Copa Mundial

Dear eager followers,

I apologize for being absent for so long. But fear not: I'm back on the blogging train.

Wait, I've already said that before? Alright, just accept that I'm posting again and will be hoping to post a bit more frequently in the coming weeks.

Today marks the end of regular classes for the semester; I have three exams in the next two weeks, and then I'm FREE! I'll have the entire month of July off from classes. During that time I'll get to see my parents and brother, who will be visiting Santiago for ten days. The plan right now is to travel around a bit with them when they come here and then after saying goodbye to them to do some more traveling on my own outside of Santiago. Plans are very much in the air at this point, though. This month has, overall, been a good one. I finally felt like I had a hold of my workload for my classes, was able to see some new parts of Santiago, raced in a rowing pairs' event in southern Chile, and recently, have been able to enjoy the craziness that is the World Cup (Copa Mundial in Spanish) in a soccer-crazy country.

In regards to the rowing, my friend Rodrigo and I decided, after only having rowed together in a pair once, to attempt a race together at last weekend's competition. For the non-rowers, the pair is a notoriously difficult boat to row because it requires a lot of technical skill because it's a small boat that is easily offset by small movements. Many rowers would have tried to row a few times before beginning to think about racing, but not us; no, with a lot of faith in luck and our ability to rapidly improve over time we registered. Our training was not ideal: we managed to row together twice before getting to the race site, and we finished that first outing together by flipping the boat. The second outing had to be called off only an hour into the row because of wind and rain. So we got to Concepción, the southern Chilean city where the regatta was held, with somewhat tempered hopes for success.

Shocker of all shockers, we didn't win our race, we both felt good about how we rowed together. We're at an excellent part on the learning curve where there's a noticeable improvement from every time we get into a boat together (approximately six times in total by now), so that definitely helps. But I also really enjoyed being able to attend a regatta in Chile. The sport is centered in this part of southern Chile, so I loved seeing all the different rowing clubs from the neighboring cities and to learn about Chilean rowing culture in general. Rowers are a funky enough breed that I think we stand out in most settings, and Chile's no different. High school rowers were getting together to compare blisters while competitors complained about the regatta running behind schedule. We were on the receiving end of some wonderful generosity from several different people: one man entrusted his beautiful boat to us both for a practice session and for the race on Sunday, never having met or spoken to us before. And we had a comfortable home to sleep in on Saturday night thanks to the hospitality of members of the club I row at in Santiago. Clearly, in addition to being a weird in similar ways, rowers are exceedingly generous in the Southern Hemisphere as well. In fact, my only disappointment from the weekend was learning that Chileans say, in English "Ready, Go!!" at the start--I'd been hoping to learn the Spanish translation of "Attention, Go!".

The dream team

Just before we left for Concepción the World Cup began. I consider myself a pretty serious soccer fan at home (i.e. I watch all the US games and know most of the line-up) but I quickly learned that that is just a minimum level of devotion for most Chileans. When Chile plays the country comes to a standstill--classes are cancelled, work stops, and there is a true feeling of tension in the air. The security guards who works the front door of my building normally uses the flat screen TV in the lobby to watch security footage, but that night the channel was switched to game and an enormous Chilean flag now hangs under the screen. The best explanation I've found so far is that since everything stops in Chile during the games, crime must go down as well. I got a feeling for this a week ago when Chile played Australia, but the whole experience was ramped up about seven notches for Wednesday's game against Spain. Spain, the defending champions from 2010, had already lost its first game and was seen as vulnerable against Chile, so the game was super heavily anticipated. I left the practically empty library on Wednesday afternoon and made my way to the viewing areas, where the university has set up two marquees with jumbotron screens. The marquees were entirely packed with tense Chileans, but the environment quickly became less tense and more celebratory as Chile scored in the twentieth minute, again just before the end of the first half, and never gave up control from there. As this youtube video shows, you didn't even have to be watching the game to understand the progress: each goal was greeted with horns and general shouting. This video (follow this link if the in-post link isn't working) was shot from near my apartment in central Santiago, and in addition to the cool sound effect, it also has a pretty wonderful view of Santiago's smog and the Andes.

In what may have been a bit of an error, I skipped the celebrations yesterday to go to my class (which had been rescheduled so as to not conflict with the game). Then again, I read today that the "celebrations" resulted in the hijacking of six buses, damages to 40, and the burning of one bus stop. So yeah, Go Chile!!! Really, though, it's pretty exciting to be in such a soccer-crazed country that's enjoying what hopefully turns out to be a long run through the tournament.

Coming up soon I'm looking forward to writing some final papers (haha, I'm so funny) followed by a Fourth of July ski trip to one of the ski resorts near Santiago. And I will of course be shouting myself hoarse for my beloved USA for the duration of their time in the World Cup. Until my next (hopefully sooner!) post, thank you for reading. It's been a pleasure sharing these first months of my adventure here with you, and I'm looking forward to this next stage in my time here.