Mis Amigos Chilenos

So, I've met a good group of Chileans here in La Serena. They're all university students in the Philosophy/Spanish carrera, and mostly 3rd and 4th years. Basically, the way the Chilean higher educational system works is that before entering universidad, students have to take a horrendous exam that determines which carreras (majors) they can enter. It seems like a terrible system to me, but in an educational system that is 100% focused on producing qualified working people, i guess it's the way to go. Anyway, they're all in the filosofia/castallano carrera, which means they didn't score all that well on the exam & they didn't want to study English. Also, they hardly ever have homework, but spend a ton of time in class (pretty much 9-7:00 every day) & almost all of their grades are based on exams.



These are some of my amigos here in Chile. The guy in the middle signaling '2 x peace' is Guille. This pic was taken in his house.

Anyway, I hang out with them at least a couple times a week, usually to either watch futbol, party at Guille's house, or hit up the local bar scene (which isn't much). And, since they study philosophy, it's usually pretty fun to talk to them about astronomy & related topics. The school year ends in late December (it should have ended in a couple weeks, but there was a month-long student strike in august), but most of them are hanging around La Serena for the summer.



Felipe, from Santiago and Michem, from Illepel, are two of my best friends here in Chile. They, along with the rest of my Chilean friends consider cheap wine mixed with cola their beverage of choice.

A couple weekends ago, I went with my friends to an day-long open-air concert here in town. The headline band was Los Jaivas, a very famous group here in Chile that was huge in the anti-Pinochet movement in the late 70s and 80s (they lived in Paris at the time). They play a very distinctive mix of traditional Andean & modern electric music, and are awesome! Check out their music if you can, especially the album 'Alturas de Machu Picchu' that was based on text of Pablo Neruda and is amazingly good.



Even today, more than a decade after Pinochet, people go nuts for Los Jaivas & their anti-dictatorship messages. They play a really broad range of instruments, from Andean flutes, to giant horns, to electric guitars.

Santiago: a nice place to visit

A few weeks ago, I made it down to Santiago (7 hrs. in bus) to go to a breakfast hosted by Fulbright. The breakfast was pretty lame, but it was nice to spend more time in the capital. Santiago is a very nice city: it's full of parks and cultural activities & relatively easy to get around in. However, I am very glad I do not live there. Being an enormous city and home to half of Chile's population, Santiago is a bit too noisy, crowded, and polluted for my taste (especially compared to la serena La Serena). However, it is definitely much more entertaining than La Serena, and while there I took advantage of some things I would never be able to do in L.S.: 1) went to the new Chilean movie 'Se Arrienda' (For Rent)...which is very good and you all should see when it gets to the U.S. in a few months, 2) went to the race track to see the horses & do some very low stakes gambling, and 3) went to an art museum and actually saw good art.


Me on top of Cerro Santa Lucia in Santiago. Santa Lucia is one of the nicest sites in the center of Santiago & a big tourist spot.


It is hard to capture just how immense the city is. This pic gives an idea. I stayed in Nunoa, which is way off in this direction to the right. It's a 20-minute micro ride away from downtown.

My visit to Santiago also coincided with a very historic event: the introduction of the TranSantiago bus system. For decades, the Santiaguino has commuted via la micro: a very ugly, rude, confusing, and flat out dangerous system of yellow graffitied buses. Practically any photo that you see of Santiago has a micro in it. However, the city just introduced the shiny, modern, polite, and safe TranSantiago bus line that will eventually replace the micros. Along with an expanding Metro system (the cleanest, most well-kept Metro I have ever seen!), the TranSantiago is changing the face of the city. In a year I am positive that the city will be unrecognizable.


This is actually a very flattering picture of a micro. Everywhere you look in the city, you see yellow....for now.


The road from Santiago to La Serena is full of spectacular views, both inland ...


... and on the coast. Although, it's hard to take pictures flying by at 120 km/h.