Chocolate Cake and Earthquakes

(10/8-10/11) Monday morning we flew back to Santiago from San Pedro. The flight was beautiful and there was hardly anyone on the plane. When we landed, there was a little confusion about how to get home, but we figure it out and took a bus to the metro station and then we were home. People volunteered to do our chores for us so it was pretty relaxing when we got back. I hung out with two students and played guitar with them for a while. Then small groups started, but I was pretty out of it because I was so tired. Donce happened after that and again, I was pretty out of it so I don’t really remember it very well. The dinner was this cheesy rice stuff and Brent spoke and that’s all I got. The game was pretty cool though, they shouted out a letter and you had to come up with different words for the letter, kind of like Scattegories but in Spanish. I couldn’t really help them but we ended up winning so that was awesome. So now I’ve won two weeks in a row, how exciting! Some students stayed pretty late watching Jurassic Park on TV so we ended up working out at like 1am and going to bed pretty late. Tuesday was very calm. I woke up a little later and when I woke up a package arrived here from my family. I was so excited and the package was very surprising. A lot of candy, toothbrush holder, shoes, spiderman, foot scrub, pens, socks, and a cute card from my parents. That started off the day very lovely. After that I went to lunch with Eli and one of her friends from school. We got a pizza which was strange because it had BBQ sauce, but it was good. They talked for like an hour and I caught bits and pieces here and there. We walked home and her friend came too, we stopped at the Santa Lucia market to look around for a while. When we got back we had our Café a lo Gringo meeting which went pretty well. Sometimes it’s really hard to come up with different ideas for games. After that some students came over and made some icecream and talked with each other for a while. We had our exchange student meeting after that and Phil was so nice and bought us little personal pizzas. They were so good too! The meeting was great and we had fun. Katie and I did our last day on Insanity after that. I am so incredibly proud of myself for sticking to it every day, even though some days I had no desire to do it at all. We did it. I showered after that and Skyped my family and then went to bed pretty early. Wednesday when we woke up, Katie and I went to a little bakery and bought ourselves some chocolate cake to celebrate finishing Insanity and it was delicious. We did our usual Wednesday round after that hitting the post office, the grocery store, and then the fresh market. After that we made lunch and hung out for a little bit. I took a nap because I was still exhausted and had a headache. When I woke up I played guitar, read a lot, and watched a couple episodes of Criminal Minds. I stayed up a little late talking to a friend back home which was nice. All in all it was a pretty relaxing day. Thursday was an interesting one. I woke up, ate breakfast, went to staff meeting, and got all of my Café a lo Gringo stuff taken care of like normal. I then ate lunch and started reading when it happened. An earthquake came out of nowhere. At first I thought it was someone upstairs being obnoxious but then it kept going. It was my first earthquake. It didn’t do any damage that I’m aware of, and I was probably more excited than I should have been, but it was just a really cool experience. It registered as a 5.7 but apparently later downgraded to a 5.5. Anyhow it was fun. Later I cleaned the kitchen and made the brownies. Café a lo Gringo started not too long after that. It was interesting and the games might have been a little complicated for them. They seemed to like them, they just didn’t understand. We tried. Tertulia started after that and Sloppy Joes were the dinner, yum! The music was awesome and David’s talk was good too. The student’s left pretty quickly after and Katie and I turned the TV on and found Shawshank Redemption playing. I got to Skype my little cousins Grey and Eden who were visiting my mom, they were so cute. It was a good week. 

winning girls

package from my mom

last day of Insanity

chocolate cake reward

San Pedro

(10/5-10/7) Well this weekend Katie and I journeyed to San Pedro de Atacama. It is a desert in the north of Chile. It’s not just any desert, it’s the driest desert in the whole world. It was a crazy awesome experience though. We left Santiago pretty early Friday morning and Phil drove us to the airport around 6:30am. We got to the airport and waited a couple of hours because of course the flight was delayed…typical Chile for you. The flight was two hours and five minutes. We made it to Calama around 11:30am and took a taxi to the bus station and then took a bus to San Pedro which was about an hour and a half away from there. We spent a good 30 minutes looking for our hostel when we arrived and then when we checked in we book a sand boarding/moon valley tour for an hour later. We literally threw our stuff down changed and then the tour bus came to pick us up. It was awesome though. Our first stop was this huge sand dune that we were going to sand board on. It took almost all of my energy to climb the dune but boarding down it was incredible. We spent about an hour doing that so I got in about four runs. I fell a lot and wasn’t too good at it, but it was fun none the less. After that we went to the moon valley which is just this huge valley in the desert. Our first stop there was this really cool salt cave. It was dark and the path was small but inside was amazing. It was just so pretty. Plus the walls were edible so I took a few pieces of salt to lick. We didn’t stay too long there, just long enough to walk through once. We went to this huge cliff after that to watch the sunset. The climb was pretty substantial but it was definitely worth it. It was amazing seeing the sunset in the desert and turning around to watch the colors change on the mountains. Truly incredible. When we got back to the hostel we ate dinner and then went to bed. Saturday we went on a geyser tour which we had to be ready at 4:30am for. The geysers are apparently better viewed in the morning before day light so that’s why it was so early. And we had to drive almost two hours away. Again, it was worth it. It was incredible. It was freezing though, around 15F. There were so many geysers and hot springs and I had never seen anything like it before. After that we got to actually go in a natural hot spring. I was skeptical at first because it was so cold, but I did it. I’m glad I did, it was perfect. Also on the trip we saw so many animals, two Chilean animals that I had never heard of, a fox, and a bunch of llamas. It was pretty incredible. We got back to the hostel around 1pm and I took a much needed two hour nap. When I woke up, Katie and I went into town and rented mountain bikes. We took a 12 mile bike ride into this random part of the desert where we found the cutest little white church. Getting there was really hard because I, knowing nothing about mountain bikes, had it in a gear with the most resistance. Stupid! But the ride back was much easier and I enjoyed it a lot. There was this one part of the path where we had to cross a river and it was so deep we had to take our shoes off and walk across with our bikes. That was my favorite part though because it was so hot and the water was so cold it felt really good. It took us about 3 ½ hours and man were we sore afterwards. It was beautiful though. When we got back to the hostel we got ready because we decided that we would have one fancy meal in town while we were there. We went to this restaurant called Todo Natural and it was delicious. I got a brick oven pizza and a side of vegetables. It was the perfect meal after such a long day. I went to sleep shortly after returning to our hostel because I was exhausted. Sunday we did a little shopping in town. I bought a few little souvenirs for my family and just enjoyed seeing what the town had to offer. At about 4pm we did a salt lagunas tour. It was pretty fun and the tour made three stops. The first stop was this huge laguna called Laguna Tebenquiche but it wasn’t very deep. It was crystal clear and really beautiful! We didn’t stay there too long because it was only about ankle deep and there wasn’t much to do. The second stop was called Ojos del Salar which were basically two holes in the ground with salt water. You had to jump off a huge cliff and then swim to a place you could get out. Of course I had to jump in and I’m not even kidding when I say that it was the coldest water I have ever been in. It was like 42F and I couldn’t breathe when I hit the water. It was shocking. It was fun though so I don’t regret it. We left shortly after because only four people in our group jumped. The last stop was the Laguna Cejar which is so salty that you float without doing anything. It keeps you above water naturally. The water was pretty cold there too but I had to experience it. It was so interesting and quite an experience. After watching the sunset there our tour headed back. When we got to the hostel we took showers, ate, and decided to go check out some stars. In San Pedro you can see four times as many stars than anywhere else in the whole world. It was so clear and absolutely gorgeous. It literally took my breath away. Some guy from the hostel went with us too which was really interesting because he had a lot of questions about religion that he asked Katie and I. It was amazing getting to explain God’s love under such an amazing view. We read the Bible and listened to some music and just talked about God for about an hour. After a while it got too cold so we had to go in, but it was a night that I will never forget. We had to pack up when we got back and go to bed because we had a pretty early bus to catch Monday morning. It was such an incredible weekend and I’m so blessed that I got to have this experience! 

sand boarding

Moon Valley

Geysers

natural hot spring

biking in the desert

salt laguna

the coldest water ever

just floating

It's October!

(10/1-10/4) The week started off a little slow. Monday I woke up and just read a lot. Then I walked to Lider because I had forgotten a few things the day before when I went. I realized I didn’t feel like cooking lunch so I walked to this cute little restaurant and got two empanadas. It was my first time at this restaurant and it was really good, just a little expensive. When I got back I started making the dessert for Donce. I made sugar cookies. The first batch turned out weird so my friend who was helping me added a lot more flour and then they were fine. We started small groups after that which was really good. I understood a lot of what Phil and the other students were saying so that made me really happy. Then Donce started and we ate dinner which was Pastel de Papas, basically mashed potatoes, beef, eggs, onions, and cheese. It sounds really strange but it’s delicious. Claudia gave the talk which was good. The game to see who cleans was very interesting. There were six teams of six and every team had a fork, spoon, knife, piece of wrapped candy, banana, and a hardboiled egg. Basically with one hand you had to open the food item and feed the person across from you. It was really funny and believe it or not my team won! And it was all because of me opening the hardboiled egg with the spoon! I was so excited, it was my first time winning. After that I hung out with students and played football with a few guys, I threw a lot better than most of them. Tuesday I woke up and read some and then Katie and I walked to the post office to mail a few letters. When we got back I realized how much leftover food there was from Donce and ate leftovers instead of cooking, which I believe was a great decision. For the rest of the day I wrote a lot and started memorizing scripture in Spanish for a couple of hours. After that we had our Café a lo Gringo meeting and our Exchange student meeting which both were very productive today. After that I ate more leftovers for dinner and cooked a little something to go along with it then Katie and I watched a little TV, did Insanity, and went to bed. Wednesday was an interesting one. I had to wake up early and go to the extranjeria office to pay money to extend my visa, sounds simple right? Wrong. I waited an hour to get a slip of paper, then I had to go copy my passport and my visa, and then I had to go back to the lady to get another slip of paper, and then I had to go to the bank, and then I had to go back to the lady to get a stamp on my visa. All in all it took about three hours. It was crazy and luckily Amy (Frizz’s wife) was there with me or I would have been so lost. Katie was there too to get her student visa or something as well. Afterwards we walked around in our favorite shopping center and then Katie went to class and I came home. I was here for about 30 minutes when Greg asked if I wanted to go visit Kamillo. Kamilo is a student in El Oasis who over the weekend got attacked in a dance club. The guy broke a bottle over Kamilo’s head and slit his throat with it. He also tried to stab him in the heart but luckily he missed. All of this happened because Kamilo was trying to protect a girl from an obviously drunk and rude person. He’s pretty beat up, but he is ok. I think there are over 25 stitches in face. We went to his house bearing gifts of icecream and cookies. We talked to him and his family for about an hour about everything that took place. It was really scary for the entire family. He can’t leave the house for another two weeks while he heals. Luckily El Oasis students go every day to spend some time with him. He really is a great guy. He is going to have some serious scars, but he should make a full recovery. The rest of the night was very calm. I made dinner and watched Criminal Minds then took a shower and went to bed. Thursday was fun. I woke up and went to staff meeting. The guy who heads CMF was visiting for the week so he was there too. I really enjoy going to staff meeting with these guys. Afterwards I got all of my stuff together for Café a lo Gringo which didn’t take super long so that was good. The staff had lunch together with the two people from Atlanta visiting for a wedding and the CMF guy, but it was really cool because we ordered Waya’s which is the salad place and sat outside and ate together. It was really cute. After that I did my chore which was cleaning the girl’s bathroom and then I made the brownies. Café a lo Gringo started not too long after that and it was a fun one! The first game was basically just doing the Cha-Cha Slide which everyone had a blast doing. The next game we gave them rhyming words and they had to come up with a song in English, that was pretty funny to hear. Tertulia started soon after that and the dinner tonight was taco salad, delicious. The worship was awesome and the talk given by Eli was awesome as well. I understand Eli more than anyone here so that was awesome being able to understand the main points of her talk. After Tertulia things got crazy! We had to pack for San Pedro, I had to write this blog, and we had to do Insanity. It was crazy but we got it all done. We’re leaving in the morning at 6:30am so wish us luck! 

my good friend Nani

our winning table!

the stamp I waited three hours for

GOL!!!

(9/28-9/30) Yes I spelled that right, here it is GOL! The a makes a different sound so it’s not needed. Anyhow, the word GOL describes my Friday quite nicely. I woke up, read some, and then the girl’s in El Oasis had Almorrica. Basically just a girls lunch. We had hamburgers and it was delicious. There weren’t a whole lot of people, but it was fun none the less. After that, the girls in El Oasis went and played futbol (soccer) in the park. We started off with some drills because some of the gringas here had never played soccer before. Frizz came along to help with that which was nice. After about an hour of drills and stretching and all of that we got to play an actual game. It was so incredibly fun. I scored two gols, except they didn’t count one of them because the other team wasn’t ready…really? It’s ok though, it was all in good fun. We played until the score was even, so basically we played until the other team caught up with us. I loved it. After that one of the students (Carla) came back to the house to change her clothes. She came to tell Katie and I that she was leaving when I asked her if she wanted to stay for dinner. I was planning on ordering a pizza from my favorite pizza place (Don’s Pizza) and asked her if she would like to share it with me. She told me she didn’t have any money, but I told her that I never asked her for money and I was going to order the pizza with or without her. I made her call and order it though. Spanish is complicated on the phone. So she stayed and we talked for a good 30 minutes while waiting for the pizza. When it got here we decided to watch a movie and on a whim I said Shrek and everyone was ok with my decision. It was a lot funnier that I remembered it being. After that she really had to go because the metro was about to close but she asked to borrow a jacket so I took my sweater off and gave it to her. She is a really great person and I’ve loved getting to know her. Saturday and Sunday were much the same. It was very rainy and cold and dreary so I didn’t do much. I stayed inside except for on Sunday I went grocery shopping. I was feeling pretty sick because the weather is dramatically changing everyday trying to grasp the concept of spring. It’s been cold though, I think I should enjoy it while it last. I love the cold anyhow. I watched a lot of Netflix and read a lot of the Hungering Dark and a lot of the Bible which was good for me. We started our last week of Insanity which is crazy because it seemed to go by so fast. I did laundry Sunday too which wasn’t too bad, I didn’t have that many dirty clothes because I rocked sweatpants a whole lot last week. And that was my weekend.