Santiago / Mendoza / Buenos Aires / trip wrap up

This post is long overdue as I have been home safely for almost a week. It's been good being home. After I left Valdivia, I went to Santiago for a few days for end of the program ceremonies and such. It was fun to see a lot of people I had met 6 months earlier and compare experiences. On Thanksgiving, the officials treated us to a really great dinner in Santiago which was really nice. After that, I took a beautiful bus ride over the Andes mountains to the town of Mendoza in the country Argentina. Mendoza is the main wine producing region of Argentina and the town itself is very nice. After a day there, I took another long bus to the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires. I really loved Buenos Aires, it's a  big beautiful city, I much preferred it to Santiago. It reminded me of a great European city, or a more laid back New York City. Anyways, I enjoyed my time there. If I come back to South America I would like to explore more of Argentina, it is a great country. I was there for 4 days then I cam back home from Buenos Aires via Mexico City via Los Angeles via Santa Barbara. So that's that. Good 6 months

Last Weekend in Valdivia

It's been good times here, but like all good things it must come to an end. This past weekend, for all the volunteers in the region, host families and co-english teachers, our program paid for a boat cruise of the area to end up stay here. We we able to visit several beautiful islands right around Valdivia, some only accessible by boat. The pictures include Spanish ruins on Isla Mancera, the other volunteers in the region and some other fun stuff. It was really fun and the luckily, it wasn't raining.

Other than that I've just been enjoying my last days here. Last week I was able to put a band together and perform at school which turned out to be one of the highlights my whole time here. I'm to lazy to write up another post about it, but a post can be found here on the real love records blog.

I have to say that I am sad to leave Valdivia, it's been really great here, for the most part. In the end the positive things stay with you at longer than the negative. Wow, six months went by very, very fast. I'm made some really great friends here and it has been quite the experience. The other volunteers, students, teachers, host family, and chilean friends have all made my time here really fun, as well as inspiring. It's interesting, the thing I will miss most about Chile is the same thing I have missed most about the United States, and it's not even close in either case. Most of all, I will miss the people. 

 I'm not gonna get too sentimental yet though, I've still got more traveling to do before I return home. I'll be back in good ol' Santeezy for a bit and then off to Argentina. I'm looking forward to everything that life brings.

----having many problems uploading pictures, but I wrote this already, so I'm posting it anyways. pictures will come soon, hopefully

3 weeks left

Not much to say, I haven't gone anywhere special or done anything especially cool since the last post. I'm just trying to enjoy the rest of my time here as much I can. I'm looking forward to coming home and to starting my next adventure, even if it is just working and saving money for awhile. On Dec. 4th I will be back in the U.S.A., back in California, the best place on earth.

Chiloe Island

This past weekend we went to Chiloe Island. It was about a 6 hour bus/ ferry ride from Valdivia, there are several smaller towns on the island, a few of which we visited. Chiloe island is known to very beautiful, and to have a distinct culture from the rest of Chile, and the world. There are many beautiful houses and churches as well as natural parks. Mythology and legends play a big part of the people's lives, though now it's a combination of this and Catholicism. Chiloe Island was the last place in South America to be conquered by the Spanish and so many of their own cultural aspects remain intact. They also have a lot of unique food, including curanto which is a soup cooked in the ground, with everything you can think of in it. Anyways, it was a good weekend.

Pucon

The past weekend I traveled to Pucon, a beautiful touristy town about 3 hours away from Valdivia. There are several lakes around, and a big active volcano (last eruption 1971). Most people travel here to do X-treme things like x-treme snowboarding, x-treme river rafting, and regular volcano climbing. We were on a budget so we didn't do any of those things. Instead, the first day we went walking by the lake and this guy let us go out in his paddle boat for awhile. I definitely gave me arms a lot  of exercise, not that those guns need it or anything. The second day there we rented bikes and explored some really nice trails in the countryside. It was a great time indeed, and the Volcano didn't erupt while we there, allowing us to narrowly escape complete annihilation and lava related deaths. Otherwise, I am doing really well here in Valdivia and everything is going great.

Fiestas Patrias

So today, the 18th of September is Chile's birthday. Chileans celebrate this by having a lots of parties and eating lots and lots of Chilean food, drinking Chilean wine and dancing chilean dances. There is no school today because it's a national holiday, but we had a celebration at school earlier in the week. I took some pictures of some of my students all dressed up in special Chilean clothes and I learned how to dance (horribly) the national chilean dance, la cueca. The students also presented songs and dances, and I videotaped a little.