"Guatita llena, corazón contento"

Below are all photos of the house and view from the house in Algarrobo. A total 70's house, but I love it. It has so much character. :)

Just a beautiful pink sky/sunset on sunday night in Algarrobo.

The BIG bed...that has the electric blanket. Oh how jealous I am.

This is a picture in the room that Erin and I always stay in. Its so 60/70's but I love it. It says: "I have learned that to be with someone I want it sufficient in order to be happy" - Walt Whitman

Erin takes the bed right by mine.

I always get the bottom bunk.

Below are all photos of the three vineyards I went to in the Casablanca valley, where they make some of the best wine in Chile. Such a beautiful place, I can't wait to see it in the warmer weather with grapes and greenery on the vines. :)

At one of the vineyards, the ground the ground cover was walnut shells. It was so interesting to me, I had to show you all. :)

Below are photos of the house in Casablanca where my family's grandparents and Marcello live.

Marcello's great dane, Moka. The grandparents have two other dogs though: Maiza (a mutt) and then Bambula (a collie/ german sheperd mix) that reminds me of Grizzy.

So my blog sure hasn't been getting much attention lately. I suppose not too much has been going on. Last weekend (July 17 - 20 fri-sun) was a little more eventful. Well last thursday was a holiday (feríado) so there was not school. A lot of ISA kids went off on lovely and exciting adventures to places in Chile. But that was pretty much there last chance since everyone but six of us are leaving July 25th to go home to the states. BUT Erin and I decided to not go anywhere, especially because we didn't want to miss classes on friday. So thursday we had a really nice lunch with the family, at the big dining table. Sergio and Constanza came, Marcello too, and then the rest of the family that lives here. It was really nice and fun to just sit around and chit chat. I showed the whole family pictures of my family and they all commented on how nice everyone looked. Oh and how adorable Griswald is, which was such a surprise! ;) Oh and the night before (wed july 15th) we went to Constanza's and Sergio's house to hang out, have a drink and talk. I got to meet the brother of Sergio, he was in town because Sergio's grandmother had past away the week before. He lives in the northern part of Chile, in the Atacama desert, one of the largest deserts i the world for anyone who doesn't know it. He was really interesting. He told us in the place he lives, San Pedro (a very famous and touristy town i n the Atacama) people don't sleep. They have clandestine parties all hours of the night. I guess it is prohibited to have parties after a certain hour at night, so the people do it secretly. Some friends in ISA went this past weekend to the Atacama and said the clandestine parties were crazy, but a blast. Anyways, Sergio's brother (and yes I continue to call him Sergio's brother because his name has slipped my mind) works in the tourism industry, so if we decided to travel up north he could plan out a hole bunch of sweet tours for us. But I heard it WAY expensive to travel to the north since it is so touristy, so I'll have to see if it will work out. But I have heard the salt flats, the alpacas, the stars, and just the desert itself is absolutely amazing to see. I tried a new type of drink while at Constanza's too. It was called something like "almora", I really can't remember, but it was SO good. It almost had a little bit of flavor of spiked chai. I guess it is a drink from Africa, and since chai originated in Africa (uh yeah I know the history of chai tea, no big deal right) it makes sense it tastes similar. Yeah I need to find out the name though so I can try it again!

SO last friday (july 17th) Erin and I took a bus to Casablanca in the afternoon to have lunch there with the grandparents and Marcello. The grandmother (abuela) thought it was crazy I was a vegetarian, and she had a little bit of trouble with the concept. But one thing I LOVED that she made was pebre (which is a type of fresh salsa), it was different than any I have tried in Chile thus far, and it was amazing. I think I could eat pebre on everything here. Some of their food really needs to be spiced up! But my family almost never eats pebre. Oh well, its a nice treat once in a while. But after lunch, Marcello took us to a few vineyards in the Casablanca area/valley. They were absolutely beautiful. We only sat down and had a sample at one vineyard (Viña Indomita), and it was amazing wine. But just the view from each was beautiful. It was a pretty quick tour of the vineyards though because it was getting late into the afternoon and we didn't want to be out there in the dark, and we were traveling to Algarrobo after our tours, so we had little time and much to do!

That evening we arrived in Algarrobo and spent the evening making dinner together (Marcello, Erin and yo). Of course it was pasta, because Marcello loves pasta and its so easy to make. We had some kind of baked pasta dish, so good! Marcello is a very good cook! Then we spent the evening just relaxing by the fire (the took Erin about an hour to get really going, it was pretty funny) and drinking Mango sour. Oh and watching Madagascar in spanish. When you know the movie and then listen to it in Spanish, it is so easy to understand. It was a great evening though. The next morning, it was raining! But I woke up the sound of the rain and the crashing waves, and the rain didn't bother me in the slightest. We had a relaxing breakfast and chatted about the economy (doesn't sound relaxing, but it really was). Then we went to a little pueblo (small town) very close to Algarrobo called, Totoral. But this became a huge joke because that night we went to Constanza's for drinks Marcello was absolutely positive the town was called Totoralillo and Constanza knew it was Totoral. We even looked online to find the truth, but Marcello just didn't want to be wrong. So the whole time we saw signs saying "Totoral" we called it "Totoral/Totoralillo" just to appease him. Not much happened in Totoral, pretty much everything was closed since it had been raining. We saw their fería area, but only three booths were open and they didn't sell anything interesting. We saw their museum, but it was more like a garage sale/ thrift store with old things just thrown into a little basement room and they called it a museum. There was a beautiful little church though, and a cool looking cemetery right next to it. Oh and we saw a little farm and fed the lambs/goats through the fence. A couple sucked on my fingers, weirdest feeling ever, but it was fun. :)

After that little adventure we went back the house in Algarrobo and prepared lunch. Constanza and Sergio came that day and stayed for the rest of the weekend with us. So we had a nice lunch and then went on another little adventure to two little towns called, San Antonio and Santa Domingo. San Anotonio was pretty ugly, and we just drove right through. But I guess it is one of the other main navy ports in Chile along with Valparaíso. But Santa Domingo was a gorgeous beach town. We parked the car and walked along the beach as the sun was setting. Tons of people were there flying kites and enjoying the nice day (because the sun finally did come out by mid day). Then after that, we came back to the house and walked to the middle of town in Algarrobo and went to a little cafe for coffee/tea/hot chocolate. This is where we realized it was Erin and I's one month aniversary in Chile, so we of course had to celebrate. We went home and opened up more Mango sour and wine, and enjoyed the night by talked, watching the only reality tv show in chile, and eating and drinking. It was very relaxing but such a fun night. And I even stayed up late, which is unheard of from me lately.

The next day (Sunday July 19th) we didn't actually get moving until like noon. Haha. Then we took a little adventure to the northern part of Algarrobo where I saw the largest/longest pool (like swimming pool) in the world, I guess its in the guiness book or world records. Its a pool closed off the the public, so I don't have great photos, but it was pretty rad to see. Its right on the coast by the ocean. A little absurd since the ocean is right there to swim in, but still cool to see. We had dinner/once/cena in Algarrobo that evening and then headed back to Casablanca. We had queque (coffee cake) and tea with the grandparents and read the newspaper. It cool that I am realizing each time that I pick something up to read there are less and less words I don't understand or need to know to understand the material of what I am reading. Then we finally made it back to Viña, by then I was so exhausted all I did was talk to the family for a bit and then climb into my bed to sleep the night away.

This week has been quite uneventful. This is the last week of my summer program, so the majority of kids are leaving this saturday to go home to the U.S. Which I'm a little sad about, but it will be interesting to meet the new group. Which is ironic, because they all actually arrived today (wednesday july 22) in Santiago, and they will do the same four day trip there that I did when I first arrived in Chile. But last night (tuesday july 21) we had our goodbye dinner at some fancy italian restaurant. The food wasn't that impressive, but the company was amazing. Oh and before we went to dinner, Jordan Gabbi Erin and I went out for ice cream in the best place in Viña. It's called Bravissimo, and its name says it all. It is buenissimo! Oh and it was pouring rain last night, I brought my umbrella, but still by the time we finally made it to the dinner the rain had stopped but I was sopping wet and freezing cold through the whole dinner. But it was still a really fun time.I have definitely made some great friends on this trip so far. Now I feel like I can go anywhere in the states and have some kind of contact there. :)

For the rest of this week and am overloaded with school work, since I have finals this friday, which is two days from now. I have a presentation to give on friday for my final on the Aymara indegenous people of the northern part of Chile, then two final exams (written and oral) for friday in my grammar class. Its a bummer, but I have to get it done. I have to remember that I'm not here to ONLY have fun. ;)

And right now I am actually avoiding doing my homework and studying just so I could update you all. So feel lucky!

Chao for now!

One last note, the saying thats the title of this blog is a saying in chile that I heard and for some reason think is lovely. It means: tummy full, happy heart. So simple but so cute to me. :)