Vina del Mar: Spanish School + Sunny Days

Hola from Santiago airport. I have just flown in on a domestic flight and am now sitting in the international departures area with a good 8 hours to kill, so, really, I don't have an excuse not to catch up on the blogs.

Two weeks ago, I set off for Chile. My flight from Melbourne into Santiago was direct (12.5 hrs) and smooth. I was more stressed about my Spanish speaking ability (or lack thereof) once I actually arrived at the airport but it turned out to be surprisingly easy for me to get where I wanted to go.

My destination was Vina del Mar, which required an airport bus into the city of Santiago and then an inter-city bus to Vina del Mar - acquiring tickets for both of which went really smoothly!

I arrived in Vina del Mar at approximately 4pm in the afternoon, already quite desperate for a good nights sleep.

Vina del Mar is a reasonably affluent city on the coast of Chile, approximately 2 hours west of Santiago. It's a popular place for Chileans to holiday during the summer and is known for having lovely gardens and pretty beaches. The above photo is taken while walking along the main road in / out of Vina del Mar. 

I was staying in a shared apartment which was located within a condominium. In the above photo, my apartment is located on the bottom right hand side of the building, coming off the central stairwell. The apartment is owned by a Chilean woman, who has lived here for more than 10 years, and I was sharing the apartment with two Chilean girls and one Colombian girl. Three of the four of them spoke no English whatsoever and although one of the girls did speak excellent English, she told me that we were only to communicate in Spanish so that I could practice!

Well, it was a fairly challenging start. I could understand the general idea of what they were all telling me and I could communicate what I wanted to say reasonably well but they just spoke soooooo fast!

During my week in Vina del Mar, I attended a Spanish school called Ecela (above), in which I was to take daily Spanish lessons. The whole concept of the program (living with Chileans while studying Spanish) is designed to be immersive, so everything is taught solely in Spanish. My first lesson on the day was from 9am-10:40am and focused on grammar and writing, while my second was from 11am-12:40pm and focused on conversational skills. 

If I am being honest, the very first day was a little overwhelming. They just speak so fast! Fortunately, it was something I kind of started to get used to as the week progressed. The teachers at the school were absolutely lovely and I actually really enjoyed going to the lessons each day.

After lessons, I had the rest of the afternoon to myself. The first day I spent just wandering around the city. I mostly just walked along the beach and enjoyed the warm day. Unfortunately, this was the same day that the smoke from the fires in Australia had made its way to Chile - in the above photos you can see the air filled with the smoke.

On the top right is Castillo de Wulff, which used to be an actual castle but is now some kind of museum. On the bottom right is the Reloj de Flores (the flower clock), which is supposedly a sort of symbol of Vina del Mar. 

The next day I was lucky enough to make a lovely American friend at my Spanish school so we spent a few days hanging out together (no, I did not drink that entire bottle of sangria all by myself). We spent a good portion of the afternoon at a cool little bar we found in the city centre, mostly trying Chilean drinks (I had to capitalise on having someone to do this with)!

I made sure to try a Pisco Sours, which is an absolutely delicious drink! It's a typically Chilean or Peruvian drink that is made of pisco, lemon, egg white and some kind of sugar syrup. I will definitely be bringing some home to Australia!

It was a beautiful day, so we spent the rest of the afternoon walking along the beach. These two photos are taken from the main pier in Vina del Mar (the smoke from the bushfires had passed). 

The following day was much the same. Vina del Mar is a beautiful and safe city but it's also not a city with a lot of huge attractions or activities. This afternoon we decided to get some empanadas (also delicious), try some Chilean drinks (we tried the Terramoto, which I really did not like) and watching some huge waves crashing on the shores of the city.

The following afternoon there was an empanada making class at my Spanish school. I am a pretty big (albeit new) fan of these, so I had to join in! They were actually surprisingly easy to make (they require only 4-5 ingredients). The ones that I made weren't exactly aesthetically pleasing but they still tasted good. As a bonus, we made so many that I got to take the leftovers home for dinner!

For my final day in Vina del Mar, after lessons of course, we just chilled on the beach! Although it's not evident in this photo (well timed) it was absolutely packed!

I was set to travel from Vina del Mar to Santiago on the Saturday following my lessons, however, my school was organising a winery visit and that was something I was not about to pass up on!

Along with a lovely group of people (also studying at my Spanish school), I jumped on a mini-bus on Saturday morning and was off to Emiliana Organic Vineyards. 

Emiliana is in Casablance, which is about half way between Vina del Mar and Santiago, and they pride themselves on being organic and biodynamic (google this because I cannot explain it well)

We got to go on a guided tour of the winery, with an American guide who had been living in Chile for 7 years (and is now obviously bilingual). He talked a lot about the features of the Casablanca Valley and how the winery has adapted to their environment, while remaining organic. They grow their own olives, vegetables and herbs and also have chickens and alpacas (for their poo - fertiliser). 

The grounds that the winery is on surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides and are absolutely stunning!

This was all followed by a wine tasting (with paired cheeses). I am not a white wine drinker but even their white wines were good, and their red was absolutely delicious! The properties of each wine was expertly described by our tour guide, while we all started to drink and lose interest!

The red wine on the far right is an organic wine called 'Coyum' (2017) and scored 96/100 on the 100 Point Wine Scale. I ended up buying one of these (2018, which scored 94/100) and it was really reasonably priced (well, compared to Australia) and only set me back $30 AUD.

After tasting some wine, we were fortunate enough to score a table for lunch. According to a few locals, they had had to book a few months in advance, so I guess we were really lucky! Above are many of the students in my Spanish classes - most of whom are planning on staying in Chile (or even living) for a lot longer than myself. They were all extremely good people, doing really cool things, who I was fortunate to meet. 

The food, like the wine, was absolutely amazing! I had tuna ceviche for entree, ravioli (with alpaca cheese) for main and churros for dessert - we also managed to polish off several bottles of wine between us!

From here I was to head to the Chilean capital of Santiago!

I had an incredible (if at times very challenging) experience going to a language school overseas, I learnt a lot of Spanish, lived somewhat like a local and met lots of great people! I would definitely recommend it for anyone looking to learn a language or consolidate their language skills.