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Hello everyone,
Sorry its been a while since I last updated, it will probably be a while before the next updates too. I have had quite an interesting weekend. I spent all day Friday and Saturday touring Santiago. We went to many different sites including La Moneda (the chilean equivalent of the white house), a memorial park for the desaparecidos, the national cemetary and the Pinochet foundation. For those of you who don't know a lot about Chilean history. Augusto Pinochet was the dictator of chile from 1973 until 1989. During his dictatorship he kidnapped, tortured and killed many chileans who were considered a risk to his government. The ones whose bodies were not found are called desaparecidos (disappeared) and there are several memorials set up for them throughout chile.
All the sight seeing was pretty fun and interesting, but it got really exhausting. Santiago is a really cool city, much more South American than Viña and Valpo feel. I really liked it.
When I returned home on Saturday night I discovered that my house had been broken into. My computer, ipod and some jewelry got stollen. I was the first person to come home so I also got the pleasure of having to call my host family and try and explain over the phone what had happened. I was definately feeling a language barrier during that phone call. Needless to say I'm feeling pretty shaken up from the whole situation and its been a crazy few days. Its really hard because I was feeling really comfortable in my house and in the city but now I'm doubting all that a lot. I'm hoping after a few days the shock of everything will wear off and I'll be a lot more relaxed and happy here.
But because of my loss of computer I probably will not be able to blog quite as often as I would like. I am hoping to have a new computer by sometime in October, so I hope you all can be patient with me until then.
This week is the Chilean indepence celebration, so there will be lots of fun cultural things to see and do. It also means we have three days off of clases, which I am pretty excited about. We are planning on doing a 7 hour hike up a moutain about an hour from here on Saturday which I am pretty excited about. But apparently someone died hiking up this mountain recently, so we're a little nervous. Don't worry though, I'll be extra cautious. Thanks for following my travels!
Love,
Katelyn
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