Advertisement
Published: March 17th 2010
I am
finally getting around to uploading pictures from the trip I took in January to see everybody down in Chile!
It was a WONDERFUL trip, and Jon came with me which made it extra fun... it was cool to be able to share my chilean life, family and friends with my best US friend! He took spanish all through high school, and it came back pretty fast when we got there... he struggled at first but by the end he was communicating pretty well on his own, it was fun to be on the other side of watching someone diving into a new language and culture! We spent about three weeks of our winter break down there and it was wonderful seeing everybody... especially James and our new little neices (well not that new any more but I hadn't met them in person yet!!!)
Copiapó
We spent most of the time in the city I lived in before, Copiapó, visiting friends and spending time with James and the family. My little chilean nieces (James's cousins' babies) Isidora and Antonella, were about 7 months and 2 months old while we were there... and very cute!! James gave me an
adorable little puppy, Annalisa, who is a poodle street dog mix. She went everywhere with me while we were there but is now staying with James and his family until I get back! We did a lot of visiting different people and I got to show Jon around my beautiful little town 😊
We spent new years at Yaya's house. She threw her big new years party and all the family came. It was fun, we watched the fireworks (not very impressive) and the neighbors' burning of a scarecrow-like thing (its a chilean tradition, sort of symbolizing burning the past and the bad stuff from last year and moving on to this year). There was also a lot of dancing and champagne!
James turned 25 while we were there! It was great to be there for his birthday (and make fun of him for getting old!) we had a party with the family in the evening, with one of Yaya's famous and delicious cakes and then that night we went out dancing. Jon, James and I met up with Cami and went to one of my favorite dance clubs, La Entre, and skipped the line and got in
The Plaza
downtown Copiapofor free as usual by playing the dumb gringos... hehe!
La Serena
We also spent a few days visiting friends and family in La Serena (the city Laura lived in, and where I spent my summer... with her host family). Anna made great friends with Cote's (Laura's host sister) new dog Tequila. We also met the exchange student that is currently staying with Laura's family, who is ironically named Serena!
Caldera
I rented a little house in the coastal town of Caldera (about an hour from Copiapó) and we spent a great weekend at the beach. We being: Jon, James, James's sister Sheirley, Sheirley's friends Yogo and Seba, several of my friends and me. The little house I rented had three bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen with a cement patio in the middle and we fit about 11 people in there! We had a great time in the evening with friends passing through and music (thanks to a very creative invention on Yogo's part... he balanced a cut off plastic bottle on top of his phone to create a speaker that worked surprisingly well). And we also had fun at the beach in Bahia Inglesa (right
The Plaza 2
downtown Copiapo next to Caldera) during the days.
Playa Ramadas
On the last sunday we were there for Jon and I went with James, his brother and sister and his parents out to one of the lesser known beaches near Caldera. We stopped in the actual port of Caldera to see the sea lions (or sea wolves as they're called in spanish - lobos del mar) and then spent all day at the beach with a picnic lunch. It was beautiful and a great time with the family. Sheirley bought a small inflatable boat which was wild fun in the big cold pacific waves! James's mom (who doesn't like to swim in the ocean) watched Anna for a while and we all went out together and played in the boat! Just before evening fell James taught Jon to play Paddleball (a favorite chilean beach game) and then we packed up and headed home.
That sunday is one of my fondest memories of Chile 😊
Saying Goodbye
On our last night I invited some friends over and had a party in Yaya's patio which was great fun... but pretty sad at the end. It was hard to say goodbye to
street dog
this poor street dog got some eyebrows drawn on while he was sleeping all these friends I love so much, the time went by so fast! When we got to the airport things went pretty quickly and before I knew it we had been ushered through security and into the waiting area. I had said goodbye to most of the family at Yaya's house (James and Yaya and a couple others came to drop us off at the airport) but not all of the cousins (and Tio Tato) had made it to the airport to say goodbye... they were at the beach since the day before (and were going to be there all weekend) but were planning to come back to the airport to say goodbye. They got there a few minutes after we went through security and the plane hadn't gotten there yet so James's mom managed to yell over and security let me run back through! I got to hug them all goodbye, have a few more final words, snap some pictures and hold baby Antonella one more time.
It was very hard to leave... my heart stays in Chile... I don't know if thats a Spanish or English expression but it makes a lot of sense as to how
it felt leaving Chile.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.079s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0402s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
