Anti-climactic

Poetry proff was sick, so no class. Also, no extra anthropology class. I guess that's next week. Sheesh. If Chileans can't even get this stuff straight, what hope does a foreigner have? I did have my first grammar test today, so that was a bit of academic activity. I think I'm going to start reading the encyclopedia set that we have here in my spare time.

At least we had good weather this morning. And Angela vacuumed my room and changed the sheets and I bought myself some flowers yesterday so everything is fresh and pretty.

The day I ate two suppers

Well, I'm stuffed.  Angela was late coming home from a doctor's appt so I made myself some noodles and heated up some left over pork roast.  I was in the middle of it when Angela and Cecilia came home so they saw me cooking…but then Angela went ahead and prepared another supper…. I don't know why.  I was eating in my room and then I brought my plate into the kitchen and she was busy getting things ready.  So, I ate a bit of tomato from the salad and a small plate of potatoes with more roast pork and some fruit for desert.  I wish I could tell her just to relax…I can fend for myself for one meal.

I've also completed the top half of my garbage bag suit.  Whee.

And I think I've developed a facebook addiction.   Horrible.

Busy day tomorrow…The Unveiling of the Garbage Bag Suit, extra Anthropology class and Grammar test. 

Cup o’ tea, luv

It's been a lazy day but refreshing. I was feeling a little unsettled this weekend, I don't know why. Friday night I went out for ice cream (Bravissimo's — it's like Chilean Cold Stone, but not) with Nate and Nicole and then we went to Nate's house and hung out with his host parents. They're pretty cool because they tease him all the time. They call him 'El Gigante' or 'The Giant' and if he says a word with a terrible American accent, like "horrible", they'll pretend they don't understand until he says "orrrrrreblay" with a proper Spanish accent.

[Ryan and I were on the phone --and by phone, I mean Skype-- but he fell asleep and now he's quietly snoring. How cute.]

Saturday, I slept in until about 10 and only woke up because I was baking in my room…it was SO hot. After lunch, Nicole and I went to the beach. She's taking a photography class and I've been modeling for her. They have to choose a theme and she chose portraits so anyway, I've launched my career! She took a few pictures and we sat there until the waves got too big and then walked down to the sandy part of the beach and then to an artisan fair. There was this creepy dude that was following us from stall to stall so we walked the two blocks to the mall so as to lose him. Ugh.

I woke up late this morning and took the wrong bus to meeting. I'm supposed to take Sol de Pacifico 23 and I took Sol de Pacifico 13. Oops. So, I called the Ossa's at like 9:40, when I realized the bus wasn't going where I needed to go, and asked them what I should do and Luis told me just to get off the bus and they'd come find me. Oh, sheesh….Luckily, I wasn't too far away, about 5 minutes, so we were back at the apt in time for meeting to start punctually. Nice meeting, as always…then I came home and had lunch and went for a walk and I'm about to go to Nicole's place to study for our grammar test on Wednesday. It's not the grammar we're worried about, it's Pedro (the teacher). We've been studying the subjunctive and every time anyone asks him a question that's remotely complicated, he just makes a gesture with his hand, like 'calm down' and says 'Tranquilo', which is to say 'Settle down'. Every single time.

Mmm…Angela made apple cake and I'm going to have a piece…with tea.  

Oh, what fun it is…

…to watch Ryan working in the CSOM computer lab over a school webcam. Haha. That’s what I did tonight. That and updated my facebook profile and added some new buddies. I now have a whopping 11 friends. I also went on and off of a diet.

I walked down the ocean this afternoon, just to get out a bit, and it’s completely different from the summer ocean. The waves are enormous…frighteningly so. I was sitting on a big rock and several times waves pounded the shoreline with such force that the rock I was sitting on trembled. The sound is different too…it’s quiet and then a huge explosion of sound and water flying upward silently again. It kind of gave me the creeps because it was so so so different. I have a favorite rock to sit on that’s closer to the water, but it was practically submerged. I didn’t know the ocean changed so much with the seasons.

So, that was my exciting evening. Also, I received several emails from family and friends which I appreciate VERY much. It’s so wonderful to hear even the little things that are going on in your lives…because that’s what life is made of, little things.

Peanut Butter

Slow day today.  I don't have any classes and only two little reading assignments…one due tomorrow and one due next Tuesday.  I think I might also have an essay due in Poetic Creation in several weeks but I'm not sure…

Anyway, yesterday I went to Jumbo to find some crew sport socks that I can wear with my boots because I haven't been able to find them anywhere.  Only for men… Jumbo didn't have any either so I ended up buying some fashion socks that are a reasonably good height.  I also picked up a little jar of natural peanut butter to put on toast in the mornings.  I think it's German or something so neither of us can read it and figure out if it is actually natural pb and needs to be refrigerated or what…  I showed it to Angela and she was like "Hmmm…does this absorb like regular butter?" and "How much do you put on the toast?"  It was so cute.  I don't think she's ever used it before!

We have more sun today.  Lovely. 

Chañarel

Well, I think that at last I'm home for a stretch.  I was in Chanarel from Thursday to Sunday and it was wonderful.  Well…mostly wonderful.  Glorya and Adelia (Ami's mom and one of the friends) picked me up from the bus terminal on Thursday morning around 7.  Glorya gave me a big hug right away and welcomed me to Chanarel.  She has a beautiful spirit and a wonderful smile.  She reminds me of my mom…short and soft.

I took a long nap right away then had some breakfast and then the workers came over, Marlena and Irna.  They're both young at heart.  Marlena and I took a walk on the beach.    She loves to walk on the beach but because Irna is recovering from ovarian cancer and gets cold easily, she doesn't like to go with Marlena.  So, Marlena and I had a nice conversation.  Thursday night we had gospel meeting and after gospel meeting we packed up 2 trucks and a jeep for 7 adults and 8 kids to go camping for two nights.  Haha…we didn't leave the house until like, 11:30 and were setting up the campsite until 2 or so.  Then we started up the campstove and had cake and tea at 2:30.    It was awesome.  It was Pasqual (papa), Glorya (mama), Ami (18), Ayi (14 or 15), Sebastian (10), Esteban (3) (I don't know their last name even…horrible…but that's the core family), Adelia (middle age — piano teacher from Brasil and is living at the house), Jose Luis (27, is living with them and working for Pasqual) me and then Cecilia (Pasqual's sister and Cassi's mom), Jorge (2 something) and Flor (1 something) and then the workers.

We went to Pan de Azucar National Park — Sugarloaf National Park.  There's an island that supposedly looks like a sugarloaf…but it just looks like an island to me.  It was gorgeous…the extremes of water and sand and rock.  Camping was wonderful except for two things.  Glorya's legs got splashed with hot oil and she had to go to the hospital to get the burns cleaned and bandaged.  The other thing was the "bathroom".  There was only a shelter and plenty of sand to cover up the waste…

We came home Saturday afternoon and cleaned up and took it easy.  Sunday was like Sunday in every part, I think.  Meeting and then lunch and visiting.  We had a little study (like Wed. night) instead of gospel meeting about the heart and harvest in Matt. 13.  Very nice.  There are two meetings in Chanarel, it's a town of about 15,000.

My bus didn't leave Chanarel until 9:15 on Sunday night so after the study we had supper and hung out.  It's nice to be with a family again because as much as I love Angela, the reality is that there are only two of us here.  I got in around 10 am on Monday and went off to class.  It's nice to be home, though.  I feel spoiled.  I had chicken soup tonight for supper wtih fresh bread (and fresh figs for desert! Figs! Imagine…)– perfect for a chilly night, which it is.  I'm having a hard time adjusting to this winter in Chile thing.  I should just buy a winter jacket and be done with it, but some part of me resists because I'm from MINNESOTA…we have real winter there…not like this.    I have my vest, my red raincoat, my green polarfleece and my purple peacoat…sheesh…I don't know what I'm going to do.  It was kind of funny because the backs of my legs got sunburned at the beach and then I had to come home to Vina and put on knee socks and boots because it was cold here.

Anywaaaay…   I put up pics.  Enjoy. 

Desert, here I come

Yay! Tomorrow (or I should say today, since it's about midnight right now) I leave for Chanaral. It's a city on the edge of the Atacama desert, 14 hours or so, by bus, from Vina. Ami and Cassi are going home on Thursday night, but since I don't have any classes on Thursday, I'm leaving tomorrow night and Ami's mom is going to pick me up from the bus station. She called me tonight to 'invite' me to come up for the weekend and I was like "Great, nice to meet you, I'd love to…I already have my bus tickets" She sounded wonderfully happy and young on the phone. I also spoke with one of the sister workers…I can't recall her name, but she was super-cheery sounding as well. It reminded me of Jenny C. I guess it's quite an interesting story how the desert bloomed spiritually in the last 15 years. Anyway, I'm very much looking forward to this trip.

I'll be home on Monday morning…just in time to give a presentation in my "World of the Old Testament" class…yay.

Hasta luego, amigos.

Chiloe Weekend

I put up a ton of pictures of my trip last week…just so you're all forewarned.  There are 92 to be exact. 

I was traveling with Nate, Nicole and Paula.  Nicole and Nate and I left from Vina on Monday night at 6:00 pm with a direct bus to Puerto Montt.  We picked up passengers in Valparaiso, Santiago and sundry other smaller towns along the way and arrived in PM on Tuesday morning at 9 am.   I met with the workers there, Anita and Murelia.  Murelia is 89 or so.  She's the oldest Chilean sister on staff.  She's a real lady.    I was glad I got a chance to have breakfast with them.  

Tuesday, we walked around PM a bit.  We went shopping at this port thing named Angelmo and had lunch there.  In the afternoon, we took a bus over to Puerto Varas, a nearby town and walked around there for a bit.  A lot of the houses use woodstoves as heating units so the air always smells like woodsmoke and there's a haze over the rooftops.  There's quite a bit of German influence in the south of Chile and you can tell in the architecture and names and such.  Puerto Varas was beautiful…it's built around a lake…lots of greenery and hills.  It was cloudy but on a clear day you can see volcanoes in the distance.  We found a park and climbed up a hill and took some pics from the top and on the way down found a sweet rope swing.  I think it was my favorite thing we did the whole week.

 We spent the night in PM in a hostal.  I was glad that we were able to get seperate rooms the whole trip and it doesn't make a difference in the cost because in a hostal set up, you pay per person.  So, the first night I slept in a room with Paula and Nate and Nicole slept in the other one.  It was pretty nice and cost us 5.000, so, about $10.  

Wednesday morning we took a bus, and consequently, a ferry to the large island of Chiloe.  We went to the 'capital' city, Castro and found a nice hostal there as well.  Same price with free internet and breakfast and an ideal room set up…double rooms, double beds, again.  So, Wednesday we explored Castro.  Chiloe is famous for ancient wooden churches but I wasn't too blown away.  Thursday we took a bus out to the National Park of Chiloe…wow.  On the way there, we stopped in this town named Chonchi and ate THE BEST EMPANADAS IN THE WORLD.  It was quite an adventure getting out there but the sight of the Pacific ocean and miles of waves beating on each other in a misty fog was breathtaking.  Totally worth it.  Nate and Nicole and I returned from the park but Paula stayed to go camping with an Israeli guy we met in the hostal.  Haha…cr-azy. 

Friday morning Nate, Nicole and I took a bus to Ancud, a city in the northern part of the island, to see some of the penguin colonies that are up there.  However, it's autumn so the penguins migrated and also it was rainy, so there wasn't a clear view, AND the tour was more than we wanted to pay.  So, we ended up walking around and went to the Ancud Regional Museum.  It was actually a very pleasant afternoon.  From Ancud, we took a bus and ferry back to the mainland and bought tickets home to Vina at 7:15.  We killed about 3 hours at the mall and then caught our bus back home.  We arrived in Vina on Saturday morning around 10:15ish or so.

Good times were had by all…but I think we were definitely ready to be home again.  )  

I know it was kind of abrupt, but there are a lot of pics and you can always ask questions, no?

I'm off to Grammar class…boring or que fome, as they say here.

And this little piggy went wee-wee-wee…

(or is it oui-oui-oui?) …all the way HOME.
Sorry to leave a week blank in the blog. Last week I didn’t have any classes — they were cancelled due to freshman initiation week — so some classmates and I went to the south of Chile, to the city of Puerto Montt and the island of Chiloe. I will write a more detailed entry some time tomorrow. I didn’t have an internet connection earlier today so I spent a good part of the day fretting over it…and that’s why I didn’t write. Gregorio came over and helped me get the router all set up, so things are going well.
Nice to be home again and showered…haha.
Thinking of everyone in Fargo and the special meetings…
Also, for everyone in the Midwest, the time difference is only an hour now.

Chau-chau

Well, my parents left today at 3:00.  Their flight leaves at 9:30 pm — or has left, I should say.  They'll get back to MN around 10 am tomorrow morning.  They're flying to Atlanta first and I'm not sure if there's much of a lay-over or what.  Anyway, sad to see them go, but happy that they came.  We had a lot of fun.   We had a fabulous lunch today at Cecilia's house (Mamy's daughter).  She lives about two blocks away in several rooms of an OLD house.  Everything is white, like here, and with the high ceilings and the minimalistic decorating, it's super cute.  Yep, so, then I had to go to Anthropology around 1:30, so I said goodbye to my parents and left them with Mamy and Cecilia and Gregorio.  They get along really well.  Mamy speaks quite a bit of English!!  I was really surprised.  Her father worked for an English company and was fluent in English, as was her mother.  Haha…she told me her parents used to speak English in front of the kids when they didn't want them to know what they were saying.  Anyway, Mamy and my parents were able to communicate fairly well.

…I'm tired.   I didn't do much, but I feel drained for some reason.  It's going to be an early night.