“And that man’s words mean nothing to me”

A warning, I will sound like an asshole in this post, but this woman should have let this one go. If you are reading this and are overweight or obese please don’t think in any way that I believe it is your fault alone for your weight. There are lots of reasons why people are overweight/obese and you can’t blame individuals for their lifestyle choices many of which are hard to control. Basically what fueled the idea for this post was a video I saw posted on facebook.

 http://www.upworthy.com/bully-calls-news-anchor-fat-news-anchor-destroys-him-on-live-tv?g=2&c=mrp1

 All the comments were like “this is so powerful, thanks for posting.” I think it’s a bunch of crap! This guy sent an obviously obese news anchor an email suggesting that she consider her role as local TV personality (as it is quite influential) and present and promote a healthy lifestyle. The email wasn't even that nasty. Here it is:

 “It’s unusual that I see your morning show, but I did so for very short time today. I was surprised indeed to witness that your physical condition hasn't improved for many years. Surely you don’t consider yourself a suitable example for this community’s young people, girls in particular. Obesity is one of the worst choices a person can make and one of the most dangerous habits to maintain. I leave you this note hoping that you’ll reconsider your responsibility as a local public personality to present and promote a healthy lifestyle.” 

Granted, I don’t think sending this email was necessary, and I don’t believe obesity is a personal choice. People don’t seem to like being fat, why on earth would they choose to be that way? Surely if the obesity epidemic was as simple as a personal choice, everyone would choose to be skinny.

What irks me is the way this woman dealt with this email. She spent 4 minutes and 20 seconds of air time meant for the news calling out this writer as a bully. Bullying, I would argue is repeated attacks on someone “weaker.” After her 4 min 20 sec rant, I was under the impression this was a first time attack and an email is generally a private (until you air it on TV) and non-confrontational form of communication, different from “trolling” a phenomena of repeated anonymous attacks on the internet.

She should have just let it go instead of proclaiming to her audience that she had a thick skin and that man’s words meant nothing to her. Well obviously they meant nothing to you if you construed him as a bully in order to tie in your rant with national anti-bullying month.

What the guy said is true, she is in an influential position, and obesity is a dangerous condition. Everyone is getting fatter, even skinny people are heavier than they were 50 years ago. In effect, our perception of overweight and obesity is skewed and becoming normalized. I’ll bet you didn’t initially think she was obese, but she admitted it live on TV.

 So its ok to be fat, but it’s definitely not ok to smoke. How come we’re allowed to call people out on smoking but not on being overweight? Both are pretty equally destructive to your health, the main difference probably being, you don’t need to smoke to survive whereas you do need to eat.

 You just need to eat real food and less of it. The reason I say real food, is because I believe Western Society’s problem (actually it’s global) with obesity is the overabundance of fake food. Fake food is anything over processed, and by over processed I mean you don’t know what all the ingredients are on the nutrition label. A recent study looked at a hunter gatherer African tribe and measured their daily energy expenditure and found that it didn’t differ significantly from the average westerner. The tribe inhabitants were lean and had less body fat than the average westerner suggesting that diet may play more of an important role in weight gain rather than physical inactivity. Here’s the article:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0040503

Being physically active does play a role in weight loss tho, if you need to lose weight you should still exercise, but maybe pay a bit more attention to what you put in your mouth. Try cooking. Like old fashioned raw ingredients from the produce section of the grocery store. Many American’s don’t know how to do this (myself included) so it’s easy to see why it’s easy and convenient to pick up ready-made meals, carry out and unhealthy snacks. Luckily, I have a fiancé who does know how to cook and in this last year combined with a bunch of walking I’ve lost 10 pounds. I didn’t really need to lose those 10 pounds, but I’m not complaining! I’m down to my 16 year old driver’s license weight and the major difference in my lifestyle is that I started eating regular freshly prepared, balanced meals.

I walked just as much in Chile and gained weight. To be fair my diet in Chile was atrocious because fresh fruits and vegetables were left out. I walked a lot in College as well, but again my diet of booze probably caused me to put on weight.

Circling back to this woman who claims not to be offended but really is and took news time to air her grievances and loosely link them to national anti-bullying month; I hope this whole ordeal has made her think about making small sustainable changes to her diet/exercise routine. Honestly, I don’t think the person meant for her to take such offense; or bully her. I think he was just trying to give her a little nudge in the right direction. He probably could have phrased it more eloquently though as she definitely didn’t interpret it that way.

French Faux Pas

Being that my Scottish boyfriend is half French, I thought it would be a good idea to enrol in a French class. I’m just about done with my first beginner’s course and I’ve learned that we use a bunch of French words incorrectly in American English, particularly when it comes to food related items. I learned today something that made no sense whatsoever. We were learning vocabulary for clothing and fashion. The phrase à la mode meant in fashion or in style. And I raised my hand to ask (rather stupidly in retrospect) can it also mean with ice cream?? Everyone looked at me confused, including my French teacher, and I had to explain that in the States if you order a dessert, or pudding (as they call it here) à la mode it means they will serve the dessert with a scoop of ice cream. My French teacher didn’t know of anyone using à la mode in that respect and we couldn’t figure out how/why the usage came about. He did mention that you could prepare a meal à la mode de some region in France; it would be prepared specifically to certain standards. So I don’t know, it’s either fashionable to order your dessert with ice cream (not so for dieters ie the entire population) or somehow the idea of preparing a meal to certain standards got lost in translation somewhere. Je ne sais pas.

The other two examples Marc pointed out to me when he came to visit me in Chicago. He thought the entrées on a menu in a normally priced restaurant seemed a bit pricey, and I reassured him it would be worth the money, you could make another meal out of the leftovers. Then he made a comment somewhere along the lines of ‘no wonder you guys are so fat, I can only image the size of your mains.’ To which I replied, ‘it is the main course!’ He burst out laughing and really didn’t believe me until he noticed my blank stare. He then explained that entrée really means ‘starter.’ I was completely befuddled because my whole life I’d only known entrée to mean ‘main dish.’

The last example comes from when Marc encountered his first Italian beef sandwich, a Chicagoan classic. I told him typically you get it with au jus sauce spread on the sandwich. To which he informed me that I was repeating myself. Au jus is the juice from meat. So actually, as a waitress, whenever I asked someone if they wanted their Italian beef with au jus sauce, I was asking if they wanted the juice sauce; basically I was saying sauce sauce. I genuinely thought au jus was a special kind of sauce just for Italian beef…Come to think of it, there really isn’t much Italian about Italian beef; it comes on a Viennese Kaiser roll with au jus. We totally mixed that one up…but that I guess that is the beauty of the US of A. All these different cultures came together, melding their different traditions into what eventually became American traditions. We’ve just had to suffer the losses in translation along the way.

Tricky Treats!

BEWARE Americans! If you come over to the UK the familiar chocolate bars you’ve come to know and love are not what you think they are. Classic example is the Mars bar. Mars in the UK (and Canada apparently) means Milkyway. What does Milkyway mean in the UK you ask? It means 3 Musketeers. And Maltesers are Whoppers. I haven’t actually checked, but I’m almost positive Snickers means Snickers :) So there’s one candy bar you don’t have to worry about. Here’s a list:

US/UK
Milkyway/Mars
3 Musketeers/Milkyway
Whoopers/Maltesers
Mounds/Bounty Bar
??? Not smarties/Smarties

The other main branding issues come from cereals. For some reason the same cereal has a slightly different name, so instead of Cookie Crunch, it’s Cookie Crisp. Here’s the list:

US/UK
Cookie Crunch/Cookie Crisp
Coco Puffs/Coco Pops
Frosted Flakes/Frosties
Macaroni & Cheese/Macaroni Cheese (and a really ugly box)

WIND!

The entire city of Glasgow shut down on account of wind one day. I had a French class at noon that was cancelled. I soon found out the entire University would shut down that day for wind. So even if I wanted to be studious and do some coursework in the library, I’d have to wait until the next day.

Honestly, I think people were just keen for a day off. It was getting close to Christmas and about a month prior, half the employed population (the public sector) was on strike for a day, to what seemed little effect. Marc was the only one in the office that day and couldn’t actually get any work done that afternoon as every business he called was closed due to the wind.

We couldn’t really figure out what all the fuss was about. Sure the wind was howling against the windows but other than that we couldn’t make out any problems. So we decided it would be a great time to venture into town to get some Christmas shopping done, as we assumed people would be shut up at home safe from the dangerous wind. We were right, it was a ghost town! And Glasgow is known for its shopping so there are always plenty of people about. Not that day, the worst of the damage I saw was a lit up hanging Christmas ornament that had fallen into the street and blocked some traffic.

Perhaps there was some potentially dangerous situations avoided by shutting everything down on account of the wind, but to me it just kind of seemed like an overreaction. Little did I know that wind would be back and ruin some of my travel plans… Marc and I were on a train home from Inverness after spending the holidays with his parents up north. An hour in and we get an announcement from the train conductor saying they will be terminating service at Perth (an hour away from Glasgow) due to adverse weather conditions in Glasgow.

What were the adverse weather conditions? None other than wind! So we’re thinking ok, maybe it’s just a wind storm, we’ll hang out for a couple of hours on the train and they’ll start up service after. An hour into waiting at the Perth train station, we get kicked off the train as it left to go back north. We then get a bit antsy wondering if and when they will start up service again. Oh, and according to the rail service, no buses were running because the highways have shut down as well. We find out there is brush blocking the tracks at several points along the route and it doesn’t seem like rail service will be a viable option if we want to get home that night (Marc had work the next day).

We find out that in fact buses are running and book the next one out. The driver is quite funny about the whole situation and begs us to hang on. The drive itself isn’t bad except for a couple of points when you could feel the wind pushing the bus. We also drove by a huge lorry (semi-truck) turned over in a ditch off to the side of the road, that wasn’t very encouraging. So I guess the wind was a pretty big deal. 200 mph is hurricane type wind. I thought I came from the windy city, but I think Glasgow deserves an honourable mention; ‘’Glasgow, the unofficial windy city.’’ We did eventually make it home safe and sound and only about three hours later than scheduled.

My First Scottish Ceilidh

November was Ceilidh (pronounced Kay lee) season and of course I had to take part in this Scottish country dancing tradition! When I arrived, the International Student Welcome had a Ceilidh planned for us, which I attended, but it doesn’t really count. Basically, it was a bunch of international students many of whom English was not their first language, trying to comprehend the steps that the MC shouted out in his thick Glaswegian accent. It was fun, but most of us were confused. I was excited for a proper ceilidh where everyone would be in kilts and actually know the steps.

The best way for me to describe ceilidh dancing is to compare it to square dancing. There is a live band that will announce the songs and if you’re lucky go over the steps at the beginning. And you’ve always got a partner and either dance around in a big circle of couples or you line up and face your partner in groups of 4-8 couples. There’s lots of twirling and stomping and it’s surprisingly fast paced, you could easily work up a sweat doing this kind of dancing. Like square dancing, which used to be danced at traditional American weddings, ceilidh dancing still takes place in the modern day Scottish wedding. Everyone knows how to do it because they teach it in school and people actually do it outside of school! I really like that. We were taught how to square dance once in gym, but I can’t remember any of the steps because I never had an opportunity to practice it outside of that one class. I’ve never seen square dancing at a wedding. Ceilidh dancing is a lot like square dancing; it’s old fashioned, but everyone does it, young and old! It’s fun too.

Movember is when guys grow out a moustache for the whole month of November to raise awareness for testicular cancer. There’s a similar practice in the US, I’ve heard it called No-Shave November. Anyway, most ceilidhs have a fund raising purpose (although not all, sometimes they are put on just to get the community/family together). This ceilidh was for testicular cancer and had an auction, raffle and pound slide. You had to slide a pound coin as close as you could to a bottle of whiskey and whoever was closest won the bottle. Oh that’s the other thing I forgot to mention, usually you bring your own bottle to ceilidhs, steak out a table, get drunk with your friends and dance all night. It’s a good time. If you’re ever in Scotland, try and get yourself to an authentic Scottish ceilidh, they are loads of fun!

St. Andrews: The Actual Place

I joined the international student society when I first arrived at Glasgow Uni, and every weekend it seems they have a trip planned to some place in Scotland. I finally decided to go on one of the day trips to St. Andrews. I went with my friend Josephine from the MPH programme. We were both very disappointed with the castle, or lack thereof. Among many of the activities we were promised on the trip, the castle was one of them. Little did we know they were referring to rubble. O well, at least it was a beautiful sunny day and we got some good pics.

St. Andrews itself is a quaint little place. The University is where Prince William met Kate and there’s even a little café that proudly proclaims on the window ‘'the café where Wills met Kate for coffee.’’ It’s a well-respected university, the 3rd oldest in the English speaking world (behind Oxford and Cambridge and Glasgow being the 4th). It was quiet too; for a University town I was expecting to see more people about on a beautifully sunny day.

St. Andrews is also known for its golf course. It’s supposed to be one of the oldest in the world and is known as ‘’the home of golf.’’ I spent half the day looking for this golf course which was odd because this town was tiny! I didn’t realise that the tiny patch of green that I had passed up in the beginning was it! I was expecting a grand course with rolling hills and steep cliffs overlooking the ocean. Perhaps I just saw a tiny bit of it and the rest was closed off to the public or something, I’m not really sure. There was a nice gift shop/museum with a statue of Arnold Palmer and replicas of famous golfer’s grips. I didn’t go in the museum; perhaps if I did I would have understood the layout of the golf course better.

It was a nice day trip. I had a horrible bought of car-sickness (bus-sickness?) though. It was intolerable! For some reason I can’t deal with the narrow and windy roads of Scotland. It’s weird though, I took 24 hour buses throughout South America and every time you went over a mountain you had to wind your way up and down it, and I never got sick there… I’ll need to find some car-sickness wristbands for the next time.

Bed Sheets

For some reason the Scots don’t believe in bed sheets. You have the fitted sheet that goes on the bottom of the mattress and then the comforter. There is no sheet in between you and the comforter. Instead, they make removable sheets for the comforter and you wash that sheet instead. It’s like a duvet. I don’t really like the concept because sometimes the comforter is too warm, and you just want to be covered by a bed sheet. Plus, changing the sheet on the comforter is so much more complicated than just putting a fresh sheet on the bed. Hermmff. Grumble grumble.

St. Andrew's Day

Yesterday was St. Andrew’s Day, and I didn’t even know it till I got to my usual Wednesday evening Zumba class. (Our friend from Edinburgh, Scott, does Zumba btw!) Our instructor reminded us that we had come for a special St. Andrew’s Day Zumba and he disappeared into the back and started playing some pipe music over the speaker system. For those of you back home, traditional Scottish music is pretty much the same as traditional Irish music, very Celtic. After a bit, “Sandy Zumba,” our instructor, emerged in a kilt and sporran (Gaelic for purse). Scottish Zumba…It was good crack!

If you’ve never seen a proper kilt, they are quite heavy! Loads of material wrapped round and round saving space for a bit of middle age weight gain. Scottish men typically are given a kilt at their 18th birthday and they wear it to formal occasions for the rest of their lives. Midway through Zumba, Sandy was getting quite warm, I could tell. As you probably guessed, a strip tease ensued. Off came the kilt to reveal some very pasty white legs and a pair of Scottish flag short shorts (like really short and really tight, cerca 1960s basketball shorts). All in all it was good fun. I really do appreciate how Scotland has kept enthusiasm for one of its oldest traditions in modern times, when let’s be honest, how much more feminine can a skirt and purse get? Although, I think certain lines between masculinity and femininity are less clear here as I once saw a man on a British reality show straightening his hair…
Surprisingly enough, I knew in advance that yesterday, was going to be strike day before I knew it was St. Andrew’s Day. I feel a little bad for Scotland for that. Apparently, St. Andrew’s Day is supposed to be the national holiday. You know how every other country always celebrates an Independence Day with much vigour and national pride? Well what does Scotland have? They never really got away from the English…O well they have ceilidhs!

Didn’t really follow the strike too much, just knew it would be a day off from class! It was a public sector strike, only not really. It was planned out in advance, and they kept a 1/3 of public services open. Their hospitals obviously had to keep running for emergencies and some dentists stayed open as well. Most kids didn’t have school though. I guess the Royal Mail isn’t public sector? I sent a package yesterday. Anyway, from what I gather it didn’t do a whole lot. What can you expect from a half arsed strike? I’m not even sure everyone in the public sector really wanted to strike. I don’t actually know, shouldn’t be commenting on it…But yah… Happy St. Andrew’s Day!

Xscape!

Went to Xscape the other night, it was the coolest place/entertainment centre I had ever seen! Imagine every single thing you do outside or any sort of entertainment activity and this place has an indoor version. I’m assuming the reasoning for bringing it indoors is because it rains a lot and you don’t have the seasons to worry about to ruin your plans.

For example, the main attraction is an indoor sky slope. It’s like a bunny hill size equivalent, but you can ski here anytime of the year! It’s not even that expensive either, I’m coming back as soon as I get some ski pants, or I should say, trousers. We went for bowling, but there’s also a movie theatre, mini golf, laser tag, bumper cars, a high ropes course and rock wall, an arcade, restaurants, shopping all in one gigantic centre. I even saw carnie rides out front. It has everything, downside being the ever presence of NEDs (Non-Educated Delinquents). They’re basically little punks who are annoying and usually up to no good. They also speak another language; I don’t even think it can be classified as English.

Still, I reckon Xscape is one of the most unique epicentres I’ve ever seen. You could spend a whole day there without stepping out. Maybe even a whole week! That was the one thing I didn’t notice, no hotels; they could really market the ideal of a family fun destination for out-of-towners. Oh wait, I just remembered the advert for the Great Wolf Lodge in Wisconsin (or is it Canada?). No indoor water park I’m afraid…But there is a Nando’s, which is amazing.

Erin Visits

Literally two hours after my Dad leaves, our friend Erin, whom we met in Chile, arrives. Erin is in the midst of further traveling, on a sort of around the world trip before heading back to South America. This time instead of Chile, she will be heading for Colombia! I am a little jealous she gets to go back to South America, and I think Marc is too. We always talk about how much we want to go back. Life is just simpler, and you rarely seem to stress out there, upside-down, on the other side of the world.

There’s a cheese shop in the west end (where I live and go to Uni in Glasgow) where Marc had forbidden me to let him go. The reason he is not allowed in this cheese shop is because once he ended up spending over 100 quid on cheese…in one visit…which only lasted him a week! Nobody should be consuming that much cheese…I don’t care how delicious. Anyway, because Erin was here I let him go and we had a lovely Scottish brie.

We also visited Edinburgh where we met Marc’s old flatmates for lunch. No trip to Edinburgh would be complete without a visit to the Edinburgh Castle, which was cool. I’m planning on visiting loads of castles this year so like the cool person I am, I got Marc and I signed up for the Historic Scotland membership. It gets us into every castle in Scotland for free, and we get discounts on English historical sites as well!

We had a wee walk around and found the café where JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book! It had changed names since then (15 years!) so it wasn’t even really the “same” place, but still pretty cool. We didn’t go in, it was way too crowded and I guess the coffees there are like £5 ($7.50) so I wasn’t too keen. And it was getting late, so we needed to hope on the train back to Glasgow.

Erin was on her way to Norway so there ended our first round of visitors. It was nice though, having visitors. I was brand new to Scotland so I wasn’t the best guide, but at least Marc had lived in Glasgow for some time. Round one of visitors had finished, and I can’t wait for more! Come see meeee!

Dad's Visit

My Dad came for a visit! I had only been in Scotland for two weeks so it wasn’t like I was able to show him around, that was really Marc’s doing. Dad was stopping in Scotland for a few days on his way back from Afghanistan. He’d been six months without a drink, so he was pretty excited for that first “dram and a pint” with us! The place we were at was doing a polish night so we stayed for that and had a lovely meal. The next day I took dad around to see my Uni and that afternoon we visited the Glengoyne Distillery. I don’t think Dad was that impressed because although he was super excited about all the whisky he was to consume, he didn’t end up leaving the distillery with a bottle. That evening we had a really good meal at a sort of “gastro pub” which had been converted from an old church. The next day was dad’s last full day, and lucky for him it was a beautifully sunny day! So we took that opportunity to visit Loch Lomond, a beautiful lake just a half hour away. We spent the morning walking through cute little towns along the lake, and dad found his favourite scotch that he’d tried since he’d been here. So he decide to take a bottle home “for Karen.”

That afternoon we took him into the city centre and Marc took him to a great whisky bar that I think dad enjoyed very much  I enjoyed the free wifi… Our final meal was at a great little Scottish place called Roastit Bubbly Jocks. It was BYOB so we took some of our favourite Chilean wine. The service and the food were great! But by this point my liver was starting to feel like pate from all the rich food, but I recovered eventually. I was really happy Dad was able to visit. Hopefully we gave him a good impression of Scotland so that he’ll come back for a proper holiday next year! It was really nice seeing my Papa 

Glasgow

I’ve been in Glasgow now for about a week, which is just enough time for me to figure my way to Uni from my flat, and that’s about it... Glasgow is relatively small though, the underground is just one line, or circle rather. But the nice thing about that is you can go either direction in the circle; a plus when comparing it to the loop on the Chicago El. They call it the clockwork orange because it’s completely orange and well, it’s shaped like a clock.

There are two nice bits of Glasgow, the city centre and the west end. Well, I’ve only been to those two areas so far, and since I’m an expert in Scottish cities those are obviously the only nice parts of Glasgow…  I live in the west end where the University of Glasgow is. I really like it! All the housing is “tenement” style, which to me means they are all very old beautiful buildings, four stories tall, with 12 feet high ceilings and huge bay windows; really spacious and really nice. Three main differences would be the radiator style heating, absence of a garbage disposal/dishwasher, and the absence of a clothes dryer. Instead we have this awesome pulley-line system that runs along the ceiling of our kitchen. Knots in the “pulley-rope” hook the rope at different levels. So for example you would let all of the rope go and hook at the last knot to hang your clothes on the line, then pull the rope hooked up to a pulley and hook it on one of the first knots so that your clothes hang over head to dry.

My Uni is seriously Hogwarts, circa 1451 (I know Hogwarts wasn't around in 1451, but if it were, I would imagine it to look like my Uni). I’m not joking, it completely gothic style. But cool! It’s a pretty small campus, and unfortunately I don’t have any of my classes in the Hogwarts bit. But, I am in some old, grand, houses that had been converted into office and lecture buildings. I’m doing my Masters in Public Health or MPH, and I was surprised how small the programme is at Glasgow. It’s good for me because I’m pretty sure I’ll get all the help and guidance I need. There are only four full time students and maybe 10 students in total! I haven’t actually started any classes yet, just been attending a bunch of introductions to the programme and refreshers courses. We’ll see how it goes, it sounds pretty demanding doing the MPH full time in one year, but I’m pretty sure if I keep on top of things and get ahead when I can, I should be fine.

Inverness

Marc picked me up from Edinburgh airport and drove us to our flat in Glasgow where I dropped off my suitcase and packed a weekend bag. We were heading up north that evening to spend the weekend on the Black Isle (actually a peninsula) which is about 20 minutes away from Inverness; the capital of the Scottish Highlands. Also, home to the Loch Ness monster, which I saw! I took a picture with him too.

The drive up was nice; we stopped off in the cutest little town called Pitlochry for a “pit-stop” har har har. I saw lots of heather (a purple plant that covers the Scottish country side) and quite enjoyed the drive up while getting used to the narrower roads on the left and round abouts. Marc’s parents live up on the Black Isle and I was going to meet them for the very first time.

They were very nice folks, it was quite nice spending my first weekend in Scotland with a family being well fed. And I was well fed! Marc’s dad is French so we had French food; which confused me because I didn’t realise you get a salad and cheese AND dessert after the main course. It was so good, but I was stuffed by the end! All in all, a pretty great first weekend.

My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean

Well I’m off to Scotland today! For those of you whom I have not been in touch, I got back from South American in February, looked for a job, applied for grad school and after weighing my options decided to attend the University of Glasgow for a Masters in Global Health. I suppose there weren’t many options to weigh; I couldn’t find a job, and I got a full ride for this programme (not a spelling error, I’m trying out this British English thing). Plus my boyfriend, Marc, is Scottish so I guess I might as well give this rainy (but beautifully green!) country a try.

I realise the name of my blog no longer applies, but I don’t really want to change it…I’m just too lazy I guess. I did meet Marc in Chile and the chances of me going off to Scotland this year without meeting him are probably pretty slim. So I suppose keeping the Chile in the name is appropriate. But now that I have met him and have applied and decided to go, I’m so excited! Even though I generally don’t like being cold or wet or golfing or men in skirts I think this country sounds pretty promising

Apparently they make up for the shit weather by offering lots of indoor entertainment. Have you ever heard of indoor skiing?? You can do that in Scotland! And I supposed it would be a good studying environment; I mean, that is supposed to be my main reason for going over.
Marc and his pops are going to pick me up from the airport and we’re going to spend that first weekend up north in Inverness where his folks live. Maybe I’ll get a glimpse of the loch ness monster because that’s where he lives I guess! Then, it’s back down to Glasgow where I gotta start setting up my life for the next 12 months. Bon Voyage!

Just Living the Dream...

I’M BACK to the good ol’ US of A!!! Just living the American Dream, or so I tell myself. Two weeks back and I’m still trying to throw my toilet paper in the bin, and enthusiastically kiss every person I meet on the cheek (but feel awkward when I am not received in the same manner). Looking at it, we are really cold people with our formal handshakes… Anyhow, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do next…and let me tell you it’s not easy! It’s a tough job market, and when I think about how easy it is to find a job teaching my native language, in an exciting foreign country, I wonder why I would ever leave such a wonderful place to come home to such circumstances.

Well, it’s called the “real world.” But what exactly is the “real world?” Is our world in the US more real than say Buenos Aires, Argentina? I went out into the “real world,” yet somehow it doesn’t count. Was it because I wasn’t making a substantial living? Was it because I wouldn’t be able to settle and raise a family if I’m constantly moving about? All tough questions, but maybe it’s something to ponder over your morning coffee.

It’s pretty obvious I’m still trying to hang on by a thread to my former life in South America. I’m reading Che Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries and watching foreign films like the Buena Vista Social Club and El Sectreto de Sus Ojos. (The Secret in their Eyes) But I’m sure this will pass. I’ll readjust to what I know best, especially when I get home to Naperville and can start up the life I left before South America.

So I’m not sure what I’ll do. Most definitely take a job, because let’s face it; I can’t live like I did in South America. To be poor in South America is fine; you can at least feed yourself and enjoy a new place! But to be poor in America downright sucks! You are pretty much stuck where you are because you can’t afford to put gas in your car, and you need your car because public transportation is pretty much non-existent in the burbs. So you’re pretty much on house arrest until you start making them dollas. But this is what everyone wants me to do!! Contribute to that greatly diminishing Social Security that the aging baby boomers are gonna need to draw from. Trust me I do want to work, but only if it’s something I deem worthwhile, and now’s not the time to be picky. I know this, so I will probably end up taking the first thing that comes to me instead of hanging out for a better opportunity.

But is that really that bad? I don’t think so. We are simple creatures motivated by what we think will make us happy, and for most that’s a fat paycheck! Hell, I don’t even need the fat paycheck, any paycheck will be make me happy. I’ve been used to living simply and I know I could stretch any paycheck pretty damn FAR. Really, it will be a means to an end. And as of right now the end is looking like graduate school. I’ve got less than two years to use this post 9-11 GI Bill benefit from my dad for higher education. I’ve always known I want to continue my education I just figured I’d do it later.

And here is the point where I bring in my ulterior motive. Yes, hate to admit it, but I’ve fallen in Love (notice the capital “L”). Gahhhh. Well the “Mr.” in question happens to live across the pond in this far away land where Scots reside. Get this! The men wear these funny skirts and blow into these weird looking pipes. Sound gay? To add to that, they speak what might as well be called a foreign language. GAY-lick I think… :P Well it turns out each of our countries aren’t very friendly toward each other, they don’t like to let just anyone work in their country (cause too many people want to immigrate anyway)! But the loophole lies in the form of higher education. If I go over to the UK, I can get a Master’s in HALF the time it takes to do it here and I wouldn’t be paying much more either. Which arguably so, if I’m back in the work force a year earlier I can be paying off my loans a whole year quicker. And after I graduate, instead of chucking me out the country, (like we do here) I’d be graciously given two more years to work in said country.

Well that’s the plan anyhow….but plans can change. I always like to have many options in order to keep my options open.

Homecoming

I’m coming home! I finally booked my flight home to Chicago in March, in order to get home in time for my cousin’s wedding. It’s gonna be quite the journey. I’m planning on staying in Buenos Aires roughly for the month of January and February with some travel inbetween (hopefully). Well, looking at tickets home in March from Buenos Aires was a little rediculous, over a grand! When I paied half that to get down here! I heard Lima was the cheapest place to fly out of in South America, and lucky enough, after three tries, I got a flight to Chicago for about $425. Now, here’s the part that complicates things a litte... naw just makes for more of an adventure! Can any body tell me why flights from Buenos Aires to Lima are over $600?? Because LAN has f**king monopoly over the South American air travel. So instead, what I think is going to happen, is that I will need to book a bus from Buenos Aires to Lima, a bus that will take three days...The bus ticket is about $150, but that still comes out to a trip total of less than $600. $600 vs $1000, I think I can deal with three days on a bus for $400. I’m poor you must remember. I’ve been working full time at a school for the last five months for free basically. But’s it’s been the experience of a life time! I wouldn’t trade it for anything, my time in Chile has become a defining moment in my life. It is now a part of who I am and I will never forget it.

There’s a whole great big world out there. It seems daunting and scary at first, but once you venture out, you’ll find it’s not so big at all. If you are sitting at home reading this, and feeling restless with your life, my advice to you is this; get out! Go to a new place, meet new people who are different than you, try new food, and do something that is completely foreign to you! Anyone can do it, not just the young (although it is a lot easier with less responsibility).

So yah. I made a mistake booking my flight home, I meant to get in a day later because it turns out my mom is flying into the other Chicago airport two hours later from China that day. Any volunteers who wanna come pick us up at 10:30 at night?? You would be my first taste of USA in over 8 months!!!! And you would get a special prize!!!

To end in the words of Kanye West (no wait, it’s actually Chris Martin singing this part), “Do you think about me now and then? Do you think about me now and then? ‘Cause I’m coming home again. Baby do you remember when, fireworks at Lake Michigan, now I’m coming home again….If you don’t know by now, I’m talking ‘bout Chi Town!”

La Serena

Last weekend was a long weekend because we had the first of November off for All Saints Day. I’m not sure if they call it “dia de los muertos“ or not, but the idea behind the Mexican holiday is the same. I asked Gloria and she said they go visit the graves of their family members on this day. Regardless, I decided to take advantage of the four day weekend by traveling to La Serena, which is about five hours south of here.

La Serena is a really nice town. It had been awhile since I’d been out of the desert and I forgot how nice grass was! The town itself is just so pleasant because it’s a strolling town. It reminded me of downtown Naperville because on a nice day you’ll see so many people out taking advantage of the weather and going for leisurly strolls and windowshoping. I liked it! It even had a mall! Anyone who knows me know I love love love ice cream; of all varieties and flavors. Ice cream, soft serve, gelato, frozen yogurt, yumm they are all delightful, just spare me the sorbet. There was this cool frozen yogurt shop in the mall where you could pick your choice of fruit and then they had blocks of different flavored frozen yogurt, and you had the option to add a block of sugar as well. They throw it all into a bowl where this machine mixes it all up and viola! You’ve got frozen yogurt! It was cool and yummy.

Marc was super happy to find a few items we’d been scouring Copiapó. One, a plain gray jumper (hoodie) and two, a squash ball. We´ve made multiple trips to our ¨mall¨ and never had luck finding either, but La Serena had both! He was a happy bear.

We had met up with a few other volunteers Friday night and went out in Coquimbo, the town right next to La Serena. I regrete not having enough time to explore Coquimbo during the day, but maybe next time because the following night we went to Vicuña. There we booked a tour of an observatory where we saw some stars, glaxies and jupiter through a moderately sized telescope. It was a midnight, and it ended around 3 so we were all exhausted by the end. But this town had sooo many stars because it´s rarely every cloudy. If you´ve ever been in the middle of the ocean at night and looked up, you could serriously see just as many stars in this town! You could see three different glaxisies with the naked eye! The milky way and two others that were just forming. Thanks to the tour, I also finally realized why you can´t see the big dipper or the north star...I´d been searching. Also, the Orien I´d been seeing is actually flipped upside down. I never noticed because I´ve always just picked out the seven stars which just so happened to be symetrical.

I think our hostel owner in Vicuña is worth mentioning because he gets a coolest guy award. So we already hasseled him before meeting him by changing our reservation maybe 3 times. But he was so nice about it. Originally from Buenos Aires, his parents were Spanish. And upon meeting me, he immediately tells me I am beautiful and that Marc should be careful because they will steal me away in Buenos Aires. He later makes comments on wanting to kidnap Marc as well, after lovingly kissing him hello and goodbye. Usually, a handshake is the norm between men, but close friends and relatives will kiss on the cheek. El era un buen onda! Also, he wins best hostle award. The beds were so comfortable with actual sheets and comfortors, and the breakfast was the best hostle breakfast I´ve ever had! Real coffee, natural juice, eggs prepaired by request, fruit, cereal, and of course pan, but with a choice of three different jams! Unheard of! And all for about $20 a night, which is a bit pricey for hostles, but this wasn´t your typical hostle.

The next day we explored Vicuña a bit and checked out the Gabriella Mistral Musieum. Gabriella Mistral was the other Nobel prize winning poet from Chile. She was also a teacher in Vicuña, so we saw her tiny little house. Next stop, PISCO ELQUI! Pisco, Chile´s national liqure is like a brandy but made from specific grapes called pisco. Elqui valley is where pretty much all the country´s pisco is grown and produced. So it was only fitting to visit the king of Pisco´s distillery, Mistral. I can´t tell you much about the tour because I was feeling under the weather and not able to concentrate on Spanish that day, but from what I gathered growing the grapes is pretty much the same process as any vineyard, and the distilling process is pretty much the same as any whisky distillation.

We had one more night (Halloween) which was spent pretty laid back in la Serena and the next day we had to catch our bus back to Copiapó. It was really weird to think that it was my last weekend traveling in Chile. I only had three weeks left in Copiapó, then what?

Well, I have travel plans pretty much planned out until January. My program ends November 24th, from there I have 2 weeks to travel the south of Chile with a fellow Chicagoland chica from the program. From there we fly to Lima and meet Marc and his friend to do some hiking! Machu Pichu and Colca canyon. From there we´re flying back to Santiago, spending Christmas with a friend of Mallory´s (my cousin) and then I think I´m going to try and make it to Buenos Aires for NYE and try and find something to do there to stay a little longer. If I can get the visa situation figured out, I may be able to add a trip to Brazil with Marc, but that´s still an if. We´ll see what happens, I´m going to be drifting for awhile, but I think I´m ready for that!

San Pedro de Atacama

A couple of weekends ago I traveled to San Pedro de Atacama with Marc and Erin where we met up with more six month volunteers from Marc’s program. In total there were eight of us, seven girls and Marc. Oh! And super crazy small world story, one of the girls was from Fort Wayne! She went to Cantebury and knows the Muttons. She graduated a year before me from Indiana. Aint that a small world? Imagine meeting someone from your small hometown in the middle of the driest desert in the world...yep I did!

Anyhoo, San Pedro, it’s super cool! It was a little expensive, but cool non-the-less! So I live in Copiapo, it’s on the southern outskirts of the Atacama Desert. San Pedro de Atacama is smack dab in the middle of the desert, and it took us 10 hours by bus to get there. Mostly because there is no direct road straight into the desert, we had to go out of our way a little to get there. San Pedro is what I was expecting when they told me I was going to the desert, completely desolate, with just sand and mountains for miles. I don’t think anyone actually lives in San Pedro and it exist solely for tourist perposes. The bus station was basically a curb with some benches and the town itself existed of a few hostels and one main road that contained restaurants, tourist shops and tourist agencies. There were so many tourist agencies! I don’t know how they all survive with all the competition.

The first day we were in town, we decided to take tour to see some flamingos that lived in the middle of this huge salt flat! It was called Salar de Atacama. The flamingos were pretty cool, we also saw llamas and donkeys! We watched the sunset in ¬¬the Los Flamencos National Reserve and headed back into town for an early night because we decided to do an early morning tour to see the geysers of Tatio, which was about an hour away. The tour started at 4 am and the reason you have to get up so early is because the morning is the best time to see the geysers. It was sooo cold in the moring, there was one point where I thought my toes might freeze off, but within an hour or two, as soon as the sun rose, it started warming up immensly. The geyser tour I think was the best tour we took all weekend, it was well organized, in English and in Spanish, and lasted close to eight hours! You could swim in these hot springs, if you wanted, and then they took us to various other small towns along the way home.

I forgot to mention, Gloria had a nephew, Piere, who worked in a tourist agency in San Pedro. He was hooked us up with all of our tours and was supper great to us! That afternoon we went sandboarding in Valle de Muerte (Vally of death). Yah, like snowboarding, but in the desert! It was a little unorganized, but I had a blast. So much fun! Only problem was, you had to walk up the hill each time. The first time was a killer, don’t forget to factor in the altitude, something like 13,000 feet or so..., but it got easier each time you did it. I totally want to do it again here in Copiapo if I can somehow get my hands on a sandboard. That evening they took us to Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) to watch the sunset which was gorgeous because it throws reds, purples, and blues on the mountains as the sun sets. They even gave us a complementary Escudo (cheapest beer in Chile) to enjoy the sunset with.

By the next day, I’m running low on cash, and it just so happens every single ATM in San Pedro isn’t working....so we all scrape together whatever cash we can and it’s enough for us to all go on one more tour to the hot springs of Puritama. It was a nice and relaxing day, and we got back just in time to catch our bus back to Copiapo. It was such a great weekend, I had so much fun! I would recommend it to anyone traveling through Chile.

Things I Miss the Most

• A legit capaccino. One served in a normal coffee mug without a pound of whipped cream on top. The white stuff on top is supposed to be steamed milk guys...
• Chicago style deep dish pizza
• A command of language. I really wish I didn’t sound like a five year old (actually I think I’m being a bit optimistic with that age) and could express myself better.
• Being able to walk down the street without getting whisled at or worse that kissy noise!
• Sushi. Not palta sushi, actual sushi with fish
• Joy Yee’s Bubble drinks. Taroh root with tappiaca balls... ahh that’s the stuff!
• My dog. Haha jk! I don’t have a dog, plus I could easily adopt one if I wanted.
• My family. My friends
• Jumping in the leaves. I’m sad I’m missing the red, yellow and brown leaves of fall and sweater weather.

Things in Chile I’ll Miss the most
• Copiapo
• My family
• The general hospitality/friendliness
• Cumbia
• Being adored soley for the fact that I’m foreign
• Traveling
• Pan. Haha Just kidding!
• The $1.20 massive ice cream cone from the Oriental ice cream shop
• Speaking spanish
• My fellow gringos in Copiapo
• The mountains (well technically Copiapo only has hills, but coming from the midwest they are mountains to me!)
• Piscola and Kamakazi

El Rescate de los 33

So world media has taken an interest in this human interest story and it just so happens I’m here smack dab in the middle. I thought people might be interested in reading about my thoughts as I witnessed this story from the begining. Well, I must admit I have mixed feelings about how this story has blown up. While it’s super exciting to be in the middle of it all (and I’m desperately trying to get on as many newscasts as possible) I kinda think the media has blown it up way huge, doing what journalists do to get that story. And you know that’s fine, that’s how the media works, but I think what doesn’t sit well with me is the fact that it took 17 days and contact with the miners before any world media took interest. I remember before contact trying to find article in English and usually all I could find were from small newspapers whose facts I wasn't sure I trusted because they seemed to contradict the Spanish news. But now there is a pleathera of articles to choose from such as "how the wives/girlfriends are preparing for romantic reunions with trapped miners."

And Copiapo, a small mining town who never gets any attention is eating it all up. Ok, I’m generalizing, sorry. Really, I feel like it’s the families eating it all up. The’ve been camping out at esperanza for the last two months doing who knows what? Waiting. But why? You’re men are alive and well, what is your waiting around outside in the bitter cold nights/hot days doing? I kinda just think they use this “suffering“ as an excuse not to go to work. Plus, they’re taking the kids out of school which is just kinda silly don’t you think? Marc’s got kids who haven’t been to school for 3 months now, so what are they supposed to do when they go back? No doubt they will just pass them along to the next grade. School ends in December so they probably won’t go back this year. Am I sounding a bit negative? I don’t mean to be. I just feel like there’s a different story here that will never be told.

But hell! It’s still pretty frickin cool to be in the middle of this event. History in the making baby! A bunch of my friends are getting job offers to translate or give quotes. BBC, some Canadian news company, and even a German broadcast contacted one of my friends here. I just wanna get on CNN. Heading to the plaza now, we’ll see what we can do.