So I had one of the biggest cultural shocks of my life today. I joined this volunteer group, called English Opens Doors, and it is where native English speakers go into the public and semi-private schools and help out the teachers. So today was my first day and I have never seen a class so disorganized. Compared to the students at my dad’s school, his students were angels. I walked into my first class and the teacher was writing instructions on the board and the class wasn’t even paying attention to her. After she wrote the instructions and somewhat introduced me she went back to her desk and sat down. She would help them if they came up to her, but she just wasn’t active with them and 95% of the time everyone just spoke Spanish. ... read more

So not much new has happened. Last weekend I went to Pablo Neruda´s house, he is a famous poet. His houses (he has three) are really interesting, just the way that they are set up. I really liked it. We also walked through the open sky muesum, at least that what it is translated to, it´s just an ourtdoor muesum. The were murals on the sides of buildings, it was really neat. This weekend, we are going to his other house near Valparaíso. I´m really looking foward to that. And like at home this Sunday is Mother´s Day, so Happy Mother´s Day Mom, and of course to all the other mothers reading this!! Well that is really it for now! I´ll talk to you all later!! Love Lindsay... read more

Hello all! I didn’t write about last weekend and I wanted to do that before this upcoming weekend. Last Saturday my program went to Horcòn and Zapallar. They are both really cute beach towns but sadly it was a rather cold and gloomy day. But Horcòn is famous for their empanadas, so we obviously had to test them out. I had a shrimp empanada and then later a crab empanada, and I must say that they can keep their reputation. When we arrived in Zapallar I fell in love. It is definitely an upper class town but it was gorgeous! It had a pretty small beach and then just trees and hills surrounding it, making it seem very secluded. While we were there, we walked along a rode and saw a little artesian stand so we ... read more

It´s my last day in Perú and I´m super sad. I have enjoyed my time here so much, the food is good the people we´ve met have been nice, I truely have had a wonderful time here. We´ve gone to the beach everyday and although they´re not as clean as back home, it was nice to just be out in the sun. We are in a little town about an hour south of Lima called Punto Hermosa, and it is beautiful, if I had the money I would consider buying a house here. But today some friends taught us how to surf and I got up on my fifth or sixth try! It was a lot of fun! But I have more to tell and I´ll write it when I get back to Valpo. Talk to ... read more

Hello!! As I´m sure you are all aware that Easter was yesterday and mine was spent a little different then in the past. We went back out to the YMCA camp and went swimming in a pond/stream. I forgot my bathing suit so I just put my legs in the water. But after we were there for a few hours we went back and had lunch that was huge!! After that my Chilean brother got the chain saw and we went to go cut up a fallen tree branch. After many problems we the chain saw we finally got the majority of it cut and took all the wood back to the car. We then had "once" and is the spanish number 11, which is where you just have tea/coffee and bread and maybe a ... read more