P.S. I am almost officially not illegal anymore! yesss....went and applied for(maybe?) my carnet, my Chilean ID card the other day. I get to actually get it October 10th. woohooo legalness!
Didn't do much this week. Slept, mostly. I really enjoying sleeping until 3 am....oh, Chile. And vacation. Def. needed that.
Yesterday I was supposed to cook lunch for my family....we were going to go out and buy what I needed, but, I slept until 3 pm, and no one bothered to try and wake me, so we went out to lunch instead. I'm getting a better idea of what I'm ordering now, which is good. We went to the mall afterwards and got a webcam! So, family and friends, you can now see me via MSN. yaaaay
Freja called and told me about a birthday party for two girls, one in my class, and her cousin in cuarto. She said they'd be by at around 10 to pick me up. But, of course, 10 in Chilean time means just before 11. We went to one of the girls houses, which was giant. The party was a lot bigger than Freja and I expected too. There was a DJ there, and lots of people we didn't even know. But....we had a good time still. My host mom picked us up at 3:30, and Freja came back to my house to sleep over. We ate left over panqueques(they're thinner than US pancakes, and you put jam(?) on it, and roll it up. Sooooo good) and talked for a long while. Then....passed out.
Today, after lunch, we went to the Valle. We drove through the mountains and saw some giant lake thing....pretty neat. Some guy there came over and asked Freja and I where we were from, then commented on how white I am, which is always fun for me. Then.....we drove farther into the Valle and saw little towns and such. We stopped in Vicuña for some helado, like always. People here eat sooo much helado. Ice cream should not be eatent this much, I swear. We were sitting in the plaze chilling and such, when some procession came out of the church across the street. A band was kind of playing, and they were carrying a giant Virgin Mary. I tried to get a picture, but only got one of the back of the procession. I'm not sure what was going on, and my host parents didn't know either. But I think it's pretty cool all the religious stuff that goes on here. My host dad said there's a huuuuuge religious festival(?) in Andacollo coming up with tons of people and dancing, and they're going to try and bring me and Freja.
Anyhoo. We left Vicuña and kept driving through little towns. We stopped in the town where Gabriel Mistral was born. It was......empty. Apparently it's full of young people during the summer, but today it was dead. I think I would go insane in a town that small. It was ridiculous.
The drive back was about an hour. We drove by mountains(como siempre) and vineyards(they're everywhere). We stopped at the airport in La Serena to go to the bathroom, and Freja and I had a good time remembering how utterly terrified we were when we first arrived here. We both just wanted to turn around and go home, haha. Oh well....
That's pretty much it. Trust me, it was a lot more exciting than it sounds though. My host parents today decided to play a trick on me and told me I had to change houses in January, some Rotary Club Coquimbo rule. Haha, real funny.
I've taken over 300 pictures here so far....haha, oops. I'm trying to upload them all onto my Yahoo site....but it takes forever to load. Hopefully they'll all be up there by the end of this week though.....so make sure to check it!
Kelsey