As per your suggestion...

Things that I miss.... which may or may not be suggestions of things to send me between now and the end of July....

 - Nutella (obv)

 - Pretzels

 - Reese's cups

 - Stolen triangular pens from Dubois Bookstore (my favorite pens... 1 of mine died, and the other has been lost somewhere, sad day!)

 - York Peppermint Patties

 - Pictures of you people -- I brought a few, but for some reason, I was super stingy, and I don't really have a way to print out such things down here. 

 - Stride light blue gum

 - Special K Red Berries cereal

 - Skim milk

 - Salad / Salad dressing / anything resembling healthy food

 - YOU! 

oh, and just in case you forgot...

Juli Smith

Av. Brasil 2950 (PIIE)

Valparaíso

Chile

hasta luego!

Trip to La Serena

   Well world, I went to La Serena, Chile (North of Viña del Mar). Can't say that it was really a vacation hot spot... but it was fun.

   I went with my whole IFSA-Butler group PLUS the 7 intermediate students (who we've never met before... awkward... and who take classes only with each other, starting at 8am every day, at another university)... so there were like 40 gringos in all, plus 3 adults... and everything was paid for (except food) and planned out for us. yessssss

   The trip up was about 6 hours on Thursday morning -- pretty uneventful. We got there, decided who was in which cabin (6 ppl each) and bought groceries accordingly (for a few dinners and sack lunches) ... We had pasta (no surprise there) the first night and delicious chicken stir fry of sorts the second night .... ended up with a lot of left-overs, but there ya go. It was nice to be able to pick our meals and cook for ourselves, (more or less) though... I really miss that.

   So, Friday we had until like 5 to ourselves, so we saw about all there was to see in La Serena. That's right -- it only took 6 hours. Seeing as it was really cloudy in this beach town, we went into town...  It was a cute town, but really not much different than Viña... though it is the 2nd oldest city in Chile, so we saw some historical stuff, a Japanese garden, (???) and some SUPER ghetto museums.. like 11th grade science fair type stuff. Sweet.

   Friday night, we went to the Mamalluca Observatory .... it was SOOOOO incredible and so ridiculously worth it. It was 2 hours away (again, nothing at all in La Serena) and we just saw SOOO many stars. I saw 8 shooting stars (I'd never seen one before) and Saturn, and galaxies, and the Milky Way. So freaking cool.

  Saturday, we drove 1 or 2 hours to go to this all solar-powered restaurant-- delicous solar food, but kinda a bummer that we wasted so much gas to get there.... but.... 

 On the way back, we went to a Pisco factory (Pisco is a grape-derived liquor that's like the Chilean version of tequilla) -- fun and included free samples.

   Thennnn we went to this so-not-worth-it museum of Gabriel ... someone... she was a

 Nobel Prize winning author (that like 2 ppl had heard of)... the museum was almost as impressive as she was, and included the Christmas stockings of her and her secret lesbian lover.

   Sunday was the 21st birthday of one of the girls in the program (who was on the trip) so we had a party for her... 

which made the bus ride back on Sunday a little more fun, as everyone was either tired, hung over, or still drunk. Additionally, the program people some how decided it was a great idea to go to this national park (Fray Jorge) on the way back to go for a little hike. So, we left at 9am and went about 1 or 1.5 hours in the right direction, got off our big charter bus, and got into 2 smaller buses because the way to the park was very "complicado"... sooo it took 2 hours to get up to the park, and along the way, a girl on my bus threw up "due to motion sickness..." yeah. So that was pleasant. So the hike was about 40 mins, (so incredibly not worth it) we had our picnic lunch, made the 2 hour journey back down the mountain (without an encore, thank goodness) and got back to Viña at about 8pm (11 hours after we left!!)

   It was all in all a really fun trip, because I haven't really seen/spent time with a bunch of people in my group since orientation or the very beginning of school, so it was cool to all be (force to be) together again.. plus there were the 7 new people, so all in all, a very fun weekend!

Mendozzaaa

   Well I finally made it across the border! I went to Mendoza, Argentina this past weekend with two friends, Ashley (girl I met at church who is an independent exchagne student from Chicago) and Rachel (a chilena from church) -- suuper fun!

Here's the scoop...

   Thursday: Bus trip to Mendoza (8:30am to about 5:00 local time) -- found Hotel Terminal and walked around Mendoza a bit, got a bite to eat, visited tourism office, ran into my random English friend I made on the trails in Patagonia (!?), and headed back to the hotel for an early night.

Our hotel... Not so much the Ritz. There were 3 beds (a plus) and our own bathroom... which kind of included a shower. What do I mean? Well.. the whole room was the shower. That's right, folks, you literally just turn on the water and shut the door... no curtain.. no tub... just one big, wet room. Oh, and there was a squeegee thing to help push the water into the drain in the middle of the room. (btw, bathroom had a bidet... but no shower...) Ghe-tto. Also, it was in the not-so-nice part of town, right next to a Gentlemen's club, so our room vibrated alllll night with the sounds of bad American techno/rap. yessssss. It was less that $10 a night, so I mean, the price was right... but I don't exactly recommend it to you.

   Friday: Woke up at 9am, thinking it was 8am due to mysterious cell phone time-change confusion (Arg is apparently 1 hour different)... went to the biggest park ever (San Martin -- literally the same size as the city of Mendoza) and went to the zoo there, had a picnic, and just generally enjoyed the wonderful weather.

In the afternoon, we rented bikes and went on tours of a wine vineyard, an olive oil factory, and a chocolate factory - by far the best part of the trip (each stop included a tour and samples). Though the bikes weren't top notch, we had a lot of fun riding around Maipu to the various family-owned places. Afterwards, we went out to one of the main streets, Aristides, and then went to the Plaza Independencia (The huge/main plaza in the center of town) and looked at all of the millions of stands with local crap and crafts and the (sometimes) talented street performers. 

   Saturday: Umm... this was the day that we decided to be sucked into a tourist trap. This was NOT my idea... but we went to the Termas, which are "natural" (sike) hot springs about 45 mins outside of town. We took a bus (which had a specific departure and arrival time, aka couldn't leave early) and went to the place, which had like 7 or 8 pools of varying temperatures. In theory, semi-interesting... but we live on a (free) beach... and everyone in the WORLD was there with us. Soooo yeah... We decided to do 'el grito'  (something to make us scream) while there, so we went repelling in the Andes- way scarier than it looks, but a lot of fun!!

We got back after that day, took a long nap, and headed out for dinner to San Martin/ Garibaldi (the main streets) 

-- and then wandered around Plaza Independencia after dinner (again). 

   Sunday: We found a Baptist church and went to THE strangest Easter service EVER where neither Jesus, nor his death was mentioned on Easter-- only the importance of living a Purpose-filled life, and how great it was that the whole church was gonna start reading Rick Warren's book (this included Tshirts for sale)... sooooo strange. Thennn we went up to the main streets to go shopping but, SURPRISE! It was Easter and everything was cloooseddd... so we poked around Mendoza, got to know the many many plazas, and ate until our 10:30pm bus.

   The bus trip was like 8-10 hours (depending on the time needed at the aduana/customs) ... the bus was SUPER nice, and the seats nearly reclined all the way... so that wasn't really as terrible as it might sound. On the way up, the trip was during the day, so we got beautiful views while driving through the Andes, which was sooo cool, and then on the way home, it was the middle of the night, (we got home at 7am) so we mostly just slept (as must as was possible)... 

   All in all, a wonderful trip, though a little annoying that so much was closed on our last day... oh well, just means that I saved some money. :) 

This weekend I go to La Serena, Chile (north) with my whoooole IFSA-Butler family! Wooo

Hasta luego, world!

I'm legit!!

I'm a legit Chilena! Here's proof!

further evidence.... this little wonder that I bought yesterday...

yessssssssssss

fútbollllllllllllll

Hello world,

  I went to my first professional soccer game last night! It was the Chile vs. Uruguay game in Santiago, and I went with a bunch of the girls from my IFSA program!

  I don't really know that much about the World Cup, but it is every 4 years (the next one is next year, 2010) -- and so there are many different rounds of qualifications to get there.. and the game I went to last night was in one of them! From what I can understand, only a certain number of teams from each region can go to the World Cup (4 from South America, I believe).. So you have to win 4 games against ppl from your region to get to the next level, and so whoever won last night got 1 step closer to getting to the Copa Mundial next year! (It was Chile's 2nd game, they won their 1st game against Peru last weekend, and the other 2 teams they play later in the season are supposed to be really easy) 

  Sadly, it was a tied game 0-0 (but they still get some points toward going to the Copa Mundial...?) Kind of a bummer... but it was still a super fun and pretty exciting game! The fans were CRAZY with their Chile pride- - soooooo much red evvvverywhere, and since the vast majority of tickets are pretty cheap, (and general admission-- soo annoying) the stadium was filllllled with red Chilenos. The chants and songs sung were really fun, too (though nothing compared to RedHawk hockey...) ! Here's a fun fact - instead of booing the other team, Chileans do the most annoying and high-pitched whistling possible whenever the other team has the ball! Que bueno!

 

So yeah, that's the quick recap of my latest aventura Chilena!

hasta luego!