Last week in Chile.

Wow, today is my last sunday in Chile. Seems very weird. I have been here for a little more than 4 months, and it is almost time to head home!
This sunday is a special one, we get my new sister moving in today. She is coming around 6pm and then we're going to have a family dinner with her. Lasagna! yumm. Her name is Uyen and she's from Georgia. I'm pretty excited to meet her, but sad that i'll only have a week here with her.

The toma is STILL happening. This has been truly a crazy semester here in Chile, although they say it has been a true Chilean study abroad now with this toma. The office suggested to all of the teachers that they should just end the semester. That worked out pretty well for me!! I got one of my final research papers taken away, an in class exam made take home, and grammar well im sure not sure what i have to do for that one. That class has been a complete waste of time and it doesn't even count for my major. Such a bummer! The way classes ended has just sort of been a joke, and it makes me glad that i have the education that I do back home at UNH, even though I hate doing homework! And now that my procrastination is at an all time high, getting back into REAL classes should be a struggle for me...

This last weekend, and the last week ahead will be filled with hanging out with friends and family, and trying to finish up the last homework assignments as quickly as possible.
Here are a few pictures from the last few nights of going out. I'm so glad that Redyn has been bringing out her camera to document everything!

fire dude who entertains at red lights.

abby and I at the bar.

It was Redyn's best friends birthday at home, so she made a sign ad brought it to Stingray with us. She got up on stage with the dj to get a picture. There were some pretty amazing photos taken with that sign...what a thoughtful gift!

dj from upstairs took a picture of us...with the sign of course!

prom pic!

more pictures to come :)

Toma Continues.

Tomorrow marks the 3 weeks of this toma. These kids know what they want! Apparently education used to be free, so it's not like they're fighting for something that hasn't happened before.

pajita-straw
lima de uñas- nail file
lagartos-lizard
caimanes-alligator
cocodrilo-crocidile
recoger-pick up
tres veces seguidas- 3 times in a row.
obnoxious-molesto, iritante

I was in the middle of writing this blog when Gonzalo came in...so above are the words that i learned while he was in the room.
Anyways, SO THIS TOMA....still happening! On wednesday morning, 22/6, the students of PUCV took over the PIIE office, which was where we were having our classes and walking in through our door way. I was on my way to give a presentation for art when there were a bunch of people waiting outside the door, and that's when i knew that they had taken over PIIE. Then classes were canceled for the day because they didn't have anywhere to put us.
Within the next day they had moved our classes to another building in Valpo. This was a thursday, aka another crazy day of protests, water cannons, and tear gas. I finished up a project for culture and then a group of us carefully walked our way to the classroom.

Our project. Kinda crazy but basically the idea is that we are fishermen on the boat S.S. Cachai. Chileans use the word cachai after they say something and to make sure you understood they say cachai? like did you catch it? So, we took that and then made a poster about everything that we "caught" or learned about chilean culture. and here is what we came up with. It'd be a whole blog itself to describe every part, but basically we got some fish with scarfs, obvi because chileans wear scarfs all the time. Then we have some words with some common chilean words, "weon, chao, bakan, fome" and we have some protesting sea horses. The tiny little grey no name fish represent all of the people who were killed during the dictatorship. There's lots more to it, but if you want to know more i can describe it later. :)

So after class, Amie, Natalie and I went to Amie's house to make blueberry muffins! they were amazing and it made me so excited to get home and just have all the good stuff that i have been missing! 

Friday wasn't anything special. Can't really remember what i did, but it has been beautifully sunny these last couple of days! it has been wonderful.

Chao for now.

the streets of Valparaíso today. 23/6/11.

i didn't see any of this, i was in class giving my presentation. But this is what the streets looked like today as the students were protesting for free education.

Crazy stuff. This gas is super strong and is illegal in most countries. It stays on the streets and in the air all day, and is even felt at night as you drive by. Pure craziness Chile!

I'm glad I didn't get hit with one of those.

Toma Update.

So, the toma is still in session.
on Thursday, June 16th, there was a national protests by students fighting for a free education. The protest started at 10:30am and was pretty peaceful in the morning...mostly just a ton of students in the plaza/streets with signs.

students in the streets.

I did not go to this protest. I was in the ISA office working on my presentation for class from 10am-2pm. Around 1:30pm things started getting crazy. Students were running through the streets. The tear gas and water guns were coming out in full force. I made it to my class safely across the street and up to my class room to set up for my presentation. There were about people in the class, and they almost wanted to cancel it because of the craziness that was happening outside, but i wanted to get it over with, so we stayed and i did my presentation. It went well! Yay, so now only 6  more projects/papers to finish until the end of the semester.

When it came time to leave the classroom things were getting crazy. The tear gas was so strong that i could feel it as soon as i stepped out into the streets. There was a huge police truck coming down the side street that we exited out on, and police were jumping out in full armor and taking people down at random. We were quickly ushered back into the building so that nothing would happen to us, and the police truck passed.

water truck. Spraying kids. Students ran into the buildings for protection. 

kid being sprayed.

tear gas truck.

This tear gas is VERY strong. It is illegal in most other countries and it is a very common tactic for the police here in Chile. That gas stayed in the air for a very long time. I went out to the bars last night in Valpo and on the way home we could still feel the affects. we were sneezing on the bus ride home.

Dylan, Amie, and I walking back from class. I am behind amie... i have my black fleece on. Luckily i had my scarf so i could cover my nose and mouth from the gas. 

We made it to the ISA building safely, and went up on the balcony to see what was going on. Outside of the office there were a pack of police officers in full riot gear.

police.

They were not playing around. A peaceful 2 girls walked into the streets with signs and they quickly shut that down. 

police moving the sign.

It was a pretty intense day. Overall i felt pretty safe even though all of this craziness was happening around me. We were all in ISA until Lizette told us to go home, which barely getting any sleep the night before because of my project, i was happy to head home and take a nap!

A bunch of us walked to the metro and headed home. It was packed. It seemed so weird to have such commotion on one side of the ISA office, and then one block over it was normal with the same clown dressed up with balloons as boobs trying to entertain the people at the red light. Craziness.

I made it home and took a nap, and that was the end to a crazy day....until we hit the bars at night in Valpo. I'm contemplating if i want to expose the pictures that were taking that night. We will see.

Overall. Great day. Very CHILEAN!

San Pedro de Atacama.

DRY DRY DRY, but amazing!
That basically sums it up. I headed up north to the Atacama this weekend with Natalie, and a bunch of other people who happened to be there as well. I am in LOVE with my pictures, so i hope you guys enjoy them too. We went on 4 tours, all for about 100 USD. These were well worth it and i will try to give you a tour through pictures :)

Thursday-
We took a flight from Santiago to Calama and got in at about 10pm. Luckily we had planned with the hostal guy to pick us up. So 8 gringas piled into a car and we headed to San Pedro de Atacama.  Our hostal was a tad bit sketchy...lets just say that. It was dirty, FREEZING, and just not the place for us. We slept there that one night, and moved the next morning to an AMAZING hostal with heat! finally *por fin*! it was amazing.

Friday-
Change hostal in the morning. walk around town and figure out plans for the rest of the weekend. Natalie and I chose a company and planned 4 tours. Starting in the afternoon on friday. 3pm.
First tour up was Valle de La Luna. It was a good start to the weekend. They picked us up around 3 and we got to see our first views of the true desert. dry dry!

looks like Mars no?!

dancing on the rock? :)

our view as we were walking

wow.

Then we walked for a ways up a hill, and got to the spot where we were to watch the sunset. and this is what it looked like. I wasn't as amazed as i thought i was going to be, but it was still a pretty view!

and that was the view. Not as bright popping colors as i was expecting.

We went out to dinner for Abby H's birthday which was nice. We didn't stay out long though because our tour the next day left at 4am!

Saturday- LONG LONG DAY!

4am. up and atem! 

We started off our day with a tour called Geyser del Tatio. We were warned that it would be pretty cold, and being from New England i was prepared! It was -12 degrees celcius, that's about 10 degrees F. This was a pretty cool experience, even though I was super tired from my 4 hour nap. For those of you who don't know, Geysers are holes in the ground that release hot air. I think there are things flowing underground to make it super hot. I can't remember though because I'm pretty sure my brain was not processing things that early in the morning. 

smoke everywhere.

close up!

Then we got breakfast...that was pretty good. They hard boiled eggs in the geysers and also put a carton of chocolate milk in there so we could have some warm drinks for those of us who don't like coffee.

Natalie holding the warm chocolate milk! so yummy, just what i needed!

Then to warm up a little bit, but not much because the water was cold, and then blasts of hot...we got into a "hot" spring. 

it was super smokey, so i didn't get many pictures of this. But just know that changing back into clothes....NOT FUN!

it was cold. and smelled of sulfur.

after the geysers we headed to a small town to see the local culture. it was amazing. all of the houses had a cross on top, and a solar panel. I am so glad someone is finally capturing the power of the sun and using it! 

one of the most photographed churches. There was a man charging money for pictures, so i had to snap one through the hole!

then we got to try some new meat. LLAMA!

so amazing and yummy!!

llama and onion. the most amazing mouth watering taste ever! these puppies were expensive! 4 dollars for one. Obviously i had to try it!

Next up on the tour. 

8 foot tall cactus. 

why not hug it!

That tour ended at around 12:15pm. We all got into bed and napped until our next tour at 3pm. This one turned out to be my favorite! Our tour guide was pretty cool, Felipe. It was just a great experience to have a smaller tour of 6 girls with Felipe as our trusted driver of the jeep This tour was Laguna Cejas.

getting in the lake was chilly. but it got a little bit warmer as you went in.

This lake had 4times the amount of salt as the ocean. It was crazy, and kind of stung my super dry skin from the desert.

floating!

Next stop, some cool lake reflection!

jumping. we found the other 6 gringas there as well! We did the same tours, but with different guides so we didn't always end up at the same place at the same time. but i'm glad that we got this picture in!

LOVE.

Next stop, sunset over looking a lake with amazing reflecting abilities. pretty cool!

nicole and i in front of the lake. that white stuff we are standing on is salt!

love this picture. Nicole, Ruth, and Dánika.

With some pisco sour to end the trip, we enjoyed some snacks over looking the water and then headed back to the hostal. 

Sunday- MORE TOURS. our last one, started at 6am. The early morning thing was kind of killer, especially since it was SO COLD!

FLAMINGOS!

the view in the morning. just beautiful!

in flight. we were being too loud! well not natalie and i, but some other girls on the tour.

cool rock balancing...until Natalie said "hmm i wonder how this works" and touched it. knocking it over. luckily our guide was a super pro at standing it back up.

ivan. our guide.

i should really sell this one to the company!

Sunday night we relaxed, and Monday...we relaxed some more. Our flight left at 6pm, so we headed home and it all went smoothly!!

So there was my photo tour of the weekend. If you want to know more, just ask :) 

Now, i should really be getting to my homework seeing as it is finals week coming up! Not so fun.... After next week though, i will be done with everything.

Art and Society-

Presentation (on the same topic that i gave my last presentation...so i dont know how to switch that up...)

Paper  6 pages.(on the topic of the presentation, that'll be easy. my one class in english).

Chilean Culture-

Dylan, a kid in my class from Southern California is my partner for this one. What we need to accomplish:

Collage- describing anything in Chile

2 page paper- describing collage

Presentation- to present our collage

Dylan is a pretty creative kid, and i think we have a good idea brewing for this one!

Contemporary Latin American Short Stories-

Take home exam. Should be about 4 pages long. Easy Peasy....it'll just take a long while to figure out these stories...whoops. (Due Monday)

Grammar-

Who knows! Honestly, we have not had class in 2 weeks, and it is not because of the toma! The teacher has been away on a conference, and who knows what else. Canceling class all the time. I will be back in class on Weds, so hopefully i will figure out what needs to be done then!

Oh yea, and all of that is due next thursday. except for my take home exam.

time to be a college student!

Chao for Now!

En Toma.

So before i start on my amazing weekend in the Atacama desert, i wanted to update you guys on what is happening at my university right now.

Basically the students of PUCV, Pontifical Universidad Catolica de Valparaíso, are on strike. (not only PUCV, other schools too!) They have taken over the buildings of the university. This is called *en toma*. The building is completely locked down with the front gates locked. There are chairs and desks stacked up behind the bars, so there is no one getting into the school through the main door.
Casa Central is the main building where i have the majority of my classes. They all take place in the PIIE, or the international office. As of now, this is the only part of Casa Central, or any of building that is having classes.
So the students are fighting for a better education, with lower costs. We would all love that right? but these kids are going to the extreme. The kids are taking over the buildings. It started on a thursday almost 2 weeks ago. I remember the day because Michelle and Adam were still here. We were on our lovely tour and we had to end so that i could make it to class. I was to meet up with Adam ad Michelle after my class at Casa Central. When i got to the building it was closed and chained up, and that was the beginning of this toma.
So Gonzalo and Paulo have not had school for almost 2 weeks now. The students have organized all of this and they are voting to keep the toma, or go back to having classes. Paulo wants to get back to classes, as would I. The classes that they miss now will be during what would be their winter break, so it's not like they miss the classes. ISA has assured us that we will be getting credit for our classes, even those with Chileans that aren't happening currently. I am not in any classes with Chileans, but i know quite a few people who are just taking exams on what they have had so far.
On thursday there is a huge protest where the majority of the students will be walking to the congress to make their demands.

University of Santa Maria. 

This is Paulo's university. It looks like Hogwarts, and it's amazing. I pass it every day on the metro. But anyways, the huge banner that they have on the outside of the building is what most of the buildings look like now. I tried to find a picture of Casa Central but couldn't find any.

So for now, the toma is in progress, and i go up a secret passage way to my international studies classrooms. The students continue to vote on if they want to keep the toma or not, and I honestly have no clue when this will end. I hope that the students actually see a result from all of this, but who knows. I think they would be shocked if they saw how much I was paying at UNH, so i'll just keep that to myself and encourage these kids to do whatever they can to lower the costs of an education.

So, I was about to close this post, call it a day and continue on my post for the weekend, but I did some stalking and found some pictures of Casa Central. obviously i stole them, so there are some people in them, but i know them! so it's ok :)

locked door.

just part of a sign that they have up all over the building!

Ryan, Natalie, and Chris. WE CAN'T GET IN. Oh, until we realized that they were opening up a special door for the gringos/gringas.

when i know more, i will update :) 

until then. GOOD LUCK CHILEANS....UNH, lets get movin!

Pitama and Visit continued

This day was a blast. I will try to just show you pictures of all the craziness that happened. Just know that we had a blast :)

put beer pong in the empty pool so that the ball will always roll back to you! genius :)

Ps, we were a little bit classier and played with boxed wine. always fun!

Renee and Kelly :)

Abby H and Renee having a noodle fight!

Me, Kelly, and Redyn. The cooks...oh and Adam did a lot too :)

foosball! the abbys obviously won!!

swings, with tunes blasting from that red truck behind us!

We had a lovely bbq with cheeseburgers, hot dogs, smores! It was amazing!

we obviously had to have a dance party on the truck :)

Overall it was a great day!! Good food, friends, and music!

Monday- I had class in the morning, and honestly i can't remember what we did that day. I think i probably came home, took a siesta and then we set out to walk around town. 

Tuesday- AHHH THE DAY THEY LEFT. SOOO sad. We relaxed, said good bye to Mama Vivi and family, well Michelle and Adam did. They're stuck with me for another month or so :)

Then we got a ride to the bus terminal and Adam and MIchelle were off on a bus to Santiago within 5 minutes! They made it home safely i hear, so it turned out perfectly! I was a little nervous sending them off on the bus since they had to make one transfer, but it looks like it all went well!!

So that was the trip! and now, a day of classes yesterday (weds) and now i am off to the Atacama. The driest place on earth!! I fly out today and I am due to come back on Monday night! I look forward to having AMAZING pictures for all of you :)

I am super excited about this trip to come, and then i am home to Viña to work on finals until July 2nd, when Susie comes to Chile and then we head to PERU!

Adam and Michelle's Visit :)

It was so lovely having Michelle and Adam here. They came at a time right when i was missing home, so it was great to get some people i love around me!

We had some great sunny weather for them here once we got back from Mendoza. We arrived early tuesday morning and then from there i am going to attempt to remember what we did each day. We took plenty of pictures, so hopefully those will help me remember!

Tuesday-
Sleep as soon as we got home! I went to my afternoon class and then came home and relaxed some more. That night it was time for futbolito!!! I was very excited to share this part of Chile with Adam. Michelle wasn't too interesting, and was exhausted from the trip so she stayed home while Adam and I went out to conquer the chileans....actually we both got schooled. But we both scored and had some assists im sure! That was an absolute blast and it continues to be one of my favorite weekly activities!!

Weds-
This day was sort of a blur. They usually past by pretty fast for me seeing as I have 3 classes. 10-12:30, 2-3:30, 3:40-5:10. Luckily this day i didn't have my last class so that was exciting! thanks grammar! I got home around 4 and found michelle and adam still relaxing in their pjs. Luckily there was a Bruins game on that night...very cool! We found out how to stream the games which was perfect! After the game Adam and I headed down to the gringo bar, Cafe Journal. *i know you're thinking journal that you write it...but think french. "jurnawl". It was packed, smoky, and just a crazy night. We didn't stay out too late because i had an 8:30 the next morning. Adam was quite disgusted by the smoke that had settled into his clothes....Welcome to Chile, where they haven't quite gotten around to banning smoking in clubs and bars. (although it is illegal inside every other building such as restaurants, schools, etc).

Thursday-
After my 8:30am class, which was brutal by the way. I was in bed by 3...so that makes for not a lot of sleep. We had a wonderful tour with my friend Nicole and her host brother Issac. He is a tourism major and has been holding tours for us gringos throughout the whole semester. This tour Issac brought us to the beautiful sights of Valparaíso.

Michelle and I in front of the vista.

Adam sliding down a cement slide that is just on the side of the road. Hurt the butt!

Adam and I in front of the museum that looks like a boat.

Overall it was a great tour and Adam and Michelle got to know a little bit of the history that I couldn't remember. Issac was a great tour guide! While i was off in class michelle and adam went to a restaurant that i had been planning on bringing them to. They got this thing called a chorianna. Basically a pile of french fries with meat and onions on top of it. I have still yet to try it...but i will!

chorianna.

Thursday night we went out to a bar called Bar Arena. We had a pretty good night. There was dancing and a mime...he was great entertainment. 

Me, Adam, and Mattia

We got home around 4am. That is pretty early for Chilean time...but we had had a long day and Stingray wasn't on the list of places to go. So we came home early and enjoyed a nice hot dog at the gas station across the street at 4am. They had pureed avacado for your hotdog....kinda scary.

Friday-

My day off from school! Ok kind of a joke, because i dont actually do much for school now. But i will have finals coming up, so now that adam and michelle are gone i am going to have to do some homework!

Friday we headed to Con Con to ride the horses. When we got there, no horses. Guess they don't do that in the winter. So we walked along the beach, got some of the worlds best empanadas (or so they say). 

On the beach in Con Con.

Then we headed to the dunes! My favorite place :)

On the dunes :)

kickin sand.

Michelle and I on the dunes. Love the colors in this picture!!

Friday i'm pretty sure we had another Bruins game that night? I'm not sure. But anyways, yea we did for sure. It's all coming back to me!

Saturday-

We were supposed to head to Pitama, a place that Fabian's family owns. Perfect for a sleepover, cookout, soccer fun! We were going to head there on Saturday, but things went wrong with the electricity, so we ended up having Saturday free. We went for a walk along the water, and then ended up in THE WORST RESTAURANT EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE. It is a super long story but basically our meat wasn't cooked, and after an hour and half of waiting we just wanted to leave. So i had to converse to the rudest waiter in my broken spanish and try to explain that we weren't going to pay for the meat. It was a mess of a meal, i ended up eating my side of mashed potatoes and some of Michelle's salad and still the bill came to about 75 USD. Horrible. It was this beautiful restaurant on the water, so we thought we were going to splurge and just have a great meal. turned out not to be. 

SO then came SUNDAY! 

this day was so fun. it needs its own post.