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Tag: dandylionlion

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By DandyLion

As my long, extended study abroad experience comes to a close - the semester here started at the end of July/the beginning of August - work at LBV has settled down a bit. The last month or so has been filled with the same old, same old, but as LBV grows and hires more interns and employees, it isn't quite as overwhelming as one might imagine for a small, local tourism company. The good part about the bit of research I was doing in obtaining information about popular lodging was that even if the office was full and computers therefore occupied, I could continue the online portion of that research from home! GoogleDocs is really a handy tool that LBV definitely utilizes in the best ways.

I would say that this was also a challenge - the office being so tiny, finding workspace where everyone is situated has been a little speed bump recently. Scheduling becomes very hectic with so many employees doing a plethora of jobs in every aspect of the company - from the mechanics to the receptionists to the walking tour guides to the biking tour guides to the vineyard tour guides and between the administration and business that comes with the upcoming summer travelers - not to mention the recent presidential, senate, deputado, and other official elections here in Chile - it is sometimes easy to get lost in the masses! The work I had been doing in the maintaining of good relations with the hostels and hotels is definitely not overshadowed as it is an integral part of keeping a good customer base, but sometimes finding new avenues and ventures tends to not be the primary focus.

The most rewarding part of being a part of the LBV team for me I think is the feeling that even when I am not present, I am still guiding and directing people to the office to take advantage of all of the wonderful tourist opportunities that the company offers. Whether it is between perhaps family members, friends, other visitors, or locals here from the city, it is really neat to be able to feel like a part of something here, especially considering Santiago is such a great place that I can see myself returning - even after the upcoming semester in which I have decided to stay and extend my study abroad experience! The impact may be fleeting in the sense that tourism is not exactly a permanent state of location; however, the efforts made at LBV can't be undermined and I will continue to advocate for them regardless of where I am!

Published on

By DandyLion

The volunteer work I did over the course of the Fall 2013 semester was perhaps the most rewarding experience of my entire first six months abroad. I did so much at La Bicicleta Verde - from getting to know the company, I learned about the city inside and out, which taught me more than I am sure I am still aware of. I know so much about Santiago from the tours that I gave and observed during my time at LBV, and I couldn't be more grateful to have learned it all - especially considering Santiago, Chile is a place I would be absolutely willing to move back to, and in fact am for the Spring 2014 semester! I worked in the office as well, doing research for the company, as well as scheduling, emailing and other various office tasks. During my time, I also was given the opportunity to walk the city by foot, going from hotel to hotel, maintaining our good relationships with the local lodging facilities in efforts to encourage them to send tourists our way.

The major challenges I faced were initially the language barrier, which was quickly overcome due to time and practice, and the lack of information, which was superseded by the same methodology. I am extremely proud of my now fluent understanding and grasp of the Spanish language - but more so than Spanish, than what is practically known as the Chilean dialect, which is extraordinarily difficult to comprehend and communicate in. They say that if you can speak Chilean, you can speak any time of Spanish - and I now speak Chilean!

I absolutely feel like I made a difference in my community. Apart from the good relationships maintained with other local businesses, office work in helping the small tour company to stay on its feet without excessive expenditures, and green tourism, I felt as though I was able to perpetuate a positive view of Santiago, Chile to the tourists of the rest of the world who came to visit, which I am especially proud of as I believe that many US Americans do not have a particularly fond view of Chile and perhaps other Latin American countries due to unknown reasons, stereotypical or otherwise. This enhanced my time abroad exponentially; it gave me a very real reason to feel happy and helpful in my community, and the people who I worked with were phenomenal. It was wonderful to go to work.

Now that I am done with my Fall 2014 study abroad program in Chile, I plan to continue it going into the next semester! I had such an outstanding time that I decided to prolong my graduation and spend a bit more time in the city that stole my heart. If I don't choose to continue at LBV, I may consider more strongly teaching English as another volunteer opportunity, which has proven to quite a few of my acquaintances to be rather rewarding itself. When I come back to GWU within the next year, we can only wait and see what happens, but if I can find a way to do green tourism there, I would be delighted! ¡Hasta luego, gracias y ciao!

Published on

By DandyLion

Hello GW!

The past month at LBV has passed calmly with few speed bumps; although some responsibilities and tasks were increased in volume, everything has passed very well. This month, I participated in the maintenance of amicable relationships with many of the nearby hostels in hopes and efforts that they will promote LBV to their clientele. To do this, a lot of time is required in that you must walk around the city for quite a few hours going from location to location. It is very entertaining however; you have the opportunity to meet and talk with countless people, making new acquaintances and friends alike. When we arrive at the site visits, we rearrange advertising materials as well as meet with the receptionists and other personnel who communicate with the travelers to discuss how we can take steps to encourage them to send their customers to us for tours of various types. This task has been also greatly helpful in learning more about the city of Santiago, Chile and has made orienting myself eons easier.

In other work, I have been added to a task force in which we are performing research on the top hotels, bed and breakfasts, aparthotels, and other assortments of lodging to uncover where the most popular sites are located, what types of people tend to frequent them, and so forth in efforts to discover how we can embark on marketing to new types of accommodation establishments. This research is rather easy but a bit tedious in that it involves spending large quantities of time on the computer and internet on sites such as travelocity.com and such to obtain an idea of places that would best serve our company. This work definitely seems to be benefiting the company as expanding to new venues is key in company growth. Hopefully, the joint efforts of hostel trips and office work can help LBV grow to another level of travel planning!

Until next time,

Danielle

Published on

By DandyLion

 

¡Buenas tardes de Santiago!

Today was another beautiful day as spring is quickly approaching us! In fact, today I spent the afternoon riding around Santiago giving a tour of the city - which is what I am doing as my volunteer work here. Doing tours has proven to be such an entertaining, effective, and educational way to learn about the city better. For the past month, I have been learning the different routes that we take for the tours and the information that accompanies each, as the tours are also focused on learning about the city.

As it turns out, these have been my only really primarily challenging tasks at La Bicicleta Verde. Santiago is an enormous city which holds anywhere between 6 to 9 million people on any given day, due to commuting and residency differentials. Therefore, it is apparent that the city is rather large in terms of land mass and that it takes a while to learn the routes. Although Santiago, like DC, is a very organized city, there are some major differences that make travel significantly more complicated by foot or by bike. For example, many of the major streets here only permit you to cross on either the left or right side of the street, not all four sides of an intersection as we are given in DC. What this means is that if you need to cross from one corner of a street to the other, you need to be attentive as to where the sidewalks are located so that you don't accidentally cross to a side without a crosswalk and have to turn back! It's a bit complicated to learn the bike routes this way, but as the saying goes, with practice makes perfect, and soon enough I will learn them all indubitably.

The other major challenge is memorizing all of the history and information which I can share with tourists. Santiago has such a rich past - not to mention the present nor the future - but Santiago is not the only topic of which I need to discuss with customers! There are numerous landmarks that were, for instance, given as gifts from other countries to celebrate a specific occurrence in time because of whichever various historical contexts. We aim to discuss everything from parks to politics to culture to markets and so forth. Furthermore, every person has a different mind and therefore asks different questions depending on the direction in which the conversations that we have goes. Because of this, I constantly feel like I need to achieve practically an encyclopedic memory, which so far hasn't proven to succeed. However, I have been accompanying many tours with my fellow coworkers and being especially attentive so that I can learn the information better. Fortunately, the Spanish-English language barrier is not an issue!

I definitely feel like I am already making a difference with my company. This morning, for example, I translated a very important text from Spanish to English for the owners of my company who needed to send a very clear message of thanks to a group of English-speaking businessmen that recently took tours with LBV. In the office, I have been making various phone calls and responding to countless emails that are necessary to maintain the business as well as helping in the bike shop to organize the various equipment for tours. During the tours that I do, the tourists feel comfortable asking me questions about Santiago, which I can answer! I have also been able to give various recommendations for restaurants to eat at and activities for them to do based on my own personal knowledge and understanding of the current events in the city. It has proven quite rewarding.

Although there are always challenges, there are also always solutions, and I know I can continue to find them!

Until next time,

Danielle

Published on

By DandyLion

Hello from Santiago, Chile - where I have chosen to study abroad for the past 2 and next 3 months! So far it has been absolutely wonderful; I couldn't have asked for a better experience!
I chose Santiago, Chile for a few reasons, the first of which being: ¿Why not? The GW Chile seemed like an fantastic opportunity with so much to offer, and so far it has proved to be exactly that. There has been so much to see and do and get to know, all of which as been great positive learning experiences. The city is enormous and exciting with amazing views, restaurants, events, and people - people who will stay up (literally) all night enjoying it all! It is a much more culturally comfortable experience for me; being Persian, I am quite familiar with the staying-up-all-night-talking-and-having-fun-with-family-and-friends lifestyle versus the typical US approach. Another reason I wanted to come to Chile was obviously to increase my fluency in Spanish. As Chileans have a very quick and distinct way of speaking at times, I figured: If I can understand and communicate in Chilean Spanish, I will be able to understand and communicate in ANY Spanish. This theory has so far also proved to be true. A third and final reason I elected Chile as my study abroad location was because Chile has a lot of rich cultural history - even in recent years and currently - that has proven to be quite intriguing not only in a political context, but a psychological and public health perspective as well - which are what I am currently and will be studying in the future, respectively. ...continue reading "Hello from Santiago, Chile!"
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