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. 

A brief Mendoza update.

So, things have been pretty crazy around here with Adam and Michelle. We are packing as much Chile in as we can while they are still here. Every day something new and very chilean happens, which is amazing to share.
I thought now would be a good time to update on our last weekend to Mendoza, Argentina...because if i don't write now, I might never get to it.
We left for Mendoza on thursday evening, a quick turn around from when Adam and Michelle arrived around mid-day on Weds. I like to keep them traveling as much as possible. Our bus left at 10:30 and we got to the Argentinean boarder around 3am. FREEZING! Finally after a long bus ride of barely any sleep we arrived in Mendoza and headed towards our hostal around 8am. Luckily they let us right into the room and we were able to sleep for a couple of hours, just enough to give us energy for the day.

Day 1- (Friday)
We started off around 11 and got a nice talk from Aldo, the owner of the hostal. He showed us where to go, what to do, and helped us plan our activities. The goal for day one. walk around, figure out the city and head to the main park to walk up a hill *cerro* for a look out over the city.

this is Benny, or Penny. Not sure on the name, but it was so cute! Adam played with the puppy while Michelle and I got the low down on the city. 

So we set off on our travels and walked around the city. It wasn't anything special really. The side walks were literally a hodge-podge of anything they could find to put down. Sometimes it was bricks, other times just slabs of cement, and if you were lucky, a nice little design of white bricks. We walked everywhere, since we were unsure of how the public transportation worked. Finally after walking for about an hour, and stopping for lunch, we came across the park. It was beautiful and clearly used for exercise and making out (they do it in Argentina too, just like in Chile). Everyone making out everywhere.

We came across a fountain.

We walked around this park searching for this cerro that we wanted to find. and we walked for hours, and basically walked a loop around the park, and couldn't find it. 

checking the map. obviously i was a little concerned.

So we went to the bus stop to wait for the number 3 bus just like Aldo said. And we waited, and waited. The thing about the buses is that there were plenty of 3's, but to get us to where we needed to go, we had to take a bus with a certain destination number, which was located in the bottom left of the bus, written SUPER SMALL, so you couldn't see it until it was close. And the number that we needed, never came....and finally we just took a taxi home to the hostal. I guess it's a good thing because we learned later that you pay in this little machine with either a card, or coins...and we had neither. so i guess it was for the best.

Day 2- Biking Wine Tour (Saturday)

What a lovely day to go drink wine and bike around to different wineries *bodegas*. We went to Senor Hugo, a lovely man who offered us wine before we even got our bikes. It was a little bit chilly, so i didn't mind having some wine to help warm me up.

Michelle and Adam at Senor Hugo's bike home.

Michelle loving the biking!

Adam showing us his no hands bike riding. I'm pretty sure he rode like this for the majority of the way.

We were able to stop off at a olive oil place that had chocolate, a beer factory, and a winery. This tour showed us a little bit of everything and it was perfect!

Adam even got to try a shot of absinthe. Crazy.

so strong you have to melt sugar in it. it looked really cool!

So the biking wine tour was lovely, and we even picked up a friend Lucy. She was traveling alone so we invited her to join us along the biking tour and we ended up spending the whole day with her.

Day 3- Horses! (Sunday)

What a crazy start to this day. Since the time change in Chile, our clocks were set for one hour behind Argentina time, so when we set our alarms for 830 to wake up and be ready by 930, well...that's what time we really had to be ready to go. We woke up to Aldo knocking on our door telling us that the man was here to come get us to ride horses. We rushed to get everything together and set out for a day of horse riding with no breakfast and a mix match of clothes on. 

We got to the barn and quickly got settled on our horses.

this is the view of what we were walking in

We were all saddled up and we headed out. I had no clue this was going to be as intense as it was. We were going up steep inclines and headed down near cliffs. It was a little bit scary not going to lie. Our tour guides were Ignacio (Nacho) and Ezekial. I was in back mostly with Ezekial helping him with his english. It was great to talk to him and teach him the difference of being ON a horse and IN a horse(this gets a little confusing because in spanish it is the same verb used).

After 4 hours of treking around on horse, we headed back to the stable where we were welcomed with wine and a BBQ. This meat had been slow roasting for a while and the doggie that followed us around knew it. He was very eager to get some food.

doggie wanting some food. he got some at the end, not to worry!

then we found the most adorable puppies in the barn!

adorable right! we wanted to take them home!!

We headed home after the long day, and just relaxed that night. My back was killing me, oh and my butt. 

Day 4- Attempt to find cerro again. (Monday)

So we set off again for this hill. This time we took the bus to the park so we weren't dead tired by the time we got there. Finally we got off at the right stop, and headed up the cerro gloria. It was a pretty nice day with a strong sun. Perfect for catching everything we missed the first day of walking around.

view from the top of the hill

Michelle and I in front of the monument of liberty and freedom on Cerro Gloria (we finally found it!)

We made it back to the hostal, relaxed for a bit and then headed to the bus stop to make our 10:15 home to Vina del Mar. I lost my Chilean Carnet, a pretty important document on the bus. So i was pretty much a wreck, on the floor of the bus looking for this thing. It was literally 30 seconds that i lost this thing. I cannot even begin to tell you how much this bugged me. I could barely sleep the whole bus ride home. This bus took shorter at the boarder, which put us home around 4:30am. We got in our beds and didn't wake up until 11. Perfect weekend! (minus my loss)

WOAH, and there you go. Much more to update from our daily travels around Vina and Valpo, but that will be a different post.

The days are flying by, and soon they will be leaving. But we still have some pretty great things planned before they head back home!

Chao for now :)

Oh Hey, It's been a while!

Sorry it has been so long since my last update! It is crazy here in Chile, and every day we are trying to cram as many things in as possible so that Adam and Michelle get to experience as much as possible during their time here.
 Currently i am freezing in bed with a warm water bottle *guatero* at my feet trying to warm up!!

Michelle Adam and I just got back from Mendoza, Argentina this morning around 4:30 am...so things have been kind of crazy. I'll have more time to update on my life once they leave. I'll have two days after they leave and then i head off on another excursion to the Atacama Desert! My life seems so surreal right  now. I'll leave you guys with a picture, and other than that, I guess you'll just have to wait to find out what we have been doing :)
Just know that we are enjoying ourselves and every day is AMAZING!

ok, maybe 2 pictures.

Our Argentinean Guides. Ignacio (Nacho) and Ezekial.

I'll update later when i have time to think!
Buenas Noches :)

Jardín Botánico

On Friday 5/20, just another lazy Friday without classes. I had been wanting to check out the Botanical Garden which is pretty close to where I live. Finally, Redyn and I decided to explore. We weren't really sure how to get there, Mama Vivi advised us to ask the owner of the small store next to our house, so we did. We were to take a green and white micro 302 (a micro remember is a public bus, with CRAZY drivers!). 5 minutes waiting and we were on our way! I asked the lady next to me where to get off, and she said to get off when she did. Pretty easy!
Less than 20 minutes later we were getting off the micro and found ourself walking aways across a bridge and to the entrance. Since we are students it only cost about 500 pesos, or 1USD.
I think i'll let the pictures explain the garden...there's no way i could come up with enough good descriptive words to describe this place. We basically walked around, snacked on some food and chocolate and chatted about my last trip to La Serena and Redyn's trip to Chiloe, an island down south that unfortunately i don't think i am going to have enough time to visit.
So anyways, here are the pics!

Redyn walking along the main entrance. The trees were all colored and it reminded me of the fall at home :)

after 20 minutes of walking, we weren't really sure if we were following a trail, we got to this pond!

camo lookin tree

the tree's were huge!! this one is for my tree huggers out there. But i'll tell you that after i hugged that thing i had spider webs, and probably ants crawling all over me.

i like this one.

heart tree <3

So there are the pics! Overall it was a great afternoon relaxing, walking around, and catching up! That's how i like to spend my free Fridays!

As for today, Monday, I had an exam on subjunctive. This is something that mostly people who study spanish have a hard time with, and todays quiz was not so fun. I was iffy on quite a few answers, and I never really know how i do until i get the grade back, which in Chile...could be months. But now that it's over with i can only look forward! 

Weds is so close! Cannot wait to have Michelle and Adam here at a time when I am really missing home and mostly unhealthy american food!

Chao Pascao!

Chico Norte: Day 3

So we wake up on Monday morning in Vicuña. I was freezing! This whole lack of central heating thing...killer! I put my fleece around my feet just to keep them warm and I was curled up in the fetal position all night just to stay warm. I suppose I should have whipped out the pair of gloves that I brought, but I didn't want to get out of bed!
First things first, we woke up showered, and then went downstairs for THE MOST AMAZING breakfast spread i have seen yet!! For the night we paid 5mil or 5,000 Chilean Pesos which is about 10 USD. The room was ok, freezing, but the breakfast was the best part! We were first started with fresh fruit (kiwi, mango, orange) and fresh squeezed grapefruit juice which was super sour, but Natalie sucked them all down cause she loves that. Then we recieved pan tostado, or basically toast with a number of different flavored jams and butter. YUM! The only picture taken of this spread was by the other Abby who currently doesn't have a cord to upload her pictures, nor does she know how to make a facebook photo album.
The goal for this Monday was to take a bus out to Elqui Valley and taste some Pisco distilleries (Pisco, the national alcohol of Chile. They are known for their Pisco Sours. It is a certain type of grape and the way they distill it is special. Peru also claims to be the home of pisco, so once i get there i will have to try it out) The bus was about 30minutes east of Vicuña.
We arrived at a tiny little town with a small park/center. We were hoping to try the Mistral Pisco, because that is the normal pisco that we buy when we go out to the clubs. Turns out it was right in the middle of town, but CLOSED! Horrible. Because it was Monday, most of the distilleries were closed.

the sign of the Mistral Restarant

After checking with a few of the locals they told us that there was one open. It was about 4km ouside of town, that's about 2.2 miles. So we set on our way! There was no way we were going to pass up the opportunity to go to a distillery when we had come all the way out here. So we set on our way, oh and also...it was HOT! The sun was blazing, there were barely any clouds in the sky. and i was packed for cold weather. Whoopsies!

As we were walking we came along many beautiful sights!

The brown things on the cactai are fruits called *tuna* here. Not to be confused with tuna the fish for which they use *atún*.

our view as we walked along

it was hot. no one was coming...so, I decided to take a break in the middle of the road.

beautiful :) and resting in the little bit of shade!

beautiful sign with flowers, for a restaurant that was oh wait....CLOSED.

Finally a car picked us up! There was about 3 cars total that we saw, and a nice couple picked us up about half way and got us to Los Nichos, the only distillery that was open. We walked in, asked the young kid behind the bar who was probably playing video games, and he told us that the only tour was at 3:30pm. It was about noon when we got there, so that was NOT so helpful. We weren't about to wait 3 hours, so we just walked around a little bit, sat on the benches, used the bathroom, and headed back out towards town.

this gives you an idea of the amount of people on the road.

Another quick ride about half way from a nice taxi man who didn't make us pay, and we made it back to town. We walked around a little bit, trying to find a cheap place to eat, or something to do in the town so that we wouldn't feel like it was complete waste of time. But, nothing found. We waited for the bus, and headed back to Vicuña.

Quick stop at the hostel to pick up our luggage from the night before, and then we headed back to La Serena. 

It was about 6pm by the time we got back to La Serena, and we had about 6 hours until our bus was to leave a little after midnight. SO, we spent as much time wasting time as possible. Walking around the same markets that we had 3 times before. Spending 2 hours at a cafe and we ordered as slow as possible, with a side of french fries after we were done eating our main course of grilled cheese. After a short colectivo ride to the bus station, we waited another hour or 2 for our bus. We had bought a pack of cards to pass the time, which turned out to be funny. It was a pack of Spanish cards which did not have your normal clubs, hearts, spades, diamonds. Instead there were pictures with numbers 1-12...no 13 though, so there goes the King. So that was interesting trying to play rummie with these cards. 

After hours of waiting, it got to be 12:15, and NO BUS. oh Chile. always doing that to me. It only turned out to be 50 minutes late, which i guess didn't really matter at this point. A little after 1am and we were on our way back south to Viña del Mar. 

Horrible bus ride. I am too short and my feet don't reach the bar where you should be able to rest them! Not fair. 

Got home around 7am, and then went straight to bed :)

Overall a pretty good trip, although not nearly as lovely as Patagonia!

And that's the end of the Chico Norte!

Tomorrow is Monday and that means another 830am class. grr.

Chao for now!

Chico Norte: Day 2

I WOKE UP THIS MORNING AND SAW MY BROTHER GRADUATE!! What a wonderful day! It brought tears to my eyes, seriously. I love graduations, weddings, babies, mostly all the typical teary things. It was so great to stream UNH Graduation right to my bed here in Chile. I also saw Adam come up on the big screen about 5 times!! He was in the 2nd row. that's pretty amazing!
So it is a wonderfully sunny day here, and i woke up to a wonderful graduation so i have a feeling its going to be a GREAT day! Congrats to all my UNH Graduates, Adam, Pickle, SarRUH, Rambo!! I'm going to miss seeing your faces on UNH campus next year!


So here is Day 2 of my weekend trip last weekend!
We woke up in La Serena ready to go to this museum that was free on Sundays. Yes we saved 2 dollars by waiting until Sunday instead of going on Saturday. So we set off for the Archeological Museum, or *Museo Arqueologico*. Museums in Chile are pretty small because they don't normally have a lot of space. There was quite a bit of old stuff, the coolest I found was a massive head that came originally from Easter Island.

this is the massive head. this one specifically has been to Italy, France, and is now settled in this museum in La Serena.

After our museum, it was time to hop on a public bus and head to our next stop, Vicuña. This was where we were planning to sleep on our 2nd night. We knew we had our reservation for the observatory, but other than that we had no plan. We had an idea of where some hostals were from the guide books, and we started that way. We rang the door bell of the first hostal we saw and it turned out to be pretty awesome! 5 mil for each person, thats about 10 dollars each, and our room was private with our own bathroom. This whole no heat in the rooms though, this is getting to me. I think Chile should invest in some central heating. But anyways, we dropped off our stuff, rested for a few minutes and then made our way out to walk around the town. 

Abby and I resting a little bit. Our pillows were almost non-existent as you can see.

This place was a small town, with the main center didn't even have stop lights. We stopped into a little hand made craft fair, which they call a *feria* here. They had a painted map on the wall, so it was easy to see where we were in relation to La Serena.

So here's the map. So over on the left you can see La Serena, and then there is us in Vicuña.

It was so great to be out here because the scenery is so different than where I live in Viña del Mar. It is amazing how different the country of Chile is. I am excited to see as much of it as I can!

This is what it looked like!! Lots of mountainy hills with towns settled in the bases. 

We spent the majority of Sunday just wondering around Vicuña. We of course had to try the gelato which was ehhh ok, but not the best i've had in Chile. 

We were super excited for that night because we had made reservations to go to an observatory that night. It was almost a full moon, so we didn't get a great clear view of the sky that you would normally get, but we got some great sights.

We started off by meeting at the office in town, and they took us to the observatory by van. About 15 minutes later we were at the top of a hill and we separated into English/Spanish tour. We decided to go with the English tour because we wanted to actually learn something, and we thought we would get more out of it in english, which i think we did.

We started out with a presentation to learn about the history of the universe and we learned how absolutely HUGE it is! amazing. I was really excited to get outside and look in the telescope! First we went up to the large one in the dome where we were able to see Saturn. Pretty cool, but super small. Next we moved outside, got a lecture on all of the stars and then we were able to look!! We saw things like the Southern Cross, from which you can always tell where south is. There is also a fake southern cross, and you would get VERY lost if you tried to follow that star. We also saw the constellation Leo!! wahhooo August birthdays!

Then, she let us take pictures of the moon. Very COOL!

almost full! the moonlight was so bright you practically didn't even need any lights to see where you were going!

Overall it was a pretty great experience. Sort of wish we could have had a clear sky with little moon so that we could see those bright stars that the north of Chile is known for, but it was still a great night!!

and that's it. CONGRATS AGAIN TO UNH GRADS!!

Chao!