"No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks..."

I thought I'd use a quintessential children's rhyme to inform you all that SCHOOL'S OUT!
The ironic part:

1. I have only used a pencil 1 time in Chile - pens all the way...(GO PENS!)
2. We never use books since they are expensive - goodbye fotocopiadora
3. I never got a dirty look from a professor, they all love the extranjeros.

This last week was crazy.
I went from being buried in papers (literally) to prepare for essays and exams, to a birthday once (the meal between lunch and dinner) for my host mom, to the HARRY POTTER PREMIER.. and then capped it all off with an end of the semester asado. We just love our asados.



This was my birthday present for my host mom - her favorite flowers and chocolate. I just thought the flowers were pretty but somehow, I was lucky enough to pick out her favorites.



My host dad wanted to pretend like we were in the Amazon and stand in the plants...

The whole family at once - some classic faces in this one.



Feliz cumpleaños!



The aunts and uncles... and me.

Chilean's love Harry Potter.
We got to the theater an hour early and we were almost in the back of the line. 3 flights of stairs. Sheesh.

Sergio had to help start the fire for the asado - the wind kept blowing out the flame.

We found Crater beer! From the factory we went to in the south.

So Long Sergio!

So this week I lost one neighbor, but luckily I'm gaining another!

Today, my host brother moved into his own apartment. Therefore, we spent the whole weekend celebrating.

On Friday night, after dinner, I joined my host family on a clandestine visit to Sergio's new apartment. We brought Dali, snuck up the stairs super quietly, and knocked on his door to surprise him. He has been working on the apartment since last weekend; painting, adding tile to the living/dining room, and moving all of his stuff in.

Here are Sergio and Javiera with the newly tiled floor and a fresh coat of paint. My host mom went over today to help him touch it up.

Saturday, we had Sergio's despedida (goodbye party) with the family.

Earlier in the week, we received about 50 pounds of cheese - no joke - and 2 whole lambs, so we decided to break out a lamb and have cordero in addition to the masses of meat that we already eat during normal asados.

I helped my host dad figure out how to fit both of the lambs in the freezer. He was pretty impressed with my creativity.

The whole family was here this weekend, and in addition to Sergio's godparents and their kids, we had a house full of people.

Here is the normal asado

Shooting the lamb - my host dad thought this would be hilarious. Side note: THIS IS NOT A REAL GUN!

Sergio was in charge of the lamb

My host mom really wanted me to eat the leg of lamb...

The asado was a crazy one. I attempted to escape early so that I could work on my history paper, but it was tough to be productive with my host mom coaxing my outside to dance with her. The music was also super loud and once they started playing the 80's music, I couldn't resist. It's pretty hilarious to see them sing "Another One Bites the Dust".

We were waltzing together

Today - with Madeline's help - I made "American Breakfast". My host dad has been intrigued by waffles and he's been joking with me for a while about making them. So I collected all of the ingredients - his son had a waffle iron - and we spent the morning making pancakes and waffles.
My host family loved it and kept telling me that I had to teach them how to make pancakes. Their version - panqueques - is more of a dessert crepe.

We had to use M&Ms for chocolate chips. They don't sell them in the grocery store. Odd, right?

The kids had just woken up - so they look a bit sleepy.

At the end, Sergio grabbed the rest of his belongings from his room, connected his bed to the top of his car, and drove 10 minutes down the road to his new apartment.

Here's Dali, staring into Sergio's empty room. They are best friends and Dali always sleeps in Sergio's bed.

Sad little Dali



So, needless to say, we're all sad to see Sergio go. But he'll be around all the time. I am certain. As of now, my host cousin, Italia, is moving into Sergio's room. She only lives here during the week so that she can be closer to the university. By the end of the week, I'm supposed to report back to Sergio and inform him if Italia is a better neighbor. Here comes the test week...

Rainy Days

Life continues as normal here in Santiago.. tranquilo.

I only have 2 more weeks of school until exams start. It's really a wake-up call of how fast this is coming to an end.

I decided that this weekend (and in the upcoming weeks) I needed some quality Santiago/host-family time after spending so many weekends away.

On Thursday night, I went to a wine gala in downtown Santiago with my host family. We got cups and walked around to all of the different stations, testing the Chilean wines. My host mom and I also hit up all of the little snacks: cheese, olive oil, meats, chocolate fountains... it was great. I tried about 8 different wines from different wineries and then I realized that now I can do this in the US too. Pretty cool. After the gala, we went to this restaurant called Fuente Suiza which has "the best cheese empanadas in town". After some laughter and a ton of food, we made it home by 11:30.

Friday was super productive - I went to class, filled out evaluations, finished some work, and then went to see Social Network - in English with Spanish subtitles. It's really cool to be able to understand both forms of watching the movie, but it makes you realize that people are missing a lot of the jokes when they can only understand the subtitles. The Chileans definitely did not laugh as much as we did.

Spring is quickly turning into summer here... prime time to work on your tan and make dinner with friends, which is what I did yesterday with Erica and Madeline. We bought soooo many vegetables at the feria (farmer's market) and were so stuffed at the end, but we loved it. By the end of the night, I received a phone call from Ryan and Kristen telling me that he finally popped the question!!! and SHE SAID YES! Soooo happy! I've been running around for weeks telling all my friends that my brother is about to get engaged. :D

Today was a rainy Sunday - but great for catching up on stuff - skype dates, work, tv, movies, photos... a little bit of everything.

So not super exciting on my end down here.. just normal life - with Starbucks Christmas cups and Christmas decorations in the grocery stores.

Walking on the Moon

Last weekend, I finished my 4-week traveling streak.
Abby, Madeline, Erica and I traveled to the north again to experience the Atacama Desert in San Pedro. Everyone in Chile talks about San Pedro (or San Peter - Madeline and I saw this on a Twitter billboard today) as being one of the top places to go. So we took advantage of the long weekend - All Saints Day - and hopped on a plane to the desert.

When we arrived in the city of Calama, we had to take a two-hour bus to get to San Pedro. The whole way there, I just stared at the window in awe. The desert is so vast, but it wasn't what I expected. For some reason I always have this picture of Aladdin in my head when I think about the desert. Beach-like sand dunes that go on for miles. But nope! The desert is so much more than that. Its rock formations, and volcanoes, and sand dunes, and occasional pockets of greenery when there is enough water underground to supply the tree roots with nutrients.



Driving in the bus - the mountain in the background is a volcano that is very close to San Pedro



Soon we arrived at our oasis in the middle of the desert

 Once we made it to San Pedro, we had a bit of a snafu with the hostel situation. We had "booked" a hostel, but all we knew was the name. I had forgotten to grab the address. We figured it wouldn't be a big deal, thinking San Pedro was probably tiny. We were wrong - there are tons of hostels there.
We tried to ask around for directions, but no one seemed to know where it was, or they just didn't want to help us. We had heard that people get nicer in Chile as you go further south and these people were just proving the point.
Finally a man drove by and asked us if we were going to Hostel Candelaria - what a miracle! We were! So he picked us up and took us to the hostel, where we got settled and talked all about plans for the weekend. About 15 minutes later, the wife of the hostel owner came into our room and asked if one of us was named Sarah... nope.
Turns out there were 4 other girls who had booked the room we were in, and they were on our bus from Calama to San Pedro. When they got there, they had called the hostel to be picked up but the hostel owner found us first, assuming that we were the 4 girls that he was supposed to pick up. Oops. Our reservation hadn't gone through all of the way. But everything worked out and he just moved us into another room.
So with the hostel all sorted out, we went into town to plan our tours and grab a bite to eat.

The next morning, we woke up and rented bikes and sandboard, ready to explore. Sandboards are just snowboards - and you basically use them to ride down the sand dunes.
As the navigator, I led everyone into Valle de la Muerte - "Death Valley" and we biked through this valley of amazing rock formations.

Sadly, about halfway to the dune, Abby's bike tire went flat. Cool.
The bike company had given us all of the tools to fix a flat, but none of us had ever done it in our lives.

So I took charge. We found the tear, got out the rubber glue, spilled some on my leg - and freaked out because it was supposed to be toxic (oops), and attempted to patch the tear. No success. It was too big and the patch didn't hold. And because we were in a valley, we didn't have cell service.


 

So we walked our bikes up to the dunes, parked them, grabbed our lunches and our sandboards, and ran up the sand - a TON harder than it sounds. The dune was so steep and we kept sinking as we tried to climb up.

Then we attempted to sandboard. No one could really get the board going. We all went pretty slowly, but it was funny.

At 4, we went on our first tour - to the Laguna Cejar.
40% of the water is saturated with salt - more salt than the Dead Sea! - which means you can just float in the water. So awesome. Except it was FREEZING.

Then, Erica and Abby jumped into more freezing fresh water - Ojos de Cejar. They are two perfectly circular holes that have eroded and collected water. Madeline and I didn't go in because we only had 1 dry towel to there was no way that the 4 of us could share it.

After the swimming adventures, we stopped at our last lagoon to watch the sunset and enjoy some pisco sours and cookies. What's Chile without some pisco?

Day 2 we woke up at 4 am to see the geysers which are most active between 6 and 8. It was really cool because Chile has one of the largest concentrations of geysers in the world (I think it's more than Yellowstone).

On the way back down, we saw some llamas and vicuña - some of the classic Chilean wildlife.

Then Madeline and I ate some llama.... sorry! But it was great!

That night, we went on another tour of Valle de la Muerte, Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), and some other important landmarks close to San Pedro.



This is the same place where we had gone sandboarding!



As we were walking through Valle de la Luna, our tour guide told us to take of our shoes and we all walked barefoot through the sands of the Atacama Desert. Going down this steep slope was the best part:

Valle de la Luna - Moon Valley

 That night (October 30), we went out to dinner to celebrate my birthday - they had the live band at the restaurant sing to me in Spanish. While Erica and I checked in for our flight before dinner, Abby and Madeline went back to "pay for the hostel" - which actually entailed decorating our hostel! So when we came back, they surprised me!

"Feliz Aniversario!" - Happy Anniversary of my birthday! Abby couldn't find "Cumpleaños" which actually means birthday. They used alfajores as my cake!!

Then I hopped in my bed full of balloons - Happy 21st to me!

On my actual birthday, we toured around the whole day - but I did receive some wonderful phone calls from my host fam, my real fam!, and some friends on my Chilean phone. Thanks guys!

Flamingos in the 3rd largest salt lake in the world within the Atacama Salt Flat.

After seeing the flamingos, we hopped back on the bus and my friends had the whole bus sing for me! That's 2 Happy Birthday's in Spanish!

A fox!

The high altitude lakes! So blue.

All in all, our trip to San Pedro was a hit. We toured around a ton, so we were completely exhausted by the end.
But when we came back to Santiago, we had one last thing. My host family threw me a birthday asado - barbeque - so Abby, Madeline, and Mary came over to celebrate one more time.

My host parents

My host dad, his daughter, and Sergio

The girls and Sergio

In front of the pool. Everything bloomed while I was away for the weekend

Happy Birthday #3 - in Spanish, English, and Indonesian - thanks Abby.