My Car Tour of Santiago

Maggie took me on a car tour of Santiago yesterday. It was such an awesome day because she showed me all that my little eyes could handle. We had a map of Gran Santiago with us and she would constantly ask me to point out where we were on the map. She is also all about directions so she would pull the car to the side sometimes and ask me what direction we were traveling in or where the mountains were at this minute. I got all the questions right actually which I explained by telling her that my dad is a pilot and he taught me the importance of orientation with your surroundings. It's either that or I'm just a baller. We drove through Nunoa then to Providencia then through Bellavista where we saw people flocking to Cerro San Cristobal because it was the last weekend for the kids start school again. I feel their pain because I start classes tomorrow...classes that will last for the next 5 months! Eeek! After Bellavista, we drove through El Centro de Santiago which I remembered from the day I got my cast on and Maggie took me all the way downtown to get my Chilean identification card. During our car tour through El Centro, she showed me a huge new park called El Parque de los Reyes and then we made a quick turn to the left into another comuna que se llama Quinta Normal. Maggie almost crashed the car upon the turn because she turned to me to say: "Hijita, en cual direcion estamos viajando ahora?" I was like: "ohhhh ummm Doblamos a la izquierda y por eso, estamos viajando hacia el sur porque las montanas estan a la izquierda ahora." Maggie was a very proud mama during the whole tour/test and I realized that I have a knack for orientating myself to my surroundings.

We stopped the car outside of a huge part in Quinta Normal so we could walk around for a bit. We ended up strolling around the park looking at the various museos, gente, y comiendo un dulce tipico de Chile. I have always known that my mind is like a sponge but Maggie is seriously like a bucket of water. She is so full of knowledge and knows exactly how to teach me. She has patience and can really tap into how helpless one can feel while learning another language. It's truly amazing. In the park, she stopped for a moment and urged me to look closely at the people who were walking around us...to listen to their dialects, watch their manerisms, memorize their way of dress. Later when we were having a delightful "once" at Jumbo, she had me do the same thing but this time it was in the comuna of Los Condes which is known for being a high-class neighborhood. She is trying to make me aware of the differences that exist between the people of different comunas which to other Chileans are obvious but to extranjeros are completely nonexistent. I have to laugh sometimes at how funny we must look when we are exploring the world together: this tall blond California girl with this petite Chilean woman...both speaking Spanish and laughing all the while. Al mismo tiempo, it helps me understand that the gap between two people from profoundly different cultures can be easily narrowed if they're willing to be open to learning about each other's customs. Maggie shows me respect for having the courage to live in her world for these 6 months and speak her language, and I have equal respect for her being super patient with me and sacrificing her own time to make sure I feel comfortable and safe in her country.

My tour of Santiago ended with a look at the sanctuary of the Virgen Maria de Lourdes. You may remember from my entry about La Serena that I had researched the story of the appearance of the Virgen in Lourdes, France. It is believed that the Virgen appeared to Bernadette, a girl from the country, in a grotto in the countryside. There is much more to the story so I urge you to investigate it, but in this sanctuary that we visited, it was truly breath-taking to see a huge constructed rock grotto with a replica of the aparicion seen by Bernadette. There were people in the pews praying and the whole place was alive with active faith. Quite a sight to behold. When we got home that night, Maggie made us a feast because Luke and Megan had just gotten back from a day of skiing/boarding in the Andes!! We drank vino navagado and ate raviolis con espinaca. Then Meg and I hit the hay and didn't wake up again until 11 am! Now that's what I call a good night's sleep :)