Happy Halloween from Chile!

My friends and I went out to celebrate Halloween the other night and here are some pics! I went as an egyptian/fortune teller, lol.


Sara, Miguel, Daniel, Nathalie and Me

Me and the girls!

Count Dracula was thirsty

Me and Miguel

En la micro! :)

Before I take a little break . . .

Its official, I've been in Chile for two months! I seriously can't believe how fast the time is flying. I'm having mixed feelings about it all. On one hand, I miss the US and all the people I care about but, I'm also having a blast here! I've learned so much and met so many wonderful people!! I can truly say that I've finally had the chance to really immerse myself in a different culture and it has been a very interesting, sometimes difficult, yet rewarding experience.

I had a wonderful time last weekend with new friends as well! Lots of good food, wine, DANCING (ooh yea) and conversation. Plus, the great outdoors! I can't even tell you how happy I am about the warm weather here- lovin' it!!! Unfortunately, I also spent quite a bit of time working on my speech for my Lit class. Which wasn't fun at all but totally paid off cause I rocked it!

Meanwhile, I'm finally finished being busy for a little while and I wanted to check in while I have time to keep you all updated on what I'm going to be doing this next week and a half. There is a good chance I won't be writing much during this time (or anything at all) so I'm going to fill you in on at least the first half of my trip to the northern part of Chile!

Friday Oct 29: it all starts at 3AM, when I have to meet my group members to catch a 5AM flight to Calama in northern Chile. From Calama we will take a bus to our final destination: San Pedro de Atacama.

Saturday Oct 30: Padre Le Paige Archaeolocial Museum in the morning. Pucara de Quitor in the afternoon and El Valle de la Luna at sunset.

Sunday Oct 31: Exploring the San Pedro area in the morning and afternoon. Astronomical tour in the evening.

Monday Nov 1: Visit to the mountain village of Camar. Chaxa Lagoon and National Flamingo Reserve in the Salar de Atacama and a visit to the ancient town of Toconao in the afternoon.

Tuesday Nov 2: Spend the morning visiting Las Termas de Puritama (hot springs). Then, returning to the hotel to eat lunch, rest and get ready for our flight back to Santiago!

Wednesday Nov 3 - Tuesday Nov 9: ARGENTINA!! No schedule for that yet, Sare and I are going to make it all up as we go along.

Maybe I'll have time to do a photo dump before we leave for Argentina but I can't make any promises about that! But I can promise to be safe and take lots of pictures to share with everyone! Meanwhile, my host mom is calling me- apparently she's got some fresh piña with my name all over it, yummm :) There is also a HUGE bowl of strawberries in the fridge. I love fresh fruit and warm weather. And my host family too!

And I love ya'll too!

Long time, no write!

Hola todos!! Como estan?

I'm doing pretty great myself. I've got a final tomorrow to finish up the second part of my composition class here and I'm so ready to be done!! Sara and I just studied for a few hours so I'm hoping to do well. I got an A on the midterm (finally!!), so I'm hoping to pull an A for this part of the class. Then, its on to Advanced Spanish I . . . so not ready for that yet!

Other than that I've just been hanging out with friends and having a good time! The weather is finally starting to get nice here so we are having 75-80 degree days with lots of sunshine and nice breezes, too. Also, it means that everyone can stop being SICK and start having fun. I swear at least 5 people in my group are sick at any given time since we got here. I'm hoping the warm weather will be the end of all that! I ended up having to go to the doctor a few weeks ago because I had a bacterial infection. A week of antibiotics knocked that out and I've been feeling good ever since (knock on wood).

Since I last wrote I've gone to visit el Cementario General, which is Santiago's (possibly even the whole of Chile's) biggest and most well-known cemetary. It seems to go on for days and its always filled with people (and flowers too for that matter). They also have a wall there that stands to remember all the people who "disappeared" during the dictatorship of Pinochet. While looking at the wall the girls and I did some math and figured out that somewhere around 2,500 people were on there. And thats only the ones they know about. That doesn't even include the hundreds of thousands of people who were tortured and exiled under his regime. Needless to say, it was a sad and somber visit. Even more sad to think that the US government provided support for his regime.

I also went to a birthday part last saturday night with my friend Diego and his family. It was a very big and fun celebration. I got to practice my Spanish a lot and even tried my first Pisco Sour since arriving here, which was pretty good! Then, on Sunday, my host mom woke me up with an invitation to join her and her daughters for an afternoon asado. So we went to eat, drink and talk with the family for a few hours. Then, I came back home and got ready to meet my Chilean friend, Sintia for ice cream. Which ended up turning into an afternoon walk around the city. It was lots of fun!

Thats really all for now I guess. I've got my test tomorrow, I'm giving a speech in my Lit class on Mon (absolutely terrifying) and then I'm pretty much just sailing along until Thursday, when my vacation starts!!! I'm so excited :)

Love you guys! Hope you all are well!

SERIOUS PHOTO DUMP!

Are you ready?!? My wonderful friend Nathalie has been smart enough to bring her camara with her almost everywhere we've been recently and she was nice enough to share all her photos with me (she's the bomb)! I'm gonna post them in order from least to most recent . . . Enjoy!

First up: La Fonda en Parque O'Higgins- el 17 de Septiembre


Me and little miss Sara! She is a sweetheart!

From left to right: Sara, Me, Pablo, Cristóbal, Sebastián , Marco, Miguel

Me and my best friends from the program: Sara and Nathalie

Me and Miguel

Me, Nathalie and Miguel

Second: Cerro Santa Lucía- no me acuerdo la fecha . . .


But what a view, huh?! Next up is Cerro San Cristobal which boasts the greatest view of Santiago

Third: Valpo & Viña- el 8 hasta el 11 de Octubre






Castillo Wulff


Trista, Nathalie, Marco, Sara and I at Castillo Wulff in Vina

There was also a ton of art everywhere:











And lastly: Concón- el 8 y el 9 de Octubre


Me, Sara, Nathalie and Trista


Getting ready to descend from the top of the sand dune


Horse back riding on the beach!

WHEW! Ya'll better have enjoyed that!!! My friend Diego is actually going to send me some pictures of our day at an amusement park in La Reina, so look out for those soon!

And, as I'm sure most of you know, THE CHILEAN MINERS ARE FINALLY FREE!! Yesterday was a very emotional day in Santiago. Everyone was glued to the TV and the radio all day in order to keep up with the rescue efforts. Once the last miner had made his way to the top, the whole country burst into celebration. I opened my window to hear church bells ringing, people singing, cars honking and all sorts of celebration. And, of course: "¡CHI-CHI-CHI-LE-LE-LE VIVA LOS MINEROS DE CHILE!" This is the second big event that I've gotten to be part of here. First the bicentennial and now this. Its so surreal when I think about it all. I am so lucky!!

In other news, I GOT MY FIRST A+ here, in my Literature class nonetheless. SOOO exciting!! And that was the one I was worried about from the beginning. OH! I also start my fall break in 2 weeks (Oct 29 - Nov 8) and, besides taking a trip up to Northern Chile for a few days, Sara and I just booked our flight to ARGENTINA. Oh yeah, thats right, I'm going to Buenos Aires for 6 fabulous days ya'll!! Our friend Marco might come too. So yeah, lots to look forward to in the coming weeks! Then, in December, my sweetie pie is coming to travel with me for a whole month! :) But I will tell you all about that later on . . . Tengo que irme porque necesito dormir!

I hope everyone is doing well! Don't forget to keep me updated about your lives too- I miss you guys!

I'm baaaack! Y tengo fotos!

Hola!

I swear I haven't forgotten about you all- I've just been really busy! Last week we had midterms so I had a bunch of tests and a big paper due in my literature class as well. And, we had a four day weekend so I decided to take advantage of it and headed to the beach with some friends from my program. We went and visited two of the most popular coastal towns here: Valparaíso and Viña del Mar.

As most Chileans would say, "Valpo," is the second biggesty city in Chile. It was also declared a World Heritage Site in 2003 because of its importance as a major port city, its architecture and layout, and its beauty. Although, I'm not sure how many people would call it beautiful today. It definitely has its nice areas but overall its just like any other big city. The only difference is that everything is built over rolling hills so that gives quite a different impression when looking out over the city.

On the other hand, "Viña," is my new Chilean paradise. It is only 5 miles north of Valpo and it is soo much different. It is a much more fashionable and suburban area of Valpo with beautiful beaches and gardens. This is where we spent our weekend. We rented out a little apartment for the 5 of us and had a blast taking in all the sites and activities the coast had to offer. We visited Neruda's third house in Valpo, checked out some museums and castles in Viña, rode horses and climbed sand dunes in the nearby town of Concón and experienced some of the craziest bus rides of our lives. We also spent a lot of time aimlessly walking around discovering new bakeries, cafes, and bars :)

And here are some pics!










My friends have other photos of our weekend that I have to wait for so I will hopefully be updating with some more photos later this week!!

Hope you all are well!