Just can't get enough of that peanut butter! (Pucon 21-24/10/2010

Hey people! it's been an incredibly long time since I've written. And a lot has happened, but before I forget, I'm going to write about my weekend in Pucon with my friends.

We left Thursday night around 10:50pm. It takes about 10 hours to reach there by bus, so in other words a perfect place to take the night bus there. I mean we could sleep on the bus, well somewhat sleep on the bus, wake up the next day feeling, well some what refreshed, and be ready to start our day. Oh a piece of advice, don't sit in the back of the bus if you don't have to...the smell of the bathroom when the door opens and closes is horrible! we only sat there b/c we thought it was going to be close to our other friends. Well, it turned out the seats mapped on the computer screen is kinda not proportional at all! lol so lesson learned stay clear from the bathrooms on bus, unless you need to use them!

I guess I can start with who all went with to Pucón. We had a really big group, there were 8 of us: Matt ( he goes to NorthEASTERN not northWESTERN), Jessica C. (my neighbor in Chile, who goes to UWM with me), Kerry (friend from my spanish class who's from North Carolina), Mirva (a friend from Finland who I have been going to a bible study group with), Claire (a chica from milwaukee! she goes to Marquette and is here for the year(yes, milwaukee had the majority on this trip!), Laura (she's Canadian what more can you say.. def can't be cooler than that!), and Sarah (went to la serena with me and lives in Seattle) oh and me. When we got there, I called my mom to let her know we arrived ok, and that I'll see her on Monday night, and then went to the grocery store. I was determined NOT to eat out this trip. We rented a cabin with a kitchen so I had no reason to spend extra money on restaurants.

After we checked into the cabin, claimed our beds (mine was the top bunk of a set of bunk bed), and dropped our stuff off. We were out the door to look at different tourist agencies to see what we can do. Now, here's a good place to explain that Pucón isn't a lets go explore this historical site, or see this castle, or go to this pisco distileria. Nope not at all, it's a town where you go and do outdoorsy things. Like hydro-speeding (or how i like to say it Hydro-planning) It's illegal in the US, and kinda dangerous too. I didn't do it, but my friends did...also theres climbing el Volcan villarrica, and horse back riding.

So after a couple of hours of looking at tourist agencies and getting prices we headed back to the cabin to decided what to do and when we were going to do it. In the end that day (friday) Matt, Jess, Kerry, Sarah, Laura, and Mirva went hydrospeeding and Claire and I just hung out. We walked to the beach on Lago Villarrica. It wasn't a sandy beach like by my Lake Michigan, it had black pebblish kind of things. We thought it was volcanic since right to the east of us was an active volcano. We laid out in the sun, and hung out with this stray dog that was there (yes mom I got a picture of it) and talked a lot. I learned a lot about politics from this chic, and it was really cool! I'm going to have to start following things more closely with this.

So we headed back to the cabin after a couple hours, and well ended up taking naps. I was soo exhausted from the lack of sleep on the bus. When the others returned some of us made dinner, and others went out. It was mainly just a night for relaxing for me. After dinner some people we out for a drink even though they had to climb a volcano at 7am the next day. So it was Laura, Claire, and I for the night just chilling cleaning up from dinner, and chatting. And then at around 10pm.. yes, it was only 10pm (that is sooo early for Chile, usually we don't go out until then).. not even yet I don't think Jessica made her way home. She had a few drinks and ended up jumping into pool because shes daring like that. It was an interesting night to say the least.

As I was in a deep peaceful slumber the next morning at 6am, I was woken up by the sound of my friends who were getting ready to climb Villarrica. I couldn't stay mad for long, so I grab some breakfast and then went back to sleep. But about an hour after I fell back asleep I heard voices downstairs, I was thinking, what are they doing back, the climb is supposed to take 10 hours. Well, I guess there was a bad snow storm the night before and they couldn't get up there. So instead we changed the plans..

morning after bus ride

me and sarah

Kerry

panoramic of the beach

Thats all of now. I have to go get ready to go out... we're gonna be dancing tonight!

Valdivia contin.

Saturday
We left our hostel Saturday morning around 9:30am, after a little issue of how are we going to pay because they don't have change for each of us to break 10 luca, while anyways, Lindsey and I had one more night in Valdivia so we decided to go to the hostel Torreón. I originally wanted to stay here because the owner had a Great dane (i cant remember the type of dog), but i wanted to see it. It turns out that the dog passes away a little less than a year ago.. it was sad to hear because the owner really loved her dog.

When we first got there it seemed like a pretty weird place, the owner just seemed pretty strange. Turns out they were really nice, and even let us use the kitchen to make our own breakfast the next day! After we were alll settled in, i mean just throwing our things in our room, we left to go and try to find a bus to Punta Curinanca. It was an interesting ride out there, the roads kept getting narrower and narrower as we moved away from Valdivia and Niebla until suddenly it was just a gravel road.. I was starting to wonder what  I had gotten myself into.  Oh and it started to rain as we got out of the car.. and i had forgotten my poncho back at the hostel.. and no one else had anything either.

About an hour later we arrived that the park only to find out we needed to get someone to unlock it. It was a mil each to get inside. It was supposed to take about and hour or hour and a half to walk the trail, it was a circle with different look out points of the surrounding area. So we started walking, taking pics, and getting wet. The rain wasn't too bad because of the trees, but it started to get heavier.

 We continued walking and walking, The forest was sooo beautiful that I could only try to capture it on camera. My pics def dont do it justice. So we continued walking, and walking, and then we someone lost the path... yes, we got lost on a trail that was supposed to be a circle, and it was still raining.. So we tried to go back the way we came, we we couldn't. We cam upon a fence that had barbed wire only on the top, and a hole big enough for all of us to climb through.

So, after climbing through the fence we walked some more, now being completely soaked without any cover from the trees. We passes a couple of cows, and realized we were on someones property... We walked a little faster just to get out, so we wouldn't get in trouble. We ran into a gravel road and started to follow that to town. We eventually found our way, and ran into the guy who let us into the park. He took us to a little grocery store type thing we the owner made us some coffee. While we were sitting there Jessica had pulled a leech off of her. It wasn't big or anything, but it was a little creepy. And we had no idea where it came from.

We caught the bus heading back to Niebla, so we could try and find a place to eat lunch. We found this random place with seafood and what not. I ended up getting a something al pobre,.. it had meat with fries and an egg sunny side up on top. I loved it.. not as good as churriano,(spelling maybe wrong) but it was good. Oh, and during the meal i had this itch near my ankle, turns out i had a leech on me too. It was the creepiest thing ever. so I yanked if off, and the waiter came and killed it. I felt like I had 10,000 leeches on me after that. But no more were seen.

After a lunch we headed back to Valdivia for the night. When we got back, Jessica and Freya grabbed their things, and we went to a little cafe thing to have pastel. That just means dessert. We were there for a while, just trying to burn time while Jessica and Freya were waiting for their bus. We then ended up going to this Pizza place.. i think it was called Golf something, but it was a golf themed typed restaurant. the Pizza was sooo gooood.. some of the best in Chile.

And then it was time for Jessica and Freya to leave. Lindsey and I headed back to hostel. I was exhausted and fell asleep as soon as my head it the pillow.

Sunday

Today was our last day in Valdivia. We took our time getting ready and eating breakfast. Lindsey took a run and I was just lazy and slept some more. We made ourselves breakfast in the Kitchen and put our things in the office so we didnt have to carry them around all day. We then left the hostel, and grabbed a bus to Niebla. We didn't have time to make it out to see Castillo Corral, but went to a different place that people kept calling el Fuente.. I don't know if thats the actual name or not, but it was still pretty cool to see. It wasn't complete like Coral, but it still had amazing views of the Pacific Ocean and the surrounding area.

cannons we couldnt go down there b/c there have been too many tourists and its getting destroyed.

We then went to this little place were they had all different stands selling food. I had a Crab something... it was a crab mixture with cheese. The lady wouldn't tell us what was in it, it was a secret recipe. We spent a while there eating and watching people dance the Cueca, a traditional Chilean dance.

We then headed back to Valdivia, spent a lot of time watching the sea lions one last time and then grabbed our stuff and headed out. We hailed a cab, and I witnessed the worst dog fight in my life. It was horrible there was this little dog and this big dog and the big on almost killed the little one! but a taxi driver mad a loud noise and distracted the big dog, and the little one took off running.


All in all it was a good weekend. Some ups and downs, but more ups than downs compared to la Serena. I'm never going to have a perfect trip, and something will probably not happen the way that its planed.. but oh well that's what makes trips interesting...

Next weekend I'm going to Mendoza, Argentina with the CAUC group from school. I'm excited, I've always wanted to go to Argentina!

Chau for now!
Leslie

trying to capture the beauty of Punta Curinanca.

Valdivia, Niebla, and other adventures of last weekend part 1

Jessica and Freya ready to leave!

Thursday night my friends, Jessica, Freya, Lindsey and I left for Valdivia. It´s a city in souther Chile in the region los lagos. It´s about a 10 hour bus ride south of Santiago. Before I continue, I just want it noted that this trip was a lot more sucessful than the trip to La Serena...Not that la serena was usecessful, but it could have been better.

Friday Sept 10
After a long sleepless night we arrived in Valdiva at around 8:30am. When we had all of our things we opened the Lonely Planet guide book to look at some hostels to stay at. We decided on one that was only a couple blocks away from the bus depot. It was Borderío, we ended up getting a cabaña for the night because they didn´t have any dorms available. It was a nice cozy little place with plenty of room, we could have easily had like 4 more people come with us, but it was nice to just travel in a small group.

my kuchen! soo good.

When we were done freshening up we headed out to grab a cup of coffee so we'd wake up at Cafe Housmann, a little family run German restaurant . I mainly went for the kuchen because I have never tried it before. I liked it, it was different, but still delicious.

The one that walked up to the humans

We then headed to a local fish market, Feria Fluvial, that is right on the river. This place was amazing, besides selling fish they sold fruits and veggies, and even cheese. We ended up buying some smoked fish, cheese, and bread that we all shared for lunch. As we were wandering around looking at different things when we ran into the sea lions of Valdivia.. We didn´t realize they were there at first because there was a fence sort of looking thing that was keeping them separated from the fisherman cleaning their fish. Every so often a some one would throw the parts of the fish that were not going to be used to them, and the sea lions went crazy.. I definitely   would not come between one and their food. It was also interesting because when we were leaving one started to come up onto the pier thing, and just walking around. A man started to yell at it in spanish and he to get down and it actually listened.

Jessica with her yarn

After we watched the sea lions for a while, we went to this artisian fair thing. It was was interesting to see, and Jessica even bought some yarn to give to her sister.. It was a little to expensive for me otherwise I would have gotten one too. We looked around at every thing and headed out to try and find a spot to eat our fish and cheese for lunch. We ended up sitting in the grass on a trail that was just off a main road.

While enjoying our wonderful laid back lunch we had a little dog come visit us. It was the cutest puppy ever! it wasn't a real puppy, but i really wanted to take it home... We knew right away she was begging, so we decided to be nice give her some bread. She didn't eat the bread, just sniffed at it and continued staring at us... So we then threw her some cheese. She again didn't go and eat any of it.. and continued her star. It then all of a sudden clicked that oh she wanted some fish... she when we were done with our lunch we just gave her some left overs. She seemed content and we left. But I have never seen a stray dog act like that before, being picky over what they are given. She's lucky she was cute!

It was around 2 o'clock now, and according to the Lonely Planet book the Kunstmanns Cervezaria was only a 5 min car rid away, so we decided to walk. We didn't think that it would be that long a walk, and it was sunny and beautiful our. So we walked, and walked... and walked a little farther more. We stopped at a fruit stand along the way got some fruit and asked people there how much farther Kunstmanns was. They told us it was a half hour walk more (we'd already been walking for a half hour) and they advised us just to take a bus. We didn't want to, so we continued on our journey and about 45 min later we arrived at the place. We wanted to take a tour, but the tours are only for big groups or something like that. Instead we looked around the museum and then ate in the restaurant. for 4$ we could sample the 7 different beers that they brewed. So I tried them and discovered I still like Miller Light the best.

We then headed back to Valdivia on the bus.. and then went on a boat tour of Valdivia. It was only 4 mil for a 3 hour boat tour, and we got to try Chicha.. a drink thats fermented grapes. Kind of like wine, but not really like wine at all... They drink it a lot around this time of the year because its the Independence day. (Sept 18, this year was the bicentennial). It was a neat little thing, and you got to see how pretty Valdivia and the surrounding area is. 

I'm tired.. at a really late night.. Continue later with the adventures of Saturday and Sunday... Adventures indeed.

6 weeks ago today I left my life in Milwaukee behind.

It's hard to imagine that only 6 weeks ago I left my home town and made my way down to Santiago, Chile. In all honesty it feels like I have been here for months, just just a mere 6 weeks. In the beginning I got pretty home sick, not gonna lie, I missed everyone in home, knowing where I was going, and just home itself. But now I've been slowly getting used to the differences between here and home. I've also started meeting some more amazing people from all over the place! I've also made the realization that I might not ever see some of them after this semester, so I have to make the most of the time we have together. I hope that's not so, and I can go visit each of them in their own country someday, but you never know what the future will bring. I also never know if I am ever going to make it back down here again, so a lot of traveling is on my agenda for the next few months..

I'm kinda stealing this idea from Doug, but oh well... After being here for sometime, I've started to see some cultural differences between Chile and the US. For example down here every thing is done later.. you get up later, go to bed later, eat later, go out later with your friends. Chileans usually don't start going out until 11pm or 12am sometimes.. and it's not unusual to get home at 5am. Some discotecas are open for 24 hours because a lot of Chileans love to dance!

To me down here, the concept of time isn't as important as in the States. Before I came here I was always checking my phone, seeing how long it would take me to get somewhere, or just wanting to know the time in general. Here it's different. Classes never start early they usually start a few minutes late.. and no one is ever in the classroom before the time the class actually starts. It's just soo laid back here, like if you're a few minutes late, thats ok it's not the end of the world. So I have to be careful when I get back to the States when everything is done at it's exact time.

Salt is a major thing down here. When you're down here you'll see Chileans put salt on everything.. even if it already has a bunch of salt on it. Besides the salt usage I love that salads here! Instead of being just lettuce and whatever else you put on it, it's tomatoes and avocados with vinegar and oil! Coming to Chile has made me realize my passion for avocados! I just absolutely love them and we eat them at almost every dinner. Oh and there's no ranch.. so If you come to Chile and you can't live without your bottle of Hidden Valley, you might want to tuck that into your suitcase along with some Jiff or other peanut butter because boy is peanut butter expensive here. I think i bought a jar of it here for 4 or 5 dollars.

I don't know if this is just me, but when you sneeze here, no one says salud or what ever the equivalent is to God bless you in Chilean Spanish. It's kinda weird not hearing someone say Bless you when you do actually sneeze...

Having no heat took me a while to get used to too.. Only the really wealthy people here have actual heat.. most people have estufas or portable heaters.. Besides my body going through a shock from summer to winter in less than 24 hours, it took a little while to get used to having a lot of layers on and always wearing shoes or slippers.. So future travelers that come to Chile in the winter, don't be afraid to pack those wool socks and/or slippers.. You won't regret it!

Hmm... that's all I can think of right now.. Other than that nothing too exciting is happening here.. lots to read for my lit class, which I should probably go finish since we're talking about it tomorrow..

Then next post should be more interesting. I'm going to Valdivia this weekend! My host sister says its so pretty and incredible! I just hope the weather is nice! and I hope I can run into one of my friends that I met in Dallas! Erin goes to school down there! So Chao til next time!

<3 Leslie

Vina del Mar and other adventures

Hola todos!

Lo siento, estoy muy tarde con la proxima entrada pero yo he estado muy preocupado con mis estudias.
Bueno... (Sorry, I'm really late with this next entry but I have been really preoccupied with my studies).

Last weekend was quite an adventure. I met some new people, spoke a little Spanish, and got to see another city of Chile. Last Friday was Aprils last weekend here in Santiago... She decided to head back to The States... So, I hung out with her a lot, and a new friend Lindsey. We ended up meeting at Aprils corner and getting dinner together before going to a musical. We decided on Chinese food (I miss Number 1's Chinese food), and found this little take out place. The food was pretty cheap, and since we had no home to go to and eat we ate at a bus stop bench...This was an experience and hard to do too. I don't recommend this to anyone, it's nearly impossible to balance a hot steaming metal container on your leg which trying to drink a soda...

After we were done eating... we headed out to meet some of Lindsey's friends at the Metro station La Moneda ( I believe). We ended up seeing a musical called Que Viva Broadway, El Musical. It was incredible they took songs that were famous, from Broadway I'm assuming, and strung them together into a story of actors auditioning for a play or something. But instead of singing the English versions they used the Spanish versions which was really cool to listen too.

After we headed to Bravissimo, a gelato store, where I had my first taste of the creamy ice cream like substance. It was sooo good, this past weekend I ended up eating like 3 days in a row! Afterward we all parted ways with plans for meeting and going to Vina del Mar in the morning (April, Lindsey and I). Lindsey showed me how to get home taking the micro, which was good because after 11pm if you don't want to pay for a taxi, you take the bus.

The next morning I headed out bright and early to the metro station Universidad de Santiago to meet my friends. When we were all there we bought round trip tickets that had an open ended return, so we could come back whenever we wanted. I slept the whole way to Vina, and I needed too because I didn't sleep to well then night before b/c of all the sugar I had.

This was a baby elephant we think

Octopus tree

It took about 2 hours to get there and when we arrived we got a map and looked at all of the places we could go. There wasn't much, but it was a relaxed town. Very laid back actually....It reminded me of Myrtle Beach in the off season, I bet it get's really busy during the summer. We ended up going to this park that had bushes shaped like animals, and really pretty trees. There was a house their, but we couldn't go into it because of the damage from the earthquake last February.      

After walking around the park we went to see reloj de flores. Literally a clock flower that told real time! It was pretty cool looking. We didn't think it actually told the time, but were quickly proved wrong.


Next we went and walked along the beach and just talked the afternoon away... we walked to the Fonck Museum of Archeology and Natural History to find out that it closed at 2pm on Saturdays.... 

We ended up just walking back to the bus and taking it home. I like Vina.. nice calm, relaxing.. at least during the off season.. and I'll probably be back when my friends go to Valpo for the weekend. I can at least show them around now. 


I'm really starting to find my place here. It's starting to feel more like a home. It's never going to be home for me, but I am starting to enjoy Santiago more and more each day. 


Well off to do some reading... a lot of reading. 


~Leslie

Plaza de Armas- Iglesia Catedral de Santiago

So, I said good bye to some of my friends this weekend. They went to Puerto Mont (sp?) and I didn't feel like spending a $190 on an airplane ticket for a 2 day weekend... Call me cheap but I'd rather take the bus...Any who, feeling bored I decided to go check out Plaza de Armas today. It's an old historical square, and a lot of cities in Latin America have a least one. So there's a lot of them.

Sm room on left.

statue on top corner.

I went there because I wanted to check out the Iglesia Catedral de Santiago. It's huge! and one of the pretties Cathedrals I have ever seen! I had a hard time fitting the whole thing in a picture. I'll definitely go back to explore the square more, and take some more pictures. This place is cool though, and it was surprisingly cool inside (considering it was pretty hot outside). When you walk in off to the right is smaller room with an altar in it. I'm not really sure what kinds of masses are done in there but it was a lot brighter than the rest of the rest of the church which was pretty dimly lit.

Map of the church

As you walk along the sides of the cathedral they have a lot of different altars for different saints and important people in the churches history. I ended up staying for an afternoon mass which was pretty interesting to see. It's no different than church in the US, except it's in Spanish. It's my second mass I've been two since I've been here and I'm starting to catch on to the Spanish way of saying things. My favorite part is when we shake each others hands and say La Paz, instead of peace be with you.. it's the same thing. Also it was interesting because before the mass they roped off part of the church that leads off to a room. I just figured out what it's for.. it's the thing where they put the left over communion bread. I'm assuming they roped it off so tourist don't bump into the priest who is taking the bread there.

Anways it was a nice little mass. I felt weird taking pictures in a church, but I'm only here for 4 months and you never know if your going to make it back. So   here's some of the pics.

<3 Leslie

Names of past Bishops in Santiago

Ceiling part of it! it was too pretty! 

San Jose

Part of the altar.

Santa Teresa de los Andes (?)

Some of them are kind of blurry so apologies!

Normal school day to describing public transportation

Hey all!

It's been a while since my last post. Nothing too exciting is happening at the moment.. I haven't been anywhere since La Serena. No, it's not out of fear, it's just I can't get people to go... or try to get a concrete answer out of people if they wanna go or not.. And the homework load has been kind of heavy too.

I guess I can tell you about a normal school day. First I drag my booty out of bed 2 hours before class starts.. grab a breakfast, get ready, the whole morning routine thing... Then comes the 50 min commute to school. Now I've lived on campus for the past couple of years, and I thought getting up for an 8am class was horrible and a lot of complaining went down.. here, if i did take an 8am class i'd have to get up at least twice as early...

Ok, so the commute to schools isn't bad, the metro is super efficient here and I have never had a problem using it. Instead it's the crowds of people that get on the thing... say goodbye to personal space when you get closer to a combination or a busy part of the city. People honestly push (not violently or anything) and try to squeeze in the train when the buzzer is going off and the warning that the doors are closing is going off.. It can get a little bit ridiculous and hot and stuffy in the train, and I am glad that during the busy times and at the combo stations they have security to tell everyone to stay behind the yellow line, and to make sure everything goes smoothly

When I am on the metro, I'm usually the one shoved in the back by the time I get to the station I need because I live in the outer part of the red line (aka linea 1) where there aren't as many people trying to get on. In other words, I have to be very consciousness of where I am so I can start to make my way to the door, with a long line of permiso's..

I guess I can describe the micro (bus)... omg I will never complain about the Milwaukee bus system again, at least those buses come! haha, but the bus here is pretty different than the average bus ride in Milwaukee. Most of the buses don't except cash/change... Instead they have this card called Bip (pronounced Beep in spanish).  and you bip on to the bus by holding it up to a sensor thing that beeps and tells you how much money is on it and how much your ticket was.

But actually getting on the bus is the tricky part. Well not really, but if you are at a bus stop and the bus you want is coming, then you have to hold out your hand.. like you hail a taxi...and it stops. But if you forget and assume the bus just stops then it will keep on driving by, unless people want to get off. In which you would have to probably knock on the window and the driver will open the door because here, or at least I've noticed, that the front door is only used for passengers coming on and the back doors are for the exiting passengers..

There is no schedule for buses here either.. nope no timetable, nada. They come fairly consistently during the day, byt late at night you might have to wait 45 min for your bus. Also you should check out the bus stop sign, because that will tell you the basic route of the bus and the times it runs. Some do run for 24 hours.

I guess I have a story now. A couple weeks ago my friend Jessica and I went to Alto los Condes, a mall thats huge and really cool, and we decided to take the micro home. Well, it was around 7ish, and there was a huge crowd of people waiting for the micro. We saw the bus we needed 3 times and it was either jam packed or too many people were trying to get on the bus. It was soo insane we decided to get on a different bus that was headed towards a metro station we knew and was also close to home.

There are 6 million people in this city it may not seem like it but when it comes to public transportation it you can definitely start to see that there are a lot of people in this city.