Happy Halloween!!

Remember this little love bug?

I'm officially missing the second halloween! Someday I will finally spend one with my adorable little niece. I can't wait to see what she'll be this year. She could dress up as a baby and I would still think she was the cutest thing ever. I love you Kaileyabug! Have a happy halloween!

Rain, rain...

Ok so you can't capture rain in a picture. But use your imagination.

It has been pouring for the last 12+ hours. It hasn't let up one bit. And now I have to walk to school in it. If I make it without drowning I will be amazed. It's the kind of rain that you skip class for. Unless you have a test. Than you suck it up and go anyway. It's the kind of rain I would go out and dance in if I was at home. But now I live in it and its not weird for it to rain this much. These are the times I with I had a car. Or I didn't mind paying for taxis. I can't wait until I get back and get to take off my wet clothes, fingers crossed they'll dry in 3 hours so I can put them back on and walk back through the rain to my second class. That one is only a three hour class. Who cares if I get wet. Sitting in wet clothes is fun! That was my optimism for the day. Or maybe for the week. Rain, rain go away, come back when I don't have to go walking outside.

Wind

The wind is ferociously blowing, Creaking the walls and escaping through the cracks in the window frame. I close my eyes and think of you. Think of the wind that I used to hate so much. It blew through your window, so strong that it broke our frame. I resented it so much then, and now I want to run outside and stand in it. Let it blow my hair and chill my skin. The familiar, familiar wind. I close my eyes and pretend I'm with you. Pretend I'm home. And then I hear the rain. It sounds like thousands of little pebbles being dropped outside my window, and I snap back to reality. Snap back to the world I'm in. The world without you, the world without wind.

And then I just enjoy the rain.

El Viernes

I took my camera with me on Friday and took some pics to document it. Spring is in full swing and walking into town is always enjoyable.Friday night one of the students was performing at a bar so we went to watch. It was pretty low key but still fun.

Here are some pics:

For some reason Chile has a thing with snails. I think there is a type of snail that is unique to this area so they're special or cultural or something? They even made a movie about it. Anyway they're called caracoles in Spanish. They're all over the fences and walls outside this time of year so I took a picture.

These are 'weeds' apparently but they're so pretty.

Love graffiti

Simon performing. He was really good.

Some gringos at the bar

Chillin' with my peeps.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Happy breast cancer awareness month!

I'm a little disappointed I'm missing October because it's breast cancer awareness month. I love when everything turns pink in support of it. I always end up buying random things like pink sharpies or chocolate with pink wrappers (who needs an excuse to buy chocolate though, really?). Anyway in honor of it I went looking online for Breast cancer stuff and found some good things. It's amazing how much support there is for breast cancer and every October I'm shocked at how much more recognition there is. I hope eventually there is this much recognition for all cancers and diseases.

Here are some of my favorite products:

Mushrooms? Really?

I would so buy this. Who doesn't want a pink swiffer?

Mmm chocolate

And more chocolate

Sweet shoes!

Cool straightener

Looove dove chocolate

Ha great slogan

Mom you should definitely get this


My mom had breast cancer at a really young age and others in my family have had it too. Luckily I don't carry the gene for it, however, we're still all at high risk anyway so all this recognition and donations for research is really amazing.

Secret Skype Photos

Sometimes when I Skype I like to take random pics when people don't know it. Here are a few of my favs (be warned, most of these are of the cutest baby ever!):

Luke and Ducky McQuackers

Ash!

Aw

So cute!

BUTTONS!!

I love this progression of pictures:

Big smiles

The parents

Aw sleepy baby

First time skyping with Kai Kai

Her favorite thing to do.

I love these people. I'm lucky I get to talk to them while I'm gone. Thank you Skype! Love and miss everyone!

Happy Weekend!

It's finally the weekend!! I'm so happy. These last two weeks have been long and hard so I'm excited to have some free time. I have no plans (except lunch today) and I love it. I so want it to be one of those weekends where I don't do anything.
Anyway, I'm sure everyone heard that the miners got out safe and sound. It was an amazing rescue and everyone down here is celebrating-not that Chileans need a reason but when they get it they take full advantage.
I've decided that I'm going to stay in Chile for another semester. I'll come back for 2 and a half months in between and then come back for another 4. I've decided it just makes more sense. I need to be fluent before I graduate and I'm definitely not. Also it would be a very fast transition back into Central because I'd only have 2 weeks (during christmas and new years) to get an apartment and settle in so now I'll have almost 3 months of relaxation and getting to see everyone (and drink tons of coffee) so it'll be really nice. Also almost everyone from Central is coming back here again so I won't be left out. This will also delay my graduation but I figure I can't graduate without good spanish skills anyway. Who wants to speed up the process to the real world? So my decision has been made and I'm excited. Well ok right now I'm more excited for the time in between but I'll get excited for coming back to Chile I'm sure.
Also, I passed the halfway mark. Less than 2 months left. Isn't that crazy? Part of me feels like it's gone so fast and the other part of me is like, it's only halfway? I have to do that amount of time all over again? I know the holidays are going to be extremely hard for everyone down here. I think they try to celebrate Thanksgiving for us at the school but it's not really Thanksgiving without the family. Buuut we'll all survive I'm sure.
Anyway I hope everyone has the best weekend!
Feliz fin de semana!

Chilenismos

I am part way through Eat, Pray, Love, thanks to my besties Ash and Anna who have strongly recommended the book. It's taking me awhile because I rarely have time to sit down and listen to books on tape however I am making it through slowly but surely. There's a lot of talk about language and it has inspired me to blog a little about the language that surrounds me.

Chilean Spanish is definitely very unique to Chile. There are so many different words that are only used here, in fact, that they call their slang Chilenismos. I haven't been paying that much attention to them or trying to learn them because I want my Spanish to be more universal...if that makes sense. I would prefer not to get back to the U.S. and have no one understand me because of all the Chilean words in my vocab. Also I try to not pick up on the accent because the Chilean accent is really bad. Like I've mentioned before they tend to drop the end of words...sometimes the middle. For example mas o menos turns into ma o meno. Anyway, some words are said so much that it's hard to ignore them.

Here is my personal glossary of Chilenismos:

Cachar: This means 'to understand' or 'to get.' You often hear people say "cachai?" at the end of a sentence (it's actually cachas but it sounds like cachai) as in, do you understand? The official word is entender and possibly the word my host mom says to me the most. "Entiendes?"

Carretear/Carrete: A very popular word meaning 'party' or 'to party'. It sounds a lot like karate. This is probably the first chilenismo I learned because partying is really popular here. Everyone goes out Thursday night to get their carrete on.

Colectivo: I wasn't aware that this was unique to Chile but a colectivo is a shared taxi that has a fixed rate and route. This is what you have to take home (if you live far away) when the buses stop running at night.

Micro: The city buses. They all seem like they're going to fall apart but they're pretty cheap when you need to get somewhere.

Once: (Pronounced oHn-say) This word doesn't actually mean dinner but it basically is because Chileans don't have dinner. It's basically tea time. I've talked about it before because of the lack of food. I think of it more like a midnight snack.

Palta: The word for avocado. Took me forever to learn this word but it's necessary because they put mashed up avocado on everything. Love it!

Po: This word is Chilean for "pues" which means 'well'. Probably the most heard word because Chileans like to tack it on to the end of any and every word. Literally I can't see how it makes sense but people say it anyway. Most commonly heard as Sí po” and “No po" which translates like "yup" and "nope."

Porotos: The Chilean word for beans. We wouldn't want to use good old frijoles like everyone else now would we?

Pololo/a: The word for boyfriend or girlfriend. Also a verb, "pololear" which means to have a boyfriend or girlfriend. I learned about a month in that the word I learned for boyfriend, 'novio' means more serious, like fiance. I was wondering why my family kept asking if we were engaged.
Tío: Literally this means uncle, but I just learned it can also just mean 'guy,' which is probably the most enlightening thing I've learned in awhile. Augustin has asked twice now after seeing a picture of Luke (the same one of me kissing him on the cheek) if he was my tío and I was confused to death to why he would automatically jump to the conclusion that Luke was my uncle. Huge revelation.

Ya: Usually in spanish 'ya' means 'already' but it also means 'okay' here.

That's pretty much all I've picked up so far. It made for a lot of confusion when I started out but I think I've got it pretty much understood.

Also I confirmed that 'ciao' is actually spelled 'chao' here...but I don't like that spelling so I'm sticking to ciao. Take that Chile.

P.S. I went to the store and got two jars of peanut butter. Unfortunately they're tiny so they won't last long. I paid a good $5 for each of them too. They'll last me until I get my package from home in which I requested peanut butter (the good kind without the sugar). Anyone wondering how to say peanut butter in spanish? It's a direct translation: Mantequilla de maní.

P.P.S. Happy 10/10/10 everyone. Supposedly it's a lucky day for love? I'm holdin' out for 11/11/11. Luke and I have a thing with 11:11. Make a wish!

Pucón

My favorite part of Pucón, Volcán Villarica. Definitely one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. You can see it from everywhere in this area and it's so cool. It's very active and at night you can even see the orange glow from the lava. I couldn't stop taking pictures of it. One of the best things I've encountered in Chile.

Happy 100th post to me! I'm happy to say I have something actually interesting to blog about. My trip to Pucón! Pucón is this little touristy town about three hours north of Valdivia and I completely fell love with it.

We left Friday morning (I hope I don't have to see 6am again for a long time) and got there 3 hours later. We got to see the Mapuche village. Mapuche are the indigenous Chilean people. It would have been cooler if we couldn't see their real houses and cars and all that. But it was a cool experience. After that we got some free time. I love the little town, it's really touristy and you can almost pretend you're in the U.S.! I'm definitely going back when I have more time. That night we got a really nice dinner and then we went to the hot springs which was awesome. I've never been to a natural hot springs and it was amazing. We stayed at an amazing hotel. Our room was basically a little apartment. No one wanted to leave.

The next day we woke up early, had a really good breakfast, and headed off to a really tall mountain for a really long hike. It was supposed to be 4 hours long, Laura and I gave up after two (we hate hiking on flat ground let alone straight up and down mountains.) and the others came back after 7 hours. Seven hour hike? No thank you. I don't care how beautiful the top is. Laura and I got to sit outside in the perfect weather getting a bit of a tan and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

We headed straight out of town after that back to Valdivia (ok only 6 of us out of 30 came back because we have no school Monday so everyone stayed longer but Laura and I had to go back with some others because of the huge amounts of homework we have). I'm already getting sore even though I didn't even make it half way up the mountain. We did a lot of walking/hiking in the past day though not even counting the big hike.

If someday I get enough energy I'll put up more pics but until then, keep looking at the volcano. So pretty!

Spring and Studytime

I think spring has officially hit Valdivia. The days are sunny (no matter how hard it rains at night) and warm(ish). I kinda miss those days when days were a little rainy...and school was easy...I never thought I would say this here, but I'm stressed. As soon as we got back from break I feel like the teachers all plotted against us and decided to give us huge amounts of stuff to do all at once.

I'm trying to recover from being sick (starting on week #3 by the way), I feel better for the most part but my cough hasn't gone away and I think I may have a mild sinus infection. I've been taking pain meds that the doctor gave me (I only needed them for 2 days so I have extra) for my constant headaches and toothaches I've been getting (dear tooth fairy please let me be suffering from a sinus infection and not actual tooth problems..but really how likely is it that I have cavities in ALL my upper teeth all of a sudden?). I can't tell it they're working or not so I go back and forth between that and ibuprofen. I feel like everything would be a tiny bit better if I could just have a coffee. I'm so tired lately. I can sleep about every other night and that's it. I really want to just skip this whole next week. Although I'm sure nothing will be easier after.

This weekend the program is taking us to Pucon, which I should be excited about because it has hot springs, volcano, mapuche (indigenous chilean) village and it's beautiful, but I have so much to do I don't want to go at all. Worst timing ever.

Next week I have 2 major tests on Tuesday and Wednesday, as well as a ton of busy work that has nothing to do with what the tests are on but the teachers feel they still need to give us. I think it would be okay if my schedule is like it is in the States, go to school in the morning and to homework in the afternoon. Here I go to school in the morning, come back for lunch, then go back to school, get done sometime between 5:30 and 7, come home and eat, and then after that is the only time I have to do homework. Which was all good and fine when I only had homework every couple days, and not very much when I did, but now it's just not working out. My goal is to get through this next week and pretend that things will be less hectic on the other side but we'll see how things go. Right now all I want to do is take a nap but instead I get to go to a 3 hour class. Then tomorrow I GET to get up at 6:30. Which I just want to point out will be 3:30 everyone else's time-weird.

Sunday is daylight savings (for Chile). I'm not completely sure about this but I'm pretty sure daylight savings is going to put a 5 hour time difference between Valdivia and home. Since it's Spring here we lose an hour (so unfair I have to lose 2 hours in the same year) and at home you all gain an hour...so that puts us 2 more hours apart plus the 3 already...I'm hoping somehow this isn't true because that will make it so much harder to communicate with people back home but I guess we'll find out.

Wow that was a whole bunch of complaining. It's definitely been one of those weeks. I haven't been posting as much because I feel like if I do I'll just complain the whole time. Also I haven't really even had time. I haven't even had time to watch my shows online! Last night I fit in Glee and Castle- a gift to myself for finishing my second paper of the week, no matter how bad it was. Did I mention on this day in 9 weeks I'll be done with school? Pretty excited. Not going to lie. Now I must go to class and try to make it through without falling asleep (I might have to make a stop in the cafeteria -which by the way they call the casino here, it was all very confusing for the first few weeks when we kept wondering why people went to the 'casino' so much-for some cafe. That plus the energy drink I just drank might actually get be through alive.) I'm sending mental hugs in this post. I expect them all to be returned.

Bad Day

I was having a bad day on Friday and coincidentally Stumbled on this while perusing the internet:

Then I ironically stumbled on this:

It brightened my day a little so I hope it brightened yours as well. And who says we can't have both?

Los días de enferma

I took some pictures during my sick days. I thought I would share them:

The view out of my window October 1

This cat is our friend. We named it Jackson. Then we realized it was a girl but the name stuck.

Augustine coming to get me for lunch

My medicine shelf. This is what I was taking every 8 or 12 hours.

Octubre

It's here. I feel like September was so short. Unfortunately I'm not feeling as up as I was when I wrote the 'Septiembre' post. I got a dose of reality last night when I realized that while I'm super excited to go home and see everyone, things might not be as amazing as I remember. I'm afraid of going back and then being disappointed when the excitment wears off and wishing I was back here.
Or maybe that's the negativity that comes from spending 3 days sick in the house. Have a mentioned I haven't really breathed fresh air in 3 days? That might be having an effect on me. Luckily after missing two days of school I'm suprisingly not that far behind. I still feel stressed though. I feel like vacation set me way back in my spanish and then being sick set me back further. I try not to think about those things though..
I can't tell if I feel better or not. I definitely feel better since I've been on meds (3 of them which do wonders) but I don't know if they're just covering up symptoms or not. Either way, I'm definitely on the road to recovery. I know this because of the huge amounts of snot that are coming out of my head. Also the mountains of kleenex I create by the hour. My cough I'm afraid I'll have forever, but I'm pretty sure it'll take me forever to get through this bottle of cough medicine too so I guess that'll help. I'm done with 2 of my meds tonight so we'll see how I feel after that. One of them is for pain and 'fiebre' (fever) so I'm crossing my fingers that the body aches are done (worst part of being sick). I have no idea what the other pills are. Probably magic feel better pills.
Today is the last day that I have been instructed to stay inside in bed. Tonight is my friend's birthday that everyone is going to. I really want to go to it but I don't think I'm going to make it. For one, I'm pretty sure Gloria isn't going to let me out of the house. For two, I get really tired around 8 and I'm sure it doesn't start till 10 or 11. For three, I'm pretty sure by the time I actually walked there I'd be too tired to enjoy myself. Also, smoke isn't good for coughing and I really don't want to set back my recovery anymore. I already feel like poop after 3 days. I think I just talked myself out of it.
This weekend brings wonderful things like tons of homework, actually having to get dressed (I've been in sweats for days- but hey I did change sweats), and (actually a good thing) embarking on the outside world again. I wonder if anything has changed...