More Updates!!! (June)

So I have lots to say and a few days left to write.

Monday the 31st of May I added a couple more piercings to my collection bringing the number up to 9! I got two bars in my upper left ear and it was quite fun! A new experience using a hollow needle instead of a gun, though technically all my piercings should have been done with a needle. I went to the place my friend had gotten his done less than a week ago, called Tattoo 69 with the really nice piercer named Hueso (literally translated Bone). He decided I looked like Nicole Kidman and called me Nicole the whole time I was there the first time and the second time. ^_^

I spent a lot of May and June going to a bar to watch the NBA finals, which is different for me, but I actually got into watching basketball! I was rooting for the Lakers because of my friend's preference but I learned a lot about both the teams! So a lot of my Thursday, Tuesday and Sunday nights were spent sharing beer and watching basketball.

On the 4th I went with Equipo Gringo (Team Gringo, the "family") and Allison to Con Con, a little north on the coast to a restaurant called La Gatita (The little cat, kitten). It was a seafood restaurant and super delicious! We shared an appetizer called Pastel de Jaiba (crab cake) and I ordered grilled salmon with rice. I received practically a whole fish and it was so good!!! We left the restaurant and made our way back to Viña, walking up a large staircase to catch the practically last micro of the night! When we got back we headed to Chaz's house to watch a movie. We ended up watching something called "Wedding Brothers" that was not very good but still the night was a blast! ^_^

On the 9th of June my parents got to Santiago and stayed there until Friday when they came to Viña! It was super fun! They stayed until the 20th and I had blast showing them around the city and seeing them in general! It was also very cool to have them meet all my friends here!

While they were here, on Saturday the 12th I went with my group to Santiago for the historical tour or human rights tour! We started at the IFSA office in Santiago where we watched a video about the golpe deestado (coup) in 1973. After we went to the Cementerio General (General Cemetery) where we saw the burial sites of lots of famous chileans, including past presidents. There was also a great dedication to los desaparecidos (the disappeared people from the golpe de estado). After this we headed over to Villa Grimaldi, or Parque por La Paz (Park for the Peace), a place where people were tortured during the golpe de estado. The camera I was using broke part way through the cemetery so these pictures are from when I went back with the family and friend.

Cemetery picture.

Desaparecido memorial

Desaparecido memorial

I also got a yellow fever shot the Friday before my parents left and when they actually did leave I got really sick! I had a little yellow fever for a few days which included chills, a fever, body aches, and a really sore throat! But I got over it within a few days.

I celebrated my 21st birthday with a lot of fun! I met up with Leah to work on a project for our spanish class and she had boughten me a beautiful bunch of tiger lilies and a beautiful rose! Later she brought me cookies! ^_^ Fabulous friend! ^_^ That evening my mom threw me a surprise party and invited over Chaz, Leah, and Jacob, as well as my abuelita and cousin! We had drinks and completos and it was a blast! After the family (Chaz, Jacob, and Leah and I) met up with another friend, Allison and headed to the beach to drink a little and meet up with some of my Arizona friends before we headed over to the club Goose for dancing! The whole night was really fun and I didn't get to bed until about 5am!

Pretty flowers from Leah (and me on my birthday!)!!!

That was a few days ago and I spent the time between doing homework, finishing all my final projects and classes! I finished all my classes (except for turning in some art things on Monday) on Thursday and am getting ready to go! I spent a lot of this weekend buying last minute gifts and getting ready to travel! I leave on Thursday morning at 5am from Santiago to northern Chile then on to Bolivia and then a little of Peru then back to Santiago on the 24th and to Viña where I will spend the night then leave to go home (United States!!!!) on the 25th!!!! yay! I'm weeks away from going home and I'm excited! ^_^

<3Annie

The ridiculous office of the semi-senile Bolivian consulate man!

Sorry for the absence!

Hey everyone!
Sorry I haven't written in a while, life has been crazy here! My parents visited for about a week and a half and now I'm desperately trying to catch up on homework and I only have one week left of classes and finals! AHH!!! I'll try to update next weekend when I'm packing things up for my two weeks of traveling to Bolivia and Peru! Only 1 month left!!!! ^_^
<3Annie

Santiago (2)

Hey Everyone!

This weekend I went to Santiago again for just a couple days. I was supposed to go see Cajón del Maipo (a mountain range or something area about an hour away from Santiago) but the weather was crappy and rainy...

I took a bus down on Friday morning (alone! ^_^ ) and met my friend Eric at the metro station just a few feet from the bus station. We checked into our hostel and decided to wander around for a while since we couldn't quite check into our room. We ended up at a museo (museum) and saw the Terrecotta soldiers! I figured there would be more in the exhibit, since there are like 8,000 of them but it was still pretty sweet and Eric and I got to go around reading the exhibit in spanish and trying to figure out what each thing said. This involved questioning each other about words, hypothesizing about others and putting some in my phone to check later! ^_^ It was quite a blast! We spent the rest of the day and evening wandering around some more and being complete Americans. (We ate McDonalds for lunch and Subway for dinner because nothing else looked interesting! haha)

We woke up Saturday with plans to go to Cajón del Maipo but the crappy weather sent us back to Viña instead... Regardless it was a fun trip! ^_^

<3Annie

Isla de Pascua (Easter Island)!!!

So my "family" (Chaz, Jacob, Leah) and I went to Easter Island! I stayed over at Leah's apartment since we were leaving so early in the morning and helped her pack. We slept for a few hours and got up at 4am, walked a couple blocks and got on the transfer bus that would take us to Santiago and straight to the airport. We arrived at the airport, checked in and waited. We snacked on free chocolate samples in the stores and I bought a super expensive bottle of water (like $7!!!). We got on our LAN flight at about 8am on Friday morning and I was quite impressed! The seats were pretty comfy with decent amount of leg room and each seat had a tv screen on the back. We could watch movies (47 choices, including new movies like Invictus and Sherlock Holmes), tv shows, play games, or create playlists and listen to music! I spent my first part of the trip watching Sherlock Holmes and eating the delicious meal we got! I slept some and waited around to get there! We flew in and what a sight it was! We flew around basically the whole island before landing and it was really cool!!!

We got off the plane and went to collect our baggage. I stood guard of some stuff while Jacob looked for our check bags and Leah and Chaz went to find somewhere for us to stay! We had a few names of people who were supposed to be good and eventually got a residencia (kinda like staying in someone's house) with a nice lady named Teresa. She even gave Leah and I leis! ^_^ We then hopped in a couple of taxis with our bags and headed for our home. The weather was absolutely beautiful with the sun, that we had all been missing, shining brightly and a warm gentle breeze. We spent the next few hours getting settled in the taking a walk toward the water to take in the view. At around sunset we got to our first moai (the famous Easter Island heads) and took tons of pictures of the sun setting behind the heads. We headed back home and cooked up one of our first, of many, pasta dinners! This was also the time when we first realized that Teresa, the caretaker of the house, was a little batty. But still a nice lady.

The next day we rented a jeep for 24 hours. We planned to rent ATVs but only Jacob had his driver's license with so we ended up with a jeep instead. The jeep turned out to be really fun because we were all in the same car and could listen to music (there were only 3 radio channels on the island, one played really good rocking music though!)! We spent most of the day driving around the island, getting out and looking at moai and taking lots of pictures! By late afternoon we ended up at Anakena, a really nice white sandy beach. It is in a bay so there weren't even large waves to attack us and the water was so clear that we could be at least 10 feet out and still see the bottom! It was beautiful! Of course we couldn't resist going in and spent a little while there before we decided to head back before the sun set. We spent another evening watching the sun set behind moai and taking lots of pictures. That evening we drove around looking for a club after eating pasta but couldn't really find anything. We stopped and a couple people got drinks and sushi before we headed home to sleep.

Sunday we drove up to a volcano, which is now a lakey-swamp in the bottom in the morning then returned the car and took a taxi back to Anakena to have a beach day! It was gorgeous and I even got a slight tan! Though I'm sure it has already faded away! ^_^ It was such a relaxing day!!! We watched the sunset from the beach though there were rocks in the way and it wasn't as cool as the other days.

Monday we got up with plans to go scuba diving but the waves were too big and it got cancelled. We then decided to rent a jeep for another 24 hours and spend more time exploring the island, possibly ending up at the beach. We drove along and climbed through some sweet lava tubes, as close to splunking/caving I've ever been! ^_^ The view of the water was so great, from in the tubes and out. The water was this indescribable fantastic range of blues that was simply exquisite! We visited some more moai, met a "semi-pro" photographer... (haha, crazy lady carrying about 7 cameras with her!) and headed back to Te Pito Kura (a place with an "energy rock") to eat lunch. As we were eating lunch some smashed a rock through our car window and stole our bags we had left in the car. Yes, this was horrible, especially being that my camera was in the bag I left along with the 700+ photos I had taken over the weekend. This was and is completely terrible... We just hadn't seen anyone for a while and had been feeling safe on the island. The next few hours were a blur for me as I was crying most of the time and we took some pictures of the scene, cleaned the glass off the driver's seat and drove to the police station where we filed a report. Unfortunately this doesn't happen much so this all took a long time. Also there is no real insurance on the island so we had to pay for the broken window... We woke up early on Tuesday morning to see if anyone had ditched the stuff they didn't want from our stuff but couldn't find anything.

So currently I have to pictures to share (we will be doing a picture exchange, but I'll never really have my photos back) and had to buy new glasses (my lovely orange ones got stolen) and I lost a tie-dye, some underware, a bra, a black bandana, my red and white striped umbrella, and my "to kill a mockingbird" bag... losing all these things made me really sad and I still hope that someone could at least return my memory card though I don't have much hope. I got lucky before, maybe some good person will show up again.

<3Annie

This Coming Weekend!

Hello everyone!
This coming weekend I'm going to la Isla de Pascua (EASTER ISLAND!!!!) so I'll update this when I get back! Next week sometime as I don't get back until Tuesday night! Peace and love!
<3Annie

Group Excursion - Curacaví, Pomaire, Isla Negra

I spent both Thursday and Friday night partying at a club called Goose, which unfortunately doesn't open until 12:30am, but was lots of fun! Both days I got in free (awesome!) by either a friend putting us on the list or having a pass! On Saturday I found out there is an upstairs bar for just girls where they drink free! So AWESOME! On Saturday I only spent money on water and a coat check so a cheap evening for me! We danced so much! The only bad thing about the club is they serve drinks in glass glasses so the dance floor ends up covered in shards of broken glass that I feel the need to constantly kick away. Regardless the club has great lights and screens playing the music videos for all the music they play and was tons of fun! On Saturday I finally rolled into bed at about 5:15am and then I got to get up at about 8:15am on Saturday for our group day-trip! Yikes! Can you say sleep deprived!? ^_^ Nevertheless the trip was lots of fun!

We started off at Curacaví, where we visited a chocolatería (chocolate factory) which was really small but super cool! We got to try practically a whole box of chocolates with some sweet flavors! These were all pretty much chocolate with a soft mousse-like center that was flavored in some exotic way. We tried a sweet basil, oregano (possibly my favorite, though someone did correctly mention that it reminded them of Subway), ají (pepper/chili, which wasn't really spicy at all!), cardamomo (cardamom, also delicious), limón del pica (lemon creme, really good), clavo de olor (clove, tasted like chai tea and christmas), mascapone (a sort of cream cheese in chocolate), and another mascapone with frambuesa (raspberry) flavoring! These were so delicious but a lot of chocolate to be eating after a night of partying! Here's the website of the chocolatería (www.brunatto.cl). Ps: They even had Kamasutra chocolate pieces with the figures in relief (sculpture wise). We then got on the bus and headed to the next place!

Tasting lots of yummy chocolates!

We next stopped at Pomaire, a small town that specializes in clay artisan stuff! Especially clay piggy banks! Basically this was just a stop to shop and spend money and thats what we all did! I bought a pretty scarf (yes I have bought about 6 since being here! ^_^ ), and a clay piggy bank for my host mom (by request), and one for myself. I also bought a pretty flower hair thing made of leather!

The final stop we made was in a town called Isla Negra (Black Island, though not an island at all). Here we visited another one of Pablo Neruda's houses (he has 3, one in Valparaíso, Isla Negra and Santiago). This one was designed to look like a boat and was filled with more of his eccentric decorations and collections. There was a large number of "mascarón de la proa" (figureheads, the figures on the bow of ships) that took up quite a lot of room! Once again the bedroom was awesome with a great bed and amazing view of the ocean! I'm really liking Pablo's eclectic style! ^_^ We then got on the bus and drove back home!

<3Annie

A Weekend of Homework and Fun

So two weekends ago I decided to spend the weekend getting ahead of homework since a couple friends were going to be gone and I didn't have much to do! Although I got a sufficient amount of homework done I still managed to do lots of other fun stuff!

On Friday (the 30th) I went to see Iron Man 2 with my sister! It was in english with spanish subtitles and was a blast! The movie was super good and it was a fun night!

On Saturday I once again had only plans to work on homework but was invited, by my family, to go to a birthday party for a family member in Rancagua, a city south of Santiago. I went and it was also lots of fun, though it was farther away than I expected. About 2 hours. We got cake and watched 80's music videos for a while! ^_^

On Sunday I got up super early, like 5:30am, to go to Villa Alemana to watch another one of Jacob's races! This one was way bigger and more fun than the first! There was a group of dancers who lead a dance warmup before the race and there were stands that gave us hot chocolate and cookies! The race had about 1000 people in it, some running the 4k some the 10k (the one Jacob did). He came in about 25th place and it was a blast!

<3Annie

Here's some photos from that weekend!

Delicious cake from the party!

Singing!


Early morning micro rides

Starting the race!

Run Jacob RUN!!!

Team Tye-Dye gringos! Free Super 8 bars!!! ^_^