On Friday we had our Thanksgiving dinner at my university here in Chile. As a group we organized the dinner- our director found some turkeys and got menus for turkey, stuffing and gravy and convinced some of the cafeteria staff to cook the birds for us. Each of us students was responsible for bringing either bread, drinks, vegetable, potato dish or dessert. Naturally I decided to bring dessert and made a whole flock of turkey cookies- they were a hit. They are not your normal cut-out cookie. What I did was open up a sandwich cookie, place a chocolate bon bon on one half, stand the other half up behind and use a candy corn for the head. Everything held in place with melted chocolate. Yum. Everyone could bring two guests so my parents came. Unfortunately we got at a table without many people. I hadn’t realized that everyone was claiming spots so we kinda got stuck with the left overs. The food was all good and there was certainly a wide variety of dishes. I loved the candied sweet potatoes but my mom thought they were interesting. She was very surprised that they were sweet, it never occurred to her that you would make them sweet. My dad wasn’t a fan of the pumpkin pie either. Luckily there was a wide variety of desserts that he could choose from but since I got pie I had them try it. All in all, it was a nice night and it was fun to see everyone’s family.
The past 2 weeks in general have been very uneventful. Lots and lots of studying L Two weeks ago when I went to my gymnastics/trapecio class we got a surprise. Instead of doing trapeze, tela and floor rutines like we normally do, we had class outside (there was a performance in the theater) and did danza aerea (air dance??). There were two rock climbing type ropes hanging over the side of the building. You had to go up the rope a bit using a device and then tie yourself in. Then you could do just about anything- flips, spins, cartwheels, hand stands, etc. It was so much fun!! This part of the class is offered every Sunday but Kari and I only go once a week and always on Tuesday or Thursday. I wish we had explored this optition sooner b/c I would have liked to do it.
My Chilean dad is a huge Everton fan (soccer team from Vina) so about 2 weeks ago we went to an Everton game. The game was to decide who would advance to the tournament. Of course Everton had to lose 0-3. Needless to say, my dad was not too happy. It was still fun. I cannot help but laugh every time I see the police at a soccer game. They are all decked out in army green gear and they look like teenage mutant ninja turtles.
As I was walking from the University to the center to catch a bus to service learning 2 weeks ago there was a huge protest/march going on right down the street I needed to catch the bus on and since there were tons of people marching there weren’t any buses running. I called the director of the school I volunteer at to try and figure out if there was an alternate way to get to the school but there really wasn’t. Luckily within 20 minutes the march passed and buses started running again, I made it just in time. Service learning has a good experience but it certainly has not been super easy. The kids can be angels one day and the next week they won’t listen worth beans. They certainly are cute though! Last week I had a Thanksgiving theme for the class and they enjoyed it especially since we spent awhile coloring turkey pictures. I’m glad I chose to work at Escuela Archi, it allowed me to see a whole different part of Vina that I otherwise would not have seen. This school is up on a hill in a more low income neighborhood. This part of Chile reminds me that Chile is still a developing nation. It is weird b/c the area I live in and the places I visit most often are like any first world country but then you go to some neighborhoods and it’s like you are in another country.
After much difficulty I finally made my travel plans for the end of the semester. This Tuesday I decided to be a bit rebellious and I’m going to Punta Arenas (pretty much the end of the world) with three other friends. We will be missing 4 days of class but I decided that was ok. We turned in our final literature essays on Friday (8 page research paper, glad that’s done!) and our enormous history final is tomorrow. My finals for cine and senior seminar are not due until the next week and I’ll have plenty of time to do them. Our cine final is actually a group project and my group is all going to Punta Arenas so we plan to work on it while we travel (airplane, etc). When the semester is over I will be going to Peru for a week. We will be spending a few days in Cusco and then I’m doing a 4 day Inca Trail hike with one of my friends, ending up at Machu Picchu. It might be a little intense b/c you walk 5 or more hours a day but it should be fun.
Last Friday we went on a group wine tasting excursion. We went to three different vineyards in the area, all under 2 hours away. There was a tour and wine tasting at each vineyard. I have to say, I’m learning to like wine more but it’s still not something I love. We had a literature essay and senior seminar essay due on this Friday, since my weeks just seem to escape me, I ended up doing the large majority of these essays on Thursday night, needless to say I didn’t sleep a whole lot and ended up sleeping the whole time we were on the bus on Friday. Somehow, I got wonderful grades on both my essays. I guess I can pull of good work at the last moment J When we got back from the vine tour, a group of us went out for pizza. Once again, we went to Diego’s Pizza and just for the fun of it got menus in English b/c the translations are so funny! For example, some of the pizzas include: onions attacked, cheese of the country, chicken of the sauce or buckets of tomatoes. I got a pizza called Gringo (a term used for any foreigner, perfect choice, I know). It was great! There was ground beef, red and green peppers, olives, onion, garlic, bacon and mushrooms. Yum.
This past week one of my best friend’s family came to visit. When we went to trapecio (gymnastics/trapeze) class we were showing them what we have learned and I realized that although it doesn’t seem like I can do a lot on the trapeze or tela, I really have improved. I was remembering back to my first class, let’s just say I wasn’t sure I liked the class at that moment, and I couldn’t even get more than a foot off the ground on the tela. Now I can go up and down multiple times in a row (25 ft tall?) and do 5-10 figures without help. I am really going to miss this class. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be able to find something like this class back in MN, and if I did, it certainly would not be $25 a month! I now wish I had gone more than one time a week. The class is offer three times a week but since I was doing rowing and sailing too, I chose to only go once a week. I have made lots of friends in that class and really don’t want to leave them. It is going to be a very bittersweet day when I leave Chile.
Thursday was my last day of sailing class. Kari, my friend that goes to sailing and trapecio with me, decided not to go because she had only written 2 out of the 8 pages for the literature essay due the next day. I had mine written but still needed to proofread. In the end I decided I had to go and I’m glad I did. It was a gorgeous day! I was the first one to arrive at the yatch club so I was just sitting around waiting. The instructor came down and was like “Emily, come on, the boats are waiting, let’s get going” which meant I had to start setting up the boats. I’d never done this before, well maybe once before but with a couple other people all working on the same boat. In the end I put the whole thing together and it was all correct. I was pretty proud of myself and the instructor was very pleased too. Luckily I did not have to sail alone, it can do it but for me it’s much more fun with a partner. I sailed with a guy named Daniel and he was very helpful. He’s obviously had more practice than I have. After sailing, Renato gave me a ride back to Vina. I’m always glad when he is there b/c a) he’s nice and b) he always brings Kari and I back to Vina so we don’t have to ride another micro. There have been days when I’ve ridden 6 or more micros plus used the metro a couple times.
Well, I had better stop writing b/c our history final is tomorrow and I’m severely unprepared. I had every intention to start studying awhile ago but then I spent all week working on my literature paper. Yesterday morning I wrote a cine essay and in the afternoon studied history. A friend came over last night to study but forgot her notebook so we didn’t get too far. Then she convinced me to go out and I didn’t get back to 4 am. And it was going to be an early night J It was fun but now I better study (I’ve only got notes since September 9th to study, plus 3 readings each about 75 pages long). That said, I have to apologize once more for not including photos but they take a long time to upload and I’ve been having issues with the application.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Sunday, November 9, 2008
8 days in the big bad teal bus
On Saturday I got back from a weeklong trip with the entire group. There were 40 people: 28 CSB/SJU students, our directors and their two small children, 2 Chilean professors and 6 Chilean students from UAI Santiago.
It is late so I’m going to give a relatively quick update
November 1/ Day one: The first day started out interesting. I set my alarm for 6:00 so I could get up, shower, finish a little packing, and have breakfast. Well, I must have turned my alarm off and gone back to sleep b/c at 7:05 my mom opened my door and told me it was 7:05 and that I must have fallen asleep. All I have to say is thank goodness for moms. My plan was to leave the house at 7:25 to meet up with all the Chorrillos people and walk to the center where the bus was picking us up. I rushed around, packed a breakfast of fruit and a jelly sandwich and soon was on my way. I went to the kitchen to say good bye and was surprised to see my dad up and dressed. He told me he was going to bring me to the center and was all worried that I hadn’t eaten breakfast. As he fed me a couple orange slices I told him I packed a breakfast and was meeting some people to walk to the center but appreciated the offer. After a big hug and kiss from both my parents I headed out the door with my big camping backpack, purse and bag of snacks.
I was able to sleep for awhile once we got on the bus. Our first stop was at a Coped gas station for lunch. My mom had packed me two huge sandwiches and fruit so I started in on that for my lunch. I had a little picnic with a couple other girls on the grass. This Copec was quite nice and even had a small playground. I was very glad to start out the trip with some sandwiches b/c by the end of the trip I think we stopped at every Copec between Vina and Chiloe. I’ve decided that we did basically three things on our trip: ride in the bus, stop at Copec either to go to the bathroom or eat and get to our destination with just enough time to find something to eat, sleep and leave again early in the morning. For such a long trip, we didn’t do a ton but we certainly covered a lot of ground.
After lunch I attempted to read Omnivore’s Dilemma, which I was suppose to finish for the Thursday before, oops, but before long I found myself napping once again. We also watched a movie called Sub Terra about the coal mine in Lota which we were going to visit the next day. I watched bits and parts of the movie but kept finding myself asleep. We arrived in Concepcion around 7:00 or 7:30, divided up into rooms and then set out to find dinner. I wasn’t particularly hungry since I had eaten the other half of my monster sandwich on the bus and some cookies but needed to get out and explore the town. We walked around for awhile and everything seemed to be closed. We finally found a Chinese restaurant and they said that since it was Day of the Dead things were closed down. The group ordered an 8 person dinner and I got an order of egg rolls since they were super cheap and I wasn’t very hungry. I believe the 8 person dinner could have fed at least 10 people… After dinner we went to Lider to stock up on water and snacks. Then it was back to the hotel for a good nights rest. I had a huge bed all to myself J
November 2/ Day 2: Andrea and I got up early to go for a run. We found our way to the river and ran for almost 40 minutes. Unfortunately around minute 3 I took a tumble and scraped my knees and palm but just kept going. I was a little bit of a bloody mess by the end of the run and still have some nice bruises on my knees. Nevertheless it was well worth it to get up and run. This was pretty much the only way to explore the towns we stayed at since we always arrived at night and left early in the morning. After packing up and showering it was breakfast time- two rolls with manjar and jelly, cake and tea. Breakfast was suppose to start at 7:30 but didn’t start until at least 8:00 so we ended up leaving late from Concepcion, this ended up being a chronic problem- leaving late that is, not breakfast starting late.
Our first stop of the day was at the mine in Lota. We got to tour the mine and a little mining village. It was neat. We all had to get helmets with head lamps on them. Going down into the mine was a little scary- we crammed into this tiny grate elevator and were lowered down into the darkness. One of the craziest parts about the mine in my opinion is that the part we toured was under the ocean! I enjoyed the tour and our guide was really nice. Matilda on the other hand wasn’t as thrilled with the whole mine experience and decided to cry for a little while but who can blame her, she’s only 4 months old. After the mine we went to a small museum and a huge garden that used to belong to the family that owned the mine. It was really pretty and there were a lot of trees and flowers I’d never seen before. On our way out of Lota we stopped at a little hole in the wall store to buy lunch- bread, meat and fruit. Then we were on our way to Villarrica. This was a long drive but proved to be entertaining. We got to watch some Pixar shorts and Cars- one advantage of having a three year old on the trip J The rest of the ride once again consisted of reading and sleeping. Once we finally got to Villarrica, I want to say it was 9:30, we divided up into groups of three or four and each went to separate cabins. This was crazy b/c each cabin could easily fit 6 people. Some of us were mad about this so we went to see if we could consolidate and save some money (hoping to get lunch money for the next day since we had to pay for all our meals) but we couldn’t get any money back since the reservation was already made, etc. Luckily they had a dinner buffet at the hotel so we all enjoyed that before heading back to our cabins. We hung out for a bit and then went to bed.
November 3/ Day 3: Once again Andrea and I went running. This time Christin went with us too. Once again we were on a body of water and tried to run as close to it as possible. We couldn’t stay quite on the water’s edge but zig zagged through the streets to stay as close as possible. Villarrica was absolutely gorgeous! The lake was surrounded by volcanoes and mountains and it was amazing it watch the sun rise from behind the mountains. I really wish we could have stayed longer to explore and soak up the beauty. The whole scene was quite a surprise when we woke up. Since we arrived so late at night we had no idea we were on a lake or anything. Breakfast was very similar- 2 rolls with jam, rhubarb pie (I got 2.5 pieces b/c not everyone at my table wanted their piece J) juice and tea. After breakfast we loaded the bus once again- more reading and sleeping. And what do you know, after awhile we stopped at Copec to use the bathroom and have a snack. Who would have known? We made to Puerto Montt for lunch. This was an interesting experience. We were walking around looking for a quick place to eat and people everywhere were trying to get us to eat at their restaurant. Finally we found a small place that was not bothering us to come. Once we ordered the lady left. Interesting. She returned shortly with a few bags and began to make our meals. Pretty much she went shopping for what we had ordered. The place we were eating at wasn’t really a restaurant but more like a kitchen with four tables. I had a really good pork chop with fries and salad. On the way back to the bus we did a little bit of shopping but I really needed more time to shop. Our lunch was not fast like we had hoped and we only had about 15 minutes to shop and get back to the bus. I ended up buying a couple little wooden bowls. One the way to the bus we stopped and got ice cream cones- coffee ice cream dipped in chocolate= delicious. An hour later we were on a ferry cruising towards Chiloe. At this time it started to rain a bit but we all got off the bus and wondered around the ferry until we got to the other side. During the bus ride I had been working on a mini teddy bear for Matilda which I finished and stuffed once we got to our house/hostel. Corey and Christina (and Matilda) loved the bear! After driving some more we ended up at a “casa rural” which is pretty much like a hostel but it is someone’s big house. We unloaded and then saw a short presentation by two guys who sang a bunch of songs typical of Chiloe. It was very cool. We were then served dinner- roast beef, rice, potatoes, bread, salad and a flan like dessert. It wasn’t my favorite meal at all but somehow I managed to eat every last bite.
November 4th/ day 4: Once again Andrea and I went for a run. It was hard to get up especially since it was quite chilly outside. The morning was absolutely gorgeous and we ended up running along the beach for a long time. We met up with Amanda a little while later and finished our run with her. This morning was a struggle for the showers. Not all of them worked so there were 20 or so girls all wanting to shower in 2 showers. My shower started out with a spider on the floor and cold water. Luckily it got warm by the end. I was really hungry for breakfast and even though breakfast was once again jam, bread and rhubarb cake, I thoroughly enjoyed at least three of each. After breakfast we had to go get the guys who were staying at a different casa rural. It took surprisingly a long time to get there. The roads were not the best so we had to go pretty slow, especially since we were in a huge bus! The day was not very exciting. We went to two churches but one of them was closed for restoration. Wow, what a day. Then we returned to the guy’s casa rural for dinner. This night was curanto, a typical meal of Chiloe. Everything is cooked in a big hole in the ground. There was shellfish, chicken, pork, sausages, potatoes and these potato dumpling things that were very good. Everything is layered and then covered with burlap sacks, leaves and sod. There are hot rocks and maybe coals on the very bottom. It was a good meal but in my opinion too many shellfish. I ate a few but they were not my favorite so I stuck to the meat and potatoes. I think this was the first meal I have eaten in Chile where there was no bread. We certainly didn’t need it but I thought it was interesting since there is always bread. Since it was Election Day, everyone crowded around the radio to try and get some news but there wasn’t really anything on. After some tea and discussion, the ladies all piled back into the bus and went off to find another casa rural. It would have been nice to stay in the same place for 2 nights but I think it must have been booked already or something. About an hour and a half later we got to the first house but there wasn’t room for everyone. I ended up going to another house about 10 minutes down the road with the 3 Chilean girls and one of the Chilean professors. The house we stayed at was much smaller but very nice. The couple was super nice and gave us tea and cookies when we got there even though it was 11 PM. They were very chatty and showed us a slide show of Chiloe. Once again I got a hug bed all to myself J
November 5th/ day 5: Breakfast today included milk fresh from the cows, homemade “tortillas” (more like a dense flatter roll), homemade jam, cookies, rolls, and cheese. It was all super good, especially the tortillas. At first I started out with a roll with jam and then the tortillas were brought out and they were SUPER. I wish we had them more often but this was the only time. At breakfast the lady talked with us for awhile. It was very interesting b/c her and her husband hardly leave the house. They have 20 cows that they milk twice a day and a big garden. They don’t have anyone to look after things so they can’t leave much. Going to the store is a day long trip that they make once a month. If they run out of something in the mean time, they just go without. Even though they have lived there for a long time, they don’t know much of the island and it isn’t all that big. After more reading, sleeping, and talking on the bus we arrived in Castro were we saw another church closed for restoration, los palafitos (houses on stilts on the river) and went to a market. The market was great and I had been waiting patiently for this moment. I got a bunch of neat stuff but since have decided that I should have gotten a sweater. Pretty much everyone has one now and this market had a much wider variety than I have seen anywhere else and they were a good price. Susan and I found some cool yarn that we are going to use to make more teddy bears. Susan saw me knitting and wanted to learn how to make a bear and decided that it would be cool to make bears for the children in the hospital she is volunteering at. That is our project for the rest of our time here. After a lunch of pollo a lo pobre (chicken with fries, fried egg and fried onion, very healthy I know but hey it tasted good) it was time to get back on the big bad teal bus and head to Puerto Montt. Arriving around 9:00 we got our rooms and set out in search of food. First we went to the super market and I got yogurt, cereal and fruit. Then I went with a couple girls to McDonalds. They got food and I got a manjar ice cream cone. We headed back to the hotel and had a dinner party in one of the rooms.
November 6/day 6: Once again we were able to run along the river. We were worried that it was going to start pouring on us but luckily the rain held off until we were on the bus. This morning’s breakfast was not quite as good as the rest. The jam just wasn’t up to par and the juice wasn’t so good either. Oh-well, you can’t always win. After a long time of driving we stopped at a Brewery for lunch and a tour. I ended up getting a mixed vegetable salad for lunch. I was going to get a burger at first but then decided I was craving something healthier. Unfortunately the salad was not really what I was hoping for and I should have gotten the chicken Cesar salad like the other girls I ate with. Oh-well. Anyway, I’m kinda glad (but kinda not) that I decided not to get a burger or a sandwich. They were enormous!! Each was like a frisbee but about 6 inches tall. It would have been really good but way more food than anyone should eat in one sitting. The tour wasn’t anything special and to someone who isn’t particularly fond of beer, I didn’t really care very much about all the processes and such. Plus our tour guide wasn’t very exciting to listen to. Our next stop was at an old fort. Much of the fort was gone but there was still one building which was a museum now, a bunch of cannons and a lighthouse. You could still see the foundation where there used to be a church and some other buildings. It was a quick, chilly visit. Then we all got off at a park. No one really knew why. We walked a little ways into the park and saw a bunch of sea lions on a raft. They were very entertaining and we thought that was why we stopped but then one of the professors kept going and there ended up being two museums hidden at the back of the park. One was like a science museum type with a bunch of dead animals and insects and the other was an old house with a bunch of artifacts and old stuff. Then it was time to go the hostel. We seemed to drive in circles for awhile and finally ended up at the hostel. This time some of us stayed in the hotel like part the rest stayed in cabins. I was in a cabin with 4 others. We had a small kitchen and living room area and upstairs were 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. It was pretty nice but the hotel part was nicer in my opinion. We got to Valdivia early by this trips standards and it was still light out when we went into town to find a grocery store. Once again we had a dinner party in our Cabin and watched some old music videos on tv. I was really tired and went to bed early.
November 7/day 7: I think pretty much every town we stayed at during the week was on a river. Once again Andrea and I went for a run along the river. We ran into 5 others running on our way back to the hostel. Somehow Andrea and I missed the sea lions that were supposedly super close. I saw the sign mentioning the sea lions but I guess I didn’t look into the river to see if there were any. My stomach was growling by the time I made it to breakfast. Today was bread with turkey and cheese and some sort of cake. Once again, not everyone wanted their cake so I was more than happy to help them out. The plan for the day was to stop at a market in Chillan for lunch. Somehow that didn’t happen. I guess there was a lot of traffic or something, I’m not really sure but I really wanted to stop at the market. That was the only thing planned for the day. My host dad just told me yesterday that Chillan is famous for their longaniza which are a sausage that I really like!! That makes me even madder that we didn’t get to stop. Instead the day consisted of riding on the bus for endless hours (reading, sleeping, watching the Bee movie and more Pixar shorts) and stopping at 4-5 different Copec stations for food and bathroom breaks. What an exciting day! Once we got to Curico it took about 5 laps around the same few streets to find our hostel. We were split up once again in too groups. Our hostel was very, very nice! After getting our room, Susan and I went in search of more knitting needles and yarn since we had been sharing one pair. We walked around for awhile and finally found this huge store that had just about everything you could ever want including lots of cool yarn and knitting needles. After our walk around town we decided that the people there like bikes, hot dogs and soccer jerseys since just about every other store sold those items. Next stop- pizza restaurant. The pizza was very good. I got pizza Espanola: ham, sausage, green pepper, tomato and probably something else but I can’t remember. Before long the Shouse Tourino family (our directors) showed up and another group of 6 from our group. Later, after Susan, Hannah and I, went to the grocery store we saw another group of at least 10 people from our group at the same restaurant. We went back to our room and had bananas and chocolate ice cream before going to sleep.
November 8/day 8/last day: I was originally going to run but as I was getting ready I got a text message saying that my running partners were no longer going to run, darn! So I went back to bed for awhile and then took a shower. Then it was breakfast time. Finally there was something differ- yogurt and cereal in addition to bread, jam, manjar cake roll, juice and tea. As I was taking off my back pack to give to the driver to load into the bus, I dropped my other bag I was carrying, crunch!! There went my glass jar of Nutella. What a sad day, I had only eaten half of it but there was no way to salvage the shattered jar L Santa Cruz was our destination. First we went to a museum that was really cool. There was a ton of fossils and old artifacts. Unfortunately we didn’t have a lot of time in the town so I couldn’t go through the entire museum. After exploring the museum we went to the plaza where there was a bunch of artisan stands set up. After looking at all of them a group of headed out to find a restaurant. We ended up finding a bunch of closed restaurants before finding our way to the main street and stopped at a panaderia. I was disappointed at first b/c I didn’t want another ham sandwich. Then I noticed that people were eating burgers, completos and sandwiches on the other side of the shop. I figured out how to order a burger and sat down to wait with a couple of the guys. Soon I was enjoying my burger with avocado and tomato, perfect! After finishing lunch we went back to the plaza to wait for the bus. People kept coming with ice cream cones and I couldn’t resist. I hurried off in search of ice cream and found a place right as they were closing but luckily I still got my ice cream. Then it was back on the bus, this time headed for home. I cannot tell you how happy people were to be getting home. Everyone was practically bouncing off the walls, actually they were dancing in the aisles. We all go dropped off at the teatro municipal in the center of town and went our separate ways. It was a beautiful and sunny day so by the time I got home I was quite warm. I was greeted with two huge hugs and kissed by my family and after unpacking and showering told them about my trip as we ate dinner.
Today things got back to normal: more reading, worked an essay, and went for a run. Not a thrilling day but I am glad to be back in Vina.
I guess this blog didn’t turn out to be too concise. Pictures are coming but I really need to go to bed since I have class in less than 7 hours, oops.
It is late so I’m going to give a relatively quick update
November 1/ Day one: The first day started out interesting. I set my alarm for 6:00 so I could get up, shower, finish a little packing, and have breakfast. Well, I must have turned my alarm off and gone back to sleep b/c at 7:05 my mom opened my door and told me it was 7:05 and that I must have fallen asleep. All I have to say is thank goodness for moms. My plan was to leave the house at 7:25 to meet up with all the Chorrillos people and walk to the center where the bus was picking us up. I rushed around, packed a breakfast of fruit and a jelly sandwich and soon was on my way. I went to the kitchen to say good bye and was surprised to see my dad up and dressed. He told me he was going to bring me to the center and was all worried that I hadn’t eaten breakfast. As he fed me a couple orange slices I told him I packed a breakfast and was meeting some people to walk to the center but appreciated the offer. After a big hug and kiss from both my parents I headed out the door with my big camping backpack, purse and bag of snacks.
I was able to sleep for awhile once we got on the bus. Our first stop was at a Coped gas station for lunch. My mom had packed me two huge sandwiches and fruit so I started in on that for my lunch. I had a little picnic with a couple other girls on the grass. This Copec was quite nice and even had a small playground. I was very glad to start out the trip with some sandwiches b/c by the end of the trip I think we stopped at every Copec between Vina and Chiloe. I’ve decided that we did basically three things on our trip: ride in the bus, stop at Copec either to go to the bathroom or eat and get to our destination with just enough time to find something to eat, sleep and leave again early in the morning. For such a long trip, we didn’t do a ton but we certainly covered a lot of ground.
After lunch I attempted to read Omnivore’s Dilemma, which I was suppose to finish for the Thursday before, oops, but before long I found myself napping once again. We also watched a movie called Sub Terra about the coal mine in Lota which we were going to visit the next day. I watched bits and parts of the movie but kept finding myself asleep. We arrived in Concepcion around 7:00 or 7:30, divided up into rooms and then set out to find dinner. I wasn’t particularly hungry since I had eaten the other half of my monster sandwich on the bus and some cookies but needed to get out and explore the town. We walked around for awhile and everything seemed to be closed. We finally found a Chinese restaurant and they said that since it was Day of the Dead things were closed down. The group ordered an 8 person dinner and I got an order of egg rolls since they were super cheap and I wasn’t very hungry. I believe the 8 person dinner could have fed at least 10 people… After dinner we went to Lider to stock up on water and snacks. Then it was back to the hotel for a good nights rest. I had a huge bed all to myself J
November 2/ Day 2: Andrea and I got up early to go for a run. We found our way to the river and ran for almost 40 minutes. Unfortunately around minute 3 I took a tumble and scraped my knees and palm but just kept going. I was a little bit of a bloody mess by the end of the run and still have some nice bruises on my knees. Nevertheless it was well worth it to get up and run. This was pretty much the only way to explore the towns we stayed at since we always arrived at night and left early in the morning. After packing up and showering it was breakfast time- two rolls with manjar and jelly, cake and tea. Breakfast was suppose to start at 7:30 but didn’t start until at least 8:00 so we ended up leaving late from Concepcion, this ended up being a chronic problem- leaving late that is, not breakfast starting late.
Our first stop of the day was at the mine in Lota. We got to tour the mine and a little mining village. It was neat. We all had to get helmets with head lamps on them. Going down into the mine was a little scary- we crammed into this tiny grate elevator and were lowered down into the darkness. One of the craziest parts about the mine in my opinion is that the part we toured was under the ocean! I enjoyed the tour and our guide was really nice. Matilda on the other hand wasn’t as thrilled with the whole mine experience and decided to cry for a little while but who can blame her, she’s only 4 months old. After the mine we went to a small museum and a huge garden that used to belong to the family that owned the mine. It was really pretty and there were a lot of trees and flowers I’d never seen before. On our way out of Lota we stopped at a little hole in the wall store to buy lunch- bread, meat and fruit. Then we were on our way to Villarrica. This was a long drive but proved to be entertaining. We got to watch some Pixar shorts and Cars- one advantage of having a three year old on the trip J The rest of the ride once again consisted of reading and sleeping. Once we finally got to Villarrica, I want to say it was 9:30, we divided up into groups of three or four and each went to separate cabins. This was crazy b/c each cabin could easily fit 6 people. Some of us were mad about this so we went to see if we could consolidate and save some money (hoping to get lunch money for the next day since we had to pay for all our meals) but we couldn’t get any money back since the reservation was already made, etc. Luckily they had a dinner buffet at the hotel so we all enjoyed that before heading back to our cabins. We hung out for a bit and then went to bed.
November 3/ Day 3: Once again Andrea and I went running. This time Christin went with us too. Once again we were on a body of water and tried to run as close to it as possible. We couldn’t stay quite on the water’s edge but zig zagged through the streets to stay as close as possible. Villarrica was absolutely gorgeous! The lake was surrounded by volcanoes and mountains and it was amazing it watch the sun rise from behind the mountains. I really wish we could have stayed longer to explore and soak up the beauty. The whole scene was quite a surprise when we woke up. Since we arrived so late at night we had no idea we were on a lake or anything. Breakfast was very similar- 2 rolls with jam, rhubarb pie (I got 2.5 pieces b/c not everyone at my table wanted their piece J) juice and tea. After breakfast we loaded the bus once again- more reading and sleeping. And what do you know, after awhile we stopped at Copec to use the bathroom and have a snack. Who would have known? We made to Puerto Montt for lunch. This was an interesting experience. We were walking around looking for a quick place to eat and people everywhere were trying to get us to eat at their restaurant. Finally we found a small place that was not bothering us to come. Once we ordered the lady left. Interesting. She returned shortly with a few bags and began to make our meals. Pretty much she went shopping for what we had ordered. The place we were eating at wasn’t really a restaurant but more like a kitchen with four tables. I had a really good pork chop with fries and salad. On the way back to the bus we did a little bit of shopping but I really needed more time to shop. Our lunch was not fast like we had hoped and we only had about 15 minutes to shop and get back to the bus. I ended up buying a couple little wooden bowls. One the way to the bus we stopped and got ice cream cones- coffee ice cream dipped in chocolate= delicious. An hour later we were on a ferry cruising towards Chiloe. At this time it started to rain a bit but we all got off the bus and wondered around the ferry until we got to the other side. During the bus ride I had been working on a mini teddy bear for Matilda which I finished and stuffed once we got to our house/hostel. Corey and Christina (and Matilda) loved the bear! After driving some more we ended up at a “casa rural” which is pretty much like a hostel but it is someone’s big house. We unloaded and then saw a short presentation by two guys who sang a bunch of songs typical of Chiloe. It was very cool. We were then served dinner- roast beef, rice, potatoes, bread, salad and a flan like dessert. It wasn’t my favorite meal at all but somehow I managed to eat every last bite.
November 4th/ day 4: Once again Andrea and I went for a run. It was hard to get up especially since it was quite chilly outside. The morning was absolutely gorgeous and we ended up running along the beach for a long time. We met up with Amanda a little while later and finished our run with her. This morning was a struggle for the showers. Not all of them worked so there were 20 or so girls all wanting to shower in 2 showers. My shower started out with a spider on the floor and cold water. Luckily it got warm by the end. I was really hungry for breakfast and even though breakfast was once again jam, bread and rhubarb cake, I thoroughly enjoyed at least three of each. After breakfast we had to go get the guys who were staying at a different casa rural. It took surprisingly a long time to get there. The roads were not the best so we had to go pretty slow, especially since we were in a huge bus! The day was not very exciting. We went to two churches but one of them was closed for restoration. Wow, what a day. Then we returned to the guy’s casa rural for dinner. This night was curanto, a typical meal of Chiloe. Everything is cooked in a big hole in the ground. There was shellfish, chicken, pork, sausages, potatoes and these potato dumpling things that were very good. Everything is layered and then covered with burlap sacks, leaves and sod. There are hot rocks and maybe coals on the very bottom. It was a good meal but in my opinion too many shellfish. I ate a few but they were not my favorite so I stuck to the meat and potatoes. I think this was the first meal I have eaten in Chile where there was no bread. We certainly didn’t need it but I thought it was interesting since there is always bread. Since it was Election Day, everyone crowded around the radio to try and get some news but there wasn’t really anything on. After some tea and discussion, the ladies all piled back into the bus and went off to find another casa rural. It would have been nice to stay in the same place for 2 nights but I think it must have been booked already or something. About an hour and a half later we got to the first house but there wasn’t room for everyone. I ended up going to another house about 10 minutes down the road with the 3 Chilean girls and one of the Chilean professors. The house we stayed at was much smaller but very nice. The couple was super nice and gave us tea and cookies when we got there even though it was 11 PM. They were very chatty and showed us a slide show of Chiloe. Once again I got a hug bed all to myself J
November 5th/ day 5: Breakfast today included milk fresh from the cows, homemade “tortillas” (more like a dense flatter roll), homemade jam, cookies, rolls, and cheese. It was all super good, especially the tortillas. At first I started out with a roll with jam and then the tortillas were brought out and they were SUPER. I wish we had them more often but this was the only time. At breakfast the lady talked with us for awhile. It was very interesting b/c her and her husband hardly leave the house. They have 20 cows that they milk twice a day and a big garden. They don’t have anyone to look after things so they can’t leave much. Going to the store is a day long trip that they make once a month. If they run out of something in the mean time, they just go without. Even though they have lived there for a long time, they don’t know much of the island and it isn’t all that big. After more reading, sleeping, and talking on the bus we arrived in Castro were we saw another church closed for restoration, los palafitos (houses on stilts on the river) and went to a market. The market was great and I had been waiting patiently for this moment. I got a bunch of neat stuff but since have decided that I should have gotten a sweater. Pretty much everyone has one now and this market had a much wider variety than I have seen anywhere else and they were a good price. Susan and I found some cool yarn that we are going to use to make more teddy bears. Susan saw me knitting and wanted to learn how to make a bear and decided that it would be cool to make bears for the children in the hospital she is volunteering at. That is our project for the rest of our time here. After a lunch of pollo a lo pobre (chicken with fries, fried egg and fried onion, very healthy I know but hey it tasted good) it was time to get back on the big bad teal bus and head to Puerto Montt. Arriving around 9:00 we got our rooms and set out in search of food. First we went to the super market and I got yogurt, cereal and fruit. Then I went with a couple girls to McDonalds. They got food and I got a manjar ice cream cone. We headed back to the hotel and had a dinner party in one of the rooms.
November 6/day 6: Once again we were able to run along the river. We were worried that it was going to start pouring on us but luckily the rain held off until we were on the bus. This morning’s breakfast was not quite as good as the rest. The jam just wasn’t up to par and the juice wasn’t so good either. Oh-well, you can’t always win. After a long time of driving we stopped at a Brewery for lunch and a tour. I ended up getting a mixed vegetable salad for lunch. I was going to get a burger at first but then decided I was craving something healthier. Unfortunately the salad was not really what I was hoping for and I should have gotten the chicken Cesar salad like the other girls I ate with. Oh-well. Anyway, I’m kinda glad (but kinda not) that I decided not to get a burger or a sandwich. They were enormous!! Each was like a frisbee but about 6 inches tall. It would have been really good but way more food than anyone should eat in one sitting. The tour wasn’t anything special and to someone who isn’t particularly fond of beer, I didn’t really care very much about all the processes and such. Plus our tour guide wasn’t very exciting to listen to. Our next stop was at an old fort. Much of the fort was gone but there was still one building which was a museum now, a bunch of cannons and a lighthouse. You could still see the foundation where there used to be a church and some other buildings. It was a quick, chilly visit. Then we all got off at a park. No one really knew why. We walked a little ways into the park and saw a bunch of sea lions on a raft. They were very entertaining and we thought that was why we stopped but then one of the professors kept going and there ended up being two museums hidden at the back of the park. One was like a science museum type with a bunch of dead animals and insects and the other was an old house with a bunch of artifacts and old stuff. Then it was time to go the hostel. We seemed to drive in circles for awhile and finally ended up at the hostel. This time some of us stayed in the hotel like part the rest stayed in cabins. I was in a cabin with 4 others. We had a small kitchen and living room area and upstairs were 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. It was pretty nice but the hotel part was nicer in my opinion. We got to Valdivia early by this trips standards and it was still light out when we went into town to find a grocery store. Once again we had a dinner party in our Cabin and watched some old music videos on tv. I was really tired and went to bed early.
November 7/day 7: I think pretty much every town we stayed at during the week was on a river. Once again Andrea and I went for a run along the river. We ran into 5 others running on our way back to the hostel. Somehow Andrea and I missed the sea lions that were supposedly super close. I saw the sign mentioning the sea lions but I guess I didn’t look into the river to see if there were any. My stomach was growling by the time I made it to breakfast. Today was bread with turkey and cheese and some sort of cake. Once again, not everyone wanted their cake so I was more than happy to help them out. The plan for the day was to stop at a market in Chillan for lunch. Somehow that didn’t happen. I guess there was a lot of traffic or something, I’m not really sure but I really wanted to stop at the market. That was the only thing planned for the day. My host dad just told me yesterday that Chillan is famous for their longaniza which are a sausage that I really like!! That makes me even madder that we didn’t get to stop. Instead the day consisted of riding on the bus for endless hours (reading, sleeping, watching the Bee movie and more Pixar shorts) and stopping at 4-5 different Copec stations for food and bathroom breaks. What an exciting day! Once we got to Curico it took about 5 laps around the same few streets to find our hostel. We were split up once again in too groups. Our hostel was very, very nice! After getting our room, Susan and I went in search of more knitting needles and yarn since we had been sharing one pair. We walked around for awhile and finally found this huge store that had just about everything you could ever want including lots of cool yarn and knitting needles. After our walk around town we decided that the people there like bikes, hot dogs and soccer jerseys since just about every other store sold those items. Next stop- pizza restaurant. The pizza was very good. I got pizza Espanola: ham, sausage, green pepper, tomato and probably something else but I can’t remember. Before long the Shouse Tourino family (our directors) showed up and another group of 6 from our group. Later, after Susan, Hannah and I, went to the grocery store we saw another group of at least 10 people from our group at the same restaurant. We went back to our room and had bananas and chocolate ice cream before going to sleep.
November 8/day 8/last day: I was originally going to run but as I was getting ready I got a text message saying that my running partners were no longer going to run, darn! So I went back to bed for awhile and then took a shower. Then it was breakfast time. Finally there was something differ- yogurt and cereal in addition to bread, jam, manjar cake roll, juice and tea. As I was taking off my back pack to give to the driver to load into the bus, I dropped my other bag I was carrying, crunch!! There went my glass jar of Nutella. What a sad day, I had only eaten half of it but there was no way to salvage the shattered jar L Santa Cruz was our destination. First we went to a museum that was really cool. There was a ton of fossils and old artifacts. Unfortunately we didn’t have a lot of time in the town so I couldn’t go through the entire museum. After exploring the museum we went to the plaza where there was a bunch of artisan stands set up. After looking at all of them a group of headed out to find a restaurant. We ended up finding a bunch of closed restaurants before finding our way to the main street and stopped at a panaderia. I was disappointed at first b/c I didn’t want another ham sandwich. Then I noticed that people were eating burgers, completos and sandwiches on the other side of the shop. I figured out how to order a burger and sat down to wait with a couple of the guys. Soon I was enjoying my burger with avocado and tomato, perfect! After finishing lunch we went back to the plaza to wait for the bus. People kept coming with ice cream cones and I couldn’t resist. I hurried off in search of ice cream and found a place right as they were closing but luckily I still got my ice cream. Then it was back on the bus, this time headed for home. I cannot tell you how happy people were to be getting home. Everyone was practically bouncing off the walls, actually they were dancing in the aisles. We all go dropped off at the teatro municipal in the center of town and went our separate ways. It was a beautiful and sunny day so by the time I got home I was quite warm. I was greeted with two huge hugs and kissed by my family and after unpacking and showering told them about my trip as we ate dinner.
Today things got back to normal: more reading, worked an essay, and went for a run. Not a thrilling day but I am glad to be back in Vina.
I guess this blog didn’t turn out to be too concise. Pictures are coming but I really need to go to bed since I have class in less than 7 hours, oops.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
2 more weeks flew by
Two weeks ago I went back to the city center to pick up my Chilean ID card. I am "official" now :) How exciting. The cards are pretty cool and there is even your fingerprint on the back. I believe it is my right thumb-print.After picking up our IDs (there was 5-6 of us who went to pick them up together) we went to the bus terminal and bought tickets to Mendoza, Argentina. This process usually does not take more than a couple minutes but for some reason it took us about an hour. The lady processing our tickets had to make a bunch of phone calls and do all sorts of stuff and then she accidentally booked the wrong return date so she had to fix that.Later that night I went out with a couple friends for pizza and ice cream. We went to Diego's Pizza (the place that I had the strange pizza at before). Our waiter could tell we were not Chilean and we got menus in English. This turned out to be one of the most amusing things I have seen here. The translations on this menu were absolutely hilarious!!! Since I went two weeks ago I am having a hard time remembering what they were but there were things like buckets of tomatoes and onion wheels. Those are not even the funniest translations but they only ones I can remember at the moment. I ended up getting garlic cheese bread that was super good. After pizza we stopped at Bravisimo which is the favorite ice cream shop here. I was having a really hard time deciding which flavor I wanted and finally decided on alfajor (an alfajor is a popular Chilean treat. the most typical kind is two cookies with dulce de leche in between, all covered in chocolate). Unfortunately it did not taste a thing like what I was imagining- a mix of cookie, manjar and chocolate. YUM. It had a bit of a fruity flavor so my guess is that this was not your typical alfajor flavor but rather an alfajor fruitilla (an alfajor with strawberry jam filling instead of manjar, not very common but they do exist). I was not the only one disappointed with my ice cream that night, in fact nobody really got what they wanted/expected. Oh, well we will be back. As we were finishing up our ice cream a huge pack of dogs wondered by the shop and got into a bit of a fight. Surprisingly, I really like all the street dogs here. I am not a huge dog person but they really don't bother me. I like it when dogs "adopt" our group and follow us around or run with us along the beach. It's comforting to have a dog friend.
A couple weeks ago I noticed my bag/purse that I bring to class was starting to rip. The holes kept getting bigger so I got some thread and a needle from my mom. The inside of the bag is made out of a plastic-y fabric so I wasn't sure if sewing it would really work. Unfortunately my doubts were correct. The holes I sewed up just turned into bigger holes. I really like this bag so that makes me sad. I guess I'll have to see if I can find some sort of adhesive patch or something.
On the 15th I had my first day of service learning. I am teaching English to a class of 15 3rd and 4th graders. I was really nervous because I have never taught a class before and I was on my own for 1.5 hours with a bunch of little Chilean kids. I didn't really know what, if anything, they had learned before so I decided to start from square one. We went over colors, numbers, days of the week, seasons, some simple phrases, classroom objects and body parts. Since they are young kids I knew their attention span would not be super long and decided to incorporate lots of activities into the class. They colored pictures, played a form of concentration, did a word search and learned "head, shoulders, knees and toes." All in all it was a very good class and the kids listened well. The last 15 minutes were a little chaotic but it they had been very good up until then. They were not quite as well behaved this past week. There was a lot of chatter throughout the class but I didn't plan half as many activities so that could have been part of the problem. We didn't cover very much information either but I think for the most part it was new whereas the week before they knew a lot of the info already. Our theme this past week was food. After learning a bunch of the vocab I had them do a crossword puzzle. There were 15 pictures for clues. It took a surprisingly long time for everyone to complete the puzzle. I guess it is not important how much info we cover, if they are learning that is what is important. After my first service learning day, I took a collectivo (like a taxi but with a fixed route) home and quickly changed into my "soccer outfit". I had to leave half an hour later to meet in the center. As a group we were headed to the Chile vs. Argentina game. Our bus ended up being a little late but eventually the "big bad teal" bus (as our director likes to call it) showed up and we all piled on. For some reason this trip to Santiago seemed to take forever. The bus ride was longer than normal and I'm not sure why because we have been to the football stadium before and it didn't take as long. I think we took a different route so that could be to blame. All I know is that after about 3 hours we were all ready to get off the hot, stuffy bus. As we approached the stadium, we could tell we were getting close because there were vendors all over the place selling shirts, flags, hats, food, etc. This time we got dropped off right in front of one of the gates. I was hoping that we would get dropped off in the same place as last time b/c I really wanted to buy a soccer scarf. I had seen them last time but didn't buy one and had decided to buy it this time. Since we got dropped off at the gate we didn't have a chance to buy stuff from the street vendors. We had to go through security to get into the stadium. This time they didn't check my bag, the lady just let a bunch of us pass by. We did have to go through a metal detector. I'm not sure what good that did though. If you had a cell phone or a camera you had to hold it in your hand as you went through, I feel like it beeped for a bunch of people but you just kept going... Since the school organized this trip we got really good seats- the 5th row or so. It was a beautiful night and didn't even get cold. This was a nice change from the rain and cold we had at the last game. Even though the seats were close and you could see the game better, I think I enjoyed sitting in the nose-bleed seats better. The crowd was more energetic and the game overall just seemed more exciting. This could also have to do with the fact that there were a lot more goals in the last game. Chile won 1-0 so it was not the most action packed game. I was disappointed with my sandwich at this game. Last time I had an amazing turkey, tomato and avocado sandwich. This time the bread was different, there wasn't as much turkey and they ran out of tomatoes. Can't always win I guess. Beating Argentina was a really big deal. I have heard a variety of different statistics and some say it was the first time Chile has beaten Argentina in 80 years! Very cool to experience such an important event. When I got home from the game I finished packing for Mendoza because I had to be at the bus terminal in less than 8 hours.
Our morning started out with making a huge bag of trail mix. Everyone brought an item to share- peanuts, chocolate chips, pretzels, mini cookies, cheese puffs, and about 6 different types of cereal. We mixed everything in a big shopping bag and divided it up into plastic baggies. It was fun and delicious. Not long after leaving the bus terminal we were served coffee and alfajores. I was surprised by this b/c I didn't think we would get any food on the bus. After a couple hours in the bus reading, talking and sleeping people started talking about going through the Aduana at the border. You are not allowed to bring fruit, meat or cheese, etc across the border. For most of us that meant we had to eat our sandwiches before getting to the border. Once again my mom had packed me a monster sandwich pretty much the size of a soccer ball. I didn't really want to eat all of it at once but I didn't want to throw it away either, in the end I ate it all before the border, what an accomplishment. At the border we got to get out for a bit and walk around while waiting to turn in our papers and have our passports stamped. The cool, fresh air felt amazing! After going through two different lines we had our luggage checked but let me tell you it was not very intense. They put our big luggage from under the bus through a screener and all our hand luggage was "checked" but they hardly opened it up and peaked in. Some people had "forbidden" food in their bags and didn't get caught. After getting back on the bus we were surprised with lunch- ham sandwich, cookies and pop. Having just eaten the world's largest sandwich, I wasn't hungry at that moment but a couple hours later when I woke up from a nap I found room for the sandwich. We were all very excited to get to Mendoza after spending a good 8 hours on the bus. After taking out money at the bus terminal we walked to our hostel. That night we went out to dinner at a restaurant that someone's host family had recommended. It was like a higher quality Old Country Buffet. They had everything- salad bar, HUGE meat grill, pizza, pasta, sushi, Chinese, empanadas, desserts, etc. It was a delicious meal and I think I tried a bit of everything, no kidding. I can't even tell you how many plates I went through. I had the best pork I have ever eaten! The mini empanadas were also excellent. Pretty much everything was good except the chocolate ice cream was contaminated with fruity flavors. A few hours later we all waddled out of the restaurant and headed back to the hostel where we hung out for awhile. Later some of us went out to a bar and a club, both of which were fun. We even ran into some other students from the US who are studying in Mendoza and one of them was from St. Cloud. Crazy, talk about a small world. The next morning started out with a breakfast of sweet rolls with manjar and tea. Our first activity in Mendoza was a bikes and wines tour. We rented bikes and they gave us a map of some vineyards. It was a ton of fun! We went to 4 different vineyards. The first one was our longest stop. We got a tour of the vineyard and museum and got to sample some vine. The next stop was a little 2 family run business that makes chocolate, preserves and liquor. There we got a short tour and sampled chocolate and liquor. Unlike the last vineyard, we had to pay for the tour and tasting but it was less than $2 so it was totally worth it. They had a little shop and I bought a box of 16 mini alfajores. They were cute and delicious. Then we headed out for a long ride through some towns, along the highway, down a tree lined avenue and through the country. Finally we ended up at the last two vineyards on our tour. We just looked around quickly because we didn't really want another tour (nor did we have time). On the bike ride back my bike started to act up. The seat kept sinking backwards and about every 5-10 minutes the chain would fall off. This made for quite a frustrating return trip. I was very, very happy when we pulled into the plaza and returned the bikes. That afternoon we went to a restaurant for lunch. I had a chef salad that hit the spot perfectly. I have not eaten many salads here so it was just what the doctor ordered. After a relaxing lunch we wondered around town for awhile and then went to Carrefour (grocery store) to buy dinner. The group (well mainly a few people) cooked dinner. We had chicken breasts stuffed with a sauce from the second vineyard, chips and guacamole, and some cooked vegetables. It was all very good. The next morning started out a little earlier. We had to be ready to go by 9:00 to catch the bus for our day long adventure. Our first activity of the day was rafting. The fun and adventures began way before we got into the water. First we go a safety talk where we heard all about how to rescue each other if we fell out etc. Then we had to go get all our gear. We were each given a full wetsuit, a jacket, boots, helmet and lifejacket. We had a lot of fun getting the wetsuits on :) We then piled into a bus a drove down the road for a little while. Once we got to the river we divided into groups and had to carry our rafts to the river. They were heavy the ground was uneven, not a great combo. I was in a raft with 3 others and the guide. It was a great experience and it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. Since none of us fell out during any of the rapids, there was a certain point in the river that was slow and shallow so our guide had us all jump out of the raft and hold on to the rope on the side. That was kinda interesting but fun. Before we knew it, the rafting was over. We all took hot showers when we got back to the base camp and then had lunch at the little cafe. I got a huge sandwich with roast beef, ham, cheese, lettuce and avocado. It was really good! When it first came out I thought there was no way I could eat it all but I definitely did. When it came time to pay, which we did after eating for some reason, I was a little annoyed. My sandwich cost 20,000 but the people who got the same sandwich but without the roast beef only paid 10,000. It probably wouldn't have changed my order but it's still strange that there would be such a price difference. There wasn't a menu at the restaurant, you just asked the guy at the counter what there was a he told us our options. It was a strange system. After lunch we had some down time before our afternoon activity and I ended up taking a nap in the sun for 30-45 minutes. It was very nice. For canopy we all got harnesses, helmets and gloves. We then climbed to the top of one of the nearby hills. The area was sandy, rocky bluffs with the river. The canopy course consisted of 6 different cables. You got hooked up to the cable, put your dominate hand behind your head on the cable and the other one held the ropes attaching you to the cable. This activity reminded me a lot of the high ropes courses and Wolf Ridge. It was not quite as scenic here but going over the river was really cool. It was certainly a memorable day. Once back at the hostel we all took a short nap. Later I went with a couple girls to the Chocolate factory where we got a short tour. There was a guide but we were at the back of the tour group and couldn't hear and word she was saying. We basically just walked along one side of the factory on a second story walk way and got to watch everything being made. It was neat. On our way out we got a handful of chocolate covered raisins. On the way in we all got a piece of chocolate. Of course, after watching all that chocolate being made, we bought some in the gift shop. For dinner that night we went out to a Mexican restaurant. People got everything from tacos to enchiladas to fajitas. The fajita platters were enormous! They came with 16 condiments, 3 types of meat and tortillas. It was a good restaurant but not really anything special. While we were there the lights went out for a minute so that was interesting. Later that night a bunch of people went out to a huge club but I decided to stay back at the hostel along with a couple others b/c I was exhausted and just really needed to sleep. The next day was more relaxed. We spent the day roaming around the city, visiting different plazas and just enjoying the beautiful Argentina weather. You could wear shorts and a t-shirt all day and all night long. It was just perfect. Instead of going to a restaurant for lunch we all went to the grocery store and had a picnic in one of the plazas. It was fun, delicious and cheap! After we had our fill of plazas we went back to the hostel to meet up with some of the others who had stayed behind. The whole day we were a little confused. At one point someone asked "what time is it" and got two very different answers. All our cell phones said one time and our watches said another. What happened is the time changed in Buenos Aires (which must be connected to the phones somehow) but it hadn't changed in Mendoza. We were quite confused for awhile but the front desk guy at the hostel cleared it all up for us. After dinner at a German style restaurant on the street we headed to the bus terminal. The bus ride back to Vina was not very comfortable. I attempted to sleep for most of the ride but it didn't work too well. Bus seats are not the best place to sleep in the first place but then the bus kept alternating between hot and cold. We had to go through customs once again. No problems once again. Before we got off the bus, we had to fill out some forms and the guy was telling us that some souvenirs (mate cups made out of gords, preserves, etc) and stuff people bought would not pass but luckily no one ended up having their stuff confiscated. We got back to vina around 6:15 in the morning.
Once I got home I slept for about 1 hour before I had to leave for class. That was just the beginning of a very sleep deprived week.Since I had been gone for 4 days in Mendoza, I hadn't touched my homework. The worst part is that we had a senior seminar midterm essay test due on Thursday. I spent the majority of Tuesday and Wednesday working on the essay until the wee hours of the morning.Thursday was another extremely busy day. I woke up early, re-read my essays and packed my bag for the day. After 3 hours of senior seminar I ate my lunch at school and went to sailing. Kari and I sailed together for the first time. We did alright, had our fair share of problems but didn't fall in. We may not be great at sailing yet but it is fun and we are improving. One of the guys at sailing lives in Chorillos just like we do so he brought us back to Kari's house. After changing close and getting a quick snack, we headed out for trapecio. Class was super fun and we did a lot of new things. After trapecio Kari and I met up with a bunch of other people at a bar in Valpo. Our next stop was a club called El Huevo. We had to wait a little while to get in but it was worth it. There was a bunch of different rooms, each playing a different type of music. I've never had so much fun at a club before. 3 hours, or so, later a bunch of us decided it was time to go home, leaving another half of the group at the club. I got home at 4 am, 20 hours after I left the morning before. It was a great day but very long and exhausting.
A couple weeks ago I noticed my bag/purse that I bring to class was starting to rip. The holes kept getting bigger so I got some thread and a needle from my mom. The inside of the bag is made out of a plastic-y fabric so I wasn't sure if sewing it would really work. Unfortunately my doubts were correct. The holes I sewed up just turned into bigger holes. I really like this bag so that makes me sad. I guess I'll have to see if I can find some sort of adhesive patch or something.
On the 15th I had my first day of service learning. I am teaching English to a class of 15 3rd and 4th graders. I was really nervous because I have never taught a class before and I was on my own for 1.5 hours with a bunch of little Chilean kids. I didn't really know what, if anything, they had learned before so I decided to start from square one. We went over colors, numbers, days of the week, seasons, some simple phrases, classroom objects and body parts. Since they are young kids I knew their attention span would not be super long and decided to incorporate lots of activities into the class. They colored pictures, played a form of concentration, did a word search and learned "head, shoulders, knees and toes." All in all it was a very good class and the kids listened well. The last 15 minutes were a little chaotic but it they had been very good up until then. They were not quite as well behaved this past week. There was a lot of chatter throughout the class but I didn't plan half as many activities so that could have been part of the problem. We didn't cover very much information either but I think for the most part it was new whereas the week before they knew a lot of the info already. Our theme this past week was food. After learning a bunch of the vocab I had them do a crossword puzzle. There were 15 pictures for clues. It took a surprisingly long time for everyone to complete the puzzle. I guess it is not important how much info we cover, if they are learning that is what is important. After my first service learning day, I took a collectivo (like a taxi but with a fixed route) home and quickly changed into my "soccer outfit". I had to leave half an hour later to meet in the center. As a group we were headed to the Chile vs. Argentina game. Our bus ended up being a little late but eventually the "big bad teal" bus (as our director likes to call it) showed up and we all piled on. For some reason this trip to Santiago seemed to take forever. The bus ride was longer than normal and I'm not sure why because we have been to the football stadium before and it didn't take as long. I think we took a different route so that could be to blame. All I know is that after about 3 hours we were all ready to get off the hot, stuffy bus. As we approached the stadium, we could tell we were getting close because there were vendors all over the place selling shirts, flags, hats, food, etc. This time we got dropped off right in front of one of the gates. I was hoping that we would get dropped off in the same place as last time b/c I really wanted to buy a soccer scarf. I had seen them last time but didn't buy one and had decided to buy it this time. Since we got dropped off at the gate we didn't have a chance to buy stuff from the street vendors. We had to go through security to get into the stadium. This time they didn't check my bag, the lady just let a bunch of us pass by. We did have to go through a metal detector. I'm not sure what good that did though. If you had a cell phone or a camera you had to hold it in your hand as you went through, I feel like it beeped for a bunch of people but you just kept going... Since the school organized this trip we got really good seats- the 5th row or so. It was a beautiful night and didn't even get cold. This was a nice change from the rain and cold we had at the last game. Even though the seats were close and you could see the game better, I think I enjoyed sitting in the nose-bleed seats better. The crowd was more energetic and the game overall just seemed more exciting. This could also have to do with the fact that there were a lot more goals in the last game. Chile won 1-0 so it was not the most action packed game. I was disappointed with my sandwich at this game. Last time I had an amazing turkey, tomato and avocado sandwich. This time the bread was different, there wasn't as much turkey and they ran out of tomatoes. Can't always win I guess. Beating Argentina was a really big deal. I have heard a variety of different statistics and some say it was the first time Chile has beaten Argentina in 80 years! Very cool to experience such an important event. When I got home from the game I finished packing for Mendoza because I had to be at the bus terminal in less than 8 hours.
Our morning started out with making a huge bag of trail mix. Everyone brought an item to share- peanuts, chocolate chips, pretzels, mini cookies, cheese puffs, and about 6 different types of cereal. We mixed everything in a big shopping bag and divided it up into plastic baggies. It was fun and delicious. Not long after leaving the bus terminal we were served coffee and alfajores. I was surprised by this b/c I didn't think we would get any food on the bus. After a couple hours in the bus reading, talking and sleeping people started talking about going through the Aduana at the border. You are not allowed to bring fruit, meat or cheese, etc across the border. For most of us that meant we had to eat our sandwiches before getting to the border. Once again my mom had packed me a monster sandwich pretty much the size of a soccer ball. I didn't really want to eat all of it at once but I didn't want to throw it away either, in the end I ate it all before the border, what an accomplishment. At the border we got to get out for a bit and walk around while waiting to turn in our papers and have our passports stamped. The cool, fresh air felt amazing! After going through two different lines we had our luggage checked but let me tell you it was not very intense. They put our big luggage from under the bus through a screener and all our hand luggage was "checked" but they hardly opened it up and peaked in. Some people had "forbidden" food in their bags and didn't get caught. After getting back on the bus we were surprised with lunch- ham sandwich, cookies and pop. Having just eaten the world's largest sandwich, I wasn't hungry at that moment but a couple hours later when I woke up from a nap I found room for the sandwich. We were all very excited to get to Mendoza after spending a good 8 hours on the bus. After taking out money at the bus terminal we walked to our hostel. That night we went out to dinner at a restaurant that someone's host family had recommended. It was like a higher quality Old Country Buffet. They had everything- salad bar, HUGE meat grill, pizza, pasta, sushi, Chinese, empanadas, desserts, etc. It was a delicious meal and I think I tried a bit of everything, no kidding. I can't even tell you how many plates I went through. I had the best pork I have ever eaten! The mini empanadas were also excellent. Pretty much everything was good except the chocolate ice cream was contaminated with fruity flavors. A few hours later we all waddled out of the restaurant and headed back to the hostel where we hung out for awhile. Later some of us went out to a bar and a club, both of which were fun. We even ran into some other students from the US who are studying in Mendoza and one of them was from St. Cloud. Crazy, talk about a small world. The next morning started out with a breakfast of sweet rolls with manjar and tea. Our first activity in Mendoza was a bikes and wines tour. We rented bikes and they gave us a map of some vineyards. It was a ton of fun! We went to 4 different vineyards. The first one was our longest stop. We got a tour of the vineyard and museum and got to sample some vine. The next stop was a little 2 family run business that makes chocolate, preserves and liquor. There we got a short tour and sampled chocolate and liquor. Unlike the last vineyard, we had to pay for the tour and tasting but it was less than $2 so it was totally worth it. They had a little shop and I bought a box of 16 mini alfajores. They were cute and delicious. Then we headed out for a long ride through some towns, along the highway, down a tree lined avenue and through the country. Finally we ended up at the last two vineyards on our tour. We just looked around quickly because we didn't really want another tour (nor did we have time). On the bike ride back my bike started to act up. The seat kept sinking backwards and about every 5-10 minutes the chain would fall off. This made for quite a frustrating return trip. I was very, very happy when we pulled into the plaza and returned the bikes. That afternoon we went to a restaurant for lunch. I had a chef salad that hit the spot perfectly. I have not eaten many salads here so it was just what the doctor ordered. After a relaxing lunch we wondered around town for awhile and then went to Carrefour (grocery store) to buy dinner. The group (well mainly a few people) cooked dinner. We had chicken breasts stuffed with a sauce from the second vineyard, chips and guacamole, and some cooked vegetables. It was all very good. The next morning started out a little earlier. We had to be ready to go by 9:00 to catch the bus for our day long adventure. Our first activity of the day was rafting. The fun and adventures began way before we got into the water. First we go a safety talk where we heard all about how to rescue each other if we fell out etc. Then we had to go get all our gear. We were each given a full wetsuit, a jacket, boots, helmet and lifejacket. We had a lot of fun getting the wetsuits on :) We then piled into a bus a drove down the road for a little while. Once we got to the river we divided into groups and had to carry our rafts to the river. They were heavy the ground was uneven, not a great combo. I was in a raft with 3 others and the guide. It was a great experience and it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. Since none of us fell out during any of the rapids, there was a certain point in the river that was slow and shallow so our guide had us all jump out of the raft and hold on to the rope on the side. That was kinda interesting but fun. Before we knew it, the rafting was over. We all took hot showers when we got back to the base camp and then had lunch at the little cafe. I got a huge sandwich with roast beef, ham, cheese, lettuce and avocado. It was really good! When it first came out I thought there was no way I could eat it all but I definitely did. When it came time to pay, which we did after eating for some reason, I was a little annoyed. My sandwich cost 20,000 but the people who got the same sandwich but without the roast beef only paid 10,000. It probably wouldn't have changed my order but it's still strange that there would be such a price difference. There wasn't a menu at the restaurant, you just asked the guy at the counter what there was a he told us our options. It was a strange system. After lunch we had some down time before our afternoon activity and I ended up taking a nap in the sun for 30-45 minutes. It was very nice. For canopy we all got harnesses, helmets and gloves. We then climbed to the top of one of the nearby hills. The area was sandy, rocky bluffs with the river. The canopy course consisted of 6 different cables. You got hooked up to the cable, put your dominate hand behind your head on the cable and the other one held the ropes attaching you to the cable. This activity reminded me a lot of the high ropes courses and Wolf Ridge. It was not quite as scenic here but going over the river was really cool. It was certainly a memorable day. Once back at the hostel we all took a short nap. Later I went with a couple girls to the Chocolate factory where we got a short tour. There was a guide but we were at the back of the tour group and couldn't hear and word she was saying. We basically just walked along one side of the factory on a second story walk way and got to watch everything being made. It was neat. On our way out we got a handful of chocolate covered raisins. On the way in we all got a piece of chocolate. Of course, after watching all that chocolate being made, we bought some in the gift shop. For dinner that night we went out to a Mexican restaurant. People got everything from tacos to enchiladas to fajitas. The fajita platters were enormous! They came with 16 condiments, 3 types of meat and tortillas. It was a good restaurant but not really anything special. While we were there the lights went out for a minute so that was interesting. Later that night a bunch of people went out to a huge club but I decided to stay back at the hostel along with a couple others b/c I was exhausted and just really needed to sleep. The next day was more relaxed. We spent the day roaming around the city, visiting different plazas and just enjoying the beautiful Argentina weather. You could wear shorts and a t-shirt all day and all night long. It was just perfect. Instead of going to a restaurant for lunch we all went to the grocery store and had a picnic in one of the plazas. It was fun, delicious and cheap! After we had our fill of plazas we went back to the hostel to meet up with some of the others who had stayed behind. The whole day we were a little confused. At one point someone asked "what time is it" and got two very different answers. All our cell phones said one time and our watches said another. What happened is the time changed in Buenos Aires (which must be connected to the phones somehow) but it hadn't changed in Mendoza. We were quite confused for awhile but the front desk guy at the hostel cleared it all up for us. After dinner at a German style restaurant on the street we headed to the bus terminal. The bus ride back to Vina was not very comfortable. I attempted to sleep for most of the ride but it didn't work too well. Bus seats are not the best place to sleep in the first place but then the bus kept alternating between hot and cold. We had to go through customs once again. No problems once again. Before we got off the bus, we had to fill out some forms and the guy was telling us that some souvenirs (mate cups made out of gords, preserves, etc) and stuff people bought would not pass but luckily no one ended up having their stuff confiscated. We got back to vina around 6:15 in the morning.
Once I got home I slept for about 1 hour before I had to leave for class. That was just the beginning of a very sleep deprived week.Since I had been gone for 4 days in Mendoza, I hadn't touched my homework. The worst part is that we had a senior seminar midterm essay test due on Thursday. I spent the majority of Tuesday and Wednesday working on the essay until the wee hours of the morning.Thursday was another extremely busy day. I woke up early, re-read my essays and packed my bag for the day. After 3 hours of senior seminar I ate my lunch at school and went to sailing. Kari and I sailed together for the first time. We did alright, had our fair share of problems but didn't fall in. We may not be great at sailing yet but it is fun and we are improving. One of the guys at sailing lives in Chorillos just like we do so he brought us back to Kari's house. After changing close and getting a quick snack, we headed out for trapecio. Class was super fun and we did a lot of new things. After trapecio Kari and I met up with a bunch of other people at a bar in Valpo. Our next stop was a club called El Huevo. We had to wait a little while to get in but it was worth it. There was a bunch of different rooms, each playing a different type of music. I've never had so much fun at a club before. 3 hours, or so, later a bunch of us decided it was time to go home, leaving another half of the group at the club. I got home at 4 am, 20 hours after I left the morning before. It was a great day but very long and exhausting.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Adventures
** The photo uploading feature is not working at the moment so I will try to upload photos this weekend :)
On Sunday the 28th we had another group excursion. This time we went to the town of Isla Negra to visit another one of Pablo Neruda’s houses. This was by far my favorite of his 3 houses in Chile. Unfortunately we are not allowed to take pictures inside any of the houses but I do have some photos from outside. After touring the house we went to the beach for lunch. A professor from the university came along with us and was going to bring us to a good restaurant for lunch. This ended up being a wild goose chase. I’m not sure if the restaurant had closed or if it was just farther then she remembered but after walking for what seemed like forever the group split up and went to various restaurants. It was probably better that we went in smaller groups rather than try to have a group of 30 in one restaurant. I went to a cool little restaurant with about 6 other people. I really could not decide what to get and finally decided on a sandwich called “campesino.” It was an excellent decision! It was roast beef style meat called churrasco, a fried egg, green beans and tomato. Sounds like an odd combo but it was amazing. The only thing that could have made this sandwich even better is palta (avocado). After lunch we wondered around looking at the artisan stands for awhile and walked on the beach until it was time to leave. While walking on the beach we saw a couple starfish!! They were really neat. Before long it was time to go back to Vina. I had the brilliant idea to keep reading for senior seminar like I had done on the way to Isla Negra, only this time I think I lasted about 3 minutes before I fell sound asleep until we were back in Vina.
Last Tuesday was my 21st birthday, it was probably one of the busiest days I have had so far! My day started out at the crack of dawn- I got up at 6:30 to have breakfast and get ready for my 8:00 AM cine class. As I was eating breakfast my mom and sister came into the kitchen to wish me happy birthday and give me a box of alfajores (popular Chilean pastries- 2 cookies with manjar in the middle, all covered in chocolate). Then they went back to bed, nobody ever gets up with me on Tuesdays because I have class so early. The alfajores were amazing, they were the kind from a bakery, not the packaged kind:). My 11:00 history class sang “feliz cumpleanos” to me. Then I had two meetings. One was a check up with our director and the other was for our service learning assignments. After the meetings I rushed home so I could eat lunch with my parents. After lunch they sang to me and we had cake. I have to say the cake was pretty darn good (I made it myself). It was chocolate with a layer of peanut butter mouse in the middle. The frosting was chocolate peanut butter. My parents said it was very good but I don’t know if I believe them. They may have each had a second piece of cake but the rest I ate and shared with friends on our trip to La Serena. When I got back from La Serena, 4 days later, there was still cake in the fridge. Now that I think about it, and have seen some amazing cakes walking by the bakery, I should have picked out a cake. I missed the only chance to have a Chilean Birthday cake. Oh well, it was fun to make. After lunch I talked with Laura on skype for about 5 minutes before I had to leave once again for a make-up history class. We had to meet to Valparaiso at 4:00. Luckily the make-up class was not your typical history class. We met in at Plaza Victoria, learned a bit about the history, walked around, went to one of Pablo Neruda’s houses (we have now seen all 3 in Chile), walked back down to the plaza and went to a café. Even though it was a 3 hour “class,” it went surprisingly fast. Kari and I left the café a little early to go to trapecio. We had to go back up to where we had been an hour before (near Pablo Neruda’s house). Trapecio was much more fun than normal for some reason. I also got lots of birthday wishes and hugs throughout the class as people found out that it was my birthday. After class we headed back to Vina where we met up with some people at a restaurant called Margaritas. Kari and I had dinner there but since it was 11:00 pm, most people had already eaten. I had an amazing and huge sandwich. It was called the Margarita Sandwich- chicken, fried egg, tomato, avocado and lettuce. And of course, we all had margaritas. In my opinion margaritas are ok, not my favorite. Originally we were going to go to a club after Margaritas but everyone was tired, plus it was a Tuesday, so we all went home around 12:00-1:00. When I got back to my apartment, I found a couple little gifts sitting on my computer. I got a really neat little journal and a funny little cat figurine from my family. All in all it was a great birthday, certainly one I will never forget. Since I wasn’t home for more than an hour and a half on my birthday, my family took me out to eat the next day. We went to a little Chinese restaurant near the center of town. I didn’t really have a clue what I was ordering but it was delicious!! We got some wontons to share as a family. I soon learned that wontons here are not like in the states. Instead of cream cheese in the middle there was a little bit of pork. They also use soy sauce instead of sweet and sour. They were good but not the same.
On Thursday I left for La Serena, the second oldest town in Chile (I believe). After senior seminar I went straight home to finish packing and eat a quick lunch. I had less than two hours from the time class ended until I had to be at the bus terminal. (Luckily I live relatively close to the terminal.) Since I was going to be gone for dinner, my mom left a sandwich in the fridge that I could take with me. I don’t think I have ever seen a larger sandwich in my life- It was probably a foot in diameter! Needless to say, I had plenty to eat for dinner. I also brought a bunch of birthday cake to share with the group since there was a good half of the cake left. The 6-7 hour bus ride to La Serena seemed to take forever. I read during most of the ride but pretty soon got tired of my reading. The problem was, I should have read the first 200 pages in the book for senior sem earlier that day but due to the busy weekend and my birthday, I “only” read the other 200 pages of the book that was assigned and wrote the essay. Attempting to play catch-up is not fun. Finally we arrived in La Serena around 8:30. Finding our hostel turned out to be a little harder than we anticipated. Actually we just need to learn how to read a map. We took a wrong turn out of the bus terminal and went in the opposite direction and therefore ended up walking way out of the way. Once we found our hostel and dumped our bags in the rooms, we headed out to find some food. Everyone else was starving but since I had my gigantic sandwich, I pretty much just went along for the ride. We soon found out that there is not much night life or many restaurants open late in La Serena. That would have to be the one disappointing part of the trip. Every night after dinner we just ended up back at the hostel. Sometimes we planned on going out but it never really happened. On Friday we slept in and then headed to the market since that is suppose to be a highlight of La Serena. To me, it wasn’t really anything special. It was very similar to the other markets we have visited. They did have some good treats I had not seen before but a lot of the stuff was the same as everywhere else. The best treat they had was manjar leche which is pretty much manjar flavored fudge. The candied papaya was also really good. Papaya is one of the things the region is known for. After shopping a bit it was time for lunch. We bought empanadas, veggies and fruit at the market and went back to the hostel to eat. For the first time, we tried a fruit called Chirimoya. It was pretty good but not terribly flavorful. I think the one we tried wasn’t quite ripe. There were a ton of big black seeds that made it hard to eat but it was fun to try something new. As always, the empanadas were great! Once we cleaned up from lunch it was time to head to the beach. It ended up being a lot longer walk than we anticipated but the whole way we walked on a palm tree lined avenue so at least it was a pretty walk. We sat on the beach for about an hour and then had to go back so we could get some dinner before heading to the observatory. For dinner we stopped at a little restaurant on the street and got sandwiches to go. I ordered turkey with tomato and avocado only they forgot the avocado!! I was disappointed. Unfortunately I didn't find this out until we got back to the hostel and had a little time to eat before we left. There are quite a few observatories in this area. The skies are really clear and there is lots of uninhabited land/hills. Four of us decided to go on the observatory tour to Mamalluca which was one of the excursions offered through the hostel. At 8:00 we piled in a van and drove for 1-1.5 hours out into the hills. We had about a 2 hour tour at the observatory. It started out on the observation deck where we got to see the moon (up close and personal), Jupiter, star clusters, and much, much more. Then we had a presentation about stars, their life cycle, etc. Lastly, we went outside to another telescope to see more stars, planets, constellations, etc. It was a very chilly night and by the time the tour ended we were all freezing. I always forget how cold it gets once the sun sets. To our surprise, when we got back into the van we were served coffee/tea and cookies. What a perfect treat!
On Saturday we got up a bit earlier to go on an all day tour of Elqui Valley. It was a beautiful day. Our First stop was the Pulcaro Dam. It was absolutely gorgeous with the lake was surrounded by hills. Then we rode through the vineyard covered valley and stopped at the town of Vicuna. There was a really neat central Plaza and some artesian shops to visit. Vicuna is the birthplace of Gabriela Mistral- nobel prize winning poet. Our next stop was at a Pisco distillery. Pisco is a very typical alcoholic drink here in Chile. It was an interesting tour and of course at the end we got to try some. The first thing we tried was super, super strong. I don’t remember what proof it was but it was higher than you would sell. Pretty much like liquid fire. After that we got to try a mango sour which was actually good. Then it was time for lunch. We headed to this little village and ate at a restaurant where they cook everything in solar ovens. When we arrived, we saw some of our food cooking in the ovens. It was really cool and delicious. We got salad, bread, meat (either goat, pork or chicken) with mashed potatoes or rice and mote con huesillo for dessert. Mote is a very typical Chilean dessert but I am not a fan. Montegrande was the next stop. There we visited a museum about Gabriela Mistral and also visited her tomb. Our final destination was another town called Pisco Elqui. Once again we visited the artesania and spent some time in the park/plaza. By this time we were all worn out and were happy to get on the bus and head back to the hostel. It was a very good day and our tour guide was super nice. She even gave us some recommendations on where to eat once we go back to La Serena. We ended up not going to the restaurant our guide suggested (why, I don’t know) but we should have listened to here. We went to a little restaurant we found wondering around. The challenges started when the waitress brought 2 menus to our table of 6 and said there weren’t any more. This made it a bit tough to decide what to order. Then the first two or three things I tried to order ended up being out. I was pretty annoyed, especially since the waitress kept hovering, waiting for me to make up my mind. In the end I settled on a hamburger (which came with tomato and avocado, of course). It was good but took an eternity to come.
Sunday was a very relaxing day. After breakfast I went back to the market with some friends who hadn’t gone the other day. Unfortunately for them, it was Sunday a lot of the stands were not open. After shopping around a bit we went to the grocery store and got to have a picnic lunch on the beach. I got a ¼ rotisserie chicken, hallulla (bread), fruit and cookies. It was a delicious lunch but we ended up attracting some dog friends during our lunch. They kinda stayed around the whole day. While on the beach, I read some more for senior seminar, chatted, and made 2 friends into sand mermaids. It was a simple, relaxing day. 3 of us ended up staying until the sunset but most people left because it got quite cold as the sun set and most people were not dressed for nighttime. Then we made the trek back to the hostel and found a pizza place on the way to have dinner. We split a pizza with pepperoni, tomato and green pepper and an order of breadsticks. It was good but not my favorite. I have had better (both here and in the states). Once we got back to the hostel, I finished packing up my stuff and then we hung out for a couple hours. Our bus left at 11:30 PM so we had a bit of time to kill. On the way home, we chose the “bed seats” so we got big reclining seats. I was able to sleep most of the ride home, waking up every now and then to resituate myself. We got back to Vina at 6:30 in the morning, went home, showered, had breakfast and headed off to 9:30 cinema class. On Monday I went to rowing again for the first time in about 2 weeks. It was fun to finally get to row again.
Tuesday was a very cloudy day. I think it has been cloudy every Tuesday since we got here, weird. After classes, I went with two other girls to meet with the principal of Escuela Archi where we are going to do our service learning. When we got there we met a couple girls who helped us figure out where to go. They were very helpful, cute and excited that we were there. Apparently they have been waiting for us and cannot wait to start classes. We are all signed up for 2 credits and need to do 40-50 hours of service. This is going to be more challenging than we anticipated. The students are divided into 3 classes for English and each of us was assigned on class. I have the 3rd and 4th graders J We will meet once a week from 1:30-3:00. That is only 1.5 hours a week for the 8 or so weeks we have left. It’s pretty easy to see we will not get 40 hours of service. We talked to our director and he is going to talk to the principal again so we’ll see how that turns out. Since it was Tuesday, Kari and I went to trapecio/gymnastics class. This time Kari’s sister was unable to go with us. We managed to get there by ourselves so we were pretty happy. During class we worked on some different pyramids, tela positions and figures on the trapeze bar. I’m getting a better hang on things but still have a ways to go.
Yesterday I went to a cooking class at the house of one of the other student’s in our group. Once or twice a week (depending on interest) she offers a class, teaching us how to make typical Chilean food. I have not been able to go before. Yesterday’s class was pastel de choclo- one of the dishes we ate in Pomaire. We also made leche asada which is like a flan. The pastel de choclo was good but not as good as in Pomaire. I wasn’t a fan of the leche asada. It didn’t really have much flavor but I did not find it appetizing. All in all it was a pretty fun afternoon. I would like to do it more but I’m not sure if I will. She charges $16 a class and I’m just not sure it’s really worth that much. I think I’ll talk to my mom and see if she’ll teach me a thing or two. After cooking class I had to write my essay for senior seminar. I started it around 8:00 but could not stay awake and kept dozing off every few sentences. I’m not sure why I was so tired at 8:00. The whole process ended up taking way too long and I’m not sure the end result was the greatest. Oh well, I’ll have to make sure I start earlier next week.
Today was another cloudy, gloomy day. It was a pretty ordinary day. After senior seminar I went to sailing. Today was my second time actually sailing. The last time I sailed was a few weeks ago and I went in a boat with another person. All of a sudden today, the instructor was like “your turn, hop in” so I did and nobody got in with me. YIKES! Well, it all started off fine and the instructor stayed near me in the dingy telling me exactly what to do. Then it came time to turn around which involved switching sides of the boat. I went too soon and tipped into the cold, salty ocean. It was quite shocking. After righting the boat, I got back in and started going again, this time I was suppose to follow the instructor in the dingy only I didn’t get too far before I tipped again. I’m not quite sure what happened but once again I plunged into the ocean. I’ve decided that next time I’m going to go with another person so I can get a bit more experience with everything before I have to do it all on my own. Even though today was a bit of a challenging and wet day, it was fun. I will be glad when I can sail on my own and not tip every few minutes!
On Sunday the 28th we had another group excursion. This time we went to the town of Isla Negra to visit another one of Pablo Neruda’s houses. This was by far my favorite of his 3 houses in Chile. Unfortunately we are not allowed to take pictures inside any of the houses but I do have some photos from outside. After touring the house we went to the beach for lunch. A professor from the university came along with us and was going to bring us to a good restaurant for lunch. This ended up being a wild goose chase. I’m not sure if the restaurant had closed or if it was just farther then she remembered but after walking for what seemed like forever the group split up and went to various restaurants. It was probably better that we went in smaller groups rather than try to have a group of 30 in one restaurant. I went to a cool little restaurant with about 6 other people. I really could not decide what to get and finally decided on a sandwich called “campesino.” It was an excellent decision! It was roast beef style meat called churrasco, a fried egg, green beans and tomato. Sounds like an odd combo but it was amazing. The only thing that could have made this sandwich even better is palta (avocado). After lunch we wondered around looking at the artisan stands for awhile and walked on the beach until it was time to leave. While walking on the beach we saw a couple starfish!! They were really neat. Before long it was time to go back to Vina. I had the brilliant idea to keep reading for senior seminar like I had done on the way to Isla Negra, only this time I think I lasted about 3 minutes before I fell sound asleep until we were back in Vina.
Last Tuesday was my 21st birthday, it was probably one of the busiest days I have had so far! My day started out at the crack of dawn- I got up at 6:30 to have breakfast and get ready for my 8:00 AM cine class. As I was eating breakfast my mom and sister came into the kitchen to wish me happy birthday and give me a box of alfajores (popular Chilean pastries- 2 cookies with manjar in the middle, all covered in chocolate). Then they went back to bed, nobody ever gets up with me on Tuesdays because I have class so early. The alfajores were amazing, they were the kind from a bakery, not the packaged kind:). My 11:00 history class sang “feliz cumpleanos” to me. Then I had two meetings. One was a check up with our director and the other was for our service learning assignments. After the meetings I rushed home so I could eat lunch with my parents. After lunch they sang to me and we had cake. I have to say the cake was pretty darn good (I made it myself). It was chocolate with a layer of peanut butter mouse in the middle. The frosting was chocolate peanut butter. My parents said it was very good but I don’t know if I believe them. They may have each had a second piece of cake but the rest I ate and shared with friends on our trip to La Serena. When I got back from La Serena, 4 days later, there was still cake in the fridge. Now that I think about it, and have seen some amazing cakes walking by the bakery, I should have picked out a cake. I missed the only chance to have a Chilean Birthday cake. Oh well, it was fun to make. After lunch I talked with Laura on skype for about 5 minutes before I had to leave once again for a make-up history class. We had to meet to Valparaiso at 4:00. Luckily the make-up class was not your typical history class. We met in at Plaza Victoria, learned a bit about the history, walked around, went to one of Pablo Neruda’s houses (we have now seen all 3 in Chile), walked back down to the plaza and went to a café. Even though it was a 3 hour “class,” it went surprisingly fast. Kari and I left the café a little early to go to trapecio. We had to go back up to where we had been an hour before (near Pablo Neruda’s house). Trapecio was much more fun than normal for some reason. I also got lots of birthday wishes and hugs throughout the class as people found out that it was my birthday. After class we headed back to Vina where we met up with some people at a restaurant called Margaritas. Kari and I had dinner there but since it was 11:00 pm, most people had already eaten. I had an amazing and huge sandwich. It was called the Margarita Sandwich- chicken, fried egg, tomato, avocado and lettuce. And of course, we all had margaritas. In my opinion margaritas are ok, not my favorite. Originally we were going to go to a club after Margaritas but everyone was tired, plus it was a Tuesday, so we all went home around 12:00-1:00. When I got back to my apartment, I found a couple little gifts sitting on my computer. I got a really neat little journal and a funny little cat figurine from my family. All in all it was a great birthday, certainly one I will never forget. Since I wasn’t home for more than an hour and a half on my birthday, my family took me out to eat the next day. We went to a little Chinese restaurant near the center of town. I didn’t really have a clue what I was ordering but it was delicious!! We got some wontons to share as a family. I soon learned that wontons here are not like in the states. Instead of cream cheese in the middle there was a little bit of pork. They also use soy sauce instead of sweet and sour. They were good but not the same.
On Thursday I left for La Serena, the second oldest town in Chile (I believe). After senior seminar I went straight home to finish packing and eat a quick lunch. I had less than two hours from the time class ended until I had to be at the bus terminal. (Luckily I live relatively close to the terminal.) Since I was going to be gone for dinner, my mom left a sandwich in the fridge that I could take with me. I don’t think I have ever seen a larger sandwich in my life- It was probably a foot in diameter! Needless to say, I had plenty to eat for dinner. I also brought a bunch of birthday cake to share with the group since there was a good half of the cake left. The 6-7 hour bus ride to La Serena seemed to take forever. I read during most of the ride but pretty soon got tired of my reading. The problem was, I should have read the first 200 pages in the book for senior sem earlier that day but due to the busy weekend and my birthday, I “only” read the other 200 pages of the book that was assigned and wrote the essay. Attempting to play catch-up is not fun. Finally we arrived in La Serena around 8:30. Finding our hostel turned out to be a little harder than we anticipated. Actually we just need to learn how to read a map. We took a wrong turn out of the bus terminal and went in the opposite direction and therefore ended up walking way out of the way. Once we found our hostel and dumped our bags in the rooms, we headed out to find some food. Everyone else was starving but since I had my gigantic sandwich, I pretty much just went along for the ride. We soon found out that there is not much night life or many restaurants open late in La Serena. That would have to be the one disappointing part of the trip. Every night after dinner we just ended up back at the hostel. Sometimes we planned on going out but it never really happened. On Friday we slept in and then headed to the market since that is suppose to be a highlight of La Serena. To me, it wasn’t really anything special. It was very similar to the other markets we have visited. They did have some good treats I had not seen before but a lot of the stuff was the same as everywhere else. The best treat they had was manjar leche which is pretty much manjar flavored fudge. The candied papaya was also really good. Papaya is one of the things the region is known for. After shopping a bit it was time for lunch. We bought empanadas, veggies and fruit at the market and went back to the hostel to eat. For the first time, we tried a fruit called Chirimoya. It was pretty good but not terribly flavorful. I think the one we tried wasn’t quite ripe. There were a ton of big black seeds that made it hard to eat but it was fun to try something new. As always, the empanadas were great! Once we cleaned up from lunch it was time to head to the beach. It ended up being a lot longer walk than we anticipated but the whole way we walked on a palm tree lined avenue so at least it was a pretty walk. We sat on the beach for about an hour and then had to go back so we could get some dinner before heading to the observatory. For dinner we stopped at a little restaurant on the street and got sandwiches to go. I ordered turkey with tomato and avocado only they forgot the avocado!! I was disappointed. Unfortunately I didn't find this out until we got back to the hostel and had a little time to eat before we left. There are quite a few observatories in this area. The skies are really clear and there is lots of uninhabited land/hills. Four of us decided to go on the observatory tour to Mamalluca which was one of the excursions offered through the hostel. At 8:00 we piled in a van and drove for 1-1.5 hours out into the hills. We had about a 2 hour tour at the observatory. It started out on the observation deck where we got to see the moon (up close and personal), Jupiter, star clusters, and much, much more. Then we had a presentation about stars, their life cycle, etc. Lastly, we went outside to another telescope to see more stars, planets, constellations, etc. It was a very chilly night and by the time the tour ended we were all freezing. I always forget how cold it gets once the sun sets. To our surprise, when we got back into the van we were served coffee/tea and cookies. What a perfect treat!
On Saturday we got up a bit earlier to go on an all day tour of Elqui Valley. It was a beautiful day. Our First stop was the Pulcaro Dam. It was absolutely gorgeous with the lake was surrounded by hills. Then we rode through the vineyard covered valley and stopped at the town of Vicuna. There was a really neat central Plaza and some artesian shops to visit. Vicuna is the birthplace of Gabriela Mistral- nobel prize winning poet. Our next stop was at a Pisco distillery. Pisco is a very typical alcoholic drink here in Chile. It was an interesting tour and of course at the end we got to try some. The first thing we tried was super, super strong. I don’t remember what proof it was but it was higher than you would sell. Pretty much like liquid fire. After that we got to try a mango sour which was actually good. Then it was time for lunch. We headed to this little village and ate at a restaurant where they cook everything in solar ovens. When we arrived, we saw some of our food cooking in the ovens. It was really cool and delicious. We got salad, bread, meat (either goat, pork or chicken) with mashed potatoes or rice and mote con huesillo for dessert. Mote is a very typical Chilean dessert but I am not a fan. Montegrande was the next stop. There we visited a museum about Gabriela Mistral and also visited her tomb. Our final destination was another town called Pisco Elqui. Once again we visited the artesania and spent some time in the park/plaza. By this time we were all worn out and were happy to get on the bus and head back to the hostel. It was a very good day and our tour guide was super nice. She even gave us some recommendations on where to eat once we go back to La Serena. We ended up not going to the restaurant our guide suggested (why, I don’t know) but we should have listened to here. We went to a little restaurant we found wondering around. The challenges started when the waitress brought 2 menus to our table of 6 and said there weren’t any more. This made it a bit tough to decide what to order. Then the first two or three things I tried to order ended up being out. I was pretty annoyed, especially since the waitress kept hovering, waiting for me to make up my mind. In the end I settled on a hamburger (which came with tomato and avocado, of course). It was good but took an eternity to come.
Sunday was a very relaxing day. After breakfast I went back to the market with some friends who hadn’t gone the other day. Unfortunately for them, it was Sunday a lot of the stands were not open. After shopping around a bit we went to the grocery store and got to have a picnic lunch on the beach. I got a ¼ rotisserie chicken, hallulla (bread), fruit and cookies. It was a delicious lunch but we ended up attracting some dog friends during our lunch. They kinda stayed around the whole day. While on the beach, I read some more for senior seminar, chatted, and made 2 friends into sand mermaids. It was a simple, relaxing day. 3 of us ended up staying until the sunset but most people left because it got quite cold as the sun set and most people were not dressed for nighttime. Then we made the trek back to the hostel and found a pizza place on the way to have dinner. We split a pizza with pepperoni, tomato and green pepper and an order of breadsticks. It was good but not my favorite. I have had better (both here and in the states). Once we got back to the hostel, I finished packing up my stuff and then we hung out for a couple hours. Our bus left at 11:30 PM so we had a bit of time to kill. On the way home, we chose the “bed seats” so we got big reclining seats. I was able to sleep most of the ride home, waking up every now and then to resituate myself. We got back to Vina at 6:30 in the morning, went home, showered, had breakfast and headed off to 9:30 cinema class. On Monday I went to rowing again for the first time in about 2 weeks. It was fun to finally get to row again.
Tuesday was a very cloudy day. I think it has been cloudy every Tuesday since we got here, weird. After classes, I went with two other girls to meet with the principal of Escuela Archi where we are going to do our service learning. When we got there we met a couple girls who helped us figure out where to go. They were very helpful, cute and excited that we were there. Apparently they have been waiting for us and cannot wait to start classes. We are all signed up for 2 credits and need to do 40-50 hours of service. This is going to be more challenging than we anticipated. The students are divided into 3 classes for English and each of us was assigned on class. I have the 3rd and 4th graders J We will meet once a week from 1:30-3:00. That is only 1.5 hours a week for the 8 or so weeks we have left. It’s pretty easy to see we will not get 40 hours of service. We talked to our director and he is going to talk to the principal again so we’ll see how that turns out. Since it was Tuesday, Kari and I went to trapecio/gymnastics class. This time Kari’s sister was unable to go with us. We managed to get there by ourselves so we were pretty happy. During class we worked on some different pyramids, tela positions and figures on the trapeze bar. I’m getting a better hang on things but still have a ways to go.
Yesterday I went to a cooking class at the house of one of the other student’s in our group. Once or twice a week (depending on interest) she offers a class, teaching us how to make typical Chilean food. I have not been able to go before. Yesterday’s class was pastel de choclo- one of the dishes we ate in Pomaire. We also made leche asada which is like a flan. The pastel de choclo was good but not as good as in Pomaire. I wasn’t a fan of the leche asada. It didn’t really have much flavor but I did not find it appetizing. All in all it was a pretty fun afternoon. I would like to do it more but I’m not sure if I will. She charges $16 a class and I’m just not sure it’s really worth that much. I think I’ll talk to my mom and see if she’ll teach me a thing or two. After cooking class I had to write my essay for senior seminar. I started it around 8:00 but could not stay awake and kept dozing off every few sentences. I’m not sure why I was so tired at 8:00. The whole process ended up taking way too long and I’m not sure the end result was the greatest. Oh well, I’ll have to make sure I start earlier next week.
Today was another cloudy, gloomy day. It was a pretty ordinary day. After senior seminar I went to sailing. Today was my second time actually sailing. The last time I sailed was a few weeks ago and I went in a boat with another person. All of a sudden today, the instructor was like “your turn, hop in” so I did and nobody got in with me. YIKES! Well, it all started off fine and the instructor stayed near me in the dingy telling me exactly what to do. Then it came time to turn around which involved switching sides of the boat. I went too soon and tipped into the cold, salty ocean. It was quite shocking. After righting the boat, I got back in and started going again, this time I was suppose to follow the instructor in the dingy only I didn’t get too far before I tipped again. I’m not quite sure what happened but once again I plunged into the ocean. I’ve decided that next time I’m going to go with another person so I can get a bit more experience with everything before I have to do it all on my own. Even though today was a bit of a challenging and wet day, it was fun. I will be glad when I can sail on my own and not tip every few minutes!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Mountians: Andes, hiking, food, homework...
Wow, it has been a VERY long time since I updated my blog. There has been lots going on, hence the lack of time to blog...
I'll start where I left off in my last entry.
2 weeks ago, I went to a cueca perfomance with my mom and sister at the theater in the center of town. Cueca is the national dance of Chile but they only really dance it for the Fiestas Patrias (equivalent to our Fourth of July). It was a free show so my mom and sister got there early and saved me a seat b/c I was working on a group project. When I got to the theater about 15 minutes before the performance the doors were shut and people were crowded around the entrance. They weren't letting anyone in, all the seats had been filled. I called my mom and she came down to get me. Eventually I made by way to the front of the crowd and was allowed in since my mom was there and already had a seat for me. The performance lasted 2 hours and featured cueca from each of the different regions of Chile. Each region has there own variation of cueca, according to my mom and sister. The next day we were suppose to have a cueca lesson at school but the instrutor never showed up.
On Tuesday I went with Kari and her host sister to trapecio. It is like gymnasts with a circus twist. First we did warm ups, then some arm exercises with elastic bands, tumbling exercises, trapeze and tela (not sure what it is in English but it is the green fabric in the photo). 
It is fun but hard. I have never done gymnastics before so it is all very new.
It is fun but hard. I have never done gymnastics before so it is all very new. 
On Wednesday night some of us headed to Valparaiso for the fisherman's fogata (bonfire). It was pretty much a huge fish fry and cueca dancing. When we got there is was packed. We tried to find where you could by the tickets to get fish and ended up walking in circles for a long time and everyone was saying it was sold out. Darn! We ended up going across the street to a restuarant. It was a disaster. First of all, it took them an eternity to bring the menus. Then they were out of empanadas which is what a bunch of us wanted. We placed our order and 2 people got their food and we all got our drinks. Well, at least half an hour later the rest of the food hadn't shown up. It took awhile to flag down our waitress and then we were informed that they didn't have anymore potatoes to make fries and as for the fish we ordered who knows. We paid for our drinks and left. We met up with some other people from CSB/SJU who got to the fogata later than we did, aparently they had just enjoyed fish at the fogata and they got it for free!! I guess it wasn't our lucky night. We went and hung out a little more at the fogata and a couple of the guys danced the cueca which some Chileans so that was entertaining.
Part of the Chorrillos gang (Chorrillos is the neighborhood we live in)
The crowd at the fogata
Fish fry
Waiting for our food
Enjoying one of the two plates that actually came
A neat mural at the restaurant
Dancing cueca
Fiestas Patrias were September 18 & 19. Many schools have the whole week off but we had class Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Our history prof told us that places usually close down on Wednesday afternoon at the very latest. The university closed at 1:00 on Wednesday but since we don't have class after 12:15 so we didn't benefit from this and only got Thursday and Friday off. On Thursday I went to an "asado" or bbq with my family. We went to a family friends house in Miraflores Alto (I live in Miraflores Bajo). Lunch started out with empanadas, they were pretty little and by the time the day was over, I think I ate 4 or so. They are delicious. Once the women were ready we all sat down to enjoy the feast: bread- of course, salad, potatoes, tomatoe, avocado, corn, mixed vegetables, beef, chicken, pork, ave (bird of some sort), choripan (my favorite- little red sausages that you eat on bread like a hot dog but a million times better) and probably more that I don't remember at the moment. Then it was time for tea and dessert. There ice cream and apple cake. I chose ice cream but later in the afternoon they brought out the cake so of course I had some too. After tea, we cleared the table and chairs away and got ready to dance the cueca. It was quite entertaining. My dad is very good at the cueca and danced a lot. The grandpa and dad of the other family were really funny and ended up making "instruments" out of some hubcaps and a toolbox- I'm pretty sure we were in a workshop or garage. The grandpa was really cute and liked to talk. After dancing it was time to eat some more- empanadas, meat, cake, tea... According to my dad, it was a day to eat, drink and have fun, perfect :)
I only have a few pics the asado and they are not very good- sorry I wish I had taken more but I forgot.
The grandpa and mom of the house we visited dancing the cueca
My dad and sister
The grandpa and my sister dancing
Some meat, bread and empanadas waiting to be eaten after the big feast
Choripan :)
Friday was more laid back. It was the armed forces day and there was a huge parade in Santiago. I spent a good part of the day reading for my literature class, it was thrilling let me tell you. After having "once" with my family I went to the Sporting Club with a couple friends were a small carinval type event was set up. Our first stop was the food vendors. There was a huge row of booths set up where they were selling empanadas, choripan, and antecuchos (shiskabobs). I got an antecucho and it was absolutely wonderful. I also helped my friend finish his empanada that he ordered but didn't want to finish. Then we wondered around looking at the stands selling everything from A to Z. We chose not to go on any rides and headed home.
Saturday started out pretty early. I left home around 7:30 to meet up with some friends and catch a bus to Limache. After standing on Avenida Alvarez for awhile we didn't see any buses going to Limache. The metro station opened up so we thought, perfect we'll just hop on the metro but the first train to Limache was in an hour and a half so that wasn't going to work. Finally we decided to cross the bridge to Uno Norte and immediately found a bus to Limache. From there we got on another bus to Olmue. Our destination: the national park Cerro La Campana. When we got to Olmue I got a call from one of my friends who was already there. They were going to start hiking in about 15 minutes. The rangers said they had to start soon if they wanted to do the entire hike and of course that was the plan. We hurried as fast as we could and made it just in time. The last group was still half an hour away so we ended up starting without them. (Every neighborhood travelled to the park together so there was three separate groups that all met up). We knew it was suppose to be a long hike but had no idea what we had gotten our selves into. It was a perfect day, sunny but not too warm. The majority of the trail was very rocky and uneven. With every step the view just got better and better. Once we got to a point where we could see the snowcapped Andes, we knew we had to make it to the top. Once at the top you could see the ocean to the left and the Andes to the right. It was awesome. It was a 7k hike up to the top of the mountain which doesn't sound like too much but it was not easy going. The first 5k took just as long as the last 2k. The hike up took 3.75 hours and the hike down 3.25 hrs. We were absolutely exhausted by the time we got to the bottom of the mountain. My legs were simply on autopilot, I couldn't really feel them anymore. On the way out of the park we encountered some stray cows, it was a bit frightening. A little while later we saw this huge, hairy spider on the rode. It look like a tarantula but I don't know if they have those here. Anyway it was creepy. Then we all piled on a bus and headed to Limache to grab some dinner. We found a little shop and got burgers and sandwiches. I got a burger and it was very good. Of course being in Chile, the burger came with tomato and avocado :) I have noticed that burgers here are not made with beef. It looks more like pork, whatever it is, it tastes good. Unfortunately this restaurant didn't have french fries and some of us wanted something to complement our burgers so we headed to a pasteleria. I got two pastries b/c I couldn't decide what to get. The first one was a sweet roll with manjar and chocolate jimmies on top. There must have been something else in it to or maybe a glaze holding the jimmies on b/c the top half had a different flavor to it. Unfortunately it looked better than it tasted. My second pastry was a manjar filled jelly roll. It was simple but good. We caught the last tren back to Vina at 10:30 and I got a little nap in before crashing at home.
My much needed rest did not last for very long. 3.5 hours to be exact. On Sunday I got up at 3:30 so I could pack up for a day of skiing in the Andes. We were meeting at the bus station at 4:45 to go to Santiago. Seeing as it was 4:30 in the morning when I left my house, my dad decided to drive me to the bus terminal. On the way we picked up 2 of my friends. When we got to Santiago, the metro was not open yet so we piled into taxis to get to where our shuttle bus was waiting to take us up to the mountain. The ride to the ski hill seemed to take forever! I don't honestly remember how long it was but a couple hours at any rate. We knew we were getting close when we reached a point called the 40 curves. It was 40 hairpin turns up the mountain. The funny thing is, each curve was numbered, we got a kick out of that. Luckily none of us got sick on the way up but on the way back we stopped after the 40 curves for a fresh air break. We finally made it to the top of the mountain. Our ski resort was called El Colorado. First we put all our stuff in lockers and then headed over to the equipment shack. They had our boots waiting for us (we got a package deal that included tranportation from Santiago, lunch and equipment). I got some cool purple boots that were very comfortable. Soon we were out the door and ready to ski. It was a warm day and I was definately over dressed. After the first run I discarded the mittens and sweatshirt. (I still had on a couple shirts and a sweater) The first run was quite interesting. One of my friends had skied before but didn't quite remember how to stop, lets just say there were a couple classic wipe outs with skis and poles flying everywhere. Nobody was hurt so that was good. Once we made it down the hill I sent her to find one of our other friends at the ski school. The rest of the day was pretty relaxed. The snow was skicky which made it easy to go slow and take it easy, just the way I like it. At one point, two other friends and I decided to go to the top of the hill/mountain. In order to do that we had to use the T bars, they are not fun. For all of you who don't know what a T bar is, it is a type of tow rope that has a t shaped bar, you rest your behind on one of the two sides and hold onto the middle and it pulls you up the mountain. I found it quite awkward to dismount. Once at the top, we thought we were done for. The view was amazing (snowcapped mountains all around) but the hill looked way steeper from this angle. Somehow we made it down in one piece and decided not to venture that way again. After such an eventful run it was time for lunch- burgers, chips and pop. The rest of the afternoon flew by and before we knew it we were returning our equipment. We ended up getting to the bus terminal an hour early but nobody had any energy to go explore so we just sat around and waited for the bus which ended up being late.
Once again I do not have many photos, this time b/c I did not bring my camera skiing since I did not have any zipper pockets to keep it in.
Before the first run
On Monday morning I found out that the little bit of sunscreen I put on before the first run wasn't quite enough. Well, maybe it was but I missed a few spots. My chin and the area between my nose and lips are just beginning to look presentable. They were red, blistery and peely and no amount of aloe seemed to help.
This week was much less eventful. I worked a lot on homework. Senior sem always requires a lot of reading and writting an essay. This week we were allowed more words for our prompt- like that was suppose to make us happy or something. Our profs are pretty picky about the word count. For literature this week we had to read a ton and write an essay. This class is always a bit challenging because the prof is very analytical.
On Thursday I went to sailing. Unlike the last time we went there was virtually no wind. We ended up learning about different types of Regatas and watching some video clips online and didn't actually get to sail. Oh-well, next time I guess.
On Friday, we took off right after class (12:30) to go to Santiago. Our first stop was the central market. It was pretty much just seafood and fish. There was a lot of interesting things such as octopus, eel and squid. There were a bunch of restaurants in the market and we walked around trying to decided where to go. Everyone was trying to get you to eat at their restaurant. At one point we pretty much had two guys fighting over our group, it was kinda intense. Next stop was the public library. We got a tour and then saw an exhibit on memory and the disappearances in Argentina. This goes along with what we have been studying in Senior Sem. The tour of the library was interesting. It sounds like public libraries are scarce here b/c the tour guide (librarian) said that by 2010 they hope to have a public library like the one in Santiago in each of the regions in Chile. After the library we went to an artisan community. The only problem is we arrived at 7:00 and most of the little shops were closed. At 8:00 it was time to leave for our final destination- the UAI campus in Santiago. We were going to watch the presidential debate. We were all given clickers and throughout the debate answered a series of questions. It was a bit caotic getting the whole clicker system up and running before the debate started. There were a lot of students there, at least one hundred I would guess plus other people just to wathc. Throughout the debate there were newspeople filming and taking photos. Some people said their families saw them on the news. Pretty cool. After a post debate discussion it was time to head home. I was able to sleep for awhile on the bus and got home around 2 AM. Luckily the bus dropped us off near our houses so we didn't have to find some way home at 2 in the morning.
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