Admiring the Andes

This weekend was wonderful.

On Thursday, I went to see El Origen (Inception). It was in English with Spanish subtitles. I didn't realize that only children's movies are dubbed here. Sergio told me that it's because kids can't always read the subtitles so it's easier for them to hear the voices. They don't dub the other films because they want to keep the actors' voices. The movie was so intense. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It was really cool to watch the movie and read the subtitles while listening to the film (lots of multitasking going on). At the end, we just sat there in shock. Definitely worth the 4.500 pesos.

Friday was a normal day. I had my history help session and relaxed to get ready to go skiing!

I woke up on Saturday at 6am to get to the ski shop. Since it was so early, I had to take different buses to get there, and they took a while to come since it was 7 am on a Saturday morning. I finally made it and rented goggles, a helmet, and snow pants - which promptly ripped. Oops. It was tiny. Then I hopped in the mini bus and we left by 8. I went with a group of exchange students from all over the world.

The ride was definitely interesting. I sat in the back with my friend Emily and we got to know the guy sitting in our row - Pierre, from Montreal. He hadn't slept yet - came straight from going out to the ski trip. He was firing questions for most of the ride until we hit the switchbacks. At that point, we all stopped talking so that we could concentrate on keeping our breakfasts down.

I thought the road would never end. We were driving a la Tomás in Switzerland (Brett and Kendall - you know what I mean with this one). We took the turns pretty hard and we were little turning 180 degrees each time. My Chilean mom told me that there were 39 turns in total. It felt like 539 at the time.

But we safely made it to the top of the mountain and had this view:

The skiing was reminiscent of the slopes in Zermatt. Gorgeous view, no trees, just pure snow (and a bit of ice since it was nearing the end of ski season). I skied with my friends Hilary and Sophie. We spent the whole morning on the slopes and as we went in for lunch, Hilary had a rough fall and all of her equipment scattered all over the mountain. She hurt her hip with the fall, so that was the end of her day.

After lunch, Sophie and I joined Pierre and his two friends from Finland - they were awesome - and we hit the slopes for another 3 hours. Sophie and I were the only two skiers of the bunch. We decided to explore the upper right side of the mountain and curved around to the backside. We found our best runs of the day there and the view was amazing. As the day continued, the clouds rolled closer and one of our paths looked like it led straight to heaven. It literally felt like we were flying.

At 4, we returned our gear and drove back down the mountain - 39 switchbacks again. Once I got home, I crashed. I was so sore (and still am). But it's the good kind of "I worked hard" sore.

Sunday, I met Madeline and Abby and we decided to hike up Cerro San Cristobal. This was initially my idea from earlier in the week, but after skiing it was a little rough. I lagged behind at times, but we finally made it.

At the top of San Cristobal is a huge statue of Mary that looks over all of Santiago. It is the most beautiful view of the city - especially if you are there on a smog-less day. Santiago is really interesting in that it has multiple Cerros and parks in the middle of the city that you can hike. They are these hills the pop out among the skyscrapers and houses.

From the top of the mountain, we decided to take the funicular (incline) back down. Abby was a little scared, but it was a quick ride and we kept her occupied.

Today was a pretty normal day with one exception. My life in Santiago revolves around public transportation. So I've pretty much seen everything. From street performers juggling fire or playing with devil sticks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_sticks), to people selling food or movies, to others who play musical instruments or rap - I thought I had seen it all. Nope. A woman and her daughter hoped on my bus the morning and the woman was walking a dog. Ok fair enough. I had seen a cat on the Micro once before. But then I realized that the guy across from me was staring at something. It turns out that the daughter had also brought her pet on the bus.... a duck. It kept biting at her finger and then started the quack. Priceless. I told my Chilean family about it during dinner and they thought I was lying. "Are you sure you weren't swimming in a lake?" Nope...