Old photos

So my friend Kayla, she was studying here in Chile with me during the summer program, she sent me some photos from her last night here. I told you all about that night, my first night staying out until like 4 or 5 am! Yeah here are some of the photos so go along with that crazy night.

Clapping like they do in the cueca dance... I love Erin's look in this one

Kayla, Marcelo and I

Below: me, Abbey, Ani, Jess, Erin on the phone (these are all such amazing people, some of my closest friends from the trip, including Kayla as well)

Kayla, me, Erin, Marcelo

These were the random group of boys we met in a bar/club. All very nice people!

Domingo 29 de agosto 2009

I am quite proud of myself and how much I have been keeping up with the blog lately. But if you all want to know, I ma using it as an excuse to procrastinate on my homework. I need to write a paper, its only two pages, but I just really don't want to do it. So I thought maybe if I got in the writing mood by starting out here then maybe it would be a little easier to start. And well the other problem is that I don't have caffeine to keep me motivated, no tengo mi chai té de Starbucks, es muy muy triste. BUT Starbucks is coming to Viña! On September 11, 2009 the first Starbucks in Viña del Mar is going to open. Yeah only a few more weeks and then I can have chai! But only on occasions because it is really expensive here.

So now to the actual reason I am posting. Yesterday (Sunday August 29th) we had a family lunch, but it was only the kids, no parents! It was held at Constanza's house and the guest list included: Constanza, Sergio, Marcelo, Gabriel, Maite, Ignacio, Javiera, Erin, and I. It was quite an interesting day. Marcelo had thrown out his back the day before so he could barely walk, and since no one else could drive we all had to walk from Pili's house down to Constanza's. I felt so bad for Marcelo, he has been in a lot of pain, but despite that I still teased him about being an old man. So on the walk to Constanza's, we decided we needed to bring something, we didn't want to show up empty handed. So we went to all kinds of little stores to find some juice and fresh bread sticks type things, so more walking for poor Marcelo. So as the day already started a little crazy, it of course had to get more interesting once we got to Constanza's apartment. Once we arrived, we found out that there was a hurt cat on their patio. I guess Constanza in the morning had opened up the windows and her patio door to air out the house, and a cat came running in. The tried to catch it and it ran under the stove, but when it came in it already had a hurt leg. Finally they we able to catch it and put it out on the patio where it just laid down and shivered and looked very sick and hurt. Constanza gave it a bowl of milk and tried to feed it some pieces of ham but it wouldn't eat, so a clear sign it was pretty injured. So as we finally sat down to eat lunch, a woman came to the door asking if we had seen a little gray and white cat. She came in and claimed him and told us that the cat had jumped from a window or balcony from the second floor and must have landed on his leg and hurt himself. Why the heck would a cat just jump off the second floor, I think it might have been trying to commit suicide because where the apartment is there are no trees or anything where the cat would want to jump into. Who knows, but I hope the cat doesn't have any internal injuries or hopefully the owner took the cat to the vet. I don't even want to think if it died.

So for lunch we had mexican style food, we had all the fixings for burritos. Homemade guacamole, corn, veggies, and meat for everyone else. They were very good!

Then we had fresh fruit and raspberry ice cream for dessert, and coffee/tea. Erin of course had to bring her camera to lunch, so we took some family photos. They turned out pretty well, well minus my goofy look in almost all of them. It was fun though having all of us together, it is pretty rare since the younger kids always have training or games they have to play, so not much time spent with all of us in the same place.

Below (From left to right): Gabriel, Erin, Ignacio (in red in the front), Marcelo, Maite, me, Javiera, Constanza, and Sergio

Gabriel and I... this one is actually pretty good. Él es muy muy tierno! (he is very sweet)

All of us on the sofa... taking these pictures on the timer, turned out to be quite the ordeal

Gabriel was sitting on me in this one, thats why you can barely seen me!

We were listening to Michael Jackson. I call this the "Thriller" photo, Erin is MJ and Marcelo and I are the dead back-up dancers. And then of course there is Gabriel's hand right in front of my face, so nice of him! He loves to tease me!

This is our gangster photo, I mean its obvious right. ;)

I also thought I would post a few more photos of the house and area in Viña. I need to take more, but it is a slow process.

This is the outside of my house. Its blue and I love it.

This is the entryway/entrance into the house. Each house is gated in to keep them a little more secure. On the left is where Pili and TuTí keep their cars. The little red one is Pili's. And then on the left, closer is the side wall of the neighbors house and then if you keep walking up that path, our house is on the left as well. But the neighbors house has its own gate, we don't share.

This is the view right outside our house, from the outside gate. Yes everyday I walk down my hill with the amazing view of the ocean!

This is a side street near our house, its right off of Pedro Montt, the street I live on. I walk this street everyday on my way to the metro station.

Erin took this photo and I stole it from her. This is the view from one of the windows in the house. That big building is an apartment building and then next to that you can see the ocean and a ship out there. But the sky was just too beautiful to now show you all.

One more thing to share with you all, it was so cute. I wish I had my camera to take a photo though. I went for walk along the ocean this morning and as I was walking back up my hill, almost to my house, I saw a dad and his little son (maybe 5 years old) walking down the hill across the street. It was so cute because the little boy was dressed exactly like a pirate! I really had the urge to yell, "Argh matey" to him... but I didn't want to come off as a crazy gringa.

Clases de cocina!

Clases de cocina (cooking classes)!

So last week I told Pili that I wanted to learn how to make some traditional chilean food so I could cook it back home for everyone. Today (wednesday 26 de agosto 2009), I had my first class. Pili taught Erin and I how to make "manjar" and "pan de huevos." Manjar is the same as dulce de leche if anyone had tried that, its pretty much amazing and people eat it here like crazy. If they could I'm sure they would eat it on everything. It kind of reminds me of that movie "Elf" where he puts maple syrup on everything. Yeah the chileans are pretty much the same, they put manjar on all different kinds of things. But I am not surprised because it is delicious!

And this is what Pan de Huevo looks like (see below). Well sort of, it looks better in person and with Pili's recipe. I realized half-way through the

cooking lesson that I should have been taking photos of each step to show you all and them myself, easier to remember, more than just writing down the recipe. So next time I am going to take photos to share the experience with you all! :)

Next week's lesson: Sopaipillas, Chancaca,

Pebre, and I think another salsa verde

(green sauce) made with cilantro and other

ingredientes. So yes I will share that with you all next week! I am very excited, can't wait to

get home, cook/bake with my mum and then share all this yummy food with you all.

Just another wonderful day in Chile!

Hola!

So today has been quite a nice and relaxing day. Erin and I walked to class this morning in Viña, and once we got there we found out it was cancelled! Yeah that pretty much made my morning. And on top of that the sun has been shining today and it has been pretty warm... its only a little chilly because of the wind.

It has also been day two of seeing the crazy neighbor in the window. It of course freaked me out as it did the time before. But I noticed him as I was about to leave for class, so I looked at him from outside as I walking walking our house gate. And its heard to tell in these photos, but he actually has his face a little looking through the curtains. It looked like only his nose and maybe one eye. I truly hope his wife does find him and freak out, I would be terrified!

Another little thing. This cute little guy was outside this morning as I left for school, and he was still there when I returned, so I had to snap a photo of him. I think there was something wrong with him, because these little guys should be moving really fast and

he was barely moving when you came close. So I got TuTí to move him for me to a nice little earthy/grassy/sunny area... yeah I was too chicken to do it. Most of you already know bugs and crawly critters and me just do not mix! But I thought maybe he was going to die, or he just needed more sun, so I wanted him to live a nice rest of his life, not knowing if he had much longer to live. Yes I care about the crawly critters, I just choose not to purposely mingle with them. My dad could tell you all funny stories of me and bugs, the HUGE bee that just had to fly in through my window and hit me, or the HUGE dragonfly that just had to choose my car as its final resting place. Yeah bugs seek me out on

own, I don't even need to go find them. It's like they taunt me because they know I fear them!

Quintay

Update on my sister Maite and her volleyball team: They won second place at the tournament, a team from Poland won first place. And also Maite won an award fro best in her position, which is striker or something like that. As you can tell I know nothing about volleyball... I'm sure this will change with all the games I am sure to see here in Chile.

Saturday (August 22, 2009) Pili, Marcelo, Erin and I took a little day-trip in the afternoon/early evening to a place called, Quintay (pronounced: keeeentie). It was an amazing day, just so warm and beautiful, no clouds in the sky at all, so we packed a little picnic and off we went. The trip was a little bit of a windy road through the forest, which was okay with me because there were trees all around us and it reminded me so much of the forests back in Idaho. But at one point as were driving we had to almost come to a screeching halt because in the middle of the road were huge branches from nearby trees. We all got out and moved them from the road because it was so dangerous and we didn't want any other cars to accidently hit them and cause a bad accident. But as we were moving them to the side of the road, Pili saw a couple kids up above the road on the hills hiding. They must have been the one's to put the branches there just waiting for something bad to happen, it was so awful and mean. The things some kids get joy out of is beyond me! But as we continued driving, we came a few more areas where it looked liked the same thing had occurred with the branches but that others had either moved out of the way or tried to drive over them (which was almost impossible). So when we came across some carabineros (chilean policeman) on the side of the road, we had to pull over and warn them about the branches and the kids in the hills watching. So hopefully they did something about it! It was funny though because as Pili was talking to the carabinero from the passenger car window, Erin was reaching over me to take a photo. I wasn't sure of what until afterwards, but she tried to get a photo of one of the carabinero's because he had his pants zipper down! Oh if only she had gotten the photo, it would have been priceless!

But after those little events we finally arrived in Quintay, an extremely small little town on the coast. It was so pretty because the whole drive we were surrounded by trees and forest, and then after many many curves out of nowhere appears the amazing ocean and this little tiny town. Such a beautiful view, indescribable. So while in Quintay we just walked around a bit, went into the Ballena plant (ballena means whale), a place where they used to kill whales and take them there to get everything from the animal, the oils, meat, skin, etc. Yeah the thought of it was a little disgusting to me, but still all part of the experience. And it makes sense because Pili told me that Quintay and that region is known for their amazing mariscos (shell fish), seafood. So below are some of the photos from that little walk, ocean and the whale pant museum.

This is right when we got out of the car and what I saw. I just thought Quintay was so quaint and beautiful.

Below: This is the only photo I took inside the Ballenera... because the rest was pretty much nothing. There were some graphic black and white photos of dead whales in different stages of tearing them apart and taking everything they could. So I am sparing you all, so nice of me I know. :)

Yeah I wasn't in the photo taking mood today, so this is the only one of me that I posed for. This is Erin, mi mamá chilena (Pili), and me.

Below: Poor timing here! Look how mad I look and I didn't even know a photo was being taken. Note to my mum: doesn't my face in this picture remind you of that picture of my in dad's truck. Where all of Nick's friends got to pose for a picture in the back, and all you can see is my little head from the inside window and I am so pissed! Haha, yeah apparently I still make that look. We all laughed pretty hard about this photo since I look like I am on the hunt to murder someone! Haha

Another lovely photo of me that Marcelo snuck in! Oh my gosh he is sneaky! And yes I look awful I know, I guess candids just don't work for me.

And by this point I was so done with photos I was hiding while Pili and Erin laughed at me. Marcelo loves to tease me with the camera!

Mother and son (Pili and Marcelo)...muy lindo (very cute)!

Look at the little pool the ocean made... yeah I want to come back and swim there!

Cool looking door that Marcelo pointed out to me. Very interesting architecture here. We found later on in downtown Quintay, a church made from an old wooden ship! Yeah pretty damn cool in my book! :)

Then after that little part of the trip, we hopped back in the car and went to another little beachy area in another part of Quintay. It was called, "La Playa Grande." Here we enjoyed the beach... but you had to cross a little river to get to the nice part of the beach. The combination of water and clumsiness prevented me from getting over, but I enjoyed the view from the other side. Here was enjoyed sandwiches, juice, and tea/coffee. It was very nice since we were eating as we watched the sun set. Muy increíble! (very incredible!).

Below is the pretty side of the beach that I didn't go to but I enjoyed from afar.

Just a pretty wave..yes always photos of the ocean!

So this was the little rock path to cross to get to the pretty side of the beach. Yeah it looks easy... but those rocks are slimy and slippery! Yeah water and my clumsiness are not a good mix... I almost fell in, so I turned back knowing if I went farther I for sure would get soaked!

This is how you had to get across. You needed sturdy sticks to help keep the balance.. but the sticks wouldn't even help a clumsy person like myself. But I sure did enjoy watching Erin and Marcelo make their way back and almost falling numerous times. I love Marcelo's face in this one, so surprised! And then Erin almost falling. The perfect entertainment. :)

I just had to post this photo, because I told them all to give serious faces. But Pili apparently didn't get that memo... or has another idea of what "serious" means. Or she was just shocked at me flashing them all like the crazy gypsy woman (from an older post). Kidding of course! But seriously, we all laughed hard over this one!

The Quintay trip was wonderful... just the perfect day. Since saturday though not much has been going on. Sunday, we had a family lunch, so Marcelo, Constanza and Sergio all joined us. Everyone was here accept Maite since she is still in Europe. I watched the majority of the family eat all kinds of shelled fish and other unknown meats to me while I, Marcelo and Constabza enjoyed pasta (we are the picky ones (mañosos). Haha it was pretty interesting though, but not an appetizing smell. Fishy smell all through lunch! But after our very long lunch, at least 2 hours since we sat around and talked, we started to plan our trips for the rest of my time here in Chile. So that was exciting, once everything is finalized I will let you all know where I will be going, unfortunately not too many big trips, but still very exciting.

But now it is back to school and classes. So now I need to get studying more... more hours of reading in Spanish! wish me luck!

Chao for now!

Britt