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The second week in Valdivia was a bit smoother then the first because I learned how to laugh at myself and accept that I was going to be a bit of the house joke in the beginning. I realized there was no way the easy things I used to do in the states should be just as easy here in Chile. Just getting a cell phone plan was the bane of my existance for awhile. Some funny memories: I had to search all over the city for school supplies, I still have yet to find an agenda... seeing we used matches for hot water in my house, maintaining the fire in my room, 'the front fence can be opened by a button?!' , cuchara=spoon while cuchillo=knife- I'm still getting these mixed up which makes for some interesting 'help' setting the table, embracing tourism and my appearance with the obvious held grid map of the city, getting blank stares back from my drivers when I thought I'd explicitly stated what my street name was.. 'ahh' one would finally say 'cerca del supermercado Lider, Eleodoro Yanez' ... 'Si' I thought that was what I had said.. It was a bit discouraging when I'd muster up all the courage left at the end of the day to speak up to get myself home or run errands and either have to repeat myself several times, have the sentence repeated back to me several times, or the driver/clerk would speak whatever english they knew (that was the WORST). I'm pretty sure I got ripped off a bunch just because I had no idea what was going on most of the time and had a mind absorbed by new territory of the unfamiliar.
A hillarious memory is when I was left home alone to tell my sister's piano teacher that my Mom had gone to pick her up late from school and take my brother to the doctor so the lesson would have to start a few minutes late. This shouldn't have been hard for me, but I couldn't understand her on the phone when she called, Chileans speak extremely fast and it was my first time answering the house phone & speaking in spanish on the phone. So, after the ultimate miscommunication via telephone our door bell rang.. I couldn't find my keys, it was pouring rain and this was before I knew we had a button for the front fence! The poor woman is standing outside in the rain while I'm racing around the house, finally find my keys, and out of breath scramble for the right words.. she figured it out but I can only imagine what she thought of the crazy north american blonde, barefoot, 'un momento!' but it was much longer then one moment..thus out of breath and extremely confused looking.
Another great one is before I knew the codes for calling from a house to a cell phone or vice versa and I went to a friends house whose gate was locked, I kept getting an operator whose spanish i couldn't obviously understand yet. It was pouring rain (yet, again) and each time a bus drove by, guess who got splashed by the huge puddle of water? Finally I figured out from a few house numbers that were entered into my phone how to call my friend, but its times like those when I consider just racing back to my house with the wonder of what gave me the impression I could make it in the wild unfamiliar? Then, you learn to laugh.
My third weekend in Chile; Friday September 5th-Sunday September 7th I went with a friend to Pucon which is a snow resort on top of a volcanoe about 2 hours away from Valdivia. This Volcano erupted about 60 years ago, then again 30 years ago. I was hoping I wasn't going to be up top for the next 30 year incrimant of activity. I didn't know before my trip there were hundreds of volcanoes in Chile, both active and dormant. Pucon is a pretty town, lodge-type architecture.. very 'mountaneous' atmosphere. It was my first experience in a hostel, got off the bus with my friend and a woman asked if we needed a hostel.. without reservations anywhere we took her up on it and got pretty lucky, 11.00 US a night- sold! 36.00 US for a lift ticket and 16.00 to rent, only went up one day but the price was right.. the natural half pipes were awesome and we were fortunate enough to have a clear day to see the smoke rising out of the top of the volanoe and the three lakes below. I had never been on some of the forms of lifts they had: "t" bar, I was sliding and falling all over trying to grasp on to get pulled up the slope and had to restart a few times.. my friend was impressed I was good at snowboarding after my 'performance' on the "t" -bar, as to be expected there were different aspects to enjoying the snow in another country.
I went back to Pucon today (Sunday September 28th) with my host dad, brother and sister for the day.. woke up at 530am, got up to the volcanoe after the drive and renting about 10am and stayed until 430pm. I taught my brother and sister to snowboard, we had a blast and I was fortunate enough to have yet another beautiful day in Pucon.
I'm very much enjoying spring time in Chile, the winter was so cold I could see my breath every morning I woke up & had to sleep in atleast 3 layers.
Time to rest! I'll have more pictures & travel stories soon, next blog: Bariloche-Patagonia-Argentina.
Chao!
T
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