Fulbrighters

Remember when I was complaining that things weren't lively enough here in Chile? Well these past two days I got my wish.

Friday morning I finally met (in person) the professor that I'm going to be working with at the research center (CIAE). She is so passionate about education and very well-connected in the education system here. For those of you that remember my time in Mexico, this woman reminds me a lot of my host grandma: very concerned about my well-being and incredibly outgoing. I'm very excited to see how the research unfolds.

After my very brief meeting with the research team, I finally made my way to the Fulbright office. It was the most overdue meeting of my life, seeing as how I've been in contact with most of these people for a year now without ever seeing them! The 16 of us who are going to be doing research in Chile make up an incredibly diverse group of people. Some of us only have our Bachelor's, some are working on their Master's, and some have already completed a Ph.D. program. The craziest thing of all is that there at least five of us who either went to school in Oregon or lived in the Portland area! I feel so proud of our great state. Even though we're all at different stages in our life and studying different topics, we're all pretty much nerds. :) I love it.

During our two days together we gave presentations about our research, met Chilean students who are trying to study in the U.S., and learned about the requirements of our grants. About six of us are staying in Santiago, four are headed south to do conservation research in the forested area, two are going to be at an astronomy station a little south of Santiago, and the other four are headed north to the Atacama desert. It was sad to say goodbye to those who are traveling on to other parts, but it was so nice to finally meet them. 

One of the most exciting parts of the orientation was finding out about a regional Fulbright conference that's happening in April. It's for all Fulbright students in South America and so half of us will be traveling to Argentina and the other half will be going to Uruguay. The conference will last about a week and is paid for by Fulbright, so I'm incredibly excited to have a chance to travel outside of Chile! Plus, it will be awesome to catch up with people and find out how their projects are going.

Our last group activity of the orientation was a wine tour at Chile's largest vineyard: Concha y Toro. There's a chance that some of you may have seen their label, Casillero del Diablo (Devil's Cellar), in the grocery store because it's a commonly imported Chilean wine. Anyway we took a tour of the vineyard, saw the original family mansion from the 1800s and tasted some of their delicious wines. The best part of the tour was actually getting to see the "Devil's Cellar" where the winemaker kept his most prized wine as a way of keeping the servants from stealing it.

Family mansion. Photo courtesy Concha y Toro.

Casillero del Diablo. Photo courtesy Concha y Toro.

So after two days of an insane schedule (8am-11:30pm) I've decided to take it easy this weekend. My plan is to buy a Chilean cell phone, go to the market to buy more fruits and veggies, and find a good park to run in. I would love to hear updates on how your lives are going! Feel free to e-mail me (kristafoltz@gmail.com) or set up a skype date (kristalynn23).

Nos hablamos pronto! (Talk to you soon!)

Krista