el último mes

Well it's been a month or so....and I figured it's my duty that I would write something. I've done a few fun things since then, so I will cover that. Over than that, it's just been school and studying. Although the weather is changing so that's definitely a good thing!!

So since then...well since covering a month's passing would take a lot of time to type, I'm just going to paste a summarized version from an email i sent to my mom after the weekend of the 18th of September, Chile's independence day. Here it is (pardon me for grammar erros and not capitalizing lots of things..I got lazy):

Finally I left the city and the countryside was so pretty. Friday was Chile's independence day and began the year that celebrates their having 200 years of independence. Thursday night i went to la Moneda plaza, where Michelle Bachelet works (like our white house) where there was a huge free concert with 40 or so bands or artists. tonsss of people. They had fireworks, which i was informed, doesn't happen just any ole independence day--they only had them because it was celebrating 200 years. Saturday a Chilean friend of mine Felipe (he lives in the same house as Maritza, from my program) invited me to celebrate the day with his family, which was cool. got to see how a chilean family celebrates. they made me dance the Cueca, which is a really goofy dance. but its chile's national dance and they dance it like crazy this time of the year. you should google a video. the outfits are really cute though. i wanted to buy one of the dresses because they are pretty cheap here as opposed to a typical German attire dress. We had an asado, a bbq basically with salads and then a typical Chilean cake with lots of manjar in it (dulce de leche).

Saturday Felipe and I and 3 of his roommates (a guy from mexico and a guy and girl from belgium) went to rancagua, a smaller city south of here. has about 200,000 people with little pueblos around it. we went to the fondas, which are these big fair like things...lots of food and rides, vendors, games, etc. ate typical food (anticuchos, pork on a stick cooked over the grill, chicha, sweet apple wine, and empanadas filled with cheese. Pop, you would love the empanadas de queso---they're made of a soft pastry crust with yummy cheese inside and lightly deep fried, soooo good). Then around 5pm we were sitting trying to figure out what to do and we decided to go to Pichilemu, a small beach town south west of santiago. it was kinda on a whim...Maritza and elvira were there with 2 other girls and so since they were there we decided to go meet them since the place they were staying at had an extra room open. We had planned on returning to Santiago that night so we really did go on a whim and no one had a change of clothes or toothbrush or anything!! But anyway, where we stayed was in these little cabins with multiple beds, bathroom, and kitchen with a random assortment of cooking things, that normally rent out for abotu $35 a night, sleeping 5 people. This weekend was a little more but still cheap and RIGHT ON THE BEACH. it was gorgeous. But because we went with nothing, we left around noon on Sunday cause everyone wanted to shower etc. it was really nice anyway. pichilemu was really pretty. Reminded me SO much of California beaches around the Monterey area. rocks and darkish sand, the same trees, plants, smell, house-style. it was crazy how similar they are!!

So that's the summary of the 18th of September weekend. It was pretty awesome...here's a fun fact, by the way. In my Spanish grammar class the tuesday after the weekend we were discussing interesting things regarding the customs and such of the weekend, and I mentioned how I thought it was interesting that pretty much every house I saw had a Chilean flag outside it. And tonnnnss of cars have them too. Well the teacher goe on to say that its actually a law that every house or apartment building display a flag the day of the 18th and there is aparently a fine or somtehign it you dont. She said that she's doenst know of anyone whose been fined and doesnt know if they really do fine people, but the law exists...interesting!!

Since then there's been some fun festivities regarding soccer games. South America has been holding lots of games to determine which countries will go to the world cup in south africa next summer. Chile played Colombia this last saturday and whoever won would go to the cup. Well, Chile won and it was pretty crazy. Everytime they made a goal and at the end of the game you just had to stick your head out the window and the entire city errupts with honking horns, yelling and anything that makes noise. I was thinking how the US doenst really have anything like that, a sport thats played internationally and literally everyyyyone knows when there are games and such. I mean, the olympics but that doenst count because there are always different events going on. But it was pretty awesome. I went and met Cristina and Maritza in Plaza Italia, about 5 blocks from my house which is pretty muchwhere the entire city collaborates to celebrate something. They go there after they win a game, they go there during festivals, they all went wild there apparently when Pinochet died a few years ago. There were tons of people, mostly young people and it was just crazy. There are pictures.

This last weekend was pretty awesome as well. On Friday I got to go to a wedding. The wedding mass was at 9pm, pretty late if you ask me and then the reception was at this awesome restaurant it little out of the city in the country. It was really beautiful--we ate dinner at 2am, go figure. There was a dance floor, open bar, and excellent music. Pretty fun. Gave me an excuse to wear my dress and dress up a little since chileans never really dress up.

Saturday I chilled out and cleaned my room and went to Plaza Italia and then Sunday I got to leave the city again. There is an area south east of the city thats called Cajón del Maipo ==its countryside and parts of the foothills of the Andes. I hadn't been to the moutains yet so I'm glad I got to go before all the snow melted. There are these thermal spas (hot springs) also that are up in the andes that i'd read about and wanted to find at some point. I went with Felipe but little did we know that the road was closed to a few parts where slow covered it. There is nowhereonline that says if its open or closed to snow or rockslides so you just have to go and look. It was interesting on the way out there because the last little town we passed through had a crossing with the police and if you plan on staying more than a day its recommended that you register with the police so they can come look for you if you dont return because it's so rural beyond that and the road doesn't pass all the way to argentina (it just stops at some point in the moutains). Anyway, getting up the road, 28 km dirt road it suddenly stopped cause there were a bunch of cars parked. Then we saw that there was snow covering the road but we thought we were only about 5 km out from the springs so we decided to walk/hike in. The road was only partially covered so walking in was fine. It was sooooo pretty. We were literally UP there in the Andes right next to a resevoir called the Embalse El Yeso (it's in google earth and google maps). The water was super clear and really clean and the mountains all around and covered in snow. Well after about 5 km we still weren't there so we just continued trekking in. After 10 km we decided it'd be smart to go back before the sun went down. A let down that we never got to them but it was a nice 12.5 miles of walking that day---i figureed there wouldnt be a huge amount of walking involved so i just wore my sambas...regular indoor soccer shoes with no ankle support and gave me gnarly blisters. Next time im taking my hiking boots. My darn camera batties crapped out on me though only about an hour after we got there so there aren;t that many pictures. It was a nice day though.

That;s about it..I posted pictures on Picasa so check those out. Oh and I got a B+ on my last exam in my Borges literature class. yeah!

Hope all's well..see ya'll in a few weeks. !!