Feliz Cumpleaños Nati!

Tonight was my Chilean host sister's 20th birthday and we had a huge party. All of her friends came. As did all of the relatives. Time to show off my spanish skills. Haha. It was so great to get to know all the aunts, uncles, and cousins (makes me miss my own family gatherings - love you fam!). We spent the night comparing life in Chile to the US, ranging from high school uniforms to slang terminology. I think I'm going to help my Chilean cousin Italia's boyfriend with his English. Should be super interesting. I also think I might get a Tandem partner to help someone else practice (and also to make an automatic Chilean friend :P).

For Nati's party, we kept the Chile decorations up from the asado this past Sunday. We toasted to the safety of the miners in the north and spent the lunch listening to the radio and then watching Piñera's speech on the TV. It's amazing that all 33 are still alive after 17 days in an underground shelter with only 5 days of food. What a miracle! Except they say it's supposed to take around 3 or 4 months to get them out... Can you imagine being stuck in a tiny pocket underground for 4 months? Wow...

I also went hiking this weekend. We took a bus as close to the Cordillera as we could, hopped off, and walked about 2 miles to the "trail head". It took us a little while to reach the start of our hike. With the help of 2 sets of directions, a map, a guide dog dubbed "Rudy", and a staircase that could have led us straight into the sky, we finally made it to our hiking spot.

The hike was basically a straight climb up a dusty mountain littered with cacti....

Without hiking boots, it was a bit tricky. We didn't realize what we were getting ourselves into. But we made it to the first summit in an hour. (My friend Mary wants to climb the rest next weekend).

The view was beautiful with the exception of the smog blanketing the city... but that's Santiago for you.

The route down a bit tougher, especially without hiking poles (the Chileans use them to literally run down the mountain), but we made it!

This weekend I'm going skiing! I am so excited! It's going to be amazing. There are 4 places to ski about an hour outside of Santiago. I'm going to one called "Colorado".

I'm going to leave you with something I now have memorized. After seeing this on the train everyday for the last.. uhh.. 7 weeks? (whoa...).. here's my favorite Transantiago commercial: