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School really picked up the past few weeks.
I had a presentation with three friends in my program on the Mayas for Literature-Oct 28th. I had to explain the Mayan Calender and its functions, some physics and math all in spanish.. certainly not very easy but it went very well. We presented for the entire class period of 1 hr 30 minutes in a large auditorium.The weekend prior (Oct23rd-Oct 26th) was pretty mellow but went to a bbq with a urugain family friend of my friend Mckenzie. We met argentians, urugains and chileans, they cooked an extensive amount of meat and were so sweet with the phrase 'mi casa es su casa.' The mother in the house (she is a doctor at the local hospital) offered to have me intern with her in the psychology department which I'm excited about. The cultural exchange that day was very fun.
Oct 30th our friends at the fire station cooked us a big taco dinner with the best beer of chile on tap. Afterwards they had a dance party and it was really fun to be told by the men that the rule in Chile is to let the men lead .. something I'd never been accustomed to.
Oct31st we went to the beach "Pilolcura" with the firemen. It's a very secret beach down a long rocky road. They bbqed sausages and hot dogs and we watched the sunset. It's not too common to dress up here for Halloween at my age but I dressed as a cowgirl and Mckenzie dressed as one of the gothic kids here that are called "Pokemonis" with a classic neon green wig. We went to the local club 691 that had some decorations and people in costumes. We are now the album cover of that evening for the club on facebook.. oh the life of being a foreigner. The rest of the weekend I stayed in and worked on my next project.
The following week (Nov 5th) I had a 30minute presentation in International Relations alone on Che Guevara and the relations between the US and Cuba that included a powerpoint and 10 page paper, mine ended up to be 14 pages. That same week I had a test in International Relations as well. In one week I had the presentation 40% of my grade, paper 40% of my grade and exam 20% of my grade. Very stressful but celebrated the passing of it in Mendoza, Argentina and Santiago, Chile.
GO OBAMA- so exciting to see how happy the chileans and argentines are about his election!
November 5th Wednesday- Casey, Mckenzie and I hopped on the bus to Mendoza, Argentina. We traveled through the night and arrived in the capital of Chile about 12 hours north for a quick breakfast then continued on our way over the Andes.
November 6th Thursday- Passed a very dry climate of desert, vineyards and curvy roads. As usual we were bombarded by hostel offerings when we got off the bus that late afternoon but we chose the one that included free wine and transportation. The hostel owner Ariel called me "Maria" from confusing my middle name for the entire trip. We went out to dinner that night and it was so fun to eat at an outdoor table, the entire weekend we got to wear summer clothes-the weather was perfect! We had flavorful steak and enjoying the lovely scenery of deep green trees and brick buildings. Reminded me of Boston actually. Then we checked out a pub that had a live band, played a Chris Issack song that really brought me back a few years.
November 7th Friday- Wine tours! Ariel was our personal choufer. First stop was olive oil tasting. There were gorgeous murals being painted along side the gardin out front. We had a tour of the machinery. The next spot was an organic winery, we played in the gardin of roses and saw a huge vineyard, olive trees, the bottle labels being hand made and tasted several wines. The next winery was fun because while we waited for the tour before us to finish up we enjoyed champagne and wine in the brick underground cellar. We chatted with cute Argentine men; got to practice our spanish :) This winery was where we took pictures with human size wine bottles and the old time firetruck. After this winery we searched all over Mendoza for an open supermarket but nap time "siesta" is from 3-6, NOTHING was open except for the supermarket we had to cab across the city to reach, pretty funny. Then Ariel bbqed our meat and asparagus for us (we had a longgg nap..) and had corn as well. Lovely spring time dinner. Then we played cards outside with some people in our hostel, the free wine was a big hit. Two men in the hostel played their guitars to some old 90's songs which was really fun. Ariel's son was running around, a little obnoxious but Casey took charge by ripping his paper airplane he kept jabbing us in the head with and he got the message. Then we went to the street full of pubs and outdoor tables and couches. We traded travel stories with the people in our hostel which is always a treat.
November 8th Saturday- Paid to leave our bags in the bus depot for the day and took packed lunches to the park downtown. We sat by a beautiful fountain and shopped and the street market. We ate at a nice italian restuarant-gnocci and calamari! Our waiter didn't call the cab as he said he would so we were frantically trying to find a cab in time to catch our bus. At night cabs need to be called in Argentina to pick you up (we soon figured out..) and our Chilean phones didn't work in Argentina. We finally begged a couple in their car already if we could pay them to take us to the bus depot. They agreed, we raced to pay for our luggage and I'm sure it was a classic image to see the three crazy north american girls racing with bouncy hiking shoes tied on the sides of their backpacks to catch the bus. We barely made it. This bus was a bit uncomfortable for the overnight trip and I really didn't enjoy being woken up to cross the border at 2am for bag check and paperwork.. quite the memory though standing wrapped in a blanket with your passport at the boarder.
November 9th Sunday- Arrived in Santiago much too early then we expected. 5:40am. Went to a hostel Casey had stayed at before. The woman first lost her keys to let us in, then rented us a room some man was already in (very disgruntled with us trying to enter...) and finally we got into a room and slept until 11:30. At least the hostel included a delicious PANCAKE breakfast with eggs. Oh how I've missed pancakes! We took the metro to the Santa Lucia fortress lookout of the entire city, beautiful but the smog made it hard to see the entire Andes mountain range. Then we went to the Plaza de Armas and explored the gorgeous church, chilean history museum and icecream. We tried to see an art museum but it was closed on Sundays- I'll go back once I'm living there in January! We went to La Moneda where the chilean president works and where a past president Salvador Allende shot himself. We got burgers for dinner and almost missed our bus AGAIN after because our cab driver didn't know how to get back to our hostel where we needed to get our bags from where we were. He told us he did but we soon realized he was completely lost.. once we got our bags and to the bus station we only had 5 minutes to spare but we made it. Slept on the overnight ride back to Valdivia.
Last week our conversation class presented legends.. ofcourse I chose Sleepy Hollow (MISS YOU GIRLS). I got a great grade back on my relations test and turned in some big assignments, had such a feeling of relief and relaxation finally! I played soccer and rode bikes around neighborhoods I hadn't seen yet with my host sister and have been really enjoying the nice weather we've been having in Valdivia. Thursday night we went to the firestation for a friend's birthday, it's nice to have some fun chilean friends. 7 girls in my program went to the party and it was very silent on our side of the bus to Puerto Varas with the program Friday morning. ;)
Friday Nov 14th- 8am bus ride. We went to a museum that had lovely blooming flowers between the sites. We stopped at a lake, I jumped in! Very cold but worth it. Then we ate lunch, several different types of pastas and fresh juice- the cheesy gnocci and spicy ravioli were my favorites.After hotel check in several of us went to the beach at another lake and a couple girls rented a kayak. Mckenzie and I shared a room with one of the chilean girls on the trip with our program and we had fun hanging out with her and her friend at night- learned some more chilean slang words. There was a gorgeous golden moon out that night and we could see the star constellation of O'Ryan's belt.
Saturday Nov 15th- We went to waterfalls called Petrohue that overlooked Volcan Osorno as well. I walked with my friend to a more secluded path after going to the popular attraction at that spot and saw a hidden waterfall on my left, we continued on and discovered another waterfall this time close enough to touch and had a swimming hole! I could only get in half way because it was freezing cold but this was what made my day. We then bused to another spot that had a gorgous view of a mountain range, volcano and a lake to swim in- jumped in once again and swam for a long time. Then we went out to lunch and to the street vendors in Puerto Montt. I was exhausted and not feeling so great last night - could be from all the cold water- so went to bed early. I'm feeling better today. All in all I was very impressed with the program trip, we many beautiful places in just two days.
I'm now counting the days until Mommy comes to visit - December 10th! I have final projects.. can't believe the majority of my program goes back to the states early December, my first semester here ends and its time for me to seal the deal for my apartment and internship in Santiago for 2 months. I don't plan to travel much before Mom comes, time to get the final school work done and take advantage of what is around Valdivia right now. I'll write more soon.
PAZ y AMOR
Peace and Love
T
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