most IGers have, to make it to the Popular page. I had this really cool experience where this lady loved one of my pictures of a cherry blossom and she made a painting of the photo! You should totally get this app, at least for the filters, or to make friends too.
I've recently discovered Twitter and that's thanks to this app, which makes it super easy to follow people or organizations you're interested in.
You can video chat and share videos with friends that have Qik. You need to record the videos directly from the app though, and to upload from Camera Roll you need to get the paid version.
If you use Flickr for your pictures, you probably know how annoying the Flickr app is. This one makes picture uploading super easy!
Great for posting and reblogging on the go to your Tumblr blog! I use this blog mostly for reblogging pictures, but this app is great especially if you post your own pictures.
To listen to music
AMAZING radio app, allows you to listen to pretty much every radio station in the world. I've tried tons of radio apps and this one is by far the best. You get all the stations, the program names, and you can even re-listen to the songs.
With this app, you can control your iTunes without leaving the couch! You need an internet connection. I've never actually had a situation where I was listening to music without being right next to my computer, but hey if that ever happened I would have this app to control the music.
This is to solve that annoying situation when you hear the best song ever but you're never able to find out what that song was. You record part of the song for like five seconds and then Shazam tells you which song it is. You need internet (but you can also record and then save for when you have internet) and the free version allows you to identify five songs a month.
Used to be my favourite website to listen to music online (until they changed it and put restrictions on the songs you could listen to), but Deezer radio is awesome for discovering new music!
It shows you random radios from around the world. I used to really like it, but you need to pay for it so if you want a free radio just get Tune In Radio.
This is a really fun app for creating songs! You record yourself singing and then pick a beat and a style and the app creates a song modifying your voice and changing the tones so that you sound better.
SNOWTAPEThis is for recording songs off the radio. You just hit record and then you can go back and listen to them as many times as you want.
To be productive
I love Dropbox. Dropbox is like having an online USB. Get an account using this link (then you'll get 2GB of space PLUS 250MB because I invited you!) and then download Dropbox to your computer. It just becomes like any other folder where you can store stuff, except for the fact that you can access that folder wherever you are using you Dropbox account. The Dropbox app allows you to access it too and look at your pictures, PDFs and other documents. I have a shared folder with my sister and I just upload the pics from my iPhone and she can get them from the folder.
This saved my life when I had to send class notes. My scanner was super annoying and the contrast between the words and the page just sucked, especially if you used blue pen. Camscanner is great, you just take a picture of your notes and the app does magic with the contrast! Really nice. You can email it out as pictures or PDFs super easily too.
I love free stuff, and man there are so many free books you can get here! It's a bit hard with an iPhone because of the scree size, but while I get an iPad (yep, so I made up my mind. In Singapore I will get an iPad, seeing as to how I didn't succeed in winning one) the iPhone does a good job.
BUMPAllows you to share information with other iPhones when you bump them together!
AUTOCAD WS
Great for architecture students and for anyone interested in experimenting with a simpler version of the computer Autocad.
APZILLA
The free version has 16 apps, including Clinometer, Dice and Passwords. If you upgrade you get 100+ apps.
GOOGLE
Quick access to all the Google apps, including Picasa, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Earth, Google Maps and Translate.
To find your way
NEARMEYou need internet to use this, but it's really useful for finding places near you. I used it a lot in Vancouver.
VEGMAN
Allows you to find veggie restaurants near you! In Vancouver you get TONS. In Chile, not so much.. The closest one I found was 1,342 km away in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
UBC
Allows you to find veggie restaurants near you! In Vancouver you get TONS. In Chile, not so much.. The closest one I found was 1,342 km away in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
UBCFor UBC community and future students! We get our own app fully equipped with event information, useful phone numbers to have, and a great option to find locations on Campus! Future students can watch videos, pictures and get more info... from here.
So I've never actually used this, but I LOVE the concept! Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunt where players search for hidden objects, called geocaches, left there by other players. I saw there is a treasure 2.8 km away from where I am so I'll go look for it next week-end.
In order to use my phone abroad, I went to this place to get it jailbroken. The Apple warranty is void for jailbroken phones, but as you update the OS iPhone version the jailbreak disappears. So I am good as long as I don't drop it in the toilet again or do something to it that won't allow me to connect it to my Mac to erase the traces of jailbrokenness. I just changed the theme, but I hear I could potentially downloading I don't know how many other apps that are not in the App Store...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)