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.
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