chillin' out, relaxin'

This Wed. is Billy's birthday, which means its october which means I have almost been here TWO MONTHS!!!!!! I still cant get over how fast this is going. Im going to get home and be like "wait did that really happen???" ahhhhh!!!
Anyway, I've got a nice cold so this weekend I didn't really do anything. Friday, I was watching heroes on my computer and my brother came in to ask what I was doing etc. and I told him I was watching heroes etc. and he said that the new season of Grey's starts on Monday here! and Heroes is on on Saturday! So that was neat cuz he will come say hi and stuff, but lately we've had actual discussions (maybe because now I understand more and can actually respond when he says something??! hahahahaha), it was a little bonding time. hahahaa. Then that night I went to the movies w/ Ashton, saw Griffin and Phoenix and basically wanted to spend the rest of the night crying (its probably the saddest movie I've ever seen) but her and I had some good bonding also. Its nice to have someone else here that I know, so when I do get back to school and have Chile cravings and such I know there is someone else who understands. Saturday I went to the botanic gardens for a little which was really neat! We decided Im going to have a birthday party there in a couple weeks. hahahahaha If you happen to be in Chile, you're welcome to come. we're gonna have an American style bbq (ie hotdogs and burgers) play some park-like games etc. should be an all around good time. hahahaha Then last night I watched Dodgeball with my brothers and then played video games with them. It was really neat because I bonded with them more and apparently it was a big deal cuz when I got up this morning the rest of the family knew and it was a big deal sorta?? I dont know, but everyone was all excited about it. When my brothers are at school or something, I'm gonna practice and take them on again and be reallly good. hahahaha They won't know what hit them. Today I'm gonna go to the beach for the sunset which is always my fav.
There really wasn't much to write for this blog, I was just excited about the bonding I've done with the fam this weekend.
buenas tardes!

p.s. I had fish nuggets today for lunch... yuck. actually i had half of one, tried it- but didn't like it. hahahaha

Si po

Turns out I have been here a month and a half now, well 7 weeks someone said yesterday. Where has the time gone?! I feel like I am going home so soon, but then I remember I've still got about 2.5 more months. hahahaha Which is good and bad for sure. Good because my spanish has gotten SOOO much better, especially this past week I realize how much more I can understand. I've said in the past that I can follow the conversations pretty well, but now I am following and understanding beyond facial expressions and key words. Its great! But with 2.5 months, thats still a long time. This week I have been dreaming about home; family, friends, housing stuff...
I last left off just before heading out for the biiig holiday. And big it is. Thursday I went with Laura and Shelby to the ramada at like 5 or so (really early, but everyone said it gets dangerous at night, so we wanted to check it out on our own during the day and from there we could maybe go out again at night...). Its crazy! The ramada is a place to dance the queca and hang out, but it also cost $7 to get in- so we didn't actually go in the "official ramada" but outside of this little "hut" (in this sporting complex they build stands and hut like things out of some wood but mostly branches and palm leaves etc) is this big fair. Just like in the states with carnival rides and cotton candy and shops. In the middle is the "food court" which is actually 2 aisles of these stands (with seating inside, so more like mini resturants) that sell typical chileno holiday food (ie pino empanadas and bbq meat shiskabobs) and alcohol- chicha, beer, wine and pisco. So we sat in one of these booths and had a bottle of beer, shopped a little and went back for dinner. After dinner (more empanadas, me and my mom and sister made a TON of empanadas, we had them all weekend. hahahaha) I went back to the ramada with my brothers, sister and their significant others. We didn't even leave til 11... and they were so worried about me getting lost or snatched or something that my sister's pololo walked with his hand on my shoulder the entire time... Thats nice that they were concerned, but it wasn't that dangerous. After all their warnings I had expected it to be a lot worse/scarier etc.... oh well. After walking around there, trying some chicha (gross! its mostly fermented grapes and apples and really sweet but I think its an aquired taste or something. not my thing for sure) we walked to the beach and walked home along the beach and got home about 1. A nice family outting in the middle of the night... hahahahaha
Friday was pretty uneventful. Went to the beach with the gringos. Saturday hung out around the house, went into town to walk around for a little and then came back for dinner and then went baaack to sporting to check out the last night of the ramada. We met up with the boys as they were all back from their trips and Will had brought his brother and his brother brought his friends so we hung out with them. They were out more to carretear (the chileno verb 'to party') so we ended up staying at the ramada (by ramada i mean fair) until about 3 and then went to the house of one of the chilenos til the sun came up... it was quite a night for sure. hahahaha
Monday we had classes again... the week went by soo fast! My politics teacher is out of the country for the month and so we have a sub and we have been talking about voting and stuff here so for homework this weekend we have to go interview 5 people about if they have voted, what they would change to get more people to vote, etc. etc. (we've got 4 questions to ask) and to get a good representation of the population we are in pairs and each pair has a group of people to ask- ie men, women, young adults, the elderly and the handicapped. Well me and my partner are supposed to interview the handicapped.... talk about intense! Chile has a lot of handicapped people, way more than the US. buuut they dont have the same benefits as people in the us (ie all buildings have stairs and very few have elevators or ramps) so thats really interesting. So today Shelby (my partner) and I went with her mom to a place that is a home for the blind and interviewed the director (shelby's mom is a workout instructor and gives classes in the building next to this home/school). It was sooo interesting! He is blind and typed out our questions in braille because our spanish is hard to follow i guess... and then sat and talked with us for about half an hour about voting and everything. It was reallly cool. Who would've thought I would be in Chile talking to blind man about voting and politics?!
Oh yesterday we had our RSU (responsibilidad social universitario- aka volunteering lecture) and we went to a refugio for boys. that was really interesting too. Its basically a boys home for troubled boys or boys who come from extremely poor families. the home we were at was for boys 12-20 and we got a tour and then hung out with them for a while, the boys played soccer and the girls made kites, we ate dinner with them and everythign. it was really cool! another thing i didn't think i would be doing in chile! hahahaha
Visiting the school for the blind and the trip to the refugio and the politics stuff really should have its own blog, so hopefully I will get around to that this weekend. I am learning soooo much!!! Its incredible! And there is so much I want to show people and tell everyone, but I just cant do it all justice...
My mom and dad and Steve are coming at the end of November for a quick trip!!! That should be sooo fun! How I am going to pick and choose what to show them is beyond me, but I guess I've got a few months to figure that out. hahahahaha
I hope everyone is well! I miss you!!! enjoy the fall! spring is on its way here!!!!
Chau!!!




p.s. I realize some of those sentences are HORRIBLY worded, that would be the spanish talking. jajajajaja

San Pedro de Atacama!!

Hola!!!!
I am back from San Pedro de Atacama!!!! And it was an adventure!!!
We left last Friday morning, our bus from Vina to Calama left at 8:30am. My mom told me it was a 12 hour bus ride, the guy at the bus station when we got our tickets said it was 18, when we got on the bus we found out it was 24 hours.... LONNNNG!!! I had paid extra ($15 each way) to sit "first class" which meant we had seats that reclined almost 180 degrees! When we found out the bus ride was 24 hours we were SOOOO glad we were able to get those seats (there were only 9 semi-cama chairs and 10 of us, and when we booked our tickets only 7 seats were avail...) anyway after some sleeping and eating and movie watching we got to Calama at about 9 am. the bus dropped us off at the mall and then we had to go find another bus to take us to san pedro. so we hopped in some taxis and went near the "centro" to a random side road and there was a bus station.... so we got our tickets to san pedro (we had JUST missed the 8:30 bus, and the next one wasnt until noon....) so we explored a little, sat around and finally got on a bus that looked like it hadn't been used in years. there was dust everywhere the seats were a mess and there weren't even seats for everyone, the oversold the bus!!! it was crazy (only $5 to get there though). an hour and a half later we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere... aka san pedro de Atacama (its fill name is san pedro de atacama, all the roadsigns say that and everything its kinda weird, why not just shorten it to san pedro??). after asking about 5 people where our hostel was (which was a little scary because its this tiny town in the middle of nowhere, i would think everyone wouldknow everyone and where everything is...) we walked about 10 minutes to our hostel and checked in and setteled down. we looked into some tours that the hostel offers but decided to go into town to explore and eat and such. somehow there was a big miscommunication and the lady at the hostel thought we said we wanted her to book us a tour... fine, except she wanted $30,000 (aka $60) for one tour, we talked to a guy, got the same tour and two other tours for the same price... (because we were a group of 10, he gave us one tour free and such) but the hostel lady wouldn't let us back out because she already started making our lunches and already filled up her tour bus and gave her other tour away.... sooo after a lot of negotiating and angry and calling the lady in charge of our program for advice (mama vivi) we were able to get the hostel tour down to half a day for $15,000. but we lost the free tour with the agency (the other 2 tours ended up costing us total 20,000) and a private van etc. ohhhh welll. that was all saturday. it was a LOOONG day!
Sunday we went on the hostel lady's tour to these springs (lagunas) in the salt flat. it was fun and really cool, but we were all a little bitter cuz we could've done the same tour w/ more included for less (dang Gringo tax....). we sawm in this FREEEEEZING salt spring but it was sooo clear and sooo salty and the top 5.5 feet or so were ice cold but below that the water was heated by hot rocks/lava! it was crazy! and COOOOLD!!!!! sunday night we came back, made some dinner, watched a movie, talkde with the germans that were staying at the hostel also (talked to germans in spanish! it was soo neat to communicate in something other than our 1st languages... (although they spoke english better we spoke in spanish. and we had commented on how cool it is that they know 3 languages and they said well you guys dont need to know anything else, everyone speaks english... boo that was discouraging and no good).
Monday morning we were picked up at 4 am to go to the gyesers. SOOOO EARLY! THe gyesers weren't quite the same as one imagines at yellowstone, they mostly just steamed and you could only see the steam and such early in the morning before it got hot. so when we arrived at about 5:30 or so it was -11 degrees Celsius!!! COOOOOLD!!!! by the time we left around 9:30-10, there was no more steam.... the region is volcanic so this frozen underground river gets heated by magma/hot rocks and steams and bubbles and hence the gysers. from there we headed slowly back to town and eventually got back at about 1:30 (we were supposed to get back at 12? or 12:30!?) we had another tour that started at 3 so we rested up a little had some lunch and then a van came and got us for our valle de la luna tour. that was reallllly cool! it was sooo pretty!!! i think the craziest thing of all was that we saw SOOOO many different ecosystems/terrain in one day! we watched the sunset and the colors change and then headed back. had some dinner and went to bed early.
Tuesday was just a lazy day. got up and had breakfast at the hostel, laid around, went into town for some shopping and more exlporing (although there really isn't much to explore in town after the first day...) and then went back for lunch and a nap and walked back for dinner. watched a movie and went to bed because our bus was leaving to go to calama at 8 am.
let me tell you a little about san pedro... it is a tourist town. thats really the only reason its there/still exists. chile is in a big energy crisis and san pedro seems to feel it the most. they turn the electricity off at 1 am until like 6 or something, in the entire town. but they also got a new generator not too long ago and they have been having problems with it, so they ration the electricity by shutting off the power in certain sectors of the town at certain times... so tuesday night after dinner, the sun was down and the power went off at about 7:30 or 8... the lights in stores, the streetlights, EVERYTHING! it was craaaazy! in a town with nothing but open desert it gets REALLLY dark, we were walking home and could hardly see a few feet directly in front of you! it made for some incredible star gazing... after about an hour or so the electricity came back on, but the electricity in our sector (by this time we were back at the hostel) went off... and then when it came on, i managed to blow a fuse and we were back in the dark. then finally after some worring we got the lights back on! hurrah!!! but alas, someone else plugged something in and we were BACK in the dark. hahahaha awwwwesome! this time they knew where the fuse was and we got the power back sooner (still like yet another half hour without power... but thats okay). Another thing about Chile- they dont have indoor heat OR water heaters like we do. They have these things called calefonts and you light them when you want hot water and then turn it off when your done (it involves gas, fire and is outside). My family got an automatic one the week i arrived so i haven't had to learn how to use it or anything, it just lights up when you turn on the hot water side of the faucet! its beautiful. Well our hostel had these automatic ones also. HOWEVER, they didn't really work. showers would consist of a few minutes of FREEEEZING cold water and then a few minutes of SCALDING water. and on top of it, the shower head was hand held that didn't stay in place. so IF you could find a decent temperature for long enough get wet, you had to hold the shower head... hahahaha it was quite an experience and made me appreciate my showers here a lot more. (which before i left i thought were cold and kinda weak...)
anyway I just made empanadas w/ my mom and sister for lunch. i LOOOOOOOVE empanandas!!! dont worry ill make some when i get home. and some of the people in the group want to go to "sporting" (aka a sporting club, but if you say sporting like an american they dont understand so you have to say it sport-ting and add an accent) hahahaha for the holiday, sporting has an official ramada there! but my brother just invited me to do something with them, but im not sure what... hahahahaha so im going to try to do both, i want to check out the ramada and then hang with the fam since i've been gone for a week. plus there are like 4 tortas in the fridge and rumor going around about this torta called "leche nevada" that apparently is incredible- entonces i need to be around for once! empanadas and cake!? i looooove the 18th! hahahahahahaha
buenas tardes!!!!! y felices fiestas patrias!!!!

photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28835074@N05/?saved=1

helllo!
here is a link to some pictures. I will try to upload photos there from here on out (there are a lot on Facebook as well). As of now there are just last weekend's pictures (skiing and the beach).
I've got some homework to do, so Ill update later this week...
Chao!

El fin de semana!

Hola!!
This last weekend (Happy Labor Day!!) was my 4th weekend here!!! (a month will be this friday! where has the month gone!?!? WOW!). And what a weekend it was! Thursday we had class and then Ashton and I went to look for ski clothes and empanadas! (i already know im going to miss empanadas when i get back to the states). That was sort of an adventure because suddenly when we wanted a cheese empanada the most, they were nowhere to be found... We thought we finally found some at this big resturant thing (the red umbrellas on calle valpo) so we sat down and went to order (no menus, they just post what they have on the windows and such) and they dont have any cheese empanadas, only pino. Pino isn't bad but when you want a cheese empanada, you can only have cheese. hahahahaha so we ask where we can get cheese empanadas and he shouts to the host at the resturant next to us if they have cheese empanadas, which they do, and so he buys two cheese empanadas from them and serves them to us at his resturant! crazy! hahahaaha. then when we asked for the bill they brought us these dessert shot things (we saw them at the other tables but thought they had ordered them or something...). It wasn't really alcoholic, just sweet. Fine to try but really no need to do it again... hahahaha Then we searched for a second hand store to look for some ski clothes or something with no luck because we had to go to the social responsabilities workshop thing. After class I went to Joey's to borrow some of his stuff since he wasn't goign, but had it all because he had skied the week before the program started and then went home and hung out there for the night.
Friday we had to meet at 6:30 to go skiing!!! So i set my alarms for 5:30, one of which doesn't go off (nor has it since the 1st week I've been here) and the other i just turned off for a few minutes... Next thing I know its 6:09 and I am still in bed. So i throw everything on and go to run out the door and my mom is trying to serve me breakfast (the night before I told her i had to leave the house at 6) so that was a little funny because even though I told her I had to leave at 6 and that i was late, i am in latin america, so there is no such thing as late or schedules really. hahahah anyway i ran to the bus and i wasn't the last one so that was good. There were 5 people from my program and then like 15 from the advanced program (which was weird because the girl in my program had set it up...). We drove through Vina to Santiago, through santiago to valle Nevado. I slept through all of vina and santiago but not the drive up to the resort... Thats an experience. The road is "2 lanes" but they really only let one way go at a time (ie its closed from like 6 am to 12 pm for those wanting to go down, and vice versa after 12) and you dont really ahve a gradual elevation gain, you just wind back and forth up the mountain. And these turns were far too sharp and i really have no idea how we didn't roll (we were in a micro sorta, regualr tour buses couldnt fit on the road let alone make the turns). So when we finally got there it was a lot different then i had expected. We went from sea level to about 2 or so miles up (in 3 hours) which was neat! But there also doesnt get to be snow until about 9000 feet or so, so the entire ski resort was above treeline. Its really weird to ski without any trees! And i understand why its called valle nevado (snow valley), it was not very steep and more rolling. They have 4 levels of difficulty. Green, blue, red and black. and everything is groomed... so really its all blue because nothing is that steep and if it is a little steeper, its groomed... There was one high speed lift (Andes express) like 3 other chair lifts and then maybe 3 poma lifts? But the pomas were long! one was longer then the high speed quad for sure, so that was wierd. By being that high up though there were some awesome views!! I have a ton of pictures and I will try to put some up here soon. It was a great day! Sunny and warm, like spring skiing! the snow was even slushy by about noon... hahahaha When we got home (around 9 or 10?) i came in talked briefly to my family and went to bed. I have the slighest goggle tan, at home people wouldn't even notice it, let alone say anything, well pretty much the first thing my family noticed/said was about my goggle tan! And then when i was getting ready for bed, my other brother (who wasn't at the table when i got home) came up and was talking to me and pointed out my goggle tan and said not to worry because I can probably cover it up with makeup! hahahahahaha At home goggle tans are cool, but here... hahahaha then on sunday i saw Fran and she made a comment about my tan line! hahahahaha (yet none of the gringos noticed, even when i pointed it out they go oh yeah now that you say something i see it, but i didn't even notice). so that was pretty funny.
Saturday was pretty calm. I did a little homework and then after lunch went to the beach to watch the sunset and learn how to knit! hahahaha. me and a few of the girls bought some yarn and knitting needles because after class we have all this time, not a lot of homework and nothing to do. so we are taking up knitting! hahahaha so we sat on the beach and knitted a little (and the two boys we were with knew how to knit too! hahahahaha) and took a lot of pictures and just hung out which was pretty fun. We have some really awesome fun pictures which i will try to put up later as well. After the beach I went home to change and then we met up at a mexican resturant called Margarita for dinner. It was alright, had more flavor then most things I have eaten here, but not the same thats for sure. and expensive... we went and got ice cream afterwards, then a bar for a drink and were home by midnight! hahahaha not at all the chileno way! hahaha
Sunday was really mellow too, just hung out and did some more homework and stuff. my sister was studying for an chemistry quiz, ORGANIC CHEMISTRY!!!! that just blew my mind, 17 and learning some organic chem as part of her high school reqs! (i think she said its just a unit in the chem class? but still thats awful!!) then around 7 I met up with most of the group and we went to a Chileno concert. That was soooo cool! The group is called Inti Illimani and they are from the 60s and 70s (but got banned from the country when Pinochet took power) and its the typical chileno music. like chileno country sorta?? it reminded me of bluegrass/folk/tribal music. hard to explain but really cool. and it was cool when the whole audience would sing along and clap and dance and everything.
So overall it was a pretty good weekend. Skiing, beach, and concert all in the same weekend! wooo!!!!
anyway I will try to upload some pictures again later this week or something. have a good labor day!
buenas tardes!