Vive los sabores de U.S.A.

Maritza and I were walking through the Jumbo, which is a grocery store the size of Costco and as crowded as ... well very crowded. And everybody has an enormous shopping cart to boot. Anyway, we're pushing our way through this zoo, and Maritza sees ramen, but it's not that cheap (like 350 pesos or something per pack—60 cents). Then we notice granola bars, and some other American looking food. We finally look up and there's this ridiculous deccoration of Red , White and Blue and a sign that says, basically, "Long live the flavors of the USA." We thought it was pretty funny, especially because the flavors of the USA were exemplefied by ramen and granola bars. We looked around a little more and realized that the seemingly most celebrated food was ketchup, of which they had a very large stock.

¡Empanadas verdes!

Maritza and I made empanadas verdes tonight! Empanadas are like miniature simple calzones, stuffed with cheese, mushrooms or meat and they are very popular all over South and Central America. Maritza saw lots of them last fall in Panamá, and I saw lots in while I was in Ecuador. You can buy them on the street and in cafés all over here in Chile. They differ in the way they're made but the overall effect is similar. In Chile they are made of flour, but in Ecuador the shell is made from mashed green (not ripe) plaintains, hence the name "verde." So what we made isn't actually a Chilean dish at all but we thought it would be fun, and it was! They were also very yummy! Maritza made the dough in the afternoon while I was still at work. She boiled the plantain briefly then mashed it together with an egg and some butter. It then sat for a while to cool off and I came over to help her. She rolled out the dough and cut nice little circles out of it as in the picture on the right. Then I put little pre-cut slices of gauda cheese (not gouda), which is a mild cheese used a lot in Chile. Most empanadas de queso around here seem to be stuffed with it. We also added peas because Maritza had some, and we didn't feel like cutting onions (which is what the recipe called for). So then I folded it over like a taco and squished the edges together using a fork (see photo to left). All ready to be fried! Hooray! Deep-frying the empanadas stiffens the dough and melts the cheese. Mmmm. All ready to eat, warm and all melty!

Yes I know there are other entries....

Hello all,

Well, today was a pretty good day! I've been putting off writing this playing Snood and Enigma because I am the biggest dork ever, but I beat the puzzle game on Snood (so WHAT if I used the save game feature?) so that should help somewhat. Also Lee was sick last week and then I was sick this weekend and I didn't want to update when all I would do is complain, so I will say instead that when I got out of the metro on my way home from school and looked southeast I was thrilled to see the Andes clearly, the white snow on top sharp against the clear blue sky, no smog, no clouds. That's how I knew it would be a good day. The other exciting thing actually happened this morning.

I'm seeing Ani Difranco in concert this September! I was thinking about not getting tickets because she's playing in the same theater I saw her in 1st year, which is the Auditorium Theater which is gigantic and is more appropriate for an opera with its gold-covered ceilings and fancy everything and 50ft high stage opening, but whatever. The point is that it holds like 4000 people and when I saw her I was in the second balcony and I couldn't see her in good focus and I was just sitting in a chair and I said I'd never see her in a huge venue like that again. However, I'm on the mailing list for her label (email) and so knew about the presale which began today and the password to get presale tickets and all that, so during the break at shool, which was right after 11 (when the tickets went onsale), I went online to get them and I scored AMAZING seats for lee and I. Which is why it's worth it even in this ridiculous venue because we are in the FOURTH row, center section, 5 and 6 seats from the aisle (see right). CRAZY.

The other day Elliot, another guy on the program, saw a street named 10 de julio and so decided to have a dinner party tonight in order to avoid any possible insult to Chile for forgetting an important holiday. People asked around all day about what the holiday was for (I didn't think to ask my Spanish professor.) to no avail. Finally, one of my two Chilean roommates told me that he thought it had to do with a battle in Concepción, which is a port city several hours south of Santiago (it is, I believe, Chile's third largest city). With some help from Google it appears that the 10th was the second and final day of an important battle in the War of the Pacific between Chilean and Peruvian/indigenous troops. 77 Chileans prevailed against an enemy force of around 2000. By the way, the Battle of the Pacific was initiated by the Chileans against Bolivia and Peru in order to take control of the area now known as Regions I and II. My Spanish professor compared it to the War in Iraq, saying that the rationale for war differed greatly from its more directly economic true but unspoken motives. I thought that was interesting. :)

Lee's cell phone

I bought a cell phone today! It's free for me for you to call me :) If you use skype, it's pretty cheap to call it. My number is 56 09 7718 6598. Have fun! Or, you can just call me on skype, too. My skype name is leewalsh.

¡Sigue la Corriente!

I found this billboard in a metro station, and I thought it was very cute. There's a lot of electricity savings propoganda here, but not to save us from global warming. Santiago, and I imagine much of the surrounding region, is facing an energy crisis. Most of their electricity comes from hydro electric, but they've been having less rain and snow than normal so their not producing up to par. Meanwhile, the city is growing and electricity use is way up and the system isn't able to handle it all. The water thing refers to the fact that they all have electric kettles to heat water for their tea or instant coffee. I think people tend to fill it much of the way up (two or three liters) and heat all that water, then only pour a cup or two and let the rest cool off. Anyway, here's a translation:

USE LOW CONSUMPTION LIGHT BULBS. DON'T WAIT FOR OTHERS TO DO IT FOR YOU.
USE ENERGY WISELY. KEEP THE CURRENT FLOWING.
Unplug things that you're not using, like your cell phone charger, that continue
to use consume electricity even while their not in use. When you heat water,
store it in a thermos. Do your laundry in full loads. Choose refigerators and
lightbulbs with the Energy Efficient Label. Follow this advice and save money.
www.siguelacorriente.cl

Cerro San Cristobal

The first clear day that most of us were here in Santiago (Sunday 24 June), we climbed Cerro San Cristobal. "Cerro" is Spanish for "hill", and this one rises from the very center of town, about 200 and some meters above the city. It had just rained the day before (while Maritza and I were running around looking at apartments) so the smog was very low and thin, giving us spectacular views. There is a picture of the hill from my apartment in my previous post. We found a footpath (see image on left; from front to back: Mike, Maritza, Alex and Elliott), but it ran into a road about halfway up so we just walked up that. Lots of runners and bikers, and not too many cars. We stopped about halfway up and had some yogurt and juice atop a little lookout tower at a little false summit. Mike and Elliott are squinting into the sun, and that's me and Maritza with the palm trees and snowy mountains behind us. We continued up a little ways and from along the road we could see Wei's apartment building (the only one of us who had a place at that point, since he arrived two weeks before any of us). On the left are Alex, Elliott, Mike and Maritza looking at it. After following several signs towards the "cumbre" and the "Virgen" we made it to the large statue of the Virgin Mary giving a blessing to the citizens of Santiago from atop this central location. Below the figure is an open-air sanctuary, which would be a very pleasant place to have a mid-summer Christmas Mass. We hung around the top and took in all the views. Elliott and Alex decided to walk back down a trail that we found that leads to the top without joining any roads, but Maritza and Mike and I were intrigued by the funicular lift that runs up the very front, and what seems to be the steepest slope of the hill. It cost I think about $500 or so one way (about one US dollar) and was much quicker than our route up. The gap through the trees on the left is the track of the funicular. A funicular works very much like an elevator, except that instead of being vertical, they rest on train tracks up a steep hillside. It consists of two carts tied directly to each other by a cable hanging over a pulley at the top of the lift. There is only one track, but it splits in the middle for the cars to pass. The two carts act as counterbalances, thus it takes very little power to lift a group of people if there is another group at the top to haul them up with their weight (and high potential energy). We later saw these all over the steep hills of Valparaíso, where they call them ascensores. Below are four views of Santiago from the top. Don't mind the smog.

Lee's Apartment

Mike and I finally found ourselves an apartment (Well, Maritza actually found it...). It's on the tenth floor and about a two-minute walk from the metro station. It has big windows facing in three directions, so we can see the smog all over! These pictures were taken from my apartment at sunrise on a very clear day.

The hill in the very center of town, Cerro San Cristobal:


To the South:


To the Northeast:




To the Southeast:

My Machine

I've finished up one week of work now, and so far I've mostly just set up my experiment. It's basically a thin plastic sheet rolled into a cylinder and very carefully glued to itself. It's held in place by the aluminum contraption shown on the left. Almost all the metal pieces were machined here for the previous experiment (in which they twisted the column to see how it would buckle). My experiment involves poking the cylinder with the two micrometer screws shown on the right. You should be able to see that one screw rotates with the cylinder, and the other is fixed to the supporting rod on the right. Somehow I'll measure the force that they exert and how that changes when I rotate the cylinder (and one of the screws) so that the dimples aproach each other. When they get close enough to each other, they'll annihilate and become one. As of now I haven't started taking any data, but hopefully that will begin soon. I've been reading lots of papers on thin surfaces and could tell you all about what happens when you deform them, but it would be difficult and probably uninteresting over a blog. You should be able toclick on the pictures to make them bigger. Post a comment if you have any questions!

Welcome

Hello everybody!

Lee wanted me to write the first post on our blog, so here it is. We've been in Chile almost two weeks, and we're just now starting to have time to breathe. That is, we'd have time to breathe if the air weren't so polluted. Lee has a cough, which we think is due to the air. Here in Chile they have an inversion that lasts the entire winter. Due to the fact that it hasn't rained for several days, the air quality is low, so that we can't see the mountains around the city. I've never experienced this phenomenon (although my parents yawned when I told them – the weather is the same as in Los Angeles).

I want to leave you on a good note, so here's a little story about bread. Yesterday Lee, Mike and I went to the Jumbo (like a Super Wal-Mart without the "Home & Garden" section and with more food in its place) where we bought two loaves of "pan de campo" for just 340 pesos each – about 75 cents! Today I went to a bakery on my way home and bought three Berliners. They're rolls with a sugar icing or manjar inside. They only cost 300 pesos each.

OK, Lee wants to translate the post, so wait for him.

Seeya,
Maritza

Bienvenidos

¡Hola a todos!

Lee quiere que yo escriba la primera entrada en nuestra blog, entonces aquí es. Tenemos casi dos semanas en Chile, y sólo ahora empezamos a tener tiempo para respirar. Digo, tendríamos tiempo para respirar si el aire no fuera tan tóxico. Lee tiene un tos, pensamos que es debido al aire. Acá en Chile hay una inversión que persiste durante todo el invierno. Gracias al hecho que no ha lluvido por varios días, la calidad del aire es bajo, tanto como no podemos ver las montañas alrededor de la ciudad. Nunco he experimentado este fenómeno así (aunque mis padres bostezaron cuando les dije el cuento - el tiempo es igual en Los Angeles).

Quiero dejar ustedes con una buen noticia, entonces escribo un poquito sobre el pan. Ayer Lee, Mike, y yo fuimos al Jumbo (como un Super Wal-Mart sin equipo para "hogar y huerto" que tiene más comida en vez de eso) donde compramos dos barras de "pan de campo" por sólo Ch$340 cada uno - ¡sobre US$0.75! El día de hoy visité una panadería en mi camino hasta la casa, y compré tres "pan berlin". Son como bollos con azúcar glas o manjar adentro. Cuesta sólo Ch$300 cada uno.

Bueno, Lee quiere traducir la entrada, le esperan.

Chau pue'
Maritza