Wednesday, April 29, 2009

You can't make this stuff up folks

Today I arrived home to find this in my bathroom:



It is a large crystal and most definitely not soap. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS COUNTRY

Monday, April 27, 2009

April 25, 2009

9:00- Alarm goes off.
9:30- Amanda and I get up and get dressed, still groggy from a late night at the samba club.
10:00- Buy snacks at Líder for our hike in Parque Nacional La Campana.
10:30- Dunkin Donuts closed. Go back to Líder for breakfast. Rush to meet Jono and Stefan, two of Amanda´s friends, at the metro by 11.
11:00- Arrive at metro.
11:30- Jono arrives at metro. Stefan is at bus station?
11:45- All on surprisngly nice Valpo metro. Discuss adventures at the samba club.
12:30- Arrive in Limache. Look for bus to Olmué.
12:35- Notice man renting double bicycles in the plaza.
12:37- On bicycles. Amanda and I ride circles around the boys, laughing when they have to get out and push the bike.
12:45- Switch bikes and discover that theirs is super ghetto. Must use "Little Miss Sunshine" technique to get moving. Boys ride circles around us laughing.
1:00- Get on bus to Olmué.
1:20- Arrive in Olmué. Amanda charms colectivo driver into taking us to the park.
1:45- Driver drops us off on the side of the road, next to the "1 km to Park" sign.
2:00- Finally arrive at park entrance. Ranger informs us that we do not have time to do the 7-hour hike to the top of the cerro.
2:15- Hike.
2:19- Wheeze.
2:45- Stop for a break and lunch. Realize how much I miss PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY. Boys spout nonsense about the rat king of Chile.
3:15- Go back down.
3:45- Take another break at the bottom.
4:00- Back at our sign. Find bus but the driver wants to wait ten minutes. The boys go to buy water. Driver asks us if they are our husbands while changing clothes in front of us.
4:10- Rock out to Backstreet Boys on the radio.
4:30- Back in Limache. Eat ice cream. Get back on metro.
5:15- Back in Viña. Amanda and I go back to her apartment and nap.
7:00- Wake up. Amanda gets in the shower.
7:30- Amanda gets out of the shower.
8:00- Amanda is ready to leave for dinner.
8:40- Delicious goat cheese and tomato empanada. Rent Seven Pounds for ridiculous collateral.
10:50- Back to Líder for snacks. Recieve angry glares from closing employees.
11:30- Watch Seven Pounds.
2:00- Go to bed depressed. Don´t let the bedbugs bite.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Happy Earth Day Everybody!

Remember, global warming solutions start at home!

Friday, April 17, 2009

A Tale of Two Boos

But first, two great pieces of news!

1. The federal court blocked offshore drilling in Alaska.
2. The EPA has (finally) declared that greenhouse gas emissions are dangerous to human health, clearing the way for tighter emission regulations.

Anyhoo.... I know I've been posting a lot lately but much has happened in the past couple weeks. My dear friend Jenelle, who is spending this semester in Buenos Aires, came to visit the Chile crew a couple weeks ago. She stayed with me for the first couple of nights. We did many touristy things in Santiago, such as climbing cerros and shopping at ferias and going to Pablo Neruda's house. Amanda came over too, and we had a fun night of carrete (Chilean nightlife). We also had a big AU reunion at a delicious pizza dinner with me, Jenelle, Amanda and Dania. Yayy friends!

Jenelle and I on Cerro Santa Lucia


Sunset from the top of Cerro San Cristobal

Jenelle went to Viña with Amanda while I was in Patagonia, and the two of them came back for one last girl's night before Jenelle had to leave. It was a beautiful night-we got take-out Chinese food, a tub of ice cream, and ate them in pj's while watching movies. It was so refreshing to spend time with people I have a background with--I like everyone in the enclave but we don't actually know each other that well. With A&J I could gossip about people we all knew and reminisce about good times from years past. Needless to say, I was sorry to see them go. I am having a wonderful time here, but as my dad so astutely noted, I am a little homesick... for AU.


: )

More photos here. Yes it's the same album, go to the end for the new pics.

PS-I learned how to link stuff, aren't you proud of me?

Monday, April 13, 2009

Patagonian Wildlife

aka Kelsey in Attenborough mode... I actually saw all of these in the wild!

Condor
With a wingspan of 9-10 feet, the Andean condor is the largest flying land bird in the Western hemisphere. They are also extremely long-lived, with a lifespan of up to 50 years. Since they are so large they have to use heat thermals rising from the ground to life them into the air. The Andean peoples have myths about condors carrying off women to be their brides. They're basically awesome.


Where's Condorito?



Huemul
This highly endangered deer is the national symbol of Chile, featured alongside the condor on the national seal. There are only 50 in the park so we were really lucky to see one. They are small, only 3 feet high and weighing around 100 lbs.


My crap photo from the bus. See it?


One with detail!

Gray fox
Wikipedia doesn't know much about this little guy except that he does general foxy things. He sure is cute though! He came up right next to the bus and let people get very close to him to take pictures, so I think he is used to getting food from tourists and hikers (bad!).



Guanaco
A relative of the llama, they live in high altitudes and travel in large herds. We saw a bunch of them. They are sometimes raised for their wool but there is a large wild population as well.





Rhea (Ñandú)
Basically a small ostrich native to South America. If you have ever puzzled over a photo of a gaucho chasing an ostrich, well, this is it. I saw the rheas from the bus (we had to stop for them to cross the street) so I didn't get a picture, but don't worry, the internet has many.



Sea Lion
You all know what a sea lion is, I just want to show off that I saw babies in the wild!


Awwww


Saturday, April 11, 2009

Journey to the End of the Earth

This week I went with the AU group to two national parks in Patagonia. For those of you who forgot their geography, this is the southernmost area of the South American continent. I have provided a map for your benefit. It was definitely cold, but it wasn't unbearable. We thought it might rain but it never did.


Note the distance to Antarctica

Our flight left Santiago at 2:10 am. The passengers consisted almost entirely of our group and a bunch of 17-year-old Chilean boys going to boot camp for the first time. Imagine, if you will, a giant line of young men with a pocket of gringas in the middle. We got a lot of stares.

We flew into Punta Arenas, the southernmost city of its size in the world. The airport only had two gates (but also two baggage claims for some reason). An unconscious bus ride later we pulled into Puerto Natales, a tiny town close to the parks. We kept seeing this figure of a badger-sloth-bear thing everywhere--on street signs, in gift shops, on posters, etc. It turns out they found the skeleton of a Milodon, a prehistoric sloth, close to the town and it is apparently the biggest thing that has ever happened there.


Run away!

Our first day there was a free day but since we'd only had like 5 hours of sleep we mostly just wandered the town and then napped. The next day (tues) was the start of the adventures. We first went to the Cave of the Milodon, where they found it. The whole thing had been excavated already, though, so there wasn't much to see.

We then drove over to Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. The tour was a little disappointing in that they just drove us in a bus to different scenic locations where we'd get out and take pictures. They told us to bring trekking gear, but of the two "hikes" we did, one was a dirt road and the other was handicap accessible. We did get to see more of the park that way, and I understand that it's hard to take such a large group hiking, but we got really tired of sitting on the bus.

The scenery, however, was incredible. It was a cloudy day so you couldn't see the peaks, but I thought that gave it a nice creepy feel. I don't even know how to describe what I saw. The pictures are good, but they don't really capture it. The whole place seems so rugged and wild. Few people live there so there is plenty of undisturbed wilderness, it was really cool.







The second day we took a boat ride to Parque Nacional Bernardo O'Higgins. It was a lot of fun to be on a boat, but again, we mostly sat around the whole time. The highlights of the ride were the sea lion pups (!) and two glaciers.


20 years ago this glacier was at sea level



We were promised pisco sours with ice from the glaciar on the way back, but a) the ice looked normal and b) they just gave us straight-up pisco, which was gross. For lunch (6 hours after we left-uggh) we stopped at an estancia (ranch) and were served a heaping pile of lamb.

Bonier than expected

Thursday was another long travel day, and I finally got home at 12:45 to find that my host family had gone to their beach house for the long weekend. Jenelle and Amanda visited this week but I will have to save that for another post.

Link to photo album:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2146267&id=7411879&l=485a78c799

Thursday, April 2, 2009

This is so much better than No Country For Old Men

http://action.thisisreality.org/page/s/coenbrothers