Last Post

Saying goodbye to one of my favorite campus dogs - Cecilia.

Last day of school!


Thanksgiving feast!

Well, it's December 9th, which means I leave in 6 days. My flight leaves at 10:15 PM on Tuesday the 15th. I absolutely can't believe I've been here for 5 months.

Alice and my trip to the South was a lot of fun. We saw a lot of really beautiful nature, lived through some crappy weather (not without sore throats, though), and met some interesting people in the hostels we stayed in along the way. It was fun to be independent. We both thought it was strange to not be traveling with parents and to have to plan our days by ourselves.


These days, as I anticipate my trip home, I have a lot of free time. I fill it with laying by the rooftop pool (that just recently got filled, which might be a good thing because I would never have gone out had it been full earlier in the semester), trying to see friends from school, and doing things in Santiago that I haven't had a chance to yet. On Friday I'm going on my last trip out of the city - to Viña del Mar, a beach town about 2 hours away.

It's a really strange thing to know that my life is going to completely change in a matter of 12 hours between next Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. I guess it did the same thing when I came here, but the difference was that I didn't know what I was headed for. Now, I'm stuck between really looking forward to seeing all of my friends in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and feeling sad because I have no idea when I'm going to see all of my friends here again.

It has truly been an amazing semester. I thought about trying to write some sort of summarizing blog entry that would be really moving and all-encompassing, but it turns out I don't think I'm up to the task. I'm anticipating that most of my conversations will be about this semester for the first couple of months that I'm back in the States, so I'm hoping I can do my experience justice through talking about it rather than trying to write about it and make that perfect. I do know that I'll never get sick of talking about all of the incredible people I've met here or all of the things I've done, so always feel free to ask.

To those of you that I'll be reunited with in the next few weeks, I'm really looking forward to seeing you. And to those of you who I may not see for a while, thank you for thinking my life is interesting enough to read about. Cuídate Chile, suerte en Sudáfrica - nos estamos viendo ;) CHAU!

Pictas

Dipping my toes in the Pacific in Valparaíso

Lobo Marino ("Sea wolf") but really a Sea LION - basking in the sun.

Yo y Pia en Valparaíso

Roses in Parque Araucano, a park close to my apartment.

Alice is here!!!!

Alice is here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She got here yesterday morning with no glitches in plane schedules and no intimidating situations with airport security. She ate all of her granola bars before going through customs in Santiago just in case.

Yesterday after Pablo and I picked her up at the airport we came back to the apartment, had breakfast, relaxed for a little while, and then set out for a long day of walking around the city. First we went up Cerro San Cristobal. There is a huge pool up there that overlooks the city. We didn't go in but it is really beautiful and I hope to make it there before I leave. We took the funicular down into Bellavista neighborhood and then walked from there to downtown. It was hot and Alice is still acclimating because she came from a colder climate :/ We saw all of the older downtown buildings, including La Moneda (the government palace), and then caught a bus into Providencia to have lunch with Lucy and Nigel. After lunch, we ate some gelato at a new gelato place. Super yummy. That brought us to 6 pm so we headed home for a quick descanso before going over to Pablo and Magda's for snacks and THE BEATLES Guitar Hero(!!!!!!!)

The game is really cool actually. We were all mesmerized by the graphics. AND I got to sing Revolution, A Hard Day's Night, Can't Buy Me Love, Yellow Submarine, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, etc. Alice played some songs for us on the guitar (on Easy, but she was still great). After a long sesh we went home because we were tired after our day of walking in the heat.

Right now we're sitting in the kitchen and we just had my favorite breakfast of shredded apple, yogurt, and granola. We're going to go pack a little bit before heading out for the day. We leave for the South tonight!!!! I won't have my computer while we are down there but I'll post lots of pics and write all about it when we get back!

I´m sunburnt...jealous?

I have taken to being a huge brat lately when telling people from the midwest how it´s going here. I can´t really help it - my grades are good, the weather is beautiful, the is a pool on my roof, and my semester will be over in about 27 hours.

I´m writing this post from a computer room on campus. I have a final exam in 2 hours but I have studied for it about all I can so I´m taking a break now and when people from my class start to arrive, I´ll study with them for a little while. My location means I can´t put up pictures right now but I´ll put some up this afternoon. :)

I went to Valparaíso again last weekend. It was sunny this time and Pia (friend from soccer who I went with) and I even got to stick our toes in the ocean (which is about as cold as lake superior but still pretty nice). That is the only traveling I have done lately, mostly because I´ve been busy wraping up school. I also ran another 7K race on Nov. 8. Best t-shirt yet.

Oofta, I´m going to have to cut this short. Time for lunch (microwaved chicken breast with tomato sauce - it´s pretty funny how all of these college students bring bagged lunch from home, prepared by their nanas most likely) and studying. I bought a snicker bar (they´re like $1.50 here) for desert. YUM.

P.S. Joe Mauer is the bomb. More later!

Time flies when you're having fun!

Dorky title, I apologize. IT IS TOTALLY SPRING TIME HERE AND I'M SORRY TO BRAG BUT HOLY COW SANTIAGO IS PRETTY! The streets are lined with green leafy trees, the big parks and coming to life with pick-up games of soccer and a billion rose bushes (I noticed them in Parque Araucano - see one of my first posts for a picture and description - for the first time today and literally stopped in my tracks because they are so full and beautiful), the sun is warm and the shade is cool. And the maintenance guys are going to fill our rooftop pool any day now.

I've been really busy the past two weeks with studying (what?!?!) and some fun stuff too. I went rock climbing again but this time in a gym; went camping in the Maipo River Valley just southeast of Santiago; played soccer with a new league team (I'm still playing with the other one but this one was short players last Friday so I got to fill in!); ran another race with Pablo - this time a 7Km; and celebrated Halloween USA-style by carving pumpkins and roasting the seeds... and dressing up of course. (Pictures below)



Like I said, school got crazy all of a sudden. I had two tests last week, a project turn-in this Tuesday, and a quiz today. They've all gone surprisingly well though! The project was kind of interesting, because it was a group project and we started the semester out with 5 people in our group and three people dropped in the two weeks leading up to the due-date, so Gabriel and I had to do it all by ourselves! And there are debates next week related to the same project, but since we would be 2 versus 5 our profe excused us from the debate and is just going to grade us on the written portion, so it worked out kind of sweet! That also means that I don't have any work left to do for that class unless I have to take the final, and I only have to take the final if I don't have a 5.5 (on a 1-7 scale) at the end of the semester. Wahoo!

Speaking of the 1-7 scale, my soccer profe was talking about my soccer class TA the other day and about how great this guy is, and instead of saying "Nico is a 10" like we would in the States, he said, "Nico is a 7, he is definitely a 7." I thought it was funny. Some cultural differences you just don't see coming, you know?

And speaking of soccer, I was talk to my bro-in-law the other day after going to watch him and another friend play some pick-up fútbol, and we got to talking about why I never see men and women playing together here. He told me it's because the mentality is that girls are dangerous to play with because they kick you all the time... I said yeah the bad ones! He agreed, but said that it would be hard to find a group of men who would pay to rent a field and play with a bunch of women. LAME. So naturally that lit a flame under my butt. While I was at Parque Araucano today I saw several different pickup games going on just in the grass, as in no one has to pay to play there, and next week I'm going to go back with my cleats. Mark my words.

I am crazy making plans for traveling after the semester is over. Initially they were more ambitious, but now I think I just want to hop around in the South of Chile where all the rivers, lakes, and volcanoes are. Everyone says it's gorgeous down there, and it will be easier to do with my small budget. Also I feel like since I am studying abroad in Chile after all, I should get to know all of it at least a little bit, especially since it is so different in the North, Middle, and South. Oh! And Alice is coming to visit me!! So she will be my travel companion. SO PUMPED. She'll be here until December the 6th, and I depart the 15th. Between when she leaves and I leave the plan is to get really tan so that I can brag a lot when I get home, only to have it fade in about a week in that nasty Midwest winter climate (that I love so much but really only for about a month).

Ironically, even though I'm dreading coming back to the cold, I have developed a case of Christmas fever lately and Magda and I are going to watch The Holiday tonight. I think it's because classes are coming to a close (2 more weeks!!) and usually that means Christmas is almost here. Regardless, I'm wishing I had the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack on my computer more and more every day. I would love to listen to it while sunning next to the pool. HA! Chau!

Here's a fun one - a crappy climbing wall set up on campus with The Andes as a back drop.

Nike pics!!

Pablo sandwich

My running partner/big brother, pre-race!

Left: The Temptations; Right: Metallica and lots of air-drumming :D

Weeeeee arrre the chaaaaampioonsssss!

It's a good thing the 10K wasn't IN the desert.

Hooooey the Nike 10K Santiago was this morning! It. was. AWESOME. I picked up my t-shirt yesterday at Mall Sport (a mall full of sporty stores), and even THAT was cool. Everybody got a chip to put on our shoes so that we could know our exact time (they haven't posted them yet, but I think I ran it in about an hour and one minute). It was a chilly, cloudy morning for the race but it didn't bother me, especially because of the big, elaborate Nike set-up at the start/finish line. It went by pretty quickly too. I ran with my host brother-in-law for about 8 and a half km and then finished about a minute after him. The route was up one side of the river and down the other, so it was really cool to see the leaders running on the other side. Our friend Pablo took pictures, so I'll post them when I get them :D

As for the desert, it was cool but really touristy. I mean, obviously it's touristy for a reason, but my mom compared it to Niagra Falls, and I think that's pretty accurate. Awesome nature, weird atmosphere. I can't figure out why that takes away from a place, but it does. One of the things I don't like about the tourism there is that everything is pretty far away from the town of San Pedro de Atacama, where most visitors stay, so tours are almost necessary. And a bunch of different agencies do the same trips, so everywhere we went there were vans full of other out-of-towners. However, the company I was with was good and we stayed in a really great hostel, complete with a bunch of cats (three of them gingers) and a couple dogs. And an above-ground pool. During the days, we went to the Salt Flats of Atacama (not very flat, but very salty), the Geisers El Tatio (not very tall, but there are a LOT of them), a fertile valley that looks really out of place in the middle of so much sand, and some small towns out in the desert. (Stole the pics from my friend Matt because I forgot to bring my camera.)





At night we sat around and made dinner at the hostel, and watched Chile QUALIFY FOR THE WORLD CUP!!! That's right, if you hadn't heard or were too busy celebrating the US's victory in Honduras (wait, the US has a soccer team?), now you know. Chile is going to South Africa in 2010. I'm going to have to buy myself a jersey now. The whole country seems pretty jazzed about it.

Both university and volunteering continue to go well. The high school kids warm up to me more and more every week. I showed them a bunch of pictures of Madison last week and they were really attentive the whole time I was talking about it. Pretty cute.

Other thoughts that I can't muster up a paragraph for:

I left a birthday party at 3:30AM on Friday night and got made fun of for leaving "early."

A new TV series started two weeks ago called "Los angeles de Estela" or, in English, "Estela's Angels." I watch it with Magdita sometimes. It's kind of like a soap opera but entertaining nonetheless. It makes for good sister bonding.

Speaking of TV, I have been keeping up with The Office and Grey's Anatomy (it is much easier to find pirated movies and TV shows online here). Both seasons are off to a fantastic start and that's a fact.

My friends and I have been making pies pretty regularly. They get better every time. The pumpkin pie we made on Friday was the best yet. We also made banana cream.

It's totally spring here, so if you're looking for an escape from the snowy midwest (yuck, by the way), come to Santiago. If you don't mind a little smog, it's beautiful. And you can still look at snow, but from a distance (of about 5000 meters, on top of the Andes). Peace!