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?

Unsatisfying update... but at least an update!

Sorry everyone about the lack of updates but I've been rather busy between classes, homework and friends. Mostly friends and sunshine and fun that has been keeping me away but I'm in CHILE!!!! ^_^

This will not be a satisfying update as I am finishing packing my bags to leave for Mendoza, Argentina in a few short hours! I will be there until the 7th along with Leah, Chaz, Eric and Jacob! Then off again to La Serena with the IFSA group on the 8th - 11th!!! Hopefully I'll have time to update when I get back from those places with lots of fun adventures!!!

Hope everyone is amazing and loving life as much as I currently am!!!

<3Annie