Wac
McKenzie Muscat Joined: September 21st 2009
Logged in: August 18th 2011
Logged in: August 18th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
No te vayasssss
Well, I'm down to my last few days in Chile; it is surreal. I have said goodbye to quite a few friends and last night could have been one of the roughest since I've gotten here; I went to the despedida (going away party) of one of my best friends and one of my favorite frenchies, Paul. It's weird and a little heart-wrenching not knowing when the next time I will see my friends from the other side of the world; or if it will become one of those friendships of the past- so amazing while we were together but faded as time went by without each other. My flight leaves Santiago on Tuesday evening and I have asked my friend Thomas to take me to the airport. It will at least make that last bus ... read more
GANÓ CHILEEEE!
CHI-CHI-CHI-LE-LE-LE-VIVA-CHILE!!! CHI-CHI-CHI-LE-LE-LE-VIVA-CHILE!!! This is the chant that I have been waking up to since the world cup started... so far Chile has won the two games that it has participated in during this year's world cup!!! Whoohhooo! I know I put up a few pictures of the festivities del mundial in the last blog entry, but it's too good not to share!!! Today, the game started at 10am; everyone gathered in bars, restaurants, friend's houses or the streets to watch the big game against Suiza. I went to a friends house to cheer Chile on and at around 12pm, every corner of the city was filled with confetti! Even when the University of Chile wins a game, it is tradition that every Santiaguino heads to Plaza Italia to celebrate. Celebrating includes: sitting on the tops of ... read more
ACTION!
These last few days it has really hit me how much I'm going to miss Chile when I leave. I only have one month left here and though I couldn't be more excited to go home and see everyone and everything that I know, it is definitely going to be a crazy experience, probably just as crazy as coming here was. So, I've been taking complete advantage of every second I have left in Santiago! My days have been full of studying for final exams at the cafe al lado, buying fresh produce at La Vega, yoga classes and seeing the city. My nights (and sometimes into the days!) have been pura carrete (partyingggg)! The weekends are for ferias (similar to swap-meets), checking out nearby towns and of course, more partying :) Since the world cup ... read more
Frenchies
Pictures from the last few weeks in Santiago... for the most part I've been busy partying and studying. There was a little rocky time when I got robbed. Not cool. I left a bar at around 11pm with a bunch of friends, it wasn't in the best part of town but we were all together. For some reason I was walking about 10 or 15 feet in front of everyone; they stopped to talk and I kept walking. I didn't know they were so far behind and I turned the corner, 4 guys ran up and started pushing me around trying to get my purse (it was one of those purses that goes across your chest so it wouldn't break). I punched one of them in the face (and my ring broke so I know it ... read more
Talcahuano
A few weekends ago, I went to help build houses in the south that were destroyed in the tsunami after the earthquake. Building in Talcahuano was one of the most amazing experiences I have been a part of since I moved here. I got into a bus with 80 other students, about 65 Chileans and 15 extranjeros. It was organized by three students for the engineering faculty of my university; they did the fund raising, organized where we stayed and ate, transportation, the families we were going to help, and got a hold of all of the materials. We slept on the floor of an elementary school and about 5 women from town cooked the dinners for us with the supplies and ingredients that we brought. The "cueca club" (the national dance) came to the school ... read more
beachin' it!
I went to Mirasol (a beach town about 2 hours from Santiago) with about 20 friends a few weekends ago. A friend of a friend has a house there and we stayed for two nights... relaxing, partying, relaxing, partying. It was really fun, a cool group of people.... read more
Church 1
As you all know, on the 27th of February at about 3:30am, an 8.8 earthquake shook Chile. The earthquake triggered a tsunami, which destroyed what was lucky to be standing after the earthquake.The epicenter of the earthquake was in Concepción, a town in the south of Chile (about 10 hours south of Santiago) but that didn't stop us from feeling it in Santiago... The newspaper at San Francisco State University asked me to write an article on my experience so rather than writing what happened all over again; it's a little long but here it is: While I was relaxing with a glass of wine and dancing to the sounds of the guitar that a friend picked up an began to play, Santiago, Chile experienced the sixth largest earthquake in history. Suddenly, all of the lights ... read more
Santiago
I haven't added an entry in forever!!! It's way more fun to do this while traveling and seeing new things every second of everyday! I headed back to Santiago directly from Cordoba, about a 20 hour bus ride (which I am completely accustomed to now). I boarded the bus in proper Argentinean style: Mate, thermos and blanket in hand! About 8 hours into the bus ride, I was woken up by freezing cold water pouring on my head- it was raining outside and though every other person on the bus was sleeping like a baby (not to mention completely dry), there happened to be a crack in the roof right over my seat. Unfortunately, there was not one open seat so I went down to the driver and (extremely pissed off, half asleep, cold and wet) ... read more
Plaza de Armas
After a few days in Salta, I headed down to Cordoba before heading back to Santiago. I met some cool people in Cordoba and we basically hung out the whole time; two people from Argentina, one from Ireland and one from Mexico. One day we went to a town called "Villa Carlos Paz" that was nice and had a river running through it. Other than that we just kicked back, cooked, hung out by the little pool at the hostel and talked. ... read more
Martha and I
I finally made it to Salta and have more than two pesos in my pocket! I got into a hostel and ran into a girl that is in my program that I have happened to run into about three times this summer- the border of Peru and Bolivia, La Paz and now Salta. Small world! Salta is beautiful, I now understand why they call it ¨Salta La Linda¨. The plaza is a huge grassy space full of fountains and statues that is surrounded in cobblestone streets, outside cafes and pedestrian malls (that I have fully taken advantage of!). I have been soo good about not shopping throughout all of my travels, well, my self control came to a screaming halt yesterday! I started out just buying myself a Mate (the tea that everyone drinks here in ... read more
