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.
No comments:
Post a Comment