James, Cami and I went for a three night camping trip at the campground that Abuela Mirna has in the valley with some friends of Cami's. We had lots of fun cooking, swimming in the pool, hanging out and goofing off! On the last night they went to bed early in the other tents so Cami, James and I stayed up talking and joking around and stargazing. the amount of stars you see out there is incredible! and I saw three shooting stars! While we were out looking at the stars we found out what the strange loud noise we had been hearing at night was.... we had a neighbor who was the most incredibly loud snorer I have ever heard!!! Also in these pictures you will meet... PELUSA! probably the cutest little kitten you have ... read more

Mineral Museum James took me to Copiapó's mineral museum! He likes geology and used to spend a lot of time there (and thus knows the museum people well and gets in for free) and decided he had to take me when i told him that my geologist mom would probably kill me if i spent a year living in a town that houses the museum containing the most complete collection of chilean rocks and minerals in all of chile without ever going to see it. It was actually pretty fun, a lot of really cool looking formations and colorful minerals (I can feel my mom´s glowing pride all the way down here as she reads that im calling a mineral museum "fun" and rock formations "cool"). I recognised some of the names of things and knew ... read more

The first set of pics... crossing into Argentina! sorry for the huge delay in getting these up, i was having problem after problem with my computer, memory cards and internet! This is going to be a bit of a rushed entry because i'm trying to get these out quickly seeing as this is from back in december (the trip was december 11th to 24th). also im headed off for some camping tomorrow morning and will be without internet for a bit... so best to get some done before i go! in these pics are some from crossing the Andes mountains... which was a really impressive experience... they're big. and by that i mean BIG! We spent a looooot of hours on that bus looking out at bits of Argentina aswell... mostly fields and cows... but what ... read more

sorry about the huge delay in blog entries... there has been a big combo of moving, lack of functioning internet, and computer problems... however... here is a pretty old entry that im finally getting up, and ill be trying to crank out a few more and get caught up to the present moment. These pics are from when i came to visit Laura´s host family (I know some of you met her brother Pito) in Serena and we went to the grandmothers house in the valley for a birthday party of one of Pito´s cousins who lives in Australia.... read more

As some of you know, my sister Laura came for a short visit. She spent the weekend with me here in Copiapó and then we headed to Serena for the week so she could go to her class´s graduation and spend some time with her Chilean family from her exchange last year. And as Im sure any of you who know Laura would expect... she did all the picture taking, but I´ve got some of her pictures so here are the ones from our weekend while here in Copiapó. We went and saw my school, went downtown, went to a party with my friends and went to the Dunes with the girls. My host family was in Santiago when she arrived, and got back Saturday night and then my host parents went snorkeling at the beach ... read more