Nightlife in Chile

The nightlife in Chile deserves its own post...
Drinks
Beer here is 6.0 of course. A good beer cost about the same as the US, but Heineken for some reason is only about $3 for a liter at the bars. Drinks in general are pretty pricey. On average, I spend about $12 on a night out, and that is being frugal. They do pour their mixed drinks much much stronger than in the US
Pisco
Pisco is the liquor of Chile. Almost all of it is made in Chile. It's hard to describe its taste. Chileans love it. I usually order "Piscolas" when I go out, which is Pisco + Coke. They only cost about $2. Pisco is in about 4 main drinks: Terremotos (Pisco, wine, and ice cream), Piscolas, Pisco sours (too girly for me), and Primaveras (Pisco and fresh fruit). In general, it seems like a fairly safe liquor. I haven't had any bad hangovers since being in Chile so I plan on sticking with it while here.
Bars and Clubs
Bars are very different than the states. The biggest pain in the ass here is that everyone smokes. You can't leave a bar without reeking of cigarettes. The coolest thing though is that people come in and sell fresh peanuts at the bar. I love eating while drinking so its pretty awesome. Clubs in Chile get crazy, but not until about 12:30am. They start really late. Pregaming does not actually begin until about 11:30. We usually stay at the club until about 4am, and you spend the entire time at the club dancing. The good clubs I have been to play almost the same music as the US, but less Top 40 and more house music. The bad thing about the dance floor is that there are people literally smoking ON THE DANCE FLOOR! Isn't that a bit dangerous? By now, I am finally getting used to all the stupid smoke.
Nightlife and I
As strange as it may sound, I drink a lot less in Chile than in the US. I only go out 2 a week. It could be that I am trying to be frugal, but I think it is because it is legal here. It isn't a commodity because I can do it at any time of the day. The US should seriously consider fixing the current law because I think it might be more harmful than beneficial. I don't drink as much, but I definitely dance a whole lot more. Every time I leave the club, I am covered in sweat. We dance all night and then have to sit in our sweat on the bus if we go to Valpo. I never get home before 5am on nights we go out, and I never even go to the after parties. A lot of Chileans just party until the sun comes up. The good thing is that I always feel safe here, even at 5am. There just isn't any type of threat. People are much more interested in hugging you than robbing you.

I have only been here a month, but the nightlife has definitely impressed me! Nos vemos amigos!

Las Marchas

Protests are picking up steam here in Chile. The next two days many people are going on strike for education. It is the anniversary of the 1973 strike. Some of my university is now closed. Students are not going to class. There is a chance more parts could be affected. Brian, my new roommate, actually got transferred to Vina del Mar because his school is closed because of the protests. I'm going with another OU student tomorrow to a "marcha" in Valparaiso. It is pretty dangerous, but I really want to go. They have used tear gas and rubber bullets, but hopefully I will be able to stay in the safe area.

I am fascinated by the mentality of the students. They really are not giving in! It has been going on since the day I arrived. Chileans are split how they view them. Some think they are just protesting to protest, and others very passionately support the movement. It seems like a classic democrat and republican split. You either like Pres. Sebastian Pinera or think he is the devil. Hopefully, the protest tomorrow night will help be understand the mentality of the students and whether this is actually for a real cause, or just a bandwagon phenomenon. Nos vemos!

New roomie

My mom has been telling me for a couple of days that she thinks another student is going to move in here. Today, he finally did. His name is Brian and he's from Michigan. I didn't talk to him to much. He seems pretty shy and nervous about the family. I kept telling him over and over not to worry because they are freaking awesome. He stays in the room next to mine. That brings our family count to 6!
Cecilla - Madre
Alberto - Padre
Francesca - Hermana
Brian - Otro estudiante
Molly - Perra
Me

It will be nice to have another person in the house who speaks English for when I'm really struggling to say something. I only plan on speaking to him in Spanish though unless we it's important.

Club Huevo

Last night about 14 international students and I went out in Valpo for Carina's birthday. We all took a bus over to Club Huevo which apparently had 4 floors. We started on 1 and just worked our way up as it got busier.

Floor 1: This floor was the bar floor. They had music but it was like 90's rock. Everybody got their beers, and we stayed in this area to pregame. I didn't drink last night since I've been sick recently. We even got a couple games of flip cup going.

Floor 2: This was much more of a big open dance floor with a stage. When we first arrived it was awesome house music. Us international students love to dance. We all started dancing here, and some students kept drinking heavily as well. After house music for about 30 minutes, it began to shift to Chilean music. A live band came on after the Chilean music and sung typical Chilean party music.

Floor 3: There was a Chilean line dance room, but none of us went in there. This was the best room. It was about the size of floor 1 (not large), but had awesome house music and lights going everywhere. We decided this is our place. Floor 3 was also where my friends hit their drunk stride,some more than others. We all danced with Chileans for awhile, and eventually formed a big circle where people would take turn dancing in the middle. I was surprisingly doing all of it even though I was sober. We spent most of the night here.

Floor 4: The roof. If it wasn't cold, this would have been the coolest place ever. It had the same music from Floor 3, but an awesome view. I decided it would be best if I didn't stay up there because I'm already sick.


That's Huevo! Awesome club! We stayed and partied until 4:30a.m. The bus ride back was even a party with drunk Chileans rapping the entire way home. After helping a drunk international student make it home, I headed home and called it a night.

The Last Week: Bronchitis

Sorry about not posting for a week but I've sadly had bronchitis and spent the entire time in bed. I still have a wicked cold, but I'm okay besides that. Let's start with Mendoza.

The trip to Mendoza on Friday was absolutely beautiful. It was a six hour bus ride through the top of the Andes Mountains. We climbed to 17,000 feet! That's higher than I have ever been before (not in a plane). The bus ride was on a very small road with 26 hairpin turns. At the top was the border into Argentina. Immigration took 2 hours of just sitting there. Once we arrived, we took our cab to our hostel that we had reserved. For only paying $8 a night, it was actually a pretty nice place. The original plan was to go out when we arrived, but I had a bad case of motion sickness after all those turns. We called a night.
Day 2: We were staying for 3 nights so the hotel gave us a free voucher for a bike tour of the wineries in Maipu. We left around 10 and arrived at the bike place, Mr. Hugos. They gave us a map of about 15 wineries, liquor producers, and beer brewers in about a 2 mile radius. 1 place was free and the rest were $5 a piece, which is not bad at all. The first place was a museum and winery were we tried our first glass of Merlot (famous Mendoza wine). Afterwards we went to a liquor place and tried jams, chocolates and home made liquors. We each had a shot of Absinthe, Tobacco liquor, and 2 other kinds. I only made it to 2 places before getting slightly drunk. Bike riding became a lot easier at this point, and I found I had a lot more unexplainable courage. We went to about 4 or 5 more places, but none stood out as much as the first 2. At around 4:30, we went to return our bikes. Mr. Hugo offered us more wine, and as polite guests, we couldn't resist. After drinking for 6 hours, we were quite drunk, but this glass put us a bit over. We were very sloppy. Getting home was quite an adventure on the bus. We stopped and grabbed fantastic pizza at a local restaurant. After replenishing our energy and we were ready to hit the bars. Apparently, the next day was their primary election day so everything closed at six and no alcohol could be sold until Monday. Major buzz kill, we called it a night and went back the hostel and slept off our inebriation.

For the rest of the trip, I will only be describing one location: my bed. I woke up with a terrible deathly hangover and didn't leave my bed until 2pm. I got up to eat lunch and went back to bed. Over the next 4 days, my hangover slowly evolved into bronchitis. Everyday consisted of me sleeping. That's it, pretty boring, but I can guarantee you that I was in hell. We were supposed to leave on Tuesday, however, due to excess snow in the mountains the border was closed. Wednesday morning- border closed. We decided we couldn't wait any longer and booked a flight home for that day. It was a long and complicated day that I have no desire to relive. The trip went from fantastic and frolicy to unfortunate and uninteresting. I finally made it home Wednesday night.

I am proud to announce that today I am finally almost feeling better. I made it around town today and met up with a few friends. I still have a serious cold, and also no voice, but I do have energy. I've yet to be able to eat a whole meal, but hopefully soon! Hopefully my blog will start to get a lot more interesting than this. Nos vemos!

Trip number 1 Menoza, Argentina

I'm currently packing for my first trip while in Chile, Mendoza, Argentina! I leave at 8:30 in the morning for a 6 hour bus ride through the Andes Mountains. I will write about it all when I come home, but anticipate many pictures. I'm going with my friend, Carina (Denver, CO). You will be hearing more about this trip when I get back!

Change of plans

Sadly, the University of Oklahoma did not inform me I had no where to live in South America for their summer (Dec 11 - March). Once I realized this, I decided to just shorten my stay here to 1 semester and not deal with all of the hassle. I was placed in Advanced classes so I imagine I will be semi-fluent after one semester. The good news is that I already have 3k set aside for the fees next semester that I can now use however I want. The responsible thing to do would be just build a solid savings, but instead I'm spending it in Paris with some of my best friends! I'm heading there right after Christmas and staying through New Years. The location might change but it is certain I am going to Europe!

Also, since my stay here has been shortened, I have a lot more haste to travel. I leave for Mendoza, Argentina on Friday. Oktoberfest in Argentina at the end of September. Iguazu in October (Huge waterfalls) and probably Patagonia in December! Can't wait!

El Mall, Valpo, Cerveza, Politicos... mi vida en Chile!

Yesterday was a pretty standard day. I met up with a couple friends and we walked all the way to the mall. Mall in spanish is centro comercial, but they call the mall here "El Mall", very gringo of them. After the mall, we met up with a few other gringos at Cafe Journal for a few beers and just called it a night early.
Today I decided to start making plans for the year. First plan is to go to Mendoza, Argentina soon. I fought bus tickets for about US$40 round trip and a scenic 6 hour bus ride through the Andes mountains. I'm going to talk to the other students tomorrow and try to get a group together to go. After researching, I met up with Bradford (from Ohio) and we journeyed through all of Vina to find Starbucks. I can honestly say that was my best decision ever. We left Starbucks to meet up with Justin (Minnesota) and Philipp (NY) in Valparaiso. Valpo was just such a cool place it was hard to not go back. We found a very nice restaurant and ordered beer and coffee. Strangely here, Heiniken is a cheap beer. I haven't really figured out why, but it could be due to the heavy German influence. We spent the next hour or so chatting about American politics. Thankfully, most of my friends here are fellow liberals. I remember reading a study that said democrats are more adventurous, and I think we all proved that by coming to Chile. It was a very relaxed day. I got everything I want: coffee, beer, and politics with a view of the ocean. It doesn't get better than this! Tomorrow I plan on finally finding a gym and then just enjoying the beach for the rest of the day. I have been here a week and have not spent enough time near the water. I don't know what it is, but I maintain my contentness by going to the ocean. There is just something very humble about watching the waves. Time to study some more before my first day of class Tuesday! Adios!

Edit: I forgot to mention today was Dia de los Ninos (Kid's Day). It is just like Mother's Day, but for kids. There were parties every where! Kids here are freaking spoiled! Yesterday at the mall was like the day before X-mas in the US. It was crazy busy because they buy a ton of gifts for their kids. We are going to have to start this tradition when I get back!

Day 6 Part II Locos Por Vina

Last night the university threw us a party at a local club. To be honest, I had very low expectations, but we were supposed to get 1 Free Drink so I couldn't pass it up. We walk in and the club is about a little bit larger than Eve in Norman, but it had a nice setup. We were told to arrive at 9 which is really early in Chile. The director of international students is actually the one handing out the free drink coupon! Everyone is just sitting around talking or trying to get a drink for awhile. After 3 drinks, a few international students and I decide we want to get all of the students to start dancing. I try to go around and tell them, but no one appears to be listening. 5 of us just dance by ourselves for about 10 minutes, and then slowly but surely people start coming one after another. We managed to get basically everyone in the club on their feet dancing. It was techno/top-40 mix so everyone really got into it. After drink #6 I became a dancing fiend. A few people kept telling me that I really knew how to dance (I guess when I'm drunk). A Hispanic girl kept trying to dance with me too. I think she picked me out because of my mad skills (sarcasm). After dancing for awhile with her, we climb on the DJ booth and dance in front of everyone, including my director and future teacher. The girl kept trying to talk to me, but she didn't speak English, and it was impossible for me to hear her to understand Spanish. I ended getting her name to add on Facebook. Turns out she goes to my school, UVM, and is from Mexico, and we were already Facebook Friends. We all left the club around 2 and bought awesome food from some street vendor! It was one of the most fun I have had in a long time. I still can't believe I danced as much or as hard as I did. Being in Chile, I don't feel judged. No one is going around saying "do you know what Ben did last night?". It's funny that it takes me going 5,000 miles away to truly feel comfortable doing whatever I want. Moral of the story: Chile is better than the US. I LOVE MY LIFE!

Day 6 Valparaiso

As long as life is interesting here, I'm going to continue to post everyday. We started today by receiving our schedule. There are 3 grupos (Groups): Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. I was hoping for Intermediate, and not Beginner. I was placed in Grupo III, which is Advanced. I had no idea I would be placed that high. I ranked my Spanish as Beginner to Intermediate, but apparently I dominated the exams. Since I'm in Grupo III, I only have classes on Tue-Thur! 4 DAY WEEKEND ALL SEMESTER! Class shouldn't be too difficult because it is Pass or Fail for me, no letter grades. After we received our schedule, they offered us the opportunity to volunteer for an additional credit. I'm going to teach English to children. I'm really excited for this! After all of the meeting we had a break for lunch then returned for a tour of Valparaiso. Valpo is the city connected to Vina del Mar. It's a very colorful and, at times, dangerous city. Many student protest are going on there every day. It is very rich with culture and art. It's very difficult to describe. We started off the tour with a boat ride around the port where we saw a bunch of military vessels and SEA LIONS! Yes, live sea lions! Outside of the animals it was pretty boring. We finished with an hour walk around town and a ride on their sideways elevators, which were over 100 years old! Now I am getting reading for the international party at Locos por Vina. Surprisingly, our University is sponsoring the party and even buying our first drink! I wish OU threw parties at clubs! I will let you guys know how it goes in the morning! Tiene cuidado amigos!

Day 5 - Dia Deportivo

After a very eventful night at Cafe Journal, getting out of bed today was nearly impossible. The only thing on the schedule was "Sports Day" at 10am, which UVM left vague for a reason. I managed to stumble in just in time for the bus to take us to the stadium where our events for the day would be. If I would have known what I got myself into I would have never got out of bed! We started the day with basic games outdoors. I'm glad they started slow because all of the students were very hungover. After the basic games, we jumped to "insanely difficult if you are still drunk"...dancing. This wasn't the salsa or flamenco, this was essentially sex. We danced more vulgarly than I ever have before. I think it is important that you know that the president of the university was there watching. I had no idea that was the type of dancing they were going to teach us. We danced for at least an hour, and it was hardcore cardio. I actually had a lot of fun though. Afterwards we took the typical Vino (wine) break to prepare us for the real challenge. Soccer. International students versus the UVM soccer teams. I don't know but I volunteered to be slaughtered. The men played on one field, and the women played on another. We played 7-7 and our team was able to fill every position pretty well except for one... the goal keeper (the most important position). We finally had a guy step in to play. I sat out first quarter to help manage who to substitute in at what place. When I finally came in the score was 4-0. Ya, that bad. We brought in our A-team though. It was 2 brazilians, 1 french guy, and 4 Americans (including me). I played left defender because I can run everyone down. At halftime we managed to climb to 4-2 with the help of my legendary defense (sarcasm). I played most of the second half but the final score was 7-4 which I don't think is very bad going against a professional team. The women ended up winning in PKs. After the game I struggled to even walk, but managed to make it home and type this post. That is all folks. Hasta Luego amigos!

Day 4

So much happens each day I feel the need to document my journeys. Today we had an oral exam and afterwards a huge group international students, 14 or 15, explored Valapariso Calle in search of coffee that isn't powdered and terrible (Yes, coffee here sucks. Yes, it is close to Columbia. No, I don't understand why it is so bad.) We ended up at La Plaza which is a MASSIVE market of stores, street vendors, and really everything you could imagine. I'm sure it has been in many TV shows. There were so many people around that it became very difficult for us to keep our group together so we split into smaller factions. Everyone gets along so it didn't really matter who we ended up with. I managed to find a little hole-in-the-wall street food place with another OU student where we bought lunch for pretty cheap. After experiencing La Plaza, 6 of us went to the beach for an hour or two. The weather was perfect! It honestly was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been! We threw around a frisbee for awhile and just all around were having an awesome time. When we were leaving to head back to class, a gigantic pile of day-ruining substance landed on my shoulder as gift from the fun police above. They were angry, very angry and wanted to let me know in the form of a bird shitting on me. I decided to not let it ruin my day and just threw the shirt away, and went shirtless (Jersey Shore style)

The rest of the day was rather uneventful, but I'm getting ready now to head to the bars for the first of many "Gringo Nights" at Cafe Journal! Hasta Luego Chicos!

Day 3

Today was when everything kicked off. I met a ton of international students. We went to a local bar after a written exam to drink away our lasting pain of the test. Most of the group is down to go party at any time. I'm pretty excited I met social people. I should have assumed that students willing to go abroad were pretty courageous. We might go out tonight, but we will probably save all the partying until tomorrow, which is Gringo night at Cafe Journal. I'm very surprised it took so little time for me to fall into a social group. We all kind of attached to each other very quickly. It could be because we are all seeking someone who is going through the same thing that we are, but who knows it could turn into something long term and legitimate. I'm very excited for what lies ahead because I am meeting sooo many people so quickly! This has potential to be the Best. Year. Ever. Time for la cena! Adios amigos!

Things I've learned after being in Chile for 2 days

1. It's cold. Very, very cold. There are no heaters
2. No one speaks English. Don't let the international office lie to you.
3. It is breathtakingly gorgeous.
4. The people are the nicest in the world. I've been lost so many times and the people are more than willing to help.
5. You cannot flush toilet paper here... I've avoided taking a #2 for this reason because I'm very confused how it will work.
6. They stopped showing "Friends" reruns in the US so they could fill the airways in Chile. Seriously, they love Friends here.
7. Dogs live in the street. Tons and tons of dogs.
8. I'm already in love with this country.