Happy Holidays 2008 Card

Dear family and friends, 

For those of you who don’t already know, the two of us are spending the year abroad in South America. This has completely changed the feeling of this holiday season. Even though we’re taking full advantage of the bike-riding, lake-swimming, sun-tanning weather, we’re missing the snow and luminarios back home, and most of all, missing each and every one of you! So we thought we’d write a letter to let you know we’re missing you and update you on our adventures abroad thus far.

The first two months of our trip we spent in San Alfonso, Chile, a town of smaller than, well, smaller than small. San Alfonso is located 60 kilometers (about 36 miles) Southeast of Santiago, the capital city, in a beautiful canyon called Cajón de Maipo. Living in San Alfonso was always an adventure. Getting groceries each week consisted of two hour long rides on the rather unpredictable (but always entertaining) bus, and doing laundry meant tracking down one of the three or four people in the town who owned washing machines (and paying them an outrageous amount per load).

While in San Alfonso we met an incredible number of amazing people who made our time there, well, AMAZING! We met the Andrade family who rented us our casita, took us rafting, and gave us free range to explore the 3,600 hectares of mountains they owned. We became friends with the family who owned the market where we bought fresh bread daily, and with a wonderful taxi driver named Tito who took us to try our first Mote con Huesillo, a traditional Chilean drink. At the school where she volunteered as an English and dance teacher, Victoria made a number of small friends who called her tía and didn’t seem to notice how slowly and carefully she spoke Spanish. We were even befriended by a number of stray animals, the two most memorable being a pregnant, one-eyed cat (Pirate), and a dog that, if she were human, would be an Olympic runner (Dingbat).

We also mountain bike raced in Chile. Macky raced in four of the Copa Chile races and placed 9th, 7th, 12th, and 9th, respectively, in the Pro category. Victoria raced in the Copa Chile series finals and topped the podium in the Novicio Damas category. It was at these races that we met the “Giant Bicycles Chile” Team. They ended up becoming our adopted Chilean bike team, and the team manager Antonio, his girlfriend Paula, and her daughter Anastasia became our adopted Chilean family! During our last week in Chile we lived with them at their beautiful house in Santiago. 

San Martín de Los Andes, Argentina, where we are currently living, is turning out to be just as wonderful as San Alfonso. In addition to it being stunningly beautiful here, situated on a 15-mile-long lake in the Andes, we have met another group of (you guessed it) amazing people! During our first few days here, a number of people we barely knew helped us find a place to live and introduced us to the town. We quickly became friends with Flavio Bonilauri, the owner of a local bike shop, and his crew. Victoria even found an all girls cycling group that rides together twice a week. 

Argentina has also sharpened our culinary skills. Being used to the diversity of our moms’ delicious home-cooked meals, the shock of cooking for ourselves was just that, shocking! Unable to come up with a different meal for every night, we resorted to alternating between pasta and…pasta. Mind you, we did switch it up a bit; sometimes we ate our pasta with cheese and sometimes with tomato sauce. And sometimes, we even ate it with BOTH! But once we hit San Martín, we decided we had had enough pasta to last a lifetime. With the help of our parents and the Internet we have mastered a whole new smorgasbord of recipes. Among other things, we can now make our own tortillas, refried beans, salsa, breaded chicken, and energy bars!

We hope that this holiday season finds everyone as healthy, happy, and excited about life as we are (if someone less tan)! We are missing everyone back home, and send all of our love and wishes for an awesome 2009! 

Tear up the powder for us! 

With Love,

Macky and Victoria

P.S. We made a “Happy Holidays” slideshow for everyone using some of our favorite pictures from the trip! You can view it here.

Other links:

To see an interactive map of our trip so far, click here.

To see our complete collection of photos, visit our flickr albums.

If you want to read more about our trip from Macky’s point of view, visit his blog (okay, you've clearly already done that). 

…and if you want to read Victoria’s account of the trip, ask if you can borrow her journal or read her poetry when she gets home. 

Mi casa es su casa...¡pero no la venda!

It happened like this:

Victoria and I were wandering around San Martín de los Andes, Argentina looking for housing and we found what we thought looked like a promising apartment building, but couldn’t figure out where to go to ask about renting. Then Victoria saw this kind-looking middle-aged woman walking from her car to her house. We ran over and asked the woman who we could talk to about renting and she explained that they were all owned individually. We thanked her and were about to leave when she mentioned that she had a friend who was renting a small house and invited us in while she gave this friend a call. When she was unable to reach her friend, she offered to drive us up to see the house, because she knew where it was and figured we’d like to see it, if only from the outside. We accepted and thanked her and the three of us headed off.

This was the beginning of a more-than-2-hour adventure where Cecilia drove us from place to place following one lead after another. We talked to people that were friends of friends of Cecilia’s whom she had never met, drove to numerous different communities in the San Martín de los Andes area, practiced our Spanish, saw 3 different potential houses, and heard about Cecilia’s Italian lover. Admittedly, none of the places she showed us were quite what we were looking for

and we eventually rented a cute little apartment in the center of San Martín that another friend showed us, but Cecilia’s generosity and kindness after knowing us for less than 5 minutes really surprised me.

And this is how our entire trip has been! Everywhere we have gone people have invited us into their homes and made us feel welcome. In Mendoza, we met up with friends of the family,

Alberto and Maria-Gracia Aristarain, who helped us find a hostel in Mendoza and then let us stay for two days (for free) at their beautiful Bed and Breakfast, Casa Glebinias. In San Alfonso, we were warmly welcomed by friends of friends of the family, Sergio Andrade and his family, and given a place to stay for the night and the next morning, the son, Pangal, and his friend, Marco, helped us find a place to live in San Alfonso for the two months we were there. Also during our time in San Alfonso, we were invited to two

different asados (barbecues), two different times, by two different families that barely knew us. The colectivo (a kind of taxi) driver, Tito, who we got to know, invited us out to try mote con huesillo (a special Chilean drink – see picture) because he heard that we had never tried it. And the list goes on and on.

There is one other group that I would like to mention: the Giant Chile mountain bike team. The first race we went to, we met one of the younger racers, Nicolas Prudencio, who introduced us to the team and invited us to join them at their tent. From then on, we hung out at their tent during every race and even traveled with them to the race in Concepcion (5 hours away). We got to know the team really well and, just before we left for San Martín de los Andes, Argentina, spent 5 days at the team manager, José Antonio Riquelme’s, house riding and touring Santiago.

Throughout our trip we have met incredible people and I have made life-long friends. I am also more determined than ever to do everything I can to help people out, even if I’ve barely met them!

Note: The title of this post was something that José Antonio said to me when we were at his house. It means “My house is your house...just don’t sell it!”

An interesting experience

I have always had the tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt. I usually assume that insults were accidental and that I need not react. And I’m usually correct. Most people do not mean any harm and insults are usually the result of accidents, miscommunications, or both.

I found out two days ago that this is not always the case.

Victoria and I were sitting in the central plaza in San Martín de los Andes discussing whether or not to rent a cute, comfortable apartment we had just toured, when a boy of about 18 wizzed by us on his bike. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, or even noticed, but he knocked Victoria’s hat off of the wall on which we were sitting. He immediately stopped and both Victoria and I thought he was going to apologize for his careless behavior, but then I noticed that he had also knocked my digital camera off, and began to get suspicious. Victoria bent down and picked up the camera and turned to the boy who then tried to GRAB IT OUT OF HER HANDS. At that point we both realized that his intentions were not harmless, so Victoria kicked him and yelled “NO!” while I jumped up and asked him what he was doing. At this point a friend of his of about 20 came up behind us and said something. I turned to explain that the boy was trying to steal our camera when I realized that they were in it together, so Victoria and I quickly made our way out of the plaza into a more open area. Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment, I was not able to come up with anything good to say and didn’t know where to go to get them in trouble, so we simply left.

The thing that surprised us the most was that the failed thievery happened during the day in a relatively well populated area and that, instead of running, the failed thief tried to force the camera from Victoria’s hands.

Aside from being overcharged by a baggage carrier the first day of our trip in Buenos Aires, this has been our only bad experience in South America. And, like the baggage carrier experience, we’ve learned from it. We are now a bit more wary and careful not to let anyone see us carrying anything expensive. But we still have my camera!

Victoria says “Oh yeah? That thief is probably at home now crying about his bruised shin! I taught him to mess with gringa girls!”

Chile: The land of “HERE WE ARE...Now what?”

Santiago is big. And confusing. Seriously. First of all, the ATMs at the terminal wouldn’t accept our debit cards. We tried with both of them, but to no avail. Finally, we gave in and exchanged 300 Argentine Pesos at a less-than-great rate so that we would have enough money to last us until we found an ATM that would accept our cards. After that, Victoria and my first goal was to get ourselves and our luggage to Cascadas de las Animas, an adventure resort 45 kilometers southeast of Santiago, where we have family of friends-of-the-family. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.
First of all, we didn’t know exactly where Cascadas de las Animas was. When we finally figured out the general area and explained it to one of the cab drivers at the terminal, he told us that getting down there with all of our luggage would cost something around 200,000 Chilean Pesos (approx. $400 USD). So we immediately nixed that idea and began look into the idea of taking various metros and buses, as had been suggested by one of the members of the “family of friends-of-the-family”. The problem with that plan was that there was no way we were going to be able to transport 2 bikes (in boxes), 2 suitcases, 2 bike bags, 1 backpack, and 1 messenger bag 45 kilometers via metro and bus.
This is where the next useful piece of information came in: at bus terminals, there are frequently “custodias” (cheap baggage storage). Overjoyed by this new piece of information, we paid a luggage carrier 1000 Chilean Pesos ($2 USD) to transport our luggage to the nearest “custodia” and paid to have our bikes and 3 of our remaining 6 bags stored overnight. Then we had to figure out public transportation in Santiago, Chile.
First we had to get on the “Linea 5” metro. We ended up asking the ticket lady, and after she gave us our tickets, she pointed to the stairs directly behind us. When we got down the stairs, we realized that we were on the platform for “Linea 1”. Because “Linea 1” is not “Linea 5”, we went back up the stairs and asked the turnstile guard. He also pointed us back down the stairs. Getting slightly worried, we trekked back down. It was at this point that I realized that “Linea 1” would bring us to “Linea 5” if we got off at the correct stop. One down.
Once we reached “Linea 5”, we knew that we had to take it to the “Mercedes” stop. When we realized that we had 20 stations to go, we relaxed slightly and began to look around. The first thing I noticed was that we were getting closer to the mountains. I was overjoyed by this prospect and pointed it out to Victoria roughly a million times. This started our discussion of where we wanted to live in Santiago, and we both agreed that we would be perfectly content to live outside of the city. Two down.
At the Mercedes stop, we had been told to get on bus #72 to San Jose de Maipo. Unfortunately, we watched 10 or 15 busses go by in a matter of minutes, and none of them was #72 to San Jose de Maipo. So we walked across the street to the shopping center called “Puente Alto Shopping” and used the pay phone. We spoke to Pangal (the son of the family) and he gave us the following directions: “Take bus #72 to San Jose de Maipo. Then take the bus to San Alfonso and ask the bus driver to drop you off at Cascadas de las Animas.” That seemed relatively easy, so we crossed the street again and as we approached the stop, we saw bus #72! Three down.
Once we hit San Jose de Maipo (fortunately, the bus driver told us when we were there) Victoria and I almost immediately decided that we liked San Jose de Maipo and would be content to live there. We bought 4 empanadas at the corner store where the bus dropped us and were given directions to stay on the same corner to await the bus to San Alfonso. Imagine our surprise when the bus to San Alfonso (it said San Gabriel, but we asked the driver and he said he went through San Alfonso) was also #72. We decided not to let this phase us and finally arrived at Cascadas de las Animas, which people kept calling Cascada de la Anima (I found out later that that is because no one pronounces the letter “s” at the end of words in Chile). At Cascadas de las Animas, we met Pangal (after having spoken to him multiple times on the phone) and he brought us up to his family’s beautiful home on the side of a mountain above San Alfonso. We met his parents, Sergio and Gordita, ate a light dinner and went to bed. Four down. Success!
Note: we didn’t take many pictures during this part of our adventures. We were too concerned with survival...

Chile, HERE WE COME!

Considering that we only had to go from Mendoza, Argentina to Santiago, Chile, it turned out to be quite an adventure. It started off easy enough: we got to the bus stop, got all of our bags and ourselves on the bus, and began the journey. Then it became more complicated.
First of all we had to fill out immigration cards to get into Chile. This wouldn’t have been too difficult if the English translations hadn’t been just as confusing as trying to understand the Spanish. For example, “Address in stady country” was the English translation of “Dirección en el país de destino” (address in destination country). Personally, I have never heard of a stady country and it took some deciphering to figure out what we were being asked. We also realized that we had about 8 mandarins and 4 kiwis to dispose of before we reached the Chilean border because you cannot bring foreign fruits, vegetables, or animal products into Chile. I quickly sat to work on a couple of mandarins and a kiwi while Victoria drifted off to sleep.
As we got closer and closer to the Andes, we began to realize how tall they were. I kept trying to get photos that showed cars at their base so that I could blow it up to show how small the cars were compared to the mountains, but every time I tried, the cars seemed to disappear because I had to zoom so far out to fit the mountain into the picture. And they were BEAUTIFUL. Most of the mountains we could see were snow-capped, and we were told that what we saw was “nieve eterno” (eternal snow) that stayed year-round.
When we finally hit the border with Chile, we had quite a wait. At first we simply sat on the bus and looked at the snow-covered peaks but then we decided we wanted to get out and walk around. Unfortunately, immediately after we left the bus, we were told to go back and get our passports and proceed to the border office to get approved to pass into Chile. And that’s when things got a lot worse...
First of all, it was cold. Not just chilly, COLD! I wasn’t all that surprised, seeing how we were 3,000 meters (9,000 feet) above sea level in the middle of the Andes surrounded by snow. I was alright, but Victoria had decided to wear shorts for the bus ride, so she was freezing. Then someone started smoking near us and it really affected Victoria. First she started complaining about being light-headed, and then she said that her vision kept slipping away. I was getting a bit worried, but we needed to get through customs and we were at the front of the line, so we gave them our passports and they stamped them and everything seemed to be going fine, until Victoria swooned. Fortunately, I was right next to her, so I caught her and some nice people in line with us helped me get her and our passports to the medical center. At the medical center, they put her on oxygen, and laid her down while she recovered, and I ran around getting the rest of the customs things taken care of (more stamps and papers and bag searching). The nurse explained that altitude sickness (“apunamiento”) was a relatively common occurrence at the border because we were so high up and told me to give her lots of fluids and keep her from getting excited. Fortunately, we still had 3 or 4 hours on the bus, so it was pretty easy to keep her from getting too excited; she also immediately went back to sleep once we got through the border.
The rest of the bus ride was relatively uneventful (thankfully) and we got to the Santiago bus station sometime in the afternoon. There started our next adventure.

Argentina: The land of $10 steaks and terrible drivers

I am in love with Mendoza! It is a beautiful city full of wonderful, helpful people. Victoria and I arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina October 1st at 9:20AM after an 11 hour flight during which we got to watch “How to Eat Fried Worms”. We promptly found a taxi and set off for the Terminal Omnibus (bus terminal) because we had been warned that Buenos Aires was not a very safe place to be, especially as a couple of tourists loaded down with 2 bikes and enough luggage to last us 8 months. We were able to find an ATM almost immediately and made the first dent in our summer savings. It cost us about $30 USD to get to the bus terminal (not including the $20 in tips that we spent paying everyone to help us move all of our bags and bikes from point A to point B at each stop) but the experience was priceless. The drivers in Argentina are TERRIBLE. According to one travel website I saw, Argentina had 7,500 deaths from automobile accidents in 2006 (which averages 20 deaths a day) and I can see why. Although there is some road signage, drivers seem to follow their own rules and no one seems to care. Turn signals are never used, lanes have absolutely no meaning, and honking is a popular pastime. Drivers seem to drift from lane to lane, or simply straddle the center line as if they cannot decide which lane is the one they wish to occupy.
At the Terminal Omnibus, we bought tickets to Mendoza, Argentina ($50 each) and then tried to entertain ourselves for 5 hours while trying not to attract too much attention from the locals. Although we look pretty similar to many of the people in Argentina, our clothing gives us away. Shorts, t-shirts, and brightly-colored Keens don’t seem to be in style in Argentina right now...Oh well. I was very worried about whether or not we would be allowed to put 2 bikes, 2 bike bags, and 2 suitcases on the bus, but no one seemed to mind and the baggage guy seemed content with a $3 tip. Then started our 16 hour bus ride.
We slept. Kinda. But mostly just sat in the relatively comfortable seats (better than a plane) and looked out of the window. Most of the ride took place after dark, so there wasn’t much to see aside from the occasional lit-up town. We stopped sometime after 21:00 (9:00 PM) and had a delicious dinner of chicken and mashed potatoes that was (apparently) included in our bus fare and then kept driving.
When we arrived in Mendoza, Alberto Aristarain (a family friend from Mendoza) had someone waiting to pick us up. Fortunately, he waited around even though the bus arrived an hour late and we were able to cram all of our stuff in his mini-van like car and eventually made it to our first destination: Casa Glebinias, Alberto and Maria-Gracia’s Bed and Breakfast, 15KM south of Mendoza. We introduced ourselves to Alberto and Maria-Gracia and ate a late breakfast on their veranda overlooking the sprawling grounds of their B&B. That afternoon, we took a cab into Mendoza and got a room at the Adventure Park Hostel, just blocks from Plaza Independencia, the center of Mendoza.
We spent the night at Adventure Park Hostel and spent two days wandering around Mendoza Casa Glebinias in one of Alberto’s cabañas with a cute little veranda and amazing breakfasts. It was all very surreal and enjoyable. Our third day in Mendoza, we slept in, ate breakfast, and eating delicious food and being tourists. Our second and third nights in Mendoza, we spent at then took a 45 minute bike ride around the community surrounding Casa Glebinias on two very old bikes with HUGE, incredibly uncomfortable seats. It was an interesting experience and difficult for me, as it was the first time in a long time that I had ridden for more than a few minutes on a bike that did not belong to me wearing something other than spandex! That night, we went to Patio de Pastas and I ate one of the best steaks of my life. It was well done, juicy, covered with cheese and mushrooms, and only cost me $10!
The other exciting event that night was that we were mistaken for locals 3 times! Considering that all of our other experiences had told us that we were very obviously tourists, this was quite an improvement. Unfortunately, stammering that we were not from the area and couldn’t give them directions quickly informed two of the three groups that we were indeed tourists, although I did successfully direct one taxi-full of people to continue “al derecho” (straight) to find the road they were looking for.
The next morning, October 5th, we left Casa Glebinias at 8:45 in the morning to catch the 9:45 bus over the Andes to Santiago, Chile. I was sad to leave Mendoza and the Argentine population, but hopeful that the Chileans would be just as hospitable.

Bike accident

On January 18th at 14:30, I was riding my bike through Middlebury, VT on my way to work, and I glanced down for a second to look at my gears. When I looked up, the two cars ahead of me had stopped. I had almost no time to react, but was able to miss the first car, and then slid along the side of the second car, knocked off their mirror, and scraped the car's side, all without falling off my bike. I immediately pulled over, and went back to talk to the driver, who, I found out, worked at Middlebury College. She was incredibly helpful and kind, and walked me through everything I should do in a car accident (since it was my first one). We called the police, but because it was a small accident and no one was hurt (my arm was a little sore), they decided it made more sense to record the report and not to send anyone out. We traded insurance information, and I found out a couple of weeks later that she had a really nice heated, auto adjust mirror, and that to replace the mirror and fix the scrapes would cost $1400. I am now in the process of trying to get my family's insurance to pay for it, but I don't know how much luck I will have. I guess that I did learn my lesson though, and didn't get hurt, so that is something to be thankful for. Sadly, $1400 is one expensive lesson!

Introduction

As this is my first ever blog, I would like to give an introduction to who I am, what I do, and my reasons for creating this blog, as well as a quick explanation of how to find what you are looking for in my blog.

First of all, my name is McConnell Franklin and I am 20 years old. I am a second year student and Computer Science major at Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT. I also race bicycles. I race Professional on the mountain (Cross Country and Short Track), Category 1 in Cyclocross, and Category 4 on the road (simply because I have not done enough races to be racing in the category I should be racing). In my spare time (of which I have very little), I spend quite a bit of time on the computer learning as much about computers as I can. I am also interested in video, web design, GPS, and programming.

I started this blog for a number of reasons. First of all, I wanted to create a place where people could go to stay updated with my racing (if they were so inclined). I know that there are quite a few Pro racers who keep blogs so that anyone who is interested can get the first hand story of the most recent race or training ride, and I figured it was a good way of letting people know what was happening without sending out mass e-mails to people who might not want to know. (Search for tags: cycling, training, racing)

Secondly, I wanted a place where I could talk about the interesting things I learned on the computer during my many hours of knowledge searching. I know that in my quest to understand the inner workings of computers, how to program, web design, etc, I frequently relied upon blogs, discussions and forums to help me find the answer to strange, uncommon questions, and therefore hope that anyone who is interested in a (hopefully) easy to understand and read explanation of some of the more interesting things I have learned about computers will begin to visit my blog on occasion to learn something new. (Search for tags: technology, computer)

Third, I created this blog as a place to write about my adventures abroad. Although I am currently still in the United States, I have made the decision to take a gap year next year to travel. I will be leaving in September of 2008 for Japan, where I will be staying for 4 or 5 months, and will then travel to Argentina for another 4 or 5 months. I plan to spend my time in these countries meeting as many people as I can, making contacts, learning the language, and racing my bike. I made the decision to take this gap year for a variety of reasons: It has been too long since I was overseas, I need a break from class and homework, I want to ride and race my bike internationally, doing a study abroad year through Middlebury would be very difficult because of the Computer Science major requirements, and I feel that my Spanish, and Japanese to a lesser extent, is at the point where immersing myself in the culture will quickly improve my fluency in the language. (Search for tags: travel, "country name")

Lastly, I plan to use this blog to write about other important happenings in my life. Most likely, these will be stories or important events, or simply updates on what and how I am doing. (Search for tags: life, stories, updates)

To end this lengthy post, I want to explain how I came up with the name of my blog. Initially, I was planning on calling it "Conflict of Interests" and giving it the URL of "conflictofinterests.blogspot.com", but someone had already taken that name. Then, as I thought about it more, I realized that I do not believe that my interests conflict with one another, and rather that they are simply an interesting and unique mixture. With that in mind, I decided that I would title my blog "No Conflict of Interests" and decided I needed to use an acronym of sorts because "noconflictofinterests.blogspot.com" is a little wordy. So, I searched for a very long time for words that contain the "NCOI" and eventually stumbled upon "UNCOILED". I settled upon this name because I feel that it accurately describes certain aspects of my life.

"I am simply a piece of string that has come uncoiled and is stretched across a variety of interests."