¿Tienes café café? Or, Please tell me you sell real coffee!

Strike one:  I've had this box
with 10 packets of coffee since
the first week and haven't used
it all yet

Coming to Chile, I thought there would be good coffee here, since Colombia is nearby and they have great coffee.  Upon arrival, I learned just how wrong I was.  Most places only serve instant coffee.  Having never tried instant coffee, I thought it might be okay.  I was wrong about that, too.  Since we got here, I've been looking for a decent cup of coffee and have had various amounts of success with espresso and similar drinks, as shown below.

First, I tried something from the grocery store similar to the International Coffeehouse flavored powders.  It wasn't great, so I tried to mix it with the instant coffee.  That was worse.  I kept asking people about where I could get real coffee, and everyone told me to go to Starbucks, which seems a little silly in a foreign country, since I can get that at home, or a Colombian chain cafe, but I haven't found one of those yet.  We have had some brewed coffee at meetings with the Crusade team here, but it's really, really weak.

During the first week here, I had an iced coffee that was decent, but after that, I didn't find anything good until last week, when I got a cappuccino while waiting for the bus to Valparaiso on Saturday.  Since it was a bus stop coffee stand, I had very low expectations, but it was really good.

Monday, I had to go buy a new plug adapter for my computer since I lost mine, and on the way, I stumbled upon a street full of coffee shops, including a Starbucks.  (I checked their website after getting back, and there are two right there, one on either side of the metro stop).  Since I finally had options, I decided to go to one of the local shops and got another cappuccino.  It was better than the first, and I got cookies with it!

Cappuccino Tuesday

Last week, I also found a Colombian cafe near our hostel.  They only have espresso drinks, even though they use french presses as decoration. I've been there three times this week (unfortunately, I don't have enough time for it to be a daily thing), and it's all really good, but the cappuccino was my favorite (and it's much prettier than the rest).  I still want a plain cup of coffee, though, and the only place I know has it is Starbucks, so I might have to break down and visit them.

Latte Thursday

Macchiato Friday

Colorful Houses, the Ocean, and Rain

Last Saturday, we took a bus to Valparaiso, which used to be the most important port in the country.  It is also the home of the Chilean national congress, which moved from Santiago at the end of the dictatorship of Pinochet.  The trip was for us to take a break and do a little sightseeing outside Santiago, and breath clean air after so long in Santiago.

The bus station in Santiago

My nice coffee

The day started out with problems.  We first got off the train at the wrong metro station, meaning that we'd only get to the buses right on time to board.  When we got to the bus stop, we found out that even though Nathan had called to confirm the time we were leaving, only two of our tickets had been confirmed.  This meant that those two had to take the first bus, and the rest of us had to wait for the next one, leaving 15 minutes later.  Luckily, one of the staff members here went with them because she had planned to show us around the city and her ticket was fine.  While waiting, I went and got a cappuccino, which was the nice cup of coffee I'd had until then.  (There's probably going to be a post soon comparing all of the different types of coffee I've had here, complete with pictures.)  The bus ride was pretty short (about an hour and a half) and it went through the mountains, so I took lots of pictures.

One of several vineyards we passed

When we got to Valparaiso, it was pouring, only the second time it had rained since we've been in Chile.  We went to a cafe nearby and had lunch while we waited for the rain to stop.  I had cazuela, a traditional soup with a quarter of a chicken (complete with bones and skin), chunks of pumpkin (also with the skin on), a whole potato, and part of a cob of corn.  By the time we finished eating, the rain had stopped, so we walked through the city to our hostel.  On the way, we gathered a following of seven stray dogs who made sure no one got in our way, protected us from the cars around us, and made sure we all stayed together.

This house was in tons of the postcards
I saw around the city

The hostel was really nice.  The owners are Christian couple who decided to turn their home into a hostel after their children moved out because they didn't need all of the space anymore.  Saturday afternoon, we were only there long enough to put our stuff away and pay for the rooms, but they were really nice to us.  Sunday, they made scrambled eggs with cheese and ham for us and gave us mil hojas, a cake kind of like baklava with manjar layers, which was a wonderful departure from the bread and cereal we have every morning in Santiago (the cake was a little sweet for breakfast, but good.)

The girls' room

La Sebastiana

We then wandered through the city down to the port.  The city was really cool to see, because all of the houses were bright colors and there are murals on the walls by the streets.  The city is built on hills, so all the streets are really steep and several of the alleys have staircases off to the side.  At the port, we looked through the souvenir shops a little before deciding to go to La Sebastiana, one of the homes of Pablo Neruda.  He had a very eclectic assortment of furniture and things he collected displayed throughout the house, so it was very interested to look through.

Afterwards, we went to dinner at J. Cruz, which was recommended by just about everyone we talked to as the best place to get chorriana, a dish with french fries, meat, onions and eggs.  Some people on the team had tried it before and it sounded good, but the dishes came out with pools of grease and fat on the bottom, so it wasn't very appealing.  It was a fun evening though, and we went back to the hostel to rest and chill.

Our guard dog for the day, Brutus
(as named by us)

Sunday, we had a church service where we watched a sermon by John Piper on evangelism and the hostel owners joined us.  Between then and lunch, most of the girls went to explore the city and pick out souvenirs and other things.  I got a new purse to replace the one I brought from the States that was falling apart.  The new one is really cute and seems really well made for as cheap as it was.  For lunch, we went to a very nice seafood restaurant in the port that was delicious and totally made up for dinner the night before.  I had grilled salmon with shrimp, and fruit salad with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and chocolate sauce for dessert.  So far, this has been my 3rd favorite meal, behind the sushi and the barbecue.

After lunch, we talked for a little while about what the next couple of weeks will be like, especially introducing the people we've met to members of the Chilean staff so they'll be connected after we leave.  Then we went to the bus station to come home.

Bracelets! Also, Leaving Campus in a Hurry

Last week started out pretty normal and relaxed.  Life here is starting to feel like life in the States, just in Spanish.    Monday, we tried to meet with girls we had talked to the week before and we got lunch with them, but we didn't get to talk long before they had to leave for class.  Continuing the comparison shots from this school, here's last Monday's church picture.  Here are all of them with the earliest on the right.

Last week, the pollution wasn't as bad as when we first arrived, but still not air I'm really happy breathing.

Tuesday, we had a table set up to have students make bracelets for orphans that we're going to go visit next week.  The plan is to spend a few afternoons at a local orphanage and help however is needed.  The bracelets are going to be gifts for the kids, but also a good way to get people interested in helping.  It took a while to explain this to almost everyone who stopped by, because most of them thought we were selling the bracelets to support the orphanage, but we got a bunch made, so it was a good day.

The girl on the right made about 15 bracelets (out of the 45 we made that day)

That night, a bunch of us went to dinner at a vegetarian restaurant so the vegetarian in our group could eat something other than a salad for once.  It was a little expensive, but really good.  I had eggplant gratin, which was basically ratatouille with lots of melted cheese on top.  We walked there and back, so it was a very healthy night all around, one of the few I feel like I've had.  I walk a lot here, but every meal has so much bread and very few  vegetables, so it's definitely not the healthiest I've ever eaten.

Things got much more exciting on Thursday.  We went to Universidad Alberto Hurtado, which was the most liberal school we visit, taking one of the other girls in the group with us because all of the schools she works at were protesting.  There were tons of students there and almost immediately after we got there, they left to march down the main street.

There weren't lots of people left, but enough for us to stay on campus, so we decided to wait for Isaías and talked and took pictures while we waited, as seen below.

The República Group

The main gates were closed to keep out protesters

We started doing evangelism once he arrived, and had lunch soon after.  We had planned on going over to the building where the English club is held and talking to people there before it started, but just as we were finishing lunch, Nathan, our team leader who was there to meet with Derek, came and told us that the police had set off a lot of pepper spray and we needed to leave.  We cancelled English Club, but weren't able to get a hold of people until we returned to the hostel, so several came anyway.  It was rather lucky that the protests were last week and not any of the others, because one of the staff members who helps with the clubs uses a wheelchair, so it would have been hard to leave quickly if she had come.  The pepper spray was really strong, but everyone had scarves to cover our mouths and noses to limit the exposure.  The protest had finished by the time we left, but we saw a lot of graffiti, broken glass, and the police were still around.  We all got back to the hostel safely, although sneezing a lot.

For campus outreach Friday, we went to UNAB, because it was one of the few universities our team has been working at (out of about 8) that wasn't striking.  Even then, there was a march through the campus.

Friday night, we had a Christmas party for the girls we've met here, because it's getting into winter and there has to be Christmas in winter.  Everyone we told was a little confused about this, but a lot of people came anyway.  There are Crusade staff members from the States, Germany, Mexico, and Chile, so we had traditional foods from each and a presentation of the Christmas traditions.  We also watched the first 20 minutes of "It's a Wonderful Life" in Spanish, which was a little hard to follow.  I didn't feel too bad because the native speakers said they had problems following it, too.  The party was lots of fun, and a few of the women from República came, so we got a chance to spend more time with them, which was great.

Within the next day or two, I'm going to try to get up to date and post stuff about our trip to Valparaiso, which was lots of fun, so get excited!

Hiking Up Cerro San Cristobal

Here in Chile, they have a much different idea of what a hill is and what a mountain is.  Last Saturday, we walked up Cerro San Cristobal, which is considered a hill.  It is about 1000 ft higher than the rest of Santiago, and about 2900 ft above sea level.  This is what it looks like from the ground in a park near our hostel. (Sorry about the sun.  It is apparently the only picture I have that shows how tall the hill is.)

It was really pretty, because the hill is a park, so there's zoo at the bottom and the path up to the top is forested. There's a giant statue of Mary at the top, which can be seen all around the city.

Right below the statue

The climb up was nice, until we looked around and saw the blanket of smog over the city, and the path was really steep.  I kept expecting it to level out after the next turn, but it didn't.  There were lots of breaks for pictures, so it wasn't too tiring.

About halfway to the top

The park near my hostel from the top of Cerro San Cristobal

Going Down

Afterwards, we got lunch and a few of us went to an artisan fair near the hill.  It was more expensive than the other fair we had been to, so all I got was a homemade alfajor, which is a cookie sandwich with manjar (a caramelized milk candy, similar to dulce de leche) in the middle, and dipped in chocolate.  They're great, and this was the best one I've had so far.  That night, one of the girls made avocado smoothies, which taste much, much better than they sound, probably due to the sugar and condensed milk used in the recipe.

Sunset last Saturday.

Sunday, we ran around the city pretty much nonstop.  We went to an English speaking church in the morning.  The people were really nice, but there wasn't a sermon, just skits about Pentecost.  While talking after the service, I met a man who had gone to the University of Cincinnati and had spent lots of time with friends in Oxford, which was weird, but cool to talk about home for a while.

Horse-bee

After lunch, we went to a meeting for the International Day of Prayer at the courtyard on Cerro Santa Lucia.  It was really cool to have people from all around the city come to pray for the same things, even if I didn't understand all of it.  Once that ended, a bunch of the Chileans we know who had come stayed to play games with us.  I wandered around taking pictures of the scenery, which wasn't great because of the smog, but better than usual.

Then, we went to out to dinner to meet one of the sponsors of Campus Crusade here.  He owns three restaurants in the city, and we were taken to his sushi place, which made me really happy.  He provided tons of sushi for us, as well as gyosa.  Most of the others preferred the rolls, especially the more elaborate ones, leaving all of the sashimi, which I was really happy about.  All in all, it was a great weekend.