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!!! ^_^

Random Doings

Hey everyone!

Last weekend was full of lots of fun!

On Friday night Leah, Chaz, Jacob and I went to a tradional dance party thing at La Casa Central where a lot of our classes are in Valpo. We payed 2 mil ($4) to get in and got an empanada and a glass of some hot spiced wine. We then got to watch people do traditional dances, some which we had learned in our Traditional Dance class! Chaz and I actually got pulled on the dance floor by our teaching assistant and had to dance the first dance! Go gringos!!! ^_^ We spent the next few hours dancing and watching people dance and having an overall great time! We decided to leave at about 1am as we were planning on going to "La Sala" a club in Valpo. We got there and after a hassle of getting in (Chaz and Jacob decided to go home) it was almost 2am! The club was really cool, like three rooms with different music and all underground! We got a free drink with entry and I think I drank that too quickly cause it's hard to dance with a drink! We met up with some of our other friends and danced for the next few hours! I got home at around 4:30am and started working on Trica stuff. (If you don't know what tricadecathlonomania is you'll have to ask sometime). I went to bed around 5:30am when the internet I was stealing cut out.

Later on Saturday between working on Trica stuff and homework I got invited to a baby shower for a family friend! It was really fun and I won a couple prizes, a tye-dye beanie baby bunny and a pen and notepad set!

The next morning I woke up early to travel with Leah to Laguna Verde (where I got owned by that wave) to watch and support Jacob in his 7km race! Leah, Chaz and I all wore tye-dye to support him and did lots of cheering! He placed like 6th! YAY! As soon as this was done I jumped on the micro to get back to Valpo then on the metro to get to my family who were having an asado (barbecue minus bbq sauce) at the Jardín Botanical (Botanical Garden) in northern Viña. I learned there that an asado pretty much just means grilling enough meat to feed a small army! We ate soo much and there were so much leftovers, even though there were probably 15 people there! I also walked around with my mom and her friend and we looked at lake and worked off some food! It was a super day and weekend!!!

<3Annie

Baby shower cake!

Yay team tye-dye! Go Jacob!

Jacob and trainer, Chaz!

Pretty bridge at lake in Botanical Gardens

Updates (5) - Santiago, Chile

Recently I took a trip to Santiago for part of the weekend with my friend, Eric! We packed up some stuff on Thursday afternoon, booked some beds in a hostel and went to the bus station. We bought our tickets there, only like $7(!!!) and hopped on the bus! We got to Santiago and following my mom's lovely directions got on the Metro and to our hostel without any problems! ^_^ The funny thing was when we got to our room we had four beds just for us! We went out to eat and back to the room to chill and plan activities for the next day! On Friday we planned to talk to the person at the hostel to see what we should do but ended up just walking around! We were looking for a market but ended up just walking around the Bellavista barrio (neighborhood). We found a zoo but it started raining as we were walking up the hill to it. We hid under a tent for a restaurant while it downpoured for a couple minutes. (It was really strange that it was raining... I didn't know it was even on the forecast, even the Chileans thought it was strange that it was raining!) We then ventured out in the sprinkling rain and decided to head down the little hill we were on and find food.

Eventually we came to a cute little cluster of shops and restaurants and ate at one called the Jukebox. It was good but not enough food for us or Eric at least. We wandered back toward our hostel until we found the market we had been looking for earlier. We looked around but didn't buy anything. We started walking down a large road (Avenida Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins) looking for things to do. We passed lots of colleges and government buildings until we were walking around a plaza and a couple of people gave us some of their really bad poetry and started asking us where we were from and if we would give money to help support the arts or something? We talked to them for a little and then they pointing out El Cerro de Santo Lucia (Saint Lucia Hill) that my mom had also recommended we visit. It was so sweet! The trail snaked around the hill with little benches and patios at many levels getting to the top. Each of these patios had statues or pools or fountains. See some of the pictures below! ^_^

We spent a lot of the afternoon walking around there until we decided to keep meandering down O'Higgins Ave until I bought Chirimoya Alegre ice cream (literally translated happy chirimoya but really chirimoya is a fruit and when it's chirimoya alegre its just chirimoya with orange too! ^_^) and we eventually got pizza for dinner! After that a couple of Eric's friends called asking about where we were staying as they were in Santiago for the night as well. We didn't make plans but ran into them later on a crosswalk! What are the chances! ^_^ We then made plans with them to go out but they wanted to take a nap (it was already like 10:30pm) and I needed to change into pants instead of a dress. We went back to our hostel and waited for the friends to call. Eventually they called but I was just ready for bed by then. It was probably like midnight by this time! So I went to sleep instead.

The next morning we packed up everything and went to the bus station. We got on the bus and headed back to Viña! It was such a short trip we both felt like we didn't get to see anything, I think you would need like a week to see a small portion of the city! Regardless it was a blast!

The only bad thing which turned out okay was once we got off the bus and were walking home I realized my phone had fell out on the seat in the bus because of the shorts I was wearing! I didn't know what to do but when I got home and told my parents they said that someone had called and left my phone with the people at the bus station! Thank you so much for the good people in this world! I got my phone back that day and everything is wonderful! Thanks again good stranger!

<3Annie

Psyduck!!!

Going up Cerro Santa Lucia

Poseidon fountain

Updates (4) - La Regata Bicentennial de Valpo!

So for the a few days there were about 9 or 11 old school ships in Valpo bay! They looked pretty much like pirate ships and were super sweet! My family took we over there one of the days and I got to go on a lot of the ships, until I felt sort of seasick and couldn't go on anymore ships. My dad took a gazillion photos of me on the ships and with about every sailor or shipman or women! haha! ^_^ My favorite ship was the Esmeralda Spanish one or the one from Holland which looked the most like a pirate ship! The Mexican one was funny though cause they were blasting music on board! A few days later we went to the beach to watch all the ships leave which was really cool! One of the ships shot off cannons, another one had people standing in bright colors on all the masts! It was a really cool thing to see!

<3Annie

Welcome!

I can drive the ship!

Shipsss!!!!

Lovely shot of me with my princess necklace!

More ship parts!

Watching the ships leave!

Updates (3) - La Serena, Chile

So after the grand Mendoza trip I unpacked all my stuff and repacked for leaving a little before 11 the next day (Thursday) for La Serena, north in Chile. For me and a few others the trip wasn't as fun as it could have been. I chalk this up to two different reasons: 1) that most of us had been traveling for the past few days and were completely burned out and 2) the trip was poorly planned and there was weird amounts of down-time...

Regardless it wasn't a total bust!

We left Thursday morning and drove for a long time, stopping at a gas station to eat some food! After more driving we arrived in La Serena where our first stop was the Hiper Linder, supermarket, to buy food for the weekend. This could have been a large mess but Leanne and I decided to just split peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the weekend.. We got to the hotel and all started cooking dinner, or in my case, eating one of the 3 sandwiches my mom had packed for me! Some people had an asado (grilling meat and vegetables) and others cooked pasta.

The next day we had the whole day open to wander around La Serena. A large group of people and I went into town and walked around. We shopped at some markets, went to archeological museum, and a japanese garden! The japanese garden was very beautiful so we had a picnic there and attracted a large group of ducks! After that I went shopping with a Liz, Sophie and Lindsey but didn't buy anything. That night we got on the bus at about 7:30pm and drove for a while to get to Vicuña to the Observatorio Astronómico Mamalluca (observatory!!!) to look at the stars! It was simply fantastic!!! We got a presentation and got to look at stars through a telescope! We saw Mars and Saturn and a bunch of constellations! After that the people played us a couple songs (this was soo random and really strange!). Although we had plans to go out that night by the time we got back it was about 1am and everyone just wanted to sleep!

Japanese Garden

The duckies want fooood!

Lovely church building in La Serena

Archeological Museum

The family in the park (Chaz, Leah, Jacob, and I)

Saturday we started off the day at Restaurante Solar (Solar Restaurant). This was not at all what I expected! I thought that there would just be lots of solar panels on the roof but in fact there was just little outdoor oven things that cooked food with the heat of the sun! The food was absolutely to die for! ^_^ After this we visited a Pisco Capel factory which reminded me of the wine and bike tour from Mendoza. After that we visited the Museum of Gabriela Mistral. Unfortunately this wasn't that interesting to me as I didn't know much about her. But I did go buy ice cream after, canela (cinnamon) and chirimoya (a fruit)! They were both very good! ^_^ We had a free evening and I hung around the hotel, watching tv and playing pool. Some people went out but I was tired and went to sleep instead.

Sunday morning we left at about noon and got back in the evening where I went out and watched a sunset and bought a necklace from a street vendor who told me I was a princesa (princess) when I left... ^_^

The lovely sunset I watched with a lovely friend!

The ride back to Viña

The cookers at the Solar Restaurant!

<3Annie

Updates (2) - Mendoza, Argentina

More to tell! ^_^

There are so many things to say! I have been mostly going to school, studying/homework, hanging out with friends and eating. But we kinda had some time off for a sort of spring break thing and checked with the other teachers to see if it was okay to leave and Leah, Chaz, Jacob, Eric and I went to MENDOZA, ARGENTINA!!!! ^_^ It was such a blast!

We left after classes on the Thursday before Easter at around 10 at night. The bus ride was supposed to get us to Mendoza at a little before 8 the next morning but customs are a horrible ordeal and had us stuck in stop and go traffic in the Andes for about 4 hours. It was kinda chilly and we all were in glasses and either sitting on the bus or waiting in line. It also took longer because a few of us... (not me) forgot to go to the second line. There were two, one for exiting Chile and one for entering Argentina... haha silly gringos. It didn't really matter but we finally made it into Argentina with the rising sun! We arrived in Mendoza at about 11 and found our way to our first hostel (I ended up staying at 3 over the course of 5 nights). It was super cute with a large boys and large girls room. I forgot to take photos of the rooms, which is sad as it was my first hostel experience! We were all rather tired but decided to wander around Mendoza. This ended up being a grand adventure that last the rest of the day. We visited many plazas which were each super different and fun! Complete with playgrounds!!! ^_^ Jacob declared himself tour guide and using the map we got at the bus station led us to multiple plazas! For dinner we went to a tenedor libre (buffet but quite literally "free fork") which was gigantic! There was about every style of food there and it was just huge in general! ^_^ We all split a bottle of wine and stuffed ourselves silly!

The next day I moved hostels and we made plans to go paragliding but for some reason or another our guide didn't show up.. not sure if it was the weather or something else at the time. This left us with not much of an afternoon but we made the best of it and went to a Serpent Garden and Aquarium and walked around another park. After all this we decided to go to a mini carnival/fairground area... after walking quite a while to get there I decided that it didn't look like enough fun to pay and go into but some people stayed and had a blast. I went back to the 2nd hostel for a rest until dinner. Dinner we went out with a couple of people from Germany and Denmark!

The next morning was a bit of torture... I had to get up at 5:30am, having gone to bed near 3am! After packing up my stuff to move to a third hostel later I got ready to go to hike around Aconcagua, which the highest peak in South America. Now we didn't actually get up there but the glacier was sweet to look at! ^_^ Eric had to go home cause he had to be at school on Monday but we added Jocelyn to our group of Chaz, Jacob, Leah and I and made it to the bus at 7 to take the long ride (about 4 hours) to Aconcagua. Most of us slept part of the ride but when we got there it was beautiful. Oh and btw it was Easter Sunday!!!! A wonderful way to spend the day. I'll put some pictures up but they won't do justice to its beauty. We spent the day hiking/walking around taking pictures and snacking before walking back to town to get a real meal and our bus tickets home. We went to the market and bought some alpaca-wear, socks, scarves, sweaters which we later modeled and took pictures of while waiting for the bus. Oh! and we also saw the Puente del Inca (Inca Bridge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puente_del_Inca ) a natural formation that very pretty! The bus left at 8 that night so it was around midnight by the time we got back to Mendoza, then we had to get our gear and move to the next hostel. In the next hostel we had booked a family room with a double bed and a bunk bed. It was simply adorable and we became a family! We all tied our shoes outside the window as they all smelled horrible from walking all day! It was a funny sight! ^_^ Hilarity also ensued when Jacob and Chaz broke the bathroom door handle from the inside and got stuck which led to them pounding and yelling before Leah went and told them to be quiet and freed them. :D

Monday we got up fairly early to go on a wine and bike tour! That also involved a bus ride, about 30 minutes where we then got off got to Mr. Hugo's bike place, rented some bikes and got a map and large glass of free wine and set off to try some stuff! The first place we stopped at was called Trapiche, which was a super classy wine place! We took a tour, got taught how to taste wines and tasted a few! Next we went to a chocolate and liquor place where we got to sample chocolate, a shot of liquor (I tried and irish cream) and two types of jams! After that we it was getting late but we stopped at one more chocolate and liquors place where I tried Absinthe! That was an experience!!! ^_^ After, we returned our bikes and caught a bus back to our hostel.

The next day we decided to go parapente (paragliding)! In the morning we went over to San Martin park, a giant park in Mendoza and walked around a little before going back to the hostel to wait for our parapente guide. Driving up the hill getting to the top to go was super bumpy and I got really nauseous but it was a blast! Though not the adrenaline rush I wanted it to be, it was just like sitting in the air, super relaxed! Though I felt gross after landing and most of the rest of the day. We ended up going to another tenedor libre where thanks to my friends, I only had to pay half cause I wasn't going to be able to eat much. We returned back to the hostel and called it a night.

The next morning we got up and got to the bus station and by 9:30am we were on our bus back to Viña. Also customs went much smoother and quicker and we got to make use of the fall back daylight savings time so we were back earlyish and got to quickly unpack and repack for our group trip to La Serena the next day! haha what a whirlwind of an adventure!

<3Annie

Aconcagua!!! GLACIER!!!

Aquarium!

SNAKESSS!!!!

Eric was willing to go on a teeter-totter with me!

Group jump shot!

Updates (1)

Hi everyone!
Sorry for being such a lazy blogger and not getting anything up but hopefully I have some fun stuff to tell and show you!

From a very long while ago I went with my family a little south of Valpo to Laguna Verde or near it. I walked on the beach for a while then decided to go swimming cause it was super nice out even though there was a sign warning me against it. My dad and I went in and after a while I totally got owned by a wave. Ended up doing a sort of somersault into my dad's leg, which prevented me from being even more banged up... I did hurt my leg and knee though. I had a bruise on my knee for some time though I think it's healed though. No worries though, I thought it was hilarious and other than my knee and having sand EVERYWHERE it was fun! Here's some pictures! ^_^

<3Annie

Grandma, cousin, me and mom!

BEACH!

Who could not want to go swimming here?