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Published: April 29th 2008
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The group!
There are some of the coolest people EVER! So, Its been a bit too long, and actually a lot of cool stuff has happened.
I guess I'll back it up to the weekend before last... I had a really relaxed weekend mostly hanging out with friends and Zach's chilean family. His baby host sister, Amanda or Amandita, turned 1! The whole house was full inside and out of friends and family celebrating one very small one yearold's (who napped through half of the fiesta) birth. When she wasn't sleeping she was being a GREAT baby. Letting everyone hold her, talk to her, and tug on her pretty new dress. After a HUGE meal of meat, meat, potatoes, meat, and of course cake (2 kinds!) we headed to the church to see Amandita get baptized. The family planned this way ahead of time knowing it would be easiest to just get everyone together for 2 events on 1 day. It was a lot of fun especially since most of Amanda's fan club was drunk at the church and the only group that cheered for their kid when the priest trickled water on her head (none of the babies cried!) haha. After the church we went to a friends apartment
Pablo's House
This is a shot from the beach looking up. His house is actually composed of 3 small houses. where there was MORE food. Holy god. I drank some Fanta and that was about all I could fit into my stomach... ok I ate chips too. So that was that for last weekend...
Also last week wa the second week of the schools being in paro. Paro directly means "stop" and thats what all the university kids are up too. Because of the threat ofrising bus prices students all over Chile are protesting by not attending classes which then forces the teachers to cancel class. Since I only have one class that is with chileans this has not effected me to bad but Zach has missed pretty much all but one of his classes and this is going on the 3rd week. Most of the protest surrounding the paro are somewhat calm but there have been a few that the police have broken up (mostly at the private university down the highway from my school) with big tank-like trucks that are actually filled with sewage that they spray on the students. Some police even found it necessary to use TEAR GAS on some marches. I don't get it... not to mention the police here appear a litle more
Anchor
The anchor holdin down Pablo's house?? bad ass than the good ole State Troopers or Sheriff, these guys are more like SWAT members with shields, semiautomatic weapons, etc. Sorry US cops leave your night sticks at home... It is also against foriegn visas for europeans and american to be involved in these protests and if you are arrested you are deported. Rumor has it that a few french students were sent home after a mass arrest. Obviously I'm not participating in said protests so no worries. Today, however, was a big change... TOMA! Toma= to take... and yea thats what they did... they took over one of the main buildings for our university, PUCV, they closed the gate and just straight up said no professors (or anyone else for that matter) could come in. While walking to my culture class there were tons of students blocking the main roads and sitting in front of buses. Then while we were in class we heard the sirens and the police coming. When we walked outside and hour later the streets were empty and the tear gas that remained in the air stung our noses and eyes. Total crap. Oh well... tomorrow is a new day and a new
Pablo's Art
Some crazy art inside Pablo's house Paro..
This past weekend was a ton of fun! We spent all saturday on an ISA trip. First we stopped in a small town for lunch and shopping... that was literraly all you could do there. Afterwards we went on to Isla Negra (however is was niether an island nor black) a really cool beach wih Pablo Neruda's house (famous Chilean poet... if you don't know his work
Pablo Neruda ) The house was INCREDIBLE. We saw another house of his in Santiago but this one was WAY better. Everything was ship themed. He actually collected the statues from the front of ships and used the ig steering wheels as tables! The collection of shells was probably my favorite. The house actually made you feel like you were on a ship, with the HUGE windows over looking the rocky coast and the bow shaped room looking onto a mast. Incredible. Pablo himself and his 3rd wife are burried at the site. The view of the sunset was awesome the sky was so pink it caused the sea itself to appear pink as well. A little ironic bit of info: Pablo didn't know how to sail. :-)
A little
Crazy kids...
On every tour there are rocks involved... and on every tour we MUST climb them random info on Chileans.. they HATE HATE DESPISE the cold weather. I thought my dad and I (and the rest of Texas) hated the cold... but this is on a whole new level. It was oh in the 70s and that means that you MUST wear closed toed shoes and a jacket. My host sister was shocked that I was going running... she said it was a day to stay in bed under the covers and drink hot cholcolate... it was 70! My hose mom now forces me to drink tea in the morning because I refuse to put hot milk on my cereal and I drink cold water. Oh well. As our director wowuld say... its not bad just different.
** The pictures are NOT mine. They were taken by ISA and my good amiga Chelsea. Then taken by me... hehe
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