A Month Tomorrow

Tomorrow marks the start of my last month here in Chile. It's such an insane feeling, that I absolutely have NO TIME to deal with at the moment. So much has been going on here in Vina, there is never a dull moment!

The snowball started last Tuesday.

I volunteer at a high school and help a teacher with her English class. The kids in there are amazing, and last Tuesday I went out with some of them. I met up with a few girls from class and our teacher. They wanted to show me all Vina had to offer. Unfortunately, some kind of strike is going on here! All of the museums and big parks in Vina were closed. No worries. We hopped into a micro and went over to Con Con which is a town right outside of our city. They have incredible sand dunes that you can actually go surfing on. We walked along the coast, and then at the end we hit up McDonald's. It was my first chicken nugget since the states, and it was absolutely delicious!!

Wednesday my friend Derek and I went to Santa Isabel for fixings for a picnic. Then we hopped on the metro. We agreed that we would ride until one of us saw something awesome. We rode almost until the end of the line when Derek spotted a huge white cross on top of a hill. That was our stop! We got out and hiked our way up to the cross. When we turned around we had the most incredible view ever! We saw mountains and hills as far stretching across in the background behind about every color house imaginable. It was gorgeous! Unfortunately, our adventure was spur of the moment, and we didn't have a camera :(

Thursday Lindsey's best friend Dee was in town, so we all went out dancing. We decided to avoid creepers and just have a blast dancing with our group. It was an amazing night of techno and raggaeton and all other types of music.

Friday we decided to take a day trip to Renaca, which is right outside of Vina as well. We packed our lunches and headed out first thing in the morning. We think our part of the beach is gorgeous, but we found a place even better!! We spent about four hours talking and napping and just soaking up the free time that we know we are going to miss soon. We were walking through the town and found a huge two story Dunkin Donuts. We decided to have a HOME moment, so we went in and each of us picked out a delicious donut. First donut since the states! I got a Boston Creme, and it was absolutely amazing! Now that home is something tangible, I have started rocking the list of things that I must have when I get back :)

Saturday we hit up the Botanical Gardens again for a BBQ with a ton of people from our program along with some Chileans from our Cultures in Contact class. We had so much delicious food! The meat was fantastic, and our German friend Marcel brought German potato salad! It was incredible!! We had guac and all sorts of bread to dip into it. It was a great feast followed by hiking through the gorgeous park. GOOD DAY! Then that night we went over to our friend Orion's house, and we watched movies. I finally saw UP! Aww it was so cute!!

Sunday my family celebrated my host brother's birthday! It was so much fun having my host sister home! Bah. I wish I could spend more time with her! She is so much fun, and since she is studying English, we always have a blast joking about our language issues.

Monday was back to school, but we started watching this really intense Chilean movie about the mines here. We are finally getting into the government here in Chile, and it is so intense! Just the fact that twenty years ago they were under a dictatorship is so hard to wrap my mind around. People here do NOT talk about politics, and it's pretty obvious why! During Pinochet, people were not allowed to speak their mind about anything. Anyone thought to stir up scandal was abducted from their house and killed or tortured. A lot of people fled the country, but there are still thousands of families that have no idea what happened to their loved ones. We are so fortunate to be living in the United States. This experience has definitely shown me how blessed we truly are!

Tuesday was a monumental day here in Chile. Background. CHILE DOES NOT HAVE COOKIE DOUGH. Like ok, packages of cookie dough that you buy and cut and put in the oven, that does not exist. Chile doesn't even have chocolate chips. You can find very small bags of shavings or little chocolate chunks, but there is only one type, no selection. Making cookies here is just impossible. Any cookie you do find here is hard. They do not rock gooey, soft cookies like us the in states. We wanted to make cookies from scratch, but they didn't have any brown sugar. They tried to show us regular cane sugar that was colored brown, but the actual brown sugar that you use for cooking, was not anywhere to be found! FINALLY, when we thought all hope was lost, we found a box of prepackaged cookies where you just add butter and water. OMG. It was heaven!! We finally had cookie dough here in Chile. Now, mind you, I was kind of a snob and it will never compare to what we have in the States, but it was still delicious! Totally the high point in my day!

Yesterday it hit me. I had ZERO clean clothes, and I am leaving tonight. I had to rush and get my clothes cleaned in hopes that they will be dry by this afternoon. We are leaving TONIGHT for Mendoza, Argentina. Isn't that insane? Oh yeah friends, just taking a weekend trip over to Mendoza! Haha. I am so excited. We are going to rock a wine tour and hopefully see some of the beautiful countryside!

Entonces, I will update you about that weekend upon my return! I am loading some pictures right now, so I promise I will post them up today!