The Christmas pics album has already been up for a while, to the right….
Christmas in Santiago was lovely. We spent the morning of the 24th in line at the Brazilian embassy to buy our $140 visas to be able to go there in about 2 weeks (we fly out of there for India on the 25th). I was really bitter, thinking it was ridiculous that we have to pay for visas, but, as it turns out, they only make us do it because that is what the U.S. government charges them. Also, in response to the U.S. Visit program which requires visitors from certain countries (many countries – check this link for more info - http://www.dhs.gov/xtrvlsec/programs/editorial_0525.shtm) to surrender their fingerprints and photographs of themselves to be able to visit the U.S. as tourists, we will have to do the same once we get to Brazil. Apparently, multiple U.S. citizens have been charged $10,000 for giving the finger in their Brazilian visit photos…
It greatly annoyed me before and felt invasive, but now I realize that that is exactly the point. We aren’t exactly polite to people coming into our country. I have a friend I met traveling who was recently questioned about his religion at the border to the U.S., because he is half Indian. As if that is relevant AT ALL. It’s disgusting that they would ask about that kind of thing, especially when we are supposed to be so tolerant of religious diversity.
In any case, Jillian and I separated for several hours to buy each other small Christmas presents with a $20 spending limit. Even though the sun was beating down on me as I wandered through the streets (good shopping in Santiago!), it was quite Christmasy to shop for someone else to Christmas music (downtown Santiago has outdoor speakers which play the melodies to popular songs), and it definitely put me in the holiday spirit. We spent time that afternoon on our hostel bunkbeds wrapping things and getting them ready for the morning. I was very excited about the presents I got for Jillian! A tank top, a (bright pink) manicure kit and a Toblerone which she had been talking about for a while. It was quite hard to find, too.
That evening we got dinner and returned to our hostel where we found that people were drinking champagne and the hostel was giving out presents. We got 10% off our stay and a bottle of wine from which the label had been removed.
Then we got into a big fight with a Brazilian guy, but more on that later.
Christmas morning Jillian and I exchanged presents (she got me lots of candy and this AMAZING deodorant, which made me really happy because, until now, I have been using boy deodorant) and then spent a beautiful day with wrappers all around us parked firmly in front of the TV where we came upon ER, Frasier, Harry Potter, Gilmore Girls and Friends. After traveling for weeks on end it was like heaven to just sit there and watch TV all day long. We eventually ordered a pizza too YUM. Which began my obsession with pizza. I basically want it 24 hours a day now… and most days I get it, which fits right in with our all-carb travel diet.
In the evening, after (finally) showering at 6 pm, we got ready and took the subway to another part of town where we met up with 2 Australian friends that we had met in the Galápagos Islands. We had a really fun evening of merrymaking with them and about 20 other poor saps who were spending their Christmas in a hostel. It was actually a great evening, though. Normally Jillian and I don’t ‘go out’ that much. Usually we end up having wild nights only when we get the chance to meet up with friends, or when we are at a hostel that is particularly conducive to people meeting each other. Most places, though, are pretty mild. If it’s a random Saturday in a random small town, we’re more likely to wander around all day and eat dinner and then hop in bed with our journals and books by midnight or so. But then we might have a random Sunday or Tuesday night out. Days of the week really have no importance in our lives. Except when we are in a small town on a Sunday and everything shuts for the day. Damn organized religion!
NEW YEAR’S AÑO NUEVO
There is no photo album as we opted to leave our cameras home for the evening. (Wise idea in Valparaíso.)
Valparaíso is called the “San Francisco of South America,” and for good reason. It is extremely colorful and is composed of a bunch of hills right next to the water. The port was historically incredibly important, especially during the gold rush. It became less so after the opening of the Panamá Canal. But the city is still hopping and it appears to be quite liberal, if you base that opinion on all the elaborate political graffiti that covers it.
As it turns out, Valparaíso is the biggest New Year’s party in Latin America, which we did not realize when we decided to head there for the holiday. There is a HUGE fireworks display at midnight that leads more than a few million people to come into the city for the evening. Since room rates QUINTUPLED just for the night of New Year’s, we opted out of having a place to stay and instead left our hostel at 1 pm on the 31st and didn’t return until 10:00 am on the 1st, when we could check back in for the night of the 1st.
It was quite the evening.
We went to go meet up with some guys we had been hanging out with in Santiago on Christmas, but at 5 pm they weren’t quite ready to head out yet, so we wandered off down the street and ended up in a “cultural space” run by a middle-aged hippy professor who gave us cuba libres (rum and Coke) in exchange for our company while he fried fish for his New Year’s party, which was to consist of a debate about the year’s events, firework-watching, dinner and then dancing.
Somehow we got roped into helping with the cooking and were slicing vegetables and mashing potatoes by hand for a good 2 1/2 hours while we drank more Cuban rum and sang Beatles songs with Profesor J. At one point, I’m just remembering, Jillian and I did part of Les Misérables… wow.
The professor, as it turned out, was the president of the neighborhood and people kept coming in to wish him happy new year and promising to come back later. At one point, we were called outside by a group of about 6 hippies, who were all crowded into this dirt square in the ground, that used to be the home of a tree in the middle of the sidewalk. They had us crowd into the square with them and they spoke to me in Spanish and I translated for Jillian.
“We are in the subway.”
Okay, subway, I thought, metaphorical subway. Some kind of hippy mind subway. The subway is taking us from the old year to the new year. We are all from different countries, but really, we are all on the same subway. Subway is as subway does.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “We don’t understand.”
“They say the capacity of the subway is 8 people per square meter,” the guy answered. ”We wanted to try it out. Doesn’t seem like enough space.”
Ah. Over-thought that one….
We went running off to the (former) jail around 11:00 pm. We are not obsessed with jails. This one is empty and is now an artist colony and we heard there would be young(er) people there, so we thought it might be a good place to be at midnight. There was, however, no entrance to be found, so instead we ended up at a park on top of one of the city’s famous hills with 2 new Chilean friends we made, and there we stayed to watch the fireworks.
The fireworks went on for 20 minutes and were AMAZING. They might be the best fireworks display I have ever seen in person.
Eventually we left our friends at the top of the hill and made friends with another group of Chileans and their English and German friends, and we danced the rest of the night away in the plaza in front of the Chilean Navy headquarters with a live band and thousands of other people. The crowd did not even start to disperse until about 7:30 am and we killed the rest of the time kind of wandering around…
HAPPY 2008!!!!!
EVERYONE HATES YOU
When I lived in France, I got plenty of comments about the U.S. and George Bush sucking. It’s not as though I weren’t aware that people felt that way. But, either people’s feelings in general have really intensified in the interceding 3 years, or it’s always been worse in Latin America.
PEOPLE HATE US.
Wait, let me re-phrase. Most of the people we meet are super nice and friendly, and most people aren’t even sure where we’re from. It could be some European country, or it might be the U.S. – they aren’t sure. They always have to ask down here. BUT, lately we have been getting a lot of hate thrown our way.
Christmas Eve there was this Brazilian guy who would not shut up about what a shithole the U.S. is, how the “majority of Americans are brainwashed,” Bush controls the media, Bush planned and executed 9/11 and if you don’t agree with him it’s because you are a brainwashed American. He went on about how Americans are stupid, uneducated, backward and get arrested for teaching evolution. [This was right after he told me that 92% of Brazilians are uneducated. He said the rules are different for Americans because we are the (his words) "most powerful" country in the world, so we have to be responsible even when other countries are not.] He would not shut up and finally I had to just leave and go to bed.
The most frustrating thing about arguing with him was that, if your opinion differed from his, you couldn’t really argue with him because he would just say you were brainwashed and controled by George Bush.
The part I love is that he, and all his friends who were sitting there agreeing with him, had never actually been to America and do not know any Americans. The other part I love is how we were having this conversation in Spanish and he was telling me that Americans don’t speak any other languages. This is just Americans and he is sure of it, he says, because he lived in London at one point and knew several people who spoke other languagues.
Christmas evening, at our friends’ hostel, we were conversing with various people and Jillian gets into a conversation with a Russian girl. Jillian says to her, “Oh! I’m part Russian!” and the girl goes, “No you’re not,” and begins to trash America and say that she hates Americans and goes on about it for a good 2 minutes straight.
This girl apparently doesn’t know how to read maps because she was actually living in San Diego.
You know what I say? If you hate us so much, then don’t let the boat hit you in the ass on your way out! Seriously, politics aside, who yells at strangers like that?!
The third hate story is that our hostel owner in Valparaíso was very nice to us. He would drive us around and show us the city and explain the historical significance of things. He made us some spicy sausages one night. At one point, the U.S. came up in conversation and I said to him,
“You know what? We would really rather not discuss this right now because we have had a few unpleasant conversations on this topic lately and we just need a break.” He says suuuure, of course, of course, no problem.
AN HOUR LATER, as he handed me another free sausage, I said to him, “Thanks! You’re, like, the nicest hostel guy ever. When are you coming to California to visit?!?!”
His response (direct quote):
“I hate your country and I am never going there. I won’t even buy Coke so that George Bush can’t have my tax money.”
This is a man that I am PAYING MONEY! I’m his customer. What a freaking jockhole. Not to mention the fact that he needs to study economics because tax on Coke in Chile goes to Chile and not to W!!!!!!!!!
So rude! I am so sick of people thinking that they do not have to treat us with basic courtesy just because of what our president does. It’s like people think that we aren’t real human beings because of where we are from. A German guy told me that Germans have the same problem with people still making Nazi comments to them every once in a while.
Ridiculous.
Not to mention quite hurtful, eventually, to hear over and over again that the place where you are from is crap and all your friends and family are trash. It is quite painful to hear time and again.
One of Jillian’s friends suggested that, the next time someone wants to yell at us about it, that we say, “George Bush is my uncle, so you better shut up or I’ll have him come get you next. And watch out… I have a weapon of mass destruction in my backpack,” and then begin doing the Pledge of Allegiance.
Seriously considering it! Might as well. Some people are not interested in listening to what you have to say after they hear where you are from. I guess George Bush (with whom, for the record, I do not agree) is not the only person who needs to learn some manners…
January 16, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Well, Deirdy, I am sorry that people are so rude and ignorant. You have to remember that the media is full of junk that is just false and people base their opinions on false information. And they won’t admit it, but lots of people are jealous of Americans. I seem to note that lots of people are risking their lives to get into this country.
I would certainly avoid those conversations if I were there.