Megan Quick's blog

Post school – pre final and Peru.

Wed, 29 Jun 2005 19:31:45 EST

So even though no one has asked I’ll give my schedule any way.
June 30th – My circuits final (wish me luck)
July 1st – Fly to Cuzco Peru
July 2nd -6th – Hopefully hiking a trail to Muchu Pichu (however not the Inca trail)
July 7th –Flying to Lima airport
July 8th – 6 am arrive in Santiago
- take a bus to Vina get my stuff say good bye to my chile mom
- 8:45pm fly out of Santiago to Miami
July 9th – fly to Atlanta then to Denver get in Denver around 2 ish I think
July 10th – 11:30 start up at camp
July 29th -Camp ends – (I’ll be home on weekends and my nights off though)
August 10th – Leave Colorado for Kansas
August 11th – visit the Family in Kansas
August 12th – Arrive in the Cleveland to move in to my new House!!!!
August 21st – 24th go canoeing (hopefully)

There you are all of my plans for what is the remainder of the summer.(your summer) It’s still weird to have July be the middle of winter. So Chile – my last post was on the Atacama so I’m going to start from there. I had another circuits test that Tuesday so I studied like crazy when I got back from the Atacama. that Friday I organized a ski trip to El Colorado Ski resort near Santiago. We got this awesome deal that if we could find ten people and collect all of the money the day before we could go skiing with everything included for $26,000 pesos like $45 US. Yeah this was with transportation the mountain, rentals, lift ticket, and lunch. The lift ticket alone costs that much so basicly this deal is a steal. How ever we had a little be of transportation issues as the drive didn’t know how to put chains on and ended damaging his van when he got the chains wrapped around the axel of the car. We ended up not beaing able to hit the slopes until noon however it was still a good time and I found a girl to board with and it was fun. There was some major powder however I wasn’t super impressed with the slopes in general. I have pics but like always I have pics but Kris probably has better ones so you should check his site too. Skiing was a good time but I it was a pain to set up and we weren’t too thrilled with some of the randoms that we got to go. Then I returned home to study like crazy, for my massive amount of tests and finals I just finished last week. Basically I had finals in my COPA classes and large tests in both of my engineering classes. It was fun I studies a lot. I found Chileans to study with for my engineering classes. I might be being cocky but I really think I got out of my final for my Signals class. That’s exciting. A topic tha I am going to rant about now that has been super prominent in my life recently is the extreme difference in grading here. The school system in the US has killer grade inflation. Here is exactly like IB (except less standardized) It’s really super common to fail classes the major is five years long and is takes everyone a lot longer to get throught because they all fail classes it is unheard of for some one to get throught with out failing a class. Like in grading the only thing that matters here is that you get a 4 and that is enough to pass you out of the class. So the class average is usauay like a 4.3 and everyone is just super happy to have passed, oh also if you have over a 4.5 before the final you don’t have to take the final. Its pretty rare to get out of the final it is considered like you did really well in this class. Here you compete against the test and the teacher not he other students.I think that might be why everyone cheats because it really doesn’t effect you at all if everyone else does well. However if you have a prof that continually makes really hard tests then you just have to keep retaking the class until you pass it. Yeah it sucks. I’m not sure they really are forced to learn the material here because they have very few homeworks so its really hard to have an idea as to whats going to be on the test. They just haveto study off of old tests and all they do is cram for the exams its not like you are continually working to the subject all year. As to the cheating it really pisses my off and I have an awesome comic to prove that thanks to my friend Cesar. But I was asked before my last Signals test “are you really going to take it alone?” Like was I not going to take the test with my friends. “ and you are still passing the class?” Yeah it was quite shocking to this guy. Like the room opens and they all run in and pick up the desks from the front of the room and physically bring them to the back so they can all copy off of each other. Its so wrong and the prof doesn’t even care. I don’t know it still bothers me. However I got 7s on my homework and it’s 20% of the class so I’m golden. So I got through the week and am just trying to get everything I want to do in Vina done before I leave.

Up date - I def dont have to take Signals I ended the class with a 5 which is a B like the 5th highest grade in the class. They have no shame en posting everyones grades here.
I hate my circuits class and my prof. and am going to have to fight the whole way.

This is my last blog update from chile. however there will be one about peru at some point in time.

San Pedro Pics

Thu, 16 Jun 2005 01:50:48 EST

I post all my pretty desert pics for your viewing pleasure

http://spaces.msn.com/members/aryon271/

the driest place on earth

Wed, 15 Jun 2005 17:38:39 EST

Hey all,
So My mommy still reads my blog and she really wants me to post again. So here it is. That and I finally have something exciting to post on. And I think that these enteries will be really good to help me remember whati did in chile and how cool it was. I also have a ton of pics for the Atacama that you all can see and enjoy. (All being like my mom) Well any ways yay for my mommy.
First off I the gringa indoor soccer team is in the finals. We won in the semifinals and next Friday after my hardest week of soccer I’m we are going to beat the best Chilean team to claim the championship. This team is the PE major team so they are all supposed to be really good and the gringas seem to always lose this game (historically that is) However we are going to win and it will be very exciting. I haven’t hurt myself playing for a while so all is good and I’m really enjoying soccer here. They are more into it than I thought today they took over a floor of the engineering building where I was studying and set up a large screen and a projector and most of the EE major sat around and yelled and watched a under 20 game against spain. Chile lost badly like normal but they were still enthusiastic. Vamos Chilenos! Any ways
Now to the meat….. so I went to san Pedro de Atacama this weekend it was very exciting. It is about a 24 hour drive to the north of Vina so it’s hot. It’s right on the tropic of Capricorn (which I got to sand on)(that and the Inca trail both were only marked by a little marker and made for a very boring stop). So this is going to be a day by day play it was a very exciting weekend. I went with four girls that I really hadn’t hung out with at all since I’ve been here. Kelsey is one of the ones that I was in Miami with and she is from Cleveland so some of you all might actually meet her. Wednesday we flew into the Calama about an hour from SP (san Pedro) It was about 11:30 when we got there because I had to go to my classes that day not to mention my soccer game. However we were hungary so we put our stuff down and found a hotel to the stay at some one in my group planed ahead and called. We then were followed by creepy people to the only restuant open at 12 on a Wednesday night. We have some not very good half way burnt and horribly cooked food. (we think it might be pay back for us coming in and ordering about five minutes before they closed.) We then headed home to rest up for a early bus.
The drive to SP was pretty uneventful and we pretty much just looked out the window like this is so cool the entire time, awesome scenery was the theme of the weekend. So this is Thursday and we walk around until we find a hostel that had nice rooms and a open courtyard in the middle of the rooms with tons of little critters running around. The real reason to stay at this hostal was the baby goats. These kiddos were 6 days old when we got there talk about adorable. (We bargained the price down too and we all got to stay in the same room.) So the look around the town met some Irish people and found a sand boarding tour. None of us knew what it was or what is would be like but the tour took us to the “ valle of the moon” after wards. (this is where we were planning on going any ways ) So it was exciting. So sand boarding is kinda like snowboarding on a huge dune of sand. However you have to walk yourself up the dune at the end. b/c of this you get a little tired. But it was super fun and a good new experience. (I mean how many people have been sand boarding.) However here my snowboarding experience might not have helped my because I kept tying to turn like when you are boarding but you can’t at all do that with. However after a fee mistakes I think I’ll better now. Then we saw the sun set in the valley of the moon that main tourist attraction but it was kind of boring and didn’t seem to live up to all of the hyper. They sunset was amazing, (all of them – we saw like 6 rises/sets) We then signed up for a 5:40 am tour for the altiplano. And made it an early night.
Day 2 – Friday we went to the got up really really early and caught the sunrise on the salt plains. It is a flimingo reservae and so we were the only ones there with the flamingos and the sunset on the mountians yeah really pretty. So it was super exciting and serene. That birds were cool and the salt plians are unique in that the ground is is salt. It is also where chile produces como 70% of the lithuim in the world. Our guide then took up up tp the altiplano lakes ans stuff up super high in the mountians. It was all realyl pretty but we were really high up like 4500 meters it´s kinda like 14,000 feet. It was interesting. The Andes go up to 20000 ft. The lakes were pretty and we stopped in lots of places on the why up. Like a village and to see all of the indains ruins and the irragation systems the keep the desert alive. The desert was really cool, but even during the day we were cold. We then went to stand on the crossing of the tropic of capicorn and the inca trail which ende up being super not interesting, it´s just a marker in the ground hey you are here. We made horrible pasta in the hotel, chile doesn´t believe in spices. It actually started raining while we were cooking dinner and we ran out side to feel the rain drops in one of the driest places on earth. The water storage contain above the kitchen had broken and the was spraying water all over. So much for being there on the one day that it rains. I actaully studied for my test. Are you proud of me?
Next day saterday – We slept in and then went bike riding all over the desert, we braved rivers and followed a mapa and found this canyon place where we the looked at lots of really cool rocks and climbed and went exploring. Made for a really good lunch spot and it wa noce to not have a guide hauling us around every where. We took lots of fun pics. And then rode to the inca ruins close by. It was interesting but i´m still hyped for Machu Pichu. On our ride back we were stamperded by a herd of goats and sheep and the got to watch the shepards round up two pissed off and unresponsive sheep. I will have pics of this motorcycle surround but goats its interesting. Chile has a helmet law so that all wear them that is super good. Umm the only really bad thing that we all had soaking wet shoes and i didn´t have any other shoes. So we went to this resturant with no roof and a bonfire in the middle and i stood in front of the fire and dried my shoes. It was good.
Sunday – final day I went to the Gysers at 4 Am it was fun. Emily and I were the only ones that wanted to go and we went and it was interesting. You get the right for sunset when the gysers are the most active. It´s just like tons of steam jets every where I will have lots of pics if i ever get them posted. Some of them would randomly start and spot becuase it´s all one huge gyser that has pores all over the surface that just continually shoot out steam and it´s interesting. We then went to a hotsprings there fed by the gysers. The larger gysers are interesting too. We saw lots of animals in their natural environments like vicunas and llamas and little chinchilla things. I think my english has gotten worse. Wonderful. I was within 8 km from bolivia and politcal unrest but the guide wouldn´t take me to bolivia very sad. then we saw an awesome sunset from the plane and it was a good end to a great weekend. yeah. then I returned to the real world and studied for my test and if i didnt bomb it yesterday then maybe i can pass the class but we will see.

in case you wanted to see

Sun, 05 Jun 2005 00:38:32 EST

Ok so I posted Buenos Aires and Vina pics enjoy.
http://spaces.msn.com/members/aryon271/

Watch out Buenos Aires

Wed, 01 Jun 2005 20:15:13 EST

So i felt very Evita-ish in Buenos Aires, yay musicals. I miss high school. Ok so we it was a pretty fun weekend but there aren{t very many exciting things to talk about becuase there were not events that we were doing. I was just kinda walking around the city and seeing all of the different places. Buenos Aires has 5 or six distinct barrios that all have there own flare. We saw and took pic of all of the really well know places, like the CASA ROSADA, the argentina white house. We went to a tango show which was really cool. Other than that we ate really good food for super cheap and bought lots of stuff. Buenos Aires feels alot like New York city but like friendlier and less rushed. It has a different feel as do all latin american cities. It is hard to describe. I wish I had more exciting stuff to talk about. But really was did{nt do anything that stood out in Buenos. Anyways it was a good trip and a fun place to visit.

yeah so IÂ´m still boring

Mon, 16 May 2005 15:55:45 EST

OK so sorry about the long time with out an update. I havenâ€™t been spending a lot of time in with the computers. Before last Monday I was studying like crazy for two EE tests. Iâ€™m still not doing any better in circuits and but at least I will probably be able to pull a passing grade out in Signals and Systems. Any ways thatâ€™s over rated I need to keep in mind that I am not here to do homework and that I need to the enjoy Chile not freak out so much about school here. Itâ€™s not the end of the world if these classes donâ€™t transfer. Anyways no more talking about school. Iâ€™ve been at home for such a long time I need to get out of here. The big news is that I am going to Buenos Aires on Tuesday. Iâ€™m really excited about this trip. Iâ€™m missing all of my classes once, but Iâ€™ll get over it. So what have I been doing in Vina? Warning this might get a little boring. But so is life. My Spanish has gotten noticeably better, good side effect of staying at home for so long. I went salsa dancing a couple times. I feel like Kate and I keep calling it swing but anyways itâ€™s a good time.
I had two Intramural indoor (or out door on a basketball court) soccer games. Itâ€™s 5 v 5 and Iâ€™m on the international team we have one sub at most and the Chileans are all into it. However we have a very experienced team as most of the girls have played soccer for most of there lives and one played for her D1 college team for two years. Need less to say we dominate a lot. Our last game was in the Casa Central which is the main building on campus and it is always full of people. So basically there were a lot of people watching us. It was pretty intense they were all pretty much cheering against us. But itâ€™s ok because we won 5-1 I didnâ€™t score in this game but I was playing Defense the whole time and had like 4 assists. It was lots of fun and I didnâ€™t hurt my self. Best of all I got to be late to Spanish class.
My other main extra curricular activity is volunteering at a Chilean Elementary school. I really enjoy this I am working with two classes of fifth graders. Itâ€™s good fun definitely my favorite age the girls are really sweet.(Itâ€™s a all girls school so just my specialty) Iâ€™m there to help with the English, like putting someone who can actually speak English in the class will help the girls learn not to sound so accented in English. This will help a lot because the teacher I am working with can hardly speak English and is very heavily accented sometimes I can hardly understand her and she never understands me when I speak in English. Iâ€™m glad she only has to teach basic English to the kids. She told me that she only took three semesters on college English and never has spent time in an English speaking country. Her degree is defiantly in teaching elementary school. The school is a little different that I expected. They first day I was there the class of 30 girls only had 13 people there because it was raining and the other kids were too lazy to go to school. Half of the girls donâ€™t do any homework and have major problems paying attention in class. I saw a test she was giving to the eight graders and I seemed really basic to me however this is a pubic school and all of the good schools here a private.
Besides that Iâ€™ve done lot of hanging out with my Chilean friends which goes well for working on Spanish. I spent an afternoon in their apartment and learned a Chilean dorm room version of soccer with a tennis ball. It was fun. Iâ€™m still working on getting my chilemom to teach me to cook some of my favorite foods, but it will happen before I get back.
Today was a really exciting day I actually did something entertaining. First I went Kayaking with Kris and other people from his oceanography class. This was pretty exciting and right up my ally. We got to go up right next to a big rock with a whole lot of lobos del mar. It was pretty cool and one was even swimming in the water with us. We paddled under the pier and got to see lots of huge starfish. Kyle then was playing chicken with the rocks and lost. It was kinda entertaining as there were people on the shore taking pictures and laughing at him as he was getting back into his boat. Luckly he was the only one to fall out as he was the only who had brought a full change of clothes.
Then we went to tour some acensors which are like external elevators up the hill. Valpo is very well known for them. So we took one up and then were walking around the hills looking for another one and some cops decided to escort us for a while as they decided it was a dangerous place for gringos. It was one of the not so nice places, and there was a lady burning trash- smelly. Then we decided to the take the one Micro that tours all of Valpo up in the hills and spent 45 mins riding this micro through the hills is had a pretty view but I didnâ€™t feel like taking a bunch of pics from the inside. We then headed down a pretty hill to watch the sunset and we met this guy at a mirador that was selling drawings of the city. It was cool because he was just featured in a National geographic article on Valpo. So of course we bought pics from him and he started talking to him and he started telling mildly entertaining stories. End of the story I miss my dinner date with the girls and I was going to get to eat Mexican food. Very sad. So tomorrow Iâ€™m going on a copa tour of isla negra (Pablo Nerudas house) and part of Santiago. And then on Sunday Iâ€™m touring around with Kris and Mads so I think its going to turn out to be an exciting weekend. Good fun.
PS read the extended entry if you want to hear the stories from the guy that made me miss dinner.

Comment

Thu, 05 May 2005 16:18:57 EST

So I got this comment which you canÂ´t see and i donÂ´t know why. But i was excited becuase I really donÂ´t know any Chilean girls. I guess becuase in my engineering clases there are none. So now I might have a Chilean Friend. Anyways my email adress is mjq@case.edu which I guess is only obivous if you go to case. At any rate send me and email it seems like you have very good english but I can atleast communicate in spanish.

Hello!! My name is Andrea and I'm a chilean, 23 years old girl. I found your blog while surfing the net looking for info in English regarding Chilean food and... I thought it would be interesting if we could talk. :) I didn't enter my e-mail address here 'cause it'll probably mean a lot of spam, but let me know through your blog or mine if you're interested in talking with me, ok? It would be really nice!! :)

So.. Nice to meet you! ;)

Your new friend, hopefully.
Andrea.

Silver Lineing

Tue, 03 May 2005 19:27:45 EST

I donÂ´t even know if that is spelled right and I figure that no one reads this anymore now that everyone is leaving school. However, IÂ´m going to write anyway. As my Chilemom said to day Â¨es un dia muy feoÂ¨ itÂ´s a very ugly day. Meaning its been drizzling all day and its the first time IÂ´ve had it rain on me in Vina. however I walked out the door and saw the ocean. It was really spectacular. Huge waves tons of sea foam. Cars were pulled over at my bus stop to get out and watch the ocean. People were just standing on the side of the raod looking at the sea. It was beautiful. All becuase it is a really ugly day. there you go - Silver lineing.

Some time at home(Vina home)

Mon, 25 Apr 2005 17:14:54 EST

so i havenÂ´t posted in a while because I havenÂ´t really traveled since La serena and i havenÂ´t been on the internet in a really long time. So what HAVE i been up to. hmm tough question IÂ´ve been pretty busy with school I had a homework and a test last thursday but it was canceled the day before. Lucky me. But i found some Chileans to study with so I got to practic spanish even thought they love practicing their english with me. I went to a BBQ all day thurday this was interesting becuase pretty they just handed us a Large slab of meat were like have fun BBQing we built a fire and had to cut all the fat off the meat. I was fun then they all played soccer and had competitions like musical chairs and picked the king and queen of the major. Whatelse then on saturday I went horse back riding with the program. It was great we got to gallop alot they really let you do whatever you want. One guy fell off and a girl let her horse run away with her. The ride has really pretty views but we didÂ´nt actaully get to ride on the beach. We then went to a Penguin santuary. Which is like a big rock 100 feet from the shore with penguins all over it. There were lots of tidal pool and cool starfishes I was reliving my days as the kid that refused to leave the tidal pool. We got to see all sorts of cool stuff there. Also we had the biggest lunch ever as it was just like a table with huge bowls of BBQed meat sitting on the table we raced to se if any table could finish there mountian of meat. It was to no avial but alot of our boys put up a good showing. We then went salsa dancing and fun stuff like that. I have no rythm and am horrible at dancing but it was fun. Then I spent all day writting essays in Spanish yesterday. not so fun. IÂ´m going to try to get in some beach time this week. oh yeah I made tacos the other day exciting. There thatÂ´s my life exciting isnÂ´t it.

MORE PICS lucky you

Mon, 18 Apr 2005 15:17:47 EST

SO Kris posted all of his Pucon pics. They are great now you can see the volcano yay.

http://community.webshots.com/user/mystery_adlin

last weekend was pretty calm and uneventful. I keep you updated to anything exciting. IÂ´m going to get to go horseback riding next weekend itÂ´s very exciting.

PICS and La serena

Mon, 18 Apr 2005 01:50:49 EST

First we have very exciting mews I have figured out how to post pics. it might be a while be for I get more up though

http://spaces.msn.com/members/aryon271/

you should be able to go there and flip through my pics i hope you enjoy they are way out of order but I tried to put place names in the titles.

now about la serena (last weekend) i know iÂ´m slow

Well it was like the name implies. Serene and buetiful. We stayed in Cabanas really close to the beach, like cabana, street then sand. Yeah the entire frot of our cabana was glass and perfectly showed the beach. The first night that we arrived wegot there just intime to see the sun set over the water. West coast sunsets are awesome. I have some great pics. The next day we went to a Pisco factory and this solar restruant that is one of the only in the world that cooks all of the food by the sun. Right down my ally. We got to cook our own dinners and it made me really excited for next year. The next day we went to a museum and an artasania and a Japanese garden. Then we went to an observertory very exciting.. The stars were awesome just like in the mountains We got to use their telescopes and I saw the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter. It was buetiful.; I learned a lot of southern hemisphere constellations. Fun stuff. The last day we went to a national park it was in the middle of the desert and but then we got to the coast and hit a small rainforest in the middle of the desert. It was very exciting. I have a thing for Chilean National parks. YAY.

A Quick mid vacation post

Thu, 07 Apr 2005 16:11:35 EST

I tried to post this on Thursday but it didnÂ´t work. So you get it now.

In case it wasnâ€™t clear from my last post / Krisâ€™s post. This week is la Semana Novata which means that we donâ€™t have classes this means that classes are canceled, however the Pope died so my happy little catholic school decided to cancel the canceled classes and now we have classes. Too bad all of the international students were already very far away. Anyways my Profs are lazy and I only had one class that I had to miss, but still it was stressful.

Iâ€™m in my mid week break where we just got back from the South and tomorrow the entire program leaves for the north tomorrow. Iâ€™m excited for the La Serena trip but I really have been traveling a lot. I feel like I need to spend sometime at home Vina and Valpo are really pretty there is no lack of stuff to do here. Today at sat on a dock and watched the waves for a while. I went to a TA session for my circuits class and then photo copied half of two of my textbooks. (thatâ€™s how its done) It cost me $7.00 to copy 7 chapters.

Sorry this is a boring post. I will try to make it better. So I went around Castro on Monday, we really wanted to take a boat around the bay but none of the touristy places were running anything so we were pretty bummed. We went down to the dock to take pics and to try to bribe a fisherman and this guy came up to us and showed us a pic of his boat and offered to take us around. Just what we wanted it was pretty exciting and lucky. So we got to go on a boat ride after all. It was cool we got to see oyster farms and salmon farms and sea lions and take good pics of the palafitos. (typical chilote houses that are on stilts and that should be condemned) Of course with our luck it rained again while we were on the boat. Boo Rain. Then we went to the artesenia where we bought all sorts of cool jewelry and stuff like that. The we ran to the bus (like normal) and barely caught it(also normal). (I have had to chase so many buses and make them wait for my friends here itâ€™s crazy) We then headed up to Osorno where there is another national parque (making my 3rd for the trip, 7th over all). This on was really pretty (like all of them) and we got to see the big trees that Madeline had been craving for the entire trip. We once again took about double the recommended time for a trail as we stop every two feet to admire the view and nature. This is a good way to hike because you see more this way and it was fun. We had a unspoken silent time for most of the way down allowing us to admire the nature even more. Overall the hike was really pretty and good fun because I really liked the people I was with. I forgot to mention that is was raining an we didnâ€™t have our ponchos(mine ripped) so we begged at the parks hot springs for trash bags and stylishly out fitted our selves in the these. We also crashed the cafÃ© there for some tea and postre. And of course I then ran after the bus so we could get home. Visited another Artasenia in Osorno and then we ran to the bus to get home. This one ended up being late but then after the 12 hour overnight bus ride we arrived home in Vina. Tomorrow off to another adventure.

From Chiloe

Mon, 04 Apr 2005 05:51:19 EST

Just a warning... this entry is written with the combined effort of a friend of mine... heÂ´s wierd. (he wrote it so all of the I s are not me but him. I'm not that wierd bs Kris sayÂ´s)

This week at PUCV (my Uni) all the classes were supposed to be cancelled to celebrate all the newbies (1st years) coming to University. I donÂ´t know why since during the 1st week of classes there is University sanctioned hazings of the 1st years (machones) where the upper classmen douse them with a mixture of rotting fish, paint, goo, trash, basura, and everything you would not want on your body at any time for any reason. they then get their clothes torn open at odd places, nothing disgusting mind you, and they are forced to walk through the streets shoeless begging for money until they have enough to buy their shoes back. And these kids are excited about it! I get excited about stepping in mud sometimes but never for soemthing like this. Anywho, we didnÂ´t have class this week so we decided to go for a nice excurrsion to a far corner of Chile to explore and get diseases. We went off to the great land of Chiloe (an island in southern Chile at the begginging of Patagonia).

We took a 14 hour bus ride which was semicama meaning that we had a bed like set up on the bus so sleeping was a very nice option, we even got breakfast! But upon reaching Puerto Montt we were immediatelly hijacked by some crazy excursion ofering psycho unguide type guy who obviously had never climbed a mountain in his life. But at the office we met the actual guide and the tour was cheap, went were we wanted to go, we had nothing else to do sooo we bought it. We then went to buy some Chocolate for our feverish little appetites along with avocado, bread, and other tasty treats. Upon entering the guide vehicle we noticed that there was a slight problem... little old ladies. What does that mean to those crazy and adventuresome? Slow ass excursions... and it was. nothing ubber exciting mind you but the views were stupendous and made up for the lack of physical exursion. We saw volcanos (more) form a sweet town that sold more awesome chocolate, then stopped for lunch at a restaurant be since we already bought food we went down to the lake (third largest in the world) and ate to our hearts content. There was a small river neaby (stream actually) and we decide to become environmental engineers and divert the flow to our own creation. Fun times. ItÂ´s fun talking about fluid flow patterns, lamiar flow, and fluid mechanics wich someone at the base of a volcano... cool.

Next stop the lake! A lake higher in the mountains where the water was this rediculously emerald turquoise color of infinite depth and clarity. We took a boat ride there where I got to hang off the from of the boat and make faces in the mirror like water. The views and clenliness of the air was astounding! Anyways I wanted to take the boat for a zip around the lake but the driver kept the pretty wood boat thingy at a meer 5 knots. But we then went to a nice national park where there the lake emptied into emerald blue green water rapids where there was cool natural water slide that only an armadillo could survive. back to Puerto Montt! I did almost get eaten by a Puma.

We needed to get a place to stay that night.... but what to do? we decide to check out some of the places advised by the guide book but... they didnÂ´t seem to exist so we started walking into random hostals to see whatÂ´s up. The 1st was torn up with cardboard on the wall pealing because it had Â¨stainsÂ¨ on it, we said maybe to the lady... bull. Like hell we were going to stay there. the next which wsa right next door was nicer. The rooms were clean and they had hot water and were the same price as the sh*thole next door. so we ecde to look a little more. we went down town and found one that was in our guide but was crazy expensive.. It was going for 12 bucks a night!!! No way. so we went back to the 1st place and got our room. Once the night settled in we realised that our room was across from a very loud bar playing techno accordian line dance music... fun times... and then at 4 in the morning a couple of cats decided to have a little skermish outside our window that lasted about 20 minutes. Literally a cat on a hot tin rof. Now on to Chiloe

we took a bus to Chiloe which was long and menotenous but doable. we tooka ferry across the gap and succedded in getting to know a few sea Lions and jellyfish big enough to eat sea lions. Finally we got to castro where we found an awesome hostal with real hot water, a nice lady owner, clean fresh and enlightening. With a stove to warm our shoes! are all Israelies Jewish? We walked around, watched humingbirds and then turned around and watched the sewage being dumped right into the water and thanked the birds and the bees for building codes of the US. Then we made our dinner from scratch, stir-fry pasta and veggies with a hint of sand. there wasnÂ´t supposed to be sand but I guess we didnÂ´t wash it enough.

Today we went to a nice podunck national park and ended up talking about the evolutionary and biological wonders of nature that we found there. We had an engaging discussion on photosynthesis and the physiology of the human brain. There was no other people in the park since it was raining all day and we took a 1 and a half hour bus ride with all the other locals to this place. we ended up eating our lunch on a windsweped beach while being pumled by horizontal raindrops and pellets of sand. Yum avocado, bread, and chocolate! with a hint of sand. We walked down to the water to say we did and then hurried on our way up the beach so we could get out of the rain which we were now soaking in. But we did stop to eat the yummy berries. I want some now damit! We cought the bus again along with abunch of Israelie students/young people and the bus ride made the record books. They managed to fit uppwards of 80 people on a bus only fit to hold 41. The bus had trouble moving in 1st gear and I wsa not pleased when we came to a bridge only made of a couple of planks with no sides or center or support of any kind. we were wet, tired, and I only sniff glue crack is a no no. back to the hostal we went! welcome showers all around fun fun fun...

we went to dinner at some restaurant where I ordered the Curant, which is a typical dish here of shellfish potato, meat, and some other stuff that I never figured out what it was. I donÂ´t think IÂ´ll order it again.... green stomachs just arenÂ´t apetising. But the papaya and cream totally made my day. Time to sleep now. gots to go. Tomorrow is a new day of extracurricular activities and also since the Pope has died the catholic University has cancelled all the fun for this week and uncancelled classes so.... I guess IÂ´m going to be missing a bunch of classes this week. O-well...

brief summary of Chilean Futbol

Thu, 31 Mar 2005 17:13:30 EST

SO I went to the National team game Vs. Uruguay. It was exciting. Lots of yelling and cussing in Spanish. I learned a lot of new words. I bought a jersey. They tied so we encountered the only situation in which a riot does not follow the game. it was disappointing. I stayed up all night in Santiago. We found stuff to do. I{m officially a Chilean soccer fan. Chileans arenâ€™t very good and therefore are very hard core fans. Yesterday they did lose to Paraguay so they are out of the competition now. Iâ€™m signed up to play baby damas futbol. (aka indoor soccer) Exciting.

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I had my first circuits test Tuesday so I have been studying pretty hardcore. It was really painful. True false in Spanish was hard. and you got negative point for being wrong it was killer. Iâ€™m hoping for a 3.5. (same scale as IB) Iâ€™m going down to Puerto Montt this weekend and La Serena after that. I donâ€™t have school this week because it is the after azing freshman celebration. YAY no time

Pucon â€“ the Adventure capital of Chile

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 16:01:55 EST

First of all I want to apologize for not updating for a long time. I really didnâ€™t have anything too interesting happen since my last update. How ever this update will be long and full of exciting adventures so I hope that it will make it up to you. Next I really wanted to thank everyone who wrote or sent something to me in the package. It was very exciting to here from everyone and it made me feel really loved. So thanks so much. My friends are awesome. Now on to Pucon I know this is what you are really dying to hear. Pucon is pretty much a little tourist town in the middle of the Andes. It reminds me a lot of Buena Vista or Breckenridge. Lots of stuff to do there and places to stay. Every corner has a tourism place on the corner trying to convince you to go somewhere with them. So Pucon is 12 hours away from Vina, we arrived on an overnight bus at around 9 in the morning. We tried to go to a high recommended hostel but it was full and we ended up at the ghetto one next door. About $7 a night two rooms each with two beds, oh yeah there were four of us; Rebecca, Kris, Madeline, and me. They are all really cool and some of my favorite people in the program so it was guaranteed to be a great weekend. So we then walked around Pucon looking for a place to go rafting with and to take us up Volcan Villarrica (the most active volcano in this part of the world.). So we stop in pretty much the first place we come upon and they give us pretty good prices on the trips so we pay to go up the volcano on Saturday and to go rafting Friday afternoon. So that afternoon we hit the water rafting and we had this really cool guide that was joking around with us and helping us practice our Spanish. He asked us if we were extreme and of course we are so we got the crazy rafting ride that included swamping the raft, jumping off rocks into the river, random dunkings and water fights and I got to sit on the front of the raft while we went through the rapids. All in all a really good time the guide â€œBlackâ€? invited us to a BBQ at his house on Saturday night. Very exciting. We got back and decided to go to the hot springs that night, and Black decided to come along. We roasted in the hot springs and it was a wonderful way to relax from a full day of freezing in the river. Here we met Robert and his mom, other Americans who were aloes taking tours from this company. The next day rained and we were disappointed that we wouldnâ€™t be able to climbed the Volcan but the ended up hanging out with our new friends (Black and Samuel, the guy working the front desk of the tourism place. Samuelâ€™s nick name was fitting to his looks: Barbol, basically meaning ENT in Spanish. YAY for LOTR ) We also got some good internet time and went shopping in the artisan market. Then later that night we joined our Chilean friends for a BBQ. It was great we all went to a meat shop and bought several very large chunks of meat. We returned to their house and the four gringos made fire with wet wood and attempted to shield it from the continuing rain. Charcoal in Chile consists of the leftovers from the next fire so with this and all of the scraps of paper we could find we made our fire. Finally we had enough coals to cook our meat and once done Black cut the meet and everyone just grabbed pieces off the grill until they were full. It was definitely my kind of BBQ with one knife and one fork shared between 7 people. We hung out with guides until nearly 2 am, then we crashed and hope for a nice day on Sunday. However no such luck it was once again raining when we woke up on Sunday dashing all hope of climbing the Volcano. So we decided to go hiking in the national forest. It was beautiful, a temperate rainforest with a very wide variety of plants that I had never seen before. We visited these three very tranquil and very pristine mountain lakes. The hike was long and up hill the entire way there but the vistas were priceless. We went with our friend, black, as our guide as well as Robert and his mom and an argentine gentleman. On the way down from the lakes Robertâ€™s mom started to have problems with her knees and was having problems walking. The group was barely crawling along and we started to get concerned about missing our bus back to Vina. Black then began carrying Robertâ€™s mom in an attempt for us to get home at all. In our concern for the bus the four of us realized that missing the bus would require us waiting another day and since the rain had cleared up and the sky was perfectly blue we would be able to climb the Volcano. We had talked about returning to Pucon to visit our friends and climb the volcano but I think we all realized that it was unlikely to happen. Then we had the â€œWhy are we here talk?â€? and realized that in reality seeing Chile and doing once in a lifetime things are more important than one day of school. So we decided that staying one more day to climb the volcano was the best idea. Once we arrived in Pucon we ran to the bus stop to change the tickets to the next which we were able to do for a small fee. Then we all (Samuel and Black included) went out to dinner at this cute place that served huge burgers and some of the best juices ever. Once again we crashed but this time with more hope of being able to climb the volcano the next day, as the sky was clear and we were able to see the stars perfectly. (I learned where the Southern Cross was.) Monday morning we awoke to blue skis and started off on our journey up the Volcano. We got outfitted at the headquarters ( boots very similar to ski boots, crampons large metal spikes to hook on the boots, a water proof outer layer, backpacks and most importantly ice picks.) We got acquainted with the other people in our group on the bus ride up to the Volcano. Black was one of our guides and the other was Pedro definitely older but he had been a Volcano guide for 10 years and had climbed the volcano 670 something times. (This made me feel pretty safe) Michael was a 25 year old South African (he made me think of Cara a lot) with an awesome British accent from the eastern coast of South Africa and from living in London for 6 years. He was very into traveling and meeting people and got along very well with our group. The last member was Rodrigo, a Brazilian who did his masters at boulder and could speak English better than Spanish. Three brazialian ladies that didnâ€™t make it up the mountain and held us back for time before they had to stop. On arrival we saw all of the massive amounts of people waiting to climb the volcan, however the ski lift that normally takes people part way up was broken and they were disassembling parts of it. So we had to walk the extra hour. Once we arrived at the snow we stopped and ate lunch. The entire way up there was an awesome view of the surrounding mountains, lakes and other volcanoes. Once on the snow we all had to put on our crampons and we trekked up the snow. Here the ice pick became your life as they showed how we had to use it to stop our selves from sliding off the mountain if we slipped. It was hard work but we had lots of chocolate and finally we summited the volcano. It was really cool. Muy Bacan (the Chilean word for cool). There were lots of sulfuric fumes coming off the volcano so it was really hard to breathe. Oddly enough it was really cold at the top and the win was blowing really hard so you never knew when you would get a gust of hot sulfuric gas, which kinda burned your nose. When I first got up there I just sat and watched the volcano. I was always pumping out the sulfuric steam, but the occasionally it would make a hissing noise and shit out lava, which was pretty much the coolest thing ever. Basically glowing red blobs would fly up and turn black before hitting the edge of the crater below us. We then walked around too the other side where we could see the far enough into the crater to actually see the lava pit. It was just like you would think and looked like red orange glowing cracks in the ground. We soon had to leave now it was time for the fun part, the ultimate sledding hill. (I wish the Case sledding team could have been there) You just sled down Beth style on the seat of your pants and use the ice pick to slow your self down. There were tons of people that had gone down the before us and they had created well defined slides that could be followed. However for the first half of the way down we freelanced it and tried to make our own paths once I lost control and couldnâ€™t stop I slid through two people in my group and finally was able to use the pick to stop my free fall. One other time I shoved the pick into the ground to stop and it wrenched my shoulder and I could hold on. (that is like the biggest no no and I got yelled at) but instead of flying uncontrollably off the mountain I was able to use my hands and stop near everyone else so I didnâ€™t die. After those two incidents I was pretty paranoid and went really really slow. The last slide was really defined and really a lot like a water slide at an amusement park (Cedar point). The sides were a couple feet high and it curved back and fourth. I started off really slow as I was scared but then I realized I couldnâ€™t fly out of the slide and I went really fast and it was really fun and I was able to stop at the bottom Black pretty much jumped on you if you were going to fast. Then we had to finish descending the rest on foot. It was slower going then sliding, but not by much. The Volcan is composed of volcanic ash (go figure) It is basically like walking in sharp gritty sand. So then entire way down was pretty much like running down a sand dune, you just had to look out for the rocks. It was fun and in the less rocky parts we would just run and slide and see how long it took you to stop. All in all climbing the Volcano took 7 hours, 5.5 to up and 1.5 to get down. It was big fun and pretty much the coolest thing every. Definitely worth missing a Spanish quiz, Temas, and the circuits class that I have a test in soon and have no idea what Iâ€™m doing in. We returned to Pucon an hour before the bus left and our friends let us shower in their house. I went to go get food and didnâ€™t have time to shower. Tragic. I did however change in to dry cleanish clothes. Black then goes hey your bus leave in nueve minutes. So I pretty much left the others and ran to the bus station and when I got there it was pulling out and I got the bus driver to wait for the other kiddos. Just more added excitement to an already very exciting weekend.