Puro Caballo

On our first Saturday our study abroad group had our first excursion. About half an hour inland of Valparaiso we stopped at a chocolate factory and were able to by some chocolate. It wasn't very good chocolate though, but at least I got to climb a walnut tree and a windmill of an old guy working when the wind blows.

After stopping by at the chocolate factory we continued inland a little bit to a ranch called Puro Caballo. We saw two people dance the national chilean dance called the Cueca. There were also two people playing music or it. One playing the guitar and one playing the accordian.



Afterwards we ate lunch in a restaurant there. For everybody but Jen it was a huge slab of meat and mashed potatoes. They made a salad and mashed potatos for Jen. For desert we had a baklava type thing with manjar (dulce de leche) instead of honey and nuts. There were also oranges and pineapples. I gave Jen my pineapple.



After lunch we sat down at the rodeo ring and watched a horse show. They demonstrated the agility of the chilean horses that can actually run sideways and showed how they catch bulls with the horses.


In the end they demonstrated how the horse could even dance the Cueca.

Josh's 24th Birthday

Jen and I spent the day together on my birthday (like we've spent every other day together on this trip). After our classes we had lunch at home. I don't remember what it was any more, but I'm sure it was awesome because our chilean mom always made us awesome food. After lunch we walked to the beach and spent some time practicing the sport that's even more popular in Chile than soccer, especially on the beach or any public place really.




We took a frisbee with us to the beach and started throwing it back and forth to each other. It almost hit a couple of people that were sitting on the beach and after awhile one of them started playing with us.


We played frisbee until sunset. After the sunset we walked to the supermarket where Jen made me wait outside while she got ingredients for dinner which she wanted to be a surprise for me. I waited in the bedroom writing in my journal while she got dinner ready, which ended up being what I suspected, a delicious vegetarian lasagna. It was so good that our chilean father that hates mushrooms took a second serving.



After dinner, Gloria (our host mother) brought out a birthday cake. We sang happy birthday and ate the cake. Afterwards, I worked on my homework... watching the soccer game between Chile and Bolivia.

Valparaiso- First City Tour

This is one of the main plazas in the city. It is right in front of the port area, and has a sculpture of Arturo Pratt. So, I can't remember exactly, but he was a naval hero who was killed in the war between Chile and Bolivia and Peru. Maybe Chile's war of independence. Anyway, every city in Chile has at least one street named after him.
When they were planning this monument, they asked Rodin for a sculpture, and he made one of a fallen hero, naked, with a yelling angel over him. The goverment said they were looking for something a little less alegorical. Rodin was pretty offended. But they now have a maquette of his sculpture in front of the Cultural Center in Vina del Mar, which I did a report on for my class.




This is a view of Vina del Mar, from a place called Yugoslavia Street. There were evidently quite a few immigrants from there. Also many from Italy and Germany. Now it is in Cerro Alegre\Cerro Concepcion, part of the city that is designated by UNESCO as a world heritage area. Its kind of artsy and touristy now. Here's a picture of Josh on that same street, and another view of the hills.



This is a statue that was meant to be about justice, since it's in front of the courts in Valparaiso. However, the people who commissioned the artist did not pay what they had agreed to, so instead of blind-folded woman with a scale, she has a sword and she's looking at everyone. Our guide said that the artist wanted to say there is no justice in Chile.


This is Marlenne, she was our guide for all the city tours and workshops we did on tuesdays during our time in Chile. She is studying law at the Universidad Catolica where we took our spanish courses. We became friends and we went to her home many times with the missionaries and Todd for lessons.
These are some examples of the graffitti in Valapraiso. It is quite common, and most of it is really good or at least interesting. There will be more pictures to come.

Intro to Viña

This is out in front of the main building of the Universidad Catolica en Valparaiso. The part with the trees is like an island splitting the street. Most of the streets here are one way, which is nice, you only have to check one direction before crossing. You can buy churros here during the day. (please notice the sleeping dog... Chilean cities seem to have a lot of street doggies, and kitties. Josh is always nudging and pulling me so that I don't have to watch where I step)

Can you find the Joshua?

On our second night here, we taught our papá how to play Shanghai, a fun game that we used to play with my grandparents. We' ve played a few times with a different winner each night. Most recently El Viejo won.

This is a view of the little row of souvenir shops along the beachfront at night. But even better was the little Feria Artesanal, kind of like a tiny arts festival that was only there until the 21st. There were all sorts of artists, like a guy who did silkscreen and made cool purses out of mylar and beads (I bought 3, because they were all so cool I couldn't decide). Also there were older ladies who knitted housewares, people who made puppy sweaters, a man who made slippers, loads of jewelry - some glass, some silver, some made of shells and seeds, and a family who made trixie puzzles out of wood. We stayed a long time trying to figure them out.






This is the nice new friend we met there, his name is Kamilo. He's from Bogotá, Columbia and everything he makes is out of shells or seeds or orange peels all curled up and dried. We talked for quite a while, he's so nice and interesting. It was so hard to decide what I wanted to buy, I ended up getting a very colorful bracelet. He paints a little picture on each bag, and let me choose which one I wanted and gave it as a present. He filled the bag with rosemary leaves and flowers along with the bracelet. We hope the fair comes back so that we can talk with him again.

Viña del Mar Day 1

We woke up at 6:30 Sunday morning and packed everything up before leaving to catch the metro back to the airport to meet the rest of our group and take a bus to Valparaíso.





While on the bus we listened to the Bourne Identity some more and ate the apple that we paid $153 for.




After an hour and a half to two hours we arrived to the Catholic University in Valparaíso where we met our mamá and papá (Gloria and Pablo). They drove us to their house in Viña del Mar where we met their son (also named Pablo). We walked around town with Pablito a little bit before having lunch and meeting their neighbors that are always over (Cumba and Carlitos). They also have a little dog named Cleo that makes pig sounds when she wants attention.














Our host family is great. They are so kind and accomodating. Gloria makes us great food and makes sure that we feel comfortable and at ease and have fun. The family jokes around a lot and laughs. We have our own room with a large bed and a door that locks. We've been having lots of fun with them.

Santiago

We arrived in Santiago at about 7:30 in the morning Santiago Time, which is 5:30 back home. We didn't get too much sleep on the airplane because it wasn't extremely comfortable, so we were pretty tired by the time we got through customs the second time. I guess we'd better explain that. When we went down the escalator after getting off the plane there was a sign saying reciprocity fee that looked like it was to a line of booths right by the bottom of the escalators. We got in the line and made it to the booth where they told us we had to pay our reciprocity fee which was in another line to the left back behind the escalators where we couldn't see it before. So we went and paid the fee and went through customs again. When we walked out of the airport we were bombarded by taxi and van drivers wanting us to take their vehicles to the city. One of them was pretty persistent and with our limited Spanish we told him that we were going to look at our map first and sit down to decide what we wanted to do. After studying our map and the plans we already had we told him we were going to 'coger el bus,' which in some countries means take the bus, but we later found out that its a bit more vulgar in chile. Woops! The taxi driver didn't mention it though. He was kind and told us where to catch the bus and where to get off to catch the metro. So we took the bus and metro to downtown Santiago without any problems.

After getting off the metro we started walking the wrong direction towards the temple, but somebody asked us where we were going and gave us directions to the temple. We walked about 8 blocks before reaching it, walking along side a bicycle lane as we arrived.

We went to the Temple lodging behind the temple where we received our rooms. Unfortunately, the temple lodging has separate rooms for men and women, even if they are married. Jen was able to meet some lovely ladies in her room, but there was never any other guy in Josh's room when he went in. We had a gorgeous view of the Temple with its pretty flowers and fountain.

We did some sealings and an endowment session on Friday night. We were both so tired and had trouble staying awake. We did some sealings the following morning and then went to our hostel in downtown Santiago.

That day we walked around Santiago a little bit and while walking through the Parque Florestal we came across Abe Lincoln.

While walking through the park we also found a playground with the coolest playground equipment I've seen. It had this polyhedral shaped object with ropes through it to climb around on. So we joined all the little kids playing on it.

At the end of the park we saw this interesting piece of grafitti.

Afterwards we stopped by at the Museum of fine arts. It happened to be free this day.

After visiting the Museum and skating around on their slick wooden floor we walked down the street to Cerro Santa Lucia. We climbed up to the top and had a great view of the whole city. We snapped a few photos, but they don't do justice to what we saw.

By this time Jen was extremely hungry, thirsty, and had a headache (it had been much longer than the two hours she is used to going without meals). We passed by the Plaza de Armas while looking for a place to eat and took a picture of this statue.

After getting a bit of food we went to the supermarket and saw this little girl doing her own grocery shopping.

We bought a frozen pizza, took it back to our hostel, heated it up and ate it. We listened to the Bourne Identity a little bit before going to bed.