Julieta Bautista-Lopez
PUCV, Chile
Hey everyone! Hope everyone is having a fun spring break. This is probably the first time I am not jealous of other people because being in Chile is like being on spring break every week. The weather is perfect almost to perfect.
A lot has happened in the few days that I have not blogged. I have to say never did I think that coming to Chile would I have to experience earthquakes and this week I added a new experience, a forest fire. Some of you may have seen on the news that there was a forest fire in Valparaiso. It is still not under control, but firefighters are doing their best. Friday afternoon my friends and I were on the beach and ashes started falling from the sky. We were all so confused as to what was happening. We thought maybe it was from the Volcano that had erupted last week, but no just a forest fire. Last year there was a really bad one so people were very concerned that it would effect transportation, power lines, and the water supply. We are lucky many firefighters came in from other cities and took control of the situation as quickly as possible. Did I mention that firefighters in Chile are volunteers. They are incredibly brave and I wish I knew a way to thank them for what they do. Below is a picture of the smoke cloud and a helicopter that was carrying water to help put out the fire since road infrastructure is not very reliable to get to where the fire was.
On the flip side, this week I have been observing how different life is here and wanted to share with you all about how exactly everyday life is in Viña del Mar.
1) Public Transportation is very very important here. There are so many options. Microbus, Collectivo ( like a mixture between a bus and a taxi, its cheaper than a taxi but has a route and more than one person can ride in it), Radio- taxi ( a typical taxi, but very expensive).
- Although there are many options, I do have to say nothing here is on a set schedule. Getting to class can be difficult because you never know if the bus will come in 5 minutes or 15 minutes.
2) Any family run or non-chain store has its own hours that no one knows besides the owners. They open and close whenever they want, even for lunch. So it makes it kind of difficult to go to because you never know if it will be open.
3)The importance of small talk is highly stressed.
- This is a very important concept in the business world because if I ever do international business with Chile I have to be able to understand their norms. My business professor was telling us about how important it was to actually sit down and talk about family and drink some tea/coffee before a meeting starts.
Aside from all the class work and people watching. I did give myself some time to travel and visit the Sand dunes in Con Con. These sand dunes are very large and terrible to climb, but once you get to the top the view in incredible.
Sadly due to the increase in population and infrastructure there is only a small section left, but at one time they used to cover most of the area in Con Con.
I also visited a very popular spot in Valparaiso that everyone knows as the rocks where the sea lions are. This infrastructure was going to be a road that connected Valparaiso and Viña del Mar, but many Chilean citizens protested against it and the construction plans stopped. What you can see are the remains and funny enough the sea lions took it over. It is really fun to go sit and watch them jump off and on and get into fights. I just found it amazing how powerful the citizens voices were to stop this infrastructure from being built because it would really take away from the view.
That is all for this week or really week and a half of events. Hopefully my next blog will be about my possible trip to Argentina for spring break.
PUCV, Chile
Hey everyone! Hope everyone is having a fun spring break. This is probably the first time I am not jealous of other people because being in Chile is like being on spring break every week. The weather is perfect almost to perfect.
A lot has happened in the few days that I have not blogged. I have to say never did I think that coming to Chile would I have to experience earthquakes and this week I added a new experience, a forest fire. Some of you may have seen on the news that there was a forest fire in Valparaiso. It is still not under control, but firefighters are doing their best. Friday afternoon my friends and I were on the beach and ashes started falling from the sky. We were all so confused as to what was happening. We thought maybe it was from the Volcano that had erupted last week, but no just a forest fire. Last year there was a really bad one so people were very concerned that it would effect transportation, power lines, and the water supply. We are lucky many firefighters came in from other cities and took control of the situation as quickly as possible. Did I mention that firefighters in Chile are volunteers. They are incredibly brave and I wish I knew a way to thank them for what they do. Below is a picture of the smoke cloud and a helicopter that was carrying water to help put out the fire since road infrastructure is not very reliable to get to where the fire was.
On the flip side, this week I have been observing how different life is here and wanted to share with you all about how exactly everyday life is in Viña del Mar.
1) Public Transportation is very very important here. There are so many options. Microbus, Collectivo ( like a mixture between a bus and a taxi, its cheaper than a taxi but has a route and more than one person can ride in it), Radio- taxi ( a typical taxi, but very expensive).
- Although there are many options, I do have to say nothing here is on a set schedule. Getting to class can be difficult because you never know if the bus will come in 5 minutes or 15 minutes.
2) Any family run or non-chain store has its own hours that no one knows besides the owners. They open and close whenever they want, even for lunch. So it makes it kind of difficult to go to because you never know if it will be open.
3)The importance of small talk is highly stressed.
- This is a very important concept in the business world because if I ever do international business with Chile I have to be able to understand their norms. My business professor was telling us about how important it was to actually sit down and talk about family and drink some tea/coffee before a meeting starts.
Aside from all the class work and people watching. I did give myself some time to travel and visit the Sand dunes in Con Con. These sand dunes are very large and terrible to climb, but once you get to the top the view in incredible.
That is all for this week or really week and a half of events. Hopefully my next blog will be about my possible trip to Argentina for spring break.