A Visit from Some Loved Ones

Over Thanksgiving mom, dad, Jolene and Adam came down to Chile to visit me for the week. I was really excited to see them as I obviously haven't seen anyone from home since I left in July and I wanted so bad for my loved ones to see the place that I've been calling home in person.





It was a wonderful week, even with the bumps in the road that we experienced, starting with waiting for our rental car for two hours while all the other companies were sending cars out one after another. But eventually we finally got our car and made our way to our little rented apartment in Viña del Mar. Once we got settled I got to take them to the market to grab our fruits and veggies for the week and show them a little bit of weekly life here in Viña. The Feria (Market) is only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays so it's not really a daily thing here, but it was an interesting experience for me as well because I've always been to the feria with my host mom. So the whole experience of talking to the vendors and translating for my family was very fun and interesting. After that we dropped off the food and went to a nice Italian restaurant two blocks away because we were so hungry. We hadn't eaten since early that morning before their plane had landed, and we were also tired so we took a nap before heading to my host family's place to share dinner.

Dinner was very very nice, my mom had made a paella for us that was very tasty, and I got to "show" my family how my Spanish has improved since I've been here since I did a lot of translating back and forth for both families since the only other person who knows both languages is Jolene, which I was definitely grateful for a second person with the ability to understand both! For me, conversation was always going since in order for both families to talk they had to go through me, making it a little hard to eat since I hate talking with food in my mouth. In all it was very fun, and my parents were so excited to see this side of me that they've known was there but never got to see because it's English almost everywhere we've gone before, except for El Loro... Which that really doesn't even count. :)





Sunday was a pretty lazy day, after sleeping in we went for an afternoon walk on the beach and to the artisan fair that was there. We had planned on getting much more done, but we ended up staying at the apartment when we had only planned to stop for ten minutes for a new application of sunscreen. Not really a big deal for me since I like the quiet of hanging out at home with my loved ones. When dinner came along I was really excited because I've missed my parents cooking so much and the smells of their stir-fry brought me back home and made me excited for my homecoming Also, I got to have some of dad's Dr. Pepper that he brought back on the plane with him, and oh my god. I miss it. First thing I'm buying when I see it in Atlanta. Hopefully.

On Tuesday and Friday we went and toured a winery on each of those days, which was the main thing that my family had wanted to do while they were here. The first winery we went to was from the Casablanca valley in between Santiago and Viña which was the Casas del Bosque winery where we did a tour and got to try four different wines, all of which were very good. Our Friday winery/vinyard was the Concha y Toro company, the biggest wine exporter of Chile and one of the largest of the world. We went to their location south of Santiago which is the only location that the wine is bottled. There we got to try two pours and also had a wonderful lunch there before driving home to make dinner for my host family.





Dinner for my host family at our rented apartment was very similar to Saturday night's dinner, just enjoying conversation, and food. We discussed a lot of what we had done over the week, which was a little less than what we had planned on doing, but with me having classes still and other unforeseen circumstances it still turned out great. Much less I know it's not the last time we'll be here. The other things we did over the week don't have a lot of details, so they don't really get their own paragraph, but they do deserve mention. We visited the beach one more time before they left, visited Viña's flower clock, went to the Mall and to Centro (kind of a commercial center) and drove up along the shore to some of the cities north of us.




It was very hard to say good-bye to my family at the end of the week, but it was a lot easier than it would have been had they visited earlier in the semester as I would be seeing them all again when I land back in Minnesota two weeks later.

I Went to Machu Picchu - No Big Deal

I know, I know, my blog post on Machu Picchu is LONG overdue. I'm sorry! Basically I came back and got started on all of my homework, papers, studying and finals preparation, worried that if I even took a minute to say something I'd go over the time I had given myself and be stuck writing papers with Adam and my family here. Which by the way, they will be arriving in less than twenty hours! I'm really excited, but it's hard to think that it's really real. Time has flown by super fast, I feel like it's all just a dream.


Anyway, Peru. Words can't describe this trip. It was awesome, a different kind of awesome than Patagonia however. I feel like Patagonia left a strange sense of awe about the wonders of nature, whereas this was amazement about what past civilizations accomplished. We arrived in Cusco, Peru in the middle of the afternoon and went straight to our hostels. My traveling companion was the lovely Mia who planned it all and did very well. Our hostel was beautiful and amazing. It had a very hippy, spiritual good vibey feel and the way it was decorated reflected part of my decorating style. It was just a great inspiration and if I could have hung out there the entire time, I probably would have. But we didn't, we had places to be and things to see. :)



The first night we toured the small street that our hostel was on and then at dinner we tried alpaca steaks. Very tasty, definitely a dinner I would recommend. On Friday morning we woke up early to catch the tour that we had set up the night before of the Sacred Valley, which consists of smaller ruins around the city of Cusco, it gave us a wonderful taste of what Machu Picchu was going to be like the following day. We visited three places and had a Peruvian style buffet for lunch. At the end of the tour our tour guide brought us to a home where they make and sell traditional hand-woven items where we were shown how they spin and die the wool and the process of creating their blankets, table runners, etc. It was an amazing process to watch and I loved being able to see how versatile plants can be.


At the end of our fourth stop we took a taxi to the town we had been in previously, Ollyantantambo to catch our train to Aguas Calientes where we would catch the short bus up the mountain to Machu Picchu. Mia and I unfortunately weren't able to buy our tickets online because of technical difficulties so we got stuck with having to buy our tickets for 11:00pm. Arriving in Aguas Calientes near one, where someone from our hostel would meet us at the train station to bring us there. Well, unfortunately we got there and no one from the hostel was there to pick us up. We attempted to find the place, with the help of the two cabin attendants from the train but never did. So we had to search for a 24-hour hostel and we found one near the plaza where we would be taking the bus up to Machu Picchu and for us to buy our bus tickets and tickets to the ruins. After setting ourselves up with the new hostel, we got to our room for our one, or one-and-a-half hour catnap before having to get in line at 4:00AM in order to be the first 400 people so we could make our way up to the ruins of Huayanapicchu.


So in that picture above, do you see that mountain in the background? Yea. That's the mountain that Mia and I climbed on one hour of sleep. At the top of that mountain is the other Incan ruins of Waynapicchu (two different spellings, I switch between both of them). We pretty much ran on adrenaline the whole day, but we were able to explore almost everything about the two ruin sites. It was definitely one of my favorite accomplishments of my life so far. At one point during our explorations of the Machu Picchu ruins, one of the workers/guides of the place took us under his wing and showed us the small things that many people don't notice, but he does because he's there every day. It was obvious that he had such a passion for the ruins and I am so grateful that he shared that passion with us. After about eight hours of wandering around the ruins, we headed back to Aguas Calientes for a nice Mexican lunch/dinner, went back to our hostel and slept for a good four hours. When we woke up, we went and got some dessert, and then again, back to sleep.

The next morning we awoke, packed our bags and made our way to the train station to return to Ollyantantambo, where we would catch a bus back to Cusco and return to our first hostel for the remainder of our trip. Mia and I had plans of touring Cusco and the ruins and cathedrals within the city, but unfortunately Mia got sick from brushing her teeth with the water in Aguas Calientes (I tried to warn her...). So we went back to some of the tourist shops we had been to before and made some last minute purchases, ate another Lunch/Dinner and crashed early again to be able to wake up and make our flight the following morning. Definitely a fun adventure, and I would love to do it again, hopefully with more time next time :)

Six Weeks Left

I've got six weeks left here in Chile, and what an eventful end it's going to be! This weekend was a really tame and lazy weekend for me. I don't have any pressing projects to do, and even with the intent to get ahead on my history paper I only got a intro started and a few pages of references up. But it's quite alright, most of my stressful work is over with and most things aren't due until the end of the semester now so I have time. :) Although by the way everything else has gone, it's still going to fly by. Anyway, while this weekend has been pretty lame to write about, I have yet to explain last weekend in Pucón.


So obviously, last weekend we took a trip to Pucón. By we, I mean all of the program, it's our last trip with all of us being together and one of the last events with the program. The weekend started off with a very long overnight bus ride to the city of Pucón where we stayed in some really nice cabins. The bus ride was nothing worth mentioning other than the fact that it was the most uncomfortable bus ride that I've ever been on in regards of attempting to sleep. Shorter people had issues, meaning that those of us with taller statures were basically out of luck, but after a fitful night of off and on sleeping we made it and we're all young enough to bounce back from it easily anyway.



After settling into our cabins and eating breakfast we made our way to the bus for the ride to the city of Currahuehue where we met with a Mapuche family there, toured their museum and then were welcomed into their home for lunch and activities. Their home included a large portion of land where we played games, explored the riverbank, learned a mapuche game similar to hockey, took a weaving workshop, learned to dance, and of course ate some amazing food. Our hosts were wonderful and were happy to share their culture with us and we were all grateful for their hospitality.


The next day, Saturday, was an activity day where we chose our activities the night before. We had the option to climb a volcano, go rafting, and canopy (ziplining) among a few other things we could have done on our own. I chose to do the canopy activity because it was more economical and I've always wanted to do it. The volcano sounded interesting, but it was expensive, and in the end I'm glad I didn't do it because they had to turn back early due to the weather from the night before and the scattered showers appearing later on. I was one of six girls that chose to do our activity, which didn't last long enough, but was amazing as well. If you ever have the chance, I strongly recommend ziplining, I know I will take the opportunity to do it again should it present itself. After our activities we were given some free time before heading to a nice restaurant for dinner where I had an amazing steak and potatoes dish with a bottle of wine that my table bought and shared.



On Sunday, our last day there before heading out later on in the evening for another overnight bus ride back to Viña we did a two short hikes to see some waterfalls in the area and then spent a few hours of the afternoon lazing around in the hot springs. Afterwards we went back to our cabins to pack up before being served a "classy" asado (barbecue) at the resorts castle kitchen. Once we finished there we hopped on the bus to head back, and a second uncomfortable fitful overnight on the bus ensued.


Not really an adventurous weekend but it was still nice and relaxing. Our trips with the program seem to have been high end which is a blessing in some ways, but then you realize how much cheaper the trip could have been with a slightly ritzier locales. Oh well.

Wednesday night I will be spending the night with a group of gals from the program at the airport anxiously waiting for our morning flight to Peru where we will visit Cusco and Machu Picchu. :) Super excited and I hope that everything goes as planned. We won't want a repeat adventure of Patagonia since we won't have as much room for improvisation.

Patagonia - The Southernmost Part of the World

That's right, the southernmost part of the world. This weekend I was about as far south as you could get without going to Antartica, however I was very tempted to hop on a plane or boat to go there! When I think about this past weekend, all I can say is "wow." Never in a million years would I have thought that I would've ever had such an experience in my lifetime, and I am so glad that I had this opportunity.


We arrived in Patagonia in the city of Punto Arenas by air early Thursday morning, about three AM. At that time, no buses were running leaving us with no hope of getting out of the three-terminal airport to travel to our destination city of the day, Puerto Natales. We got off our plane and left the "secured" part of the terminal and made ourselves comfortable to take the following four hours to wait for the rest of our group arriving in a later plane, sleep, and figure out what bus we needed to catch to take us to our next stop.


[One thing of note that I have learned about national flights through this past weekend is that security really isn't all that tight in these airports, or as tight as we expect it to be based on experiences from the United States. We all got through security with our bottles of water that we brought with for the flight on the way out, and on the way back Mia managed to get three boxes of matches and other "banned" items such as gel through the security check. Thankfully the likely-hood of something bad happening is very slim.]


The bus ride from Punto Arenas to Puerto Natales gave us a taste of how beautiful and amazing our trip was going to be. It's difficult for me to describe, so I'll be posting pictures to show what I wish I were able to convey in words. The wind in Patagonia tends to be super strong, so much that most of the trees in the region are formed in a windblown state that is kind of lopsided. With that in mind, Patagonia can be really cold but a lot of it is a mix of the wind and the cool temperature of being at the end of the world. When we arrived in Puerto Natales, the bus took us along the shoreline of the port and it took my breath away. We made sure that we found our way down to the shore while roaming the city, and we pretty much fell in love. Mostly we spent the day relaxing and planning our camping trip in Torres del Paine over the following days. After packing our backpacks, we tried to make it as early of a night as possible since we had to wake up early the next morning for another three-hour bus ride to the park.


We woke up bright and early Friday morning to eat a quick breakfast and caught our bus that would take us to our starting point of our camping weekend, and the biggest adventure of my life. Once we made it through the entrance to the park and paid our entrance fees, the bus brought us to Lake Pehoé where we would catch a catamaran for a thirty minute ride across the lake to the site where we would be setting up camp for two nights. We got to the lake early enough where we had some time to take a short hike up to a waterfall that "emptied" water from Lake Nordenskjold to Lake Pehoé and decided to continue our hike a little bit further than the waterfall to see more of the park. Two of the girls stayed back and returned to the boat launch and boarded the catamaran waiting for us to return near 12:30 for our shuttle to the other side of the lake. Little did we know that we misinterpreted the sign until we returned to the boat launch at 12:10 to find the Catamaran, and our two friends, gone. Apparantly the catamaran leaves the other boat launch at 12:30 and it left the one we were at, at noon. Our visit to Patagonia was two weeks before tourist season started, so that was the ONLY chance we had to take the shuttle across the lake, unless we wanted to pay five-hundred dollars for a charter. Nuh-uh. So our only other option? A five hour, seventeen-and-a-half kilometer hike (almost eleven miles). With our roughly twenty pound backpacks loaded with our tents, sleeping bags, food and other camping and hiking gear. Obviously a huge change of events for us, but thankfully the four of us girls kept our spirits up and took it as everything happens for a reason. The hike turned out to be wonderful, and we made it to our campground just over an hour before sundown allowing us to set up camp in the daylight. We were also fortunate that Courtnie and Stephanie, the two girls who managed to make it to the catamaran on time, had spent their time waiting for us talking to the workers of the lodge (in which we were not allowed to enter because we were lowly campers...). I say this, because as we were preparing to set up our campsite and make dinner, one of the workers there offered to cook our food for us, to which we gratefully accepted. Not only did this man risk getting in trouble for cooking our food for us, he also threw in some additional ingredients to our spaghetti, he gave us some bread and orange juice as well, and invited us to a "party" with all of the workers. Most of us declined, opting to jump into our sleeping bags and pass out, but some of the girls took the opportunity to meet some new people.

Saturday morning we slept in a little bit, opting to recuperate from our change of events the day before, but once we woke up we got ourselves fed and ready to hike a trail that led to Glacier Grey. This hike being an eleven kilometer hike one way, twenty-two kilometers round trip and about seven hours if you don't dilly dally... Which we did... But not too horribly. It only turned out to be, ohhhh lets say, nine, ten hours? Anyway, it was so worth it. I still can't find the words to explain the vastness of my feelings about the experience. You can see pictures of a glacier and be like, yea, cool, gigantically huge chunk of ice. But seriously, in person, it's like the dawning of a new day. It was massive, amazing, gorgeous and indescribable - and the hike wasn't all that bad either. Beautiful in and of itself in it's own way, at a much, much smaller scale.


I'll say that we spent a lot of time hiking during the first leg, so much so that we had to really truck it to make back before sundown and before the store at the campsite closed since we ate all of the pasta we had bought the night before. Poor planning? Not really, we were just very hungry the night before after our impromptu hike. I literally stopped maybe once, at most twice an hour during three or so hour hike back. We again made it back just about an hour before sunset with enough time to get to the small store and buy the supplies we needed for dinner that night. The rest of the night there really isn't much to tell, we were all pooped again and just worried about eating, showering and making it to bed. One thing that we were all surprised about was how comfortably we slept those two nights at the campground and how warm we stayed despite the typical cold during the day and at night in Patagonia. We were really warm and toasty in our tents to the extent that we were able to sleep in a t-shirt and pants and we probably would have been fine in shorts as well. We have the amazing sleeping bags we rented from our hostel for that.


In the morning we woke up to pack up camp to catch the 12:30 catamaran back to where our bus would pick us up, and yes, this time we made sure that we were going to be catching that boat. Otherwise we would have been stranded at the park another day, which was in no way going along with our plans to see the penguins before we left on Monday. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, we caught our buses to get us to Punto Arenas where we would be flying out of and where we would be seeing the penguins early the next morning. Let me tell you, the penguins were ADORABLE, and super fun and interesting to watch in their natural habitat. When we were there they were basically working on courting and mating as they had just reached Punto Arenas earlier in September for the breeding cycle of the year. I have a few videos of them that I'll share. Later though, because this post is getting super long, but only because this last weekend was amazing and made me realize how lucky I am to have this opportunity to study this semester here in Chile. This weekend I'll be heading to Pucon (southern Chile again) with my program, so hopefully I'll have some interesting things to say about that when I return. :)

Nothing New. Really.

As I mentioned in my last post, I haven't really had anything happen recently in the weeks before I start my trips (with Patagonia next week!!!). I've pretty much been working on schoolwork and having some relaxation time, even though my mind is constantly running with all the things I need to take care of. I've been doing a pretty decent job at getting ahead of my schoolwork, or at least working on the getting ahead part. Things creep up a lot faster than I expect them to so in the end the time I felt I had is just shorter.

That being said, even though I don't have a lot of exciting things to talk about I do have a have a recent "realization." Although not totally recent and realization is not the word I'm really looking for. Anyway. This trip and this experience has made me aware of the good things and people I have back at home. I didn't really have any expectations when I came here as to not disappoint myself or to become overwhelmed, the only thing that I had expected was to break out of my shell and start creating connections with people again. In recent years I've become pretty reserved around people I don't know very well, and it's made it difficult to create new lasting friendships that everyone else in the world seems to be making. So, to the point. I expected to come out of this with some new good friends and I higher confidence in my relationship building skills, but in reality it's been hard and not very successful for me. With that said, I have been taking advantage of my private time and reflected on my life and worked on other things and the most important thing I feel that I've discovered is how much you all back at home really mean to me. I know that for some of you I don't really show my gratitude very well (especially mis padres), but it's definitely there. And I miss you all very much. It makes me excited to come back home when I talk to you all on Skype, or Facebook, or hearing you Sue and Jay in the background of Adam's Skype! :) I knew before I left that I had a lot of things to look forward to when I return home, but I think the best thing will be returning to the companionship that you all give me and I can't wait to see your lovely faces again! :)

Whoa

I just realized that I missed my two-month mark of being in Chile, which was just a few days ago. Definitely an exciting feeling. I am enjoying my time here, my family is awesome and classes aren't too horrible (sometimes even pointless), but at the same time I am looking forward to the day that I get to come home to my friends and family. There are some difficulties that I have experienced here, but nothing that I can't handle. The next three weeks are going to be relatively quiet and hopefully I can get ahead on my studies during that time because once they go by, I have a feeling that everything else will start coming pretty quick as that starts the sequence of weekend trips and family visits.

Between October seventh and December 11th when I return to Minnesota I only have two free weekends where I will get to laze around the house and play catch-up with anything that has gone by the wayside. October brings two weekend trips, one to Patagonia and the other to Pucón - both in the southern portion of the country. Then my final month and a half brings my loving family and amazing boyfriend for a week during which I have two final papers due and then two final weekend trips first to Machu Picchu at the beginning of November and then to Rio, Brazil at the beginning of December. So I guess that even though I'm not happy with my idle time right now, I should be taking advantage of it since I won't have the chance again later.

I'm hoping that just because the next two and a half weeks have nothing exciting going on that I'll still have things of interest to say in the tedium. If anything, I can try and post more pictures since I haven't really been doing a great job at that for you non-facebook users...

Fiestas Patrias (Independence Days)

This last weekend was a huge weekend for Chile. Every year on September 18th and 19th Chile celebrates their independence, (even though it's not actually their independence day...) and this year was the celebration of their bicentennial. As the 18th and 19th also fell on a Saturday and Sunday, the government declared the weekend of Fiestas Patrias to be a four-day weekend, giving Chileans the option to have Friday and Monday off as well. Me? I got almost an entire week off, all but one of my classes had been canceled last week. While it wasn't the same for all of my companions here, it was definitely something to be remembered.

Everyone celebrates Fiestas Patrias differently, most Chileans spend the days partying it up drinking seasonal beverages, eating lots of meat, and just enjoying the company around them. Some people go crazier than others, but it's all a big huge countrywide party. My family being the laid-back calm family that we are, spent the weekend much like we do back at home for the Fourth of July - family and barbecues.

Our week(end) started on Wednesday doing our shopping for the entire weekend as the big corporate stores legally had to close on Friday and Monday so we had to make sure that we had all of the bread, meat and drinks that were necessary for the weekend lest we had to go out looking for a small family-owned store to be open. Which on the actual days of the holiday you'd find very few people not out celebrating with their own friends and family if they had the choice. I finally got to go to the Feria (basically farmers market) where my mom stocks up on all of the fruits and veggies for the week on Wednesdays.

The barbecuing began on Thursday at my brother Mauri's house where we grilled up kabobs, ate empanadas and drank some wine to start the weekend off. Friday was relatively the same but at our apartment with my other brother Rolo and his three children, the menu for the day was beef, pork and chicken, a rice dish, some yummy baby red potatoes, and of course pebre (a salsa that reminds me of the bruschetta tomato mixture that goes on bread and crostinis) that goes on everything and anything you can think of. After a short rest and/or nap for us all we went for a walk along the beach and went to Bravissimo, one of the "best" ice cream shops around in the area according to my mom. It was definitely very good, but I don't think anything can really compare to Sebastian Joe's back at home.

Saturday I was given the option to go out to the country for another asado with my sister Maca and her friend Alej at Alej's uncles home where they have a lily plantation to sell to Chilean florists, or to go to the yacht club with my mom and dad for a celebration there. Since I live in the city and don't get many chances to go out to the country, I decided to go with Maca and Alej to meet her family. When we got there I was given a huge warm welcome, which is something that I really enjoy about life in Chile. We had a very similar lunch to what we had the day before with my family, so not a whole lot to say about that, but the "party" lasted for hours with the family talking, catching up and enjoying each others company as well as Alej's three-month old niece who was as bright eyed and busy tailed as you could get with a baby. So adorable. Anyway, when we left we were in a rush to get home in time to see the fireworks display that they were going to have off the beach in Viña, however we kept getting stuck in traffic with everyone heading back to the city for the display or to just get home. Which reminds me, back at home we say Minnesotan's don't know how to merge... just wait until you see Chileans merging on a freeway when the exit ramp is slightly blocked up. I also don't think they really know the meaning of traffic jam either, I've seen worse every day back at home - but it's all relative to perception, because it was weird to see my street all blocked up for miles when it's normally pretty clear. Anyway, I digress. We got back just as the first half of the fireworks were finishing up, as a surprise they had pretended that the fireworks ended after just ten or fifteen minutes leading to a great disappointment to many people, but after the five, ten minute break they started back up and suddenly everyone started running back to where they originally had been watching the show. Definitely a site to see - especially with the amount of people crowding the streets, parks and plazas.

After all the excitement from Thursday through Saturday we took a break on Sunday and spent the day lazing around the apartment enjoying the leftovers from Friday. On Monday we walked to the beach for the afternoon airshow and boat parade, which was exciting and dull at the same time. You can only watch so many of the same boats go by slowly when the only difference you see is whether it has a Chilean, Canadian, Argentinian or U.S. flag, but I enjoyed being out in the sun and getting a little color to my florescently pale skin. Afterwards we had a barbecued lunch again with Rolo and his kids, this time with a meal similar to Thursday's of kababos and sides. The day didn't last long after lunch this time because we were all pretty beat from five days of celebration. It's amazing how different types of sitting and relaxing can still take a lot out of you.

We are now back to our regularly scheduled program of life, classes started again yesterday and no one was really totally there since most of us had a pretty long weekend away from anything involving work or school. For me, I got go go back to my longest day of classes after a week off, and it started out with my dance class at ten o'clock in the morning. Not the best wake up, it's back to school call... Also, our calefont (water heater) broke on Monday morning and wasn't fixed until last night - so I got to go a couple days without being able to shower because no one wants a freezing shower. But it's been fixed, and my shower today - while it wasn't as warm as I like it, was still heavenly.