Hello All,

Again I apologize for my lack of blogging as of late, sharing a computer with a 15 year old boy makes it difficult to get much time on the internet. But on Sunday one of my classmate's parents arrives and is bringing my new computer, so I hope to get lots of good pictures up after that and to start to update more regularly again.

I am getting settled in my new home. I love the new host family and am really happy here. I think I'm pretty spoiled because I wake up every morning with a tray of breakfast including fresh squeezed orange juice waiting for me in the kitchen and dinner is the same way when I come home. But my family is very kind and I spend a lot of time speaking spanish with our housekeeper during the day when my family is at work and school. I am excited to spend my first real weekend here with them, as I was traveling the last two weekends.

This past weekend we went north to a beach town called La Serena. It is the second oldest city in Chile and the buildings definately show it. I really enjoyed going through the old churches, they were so peaceful. The city definately had an old spanish feel to it, and felt more authentically Chilean than Viña. One day we took a guided tour through the area which was awesome. We got to see lots of small towns with cute shops, we heard a lot of the indigenous stories and saw some amazing scenery. I will post pictures this weekend. We also got to tour the house of Gabriela Mistral, a famous chilean poet who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1945, and her tomb. I really liked her tomb a lot. It was on top of this hill with lots of trees for shade and some amazing flowers. It was a really hot day but there was a cool breeze blowing and there was even a harpist playing there. It felt a little bit like how you would imagine heaven to be.

My favorite part of the tour was a visit to a Pisco distillery. For those of you who don't know Pisco is a chilean alcohol made from the distillation of grapes. Its pretty much what chileans drink all the time. Chile produces 50 million liters of Pisco every year and they consume 45 million liters in Chile. That means Pisco is pretty hard to find outside of Chile but is available pretty much everywhere in Chile. It was really interesting to tour the distellery, especially because it was a small family run one.

We also got to spend a day just sitting on the beach which was amazing. La Serena has some of the clearest skies in the world and is sunny over 300 days a year. So our day at the beach was cloudless and perfect. We even met a dutch man who was traveling South America by himself. He didn't speak much Spanish but was pretty much fluent in English. His accent was really interesting because he learned English from a combination of Brittish run schools and then living in Utah and Mississipi. Talk about a wide variety of accents!

Other than my trip to La Serena, I've really just been going about daily life without too much excitement. Classes are pretty easy and I go to the beach in Viña a lot. Next week we start our service learning projects so I'll add another 8 hours a week of activity. I am working at a private school helping coach their cross-country and also teaching, hopefully science. I am pretty excited and hope the experience will help my spanish a lot.

In the coming weeks I have a lot to look forward to, including a trips to Argentina, and two different places in southern Chile. One is the adventure capital of Chile and will include whitewater rafting and climbing a volcano. The other is a week long trip with my entire group to the island of Chiloe. We are staying with rural host families and visiting a lot of cool historic towns. I am pretty excited though a little nervous about the 20+ hour bus ride with the my program directors' children. One is 3 months old and the other 3 years old and both can throw a good tantrun.

I hope all of you are doing well and enjoying your fall. Thanks for following my travels, I really appreciate it.