Es un mundo pequeño

As I mentioned in my first blog post, the Bings heavily subsidize all Stanford abroad programs such that the program is even called BOSP (Bing Overseas (though oversees could work too) Stanford Program). Every BOSP program has a welcome event, usually a welcome dinner. However, Group 1106 of Santiago, Chile had a BOSP welcome trip. At 10 AM on Friday morning, we climbed onto a bus and traveled to a winery called Viña Indómita. I was particularly excited because I know next to nothing about wine and would like to.

Over the past school year, my friends and I have shared bimonthly-weekly wine and cheese nights on Wednesdays. This was a major highlight of junior year because I find few things more enjoyable than catching up with my dearest friends in a cozy, preferably nook-ish, space. These nights are often late evenings and one wine and cheese night went until 4 AM. These nights are not raucous evenings of debauchery and drunkenness. Rather, they are nights of story swapping, wine swirling, cheese munching, and good community. They are good nights.

While driving to Viña Indómita, I felt like we were passing through The Grape Vine in California. The terrain is so similar: chaparral and mountains. The long driveway of the vineyard had palm trees on each side of the path a la Palm Drive at Stanford. While in the DR, I constantly felt on edge and a bit unsettled. Here, I have not felt that way at all. Perhaps it is because the landscape is California. Though perhaps it is not because the cities where I spend the majority of my time certainly are not pure California.

At Viña Indómita, we went on a brief tour and learned about how they collect, process, and store the grapes and wine. They will finish picking the last of the grapes in the next two weeks or so. Indómita said they’re behind schedule because normally they hire seasonal laborers from the south for this task. However, due to the earthquake (el terremoto) many people in the south have been otherwise occupied and the lack of labor supply has pushed back their usual schedule. While Viña Indómita lost some wine in the quake, they did not lose that much compared to some of their competitors, which is good for this newer winery.

After the formal tour, we were able to explore for a bit. While sitting on the porch I spotted a parked car with license plates from Santa Cruz, California. Then, my friend Zach said he met a couple inside from Los Gatos. For those of you who don’t know, I’m FROM Los Gatos. People always talk about these small world run-ins, but I had never had one personally. I introduced myself to the couple and learned that they have spent the last ten months driving from Alaska to Patagonia! Jack’s a retired bio teacher from SJ State and Sharon is a retired trainer of science teachers. They live in the LG Mountains and travel quite a bit. We’ve exchanged blog info and emails and hopefully will swap more stories once we’re all back in LG, yet another reason I’m happy to be living at home this summer. Our chat was relatively brief because Sharon and Jack were commencing their wine tasting and our group of thirty-five had already sat down to lunch. Lunch was fantastic. I have been spoiled, which is lovely.

Post lunch, we explored the vineyards a bit more and then climbed onto the bus to travel back to the Stanford center. From there, we left for a weekend trip to Valpariaso.