From the Mountains to the Sea: a little bit of everything

There seems to be a little bit of everything in Chile. I've had the opportunity to go to the beach twice and to the mountains once. My first weekend in Chile I got to go visit Santo Domingo with Barbara's family. It's a really cute community about an hour and a half from Santiago, just south of a major port town called San Antonio. I went over to San Antonio one afternoon with the boys and we bought seafood for the dinner-we got mussels which were AMAZING and sea snails which were interesting. I still can't decide whether I liked them or not-they didn't taste bad, but they had a weird texture and it kind of grossed me out whenever I thought about it. Even though it was winter, the beach was absolutely beautiful. It was a little chilly, but not any colder than the California coast in the winter. And the ocean was beautiful, of course. The next weekend I got to go to a town called Algorrobo with EAP. We had our orientation there, which was cool. Not the orientation, the fact that we got to go to the beach. The orientation was okay, it was a lot of information crammed in to a short amount of time. There wasn't too much going on in Algorrobo because it's the low season right now. They had a few little ferias (outdoor markets) which were fun to look around in. They had lots of cute artisan crafts, I wanted to buy a lot of things, but just kept reminding myself that I'll be here for a year so I have plenty of time to get things, and also I really just don't need more stuff. Also, the worlds biggest pool is in Algorrobo, so that was kind of cool to see. It is pretty big, but it was only half full because the resort isn't open right now. I also don't completely understand why they need a huge pool when the ocean is right there, but I guess it's because the ocean is cold. But, they had kayaks that went in the pool, and floating docks in the middle and a huge water slide.

This last weekend I got to go up skiing in the Andes. It was amazing. The resort I went to is called El Colorado-it's a lot smaller than most of the resorts in Tahoe, but it was still fantastic. It's above the tree line, so there are no trees anywhere, which is kind of weird because I'm used to there being a lot of trees when I go skiing. We got really lucky on the day we went because it had been snowing all day the day before so there was a ton of fresh powder, which was awesome to ski through. The snow is a lot lighter here than in Tahoe, like it's a lot stickier and wetter in Tahoe--I enjoyed the drier snow, especially when I feel into several feet of powder. We also saw a bunny while we were skiing! We were off in the powder and all of the sudden there was a big brown bunny hopping up the hill...I'm surprised it wasn't freezing, or buried in the snow, because it was pretty deep. Anyways, it's pretty easy to get up to the snow because there are several companies that have shuttles that take you up in the morning and back in the afternoon, so we just went with one of those, and they rent you equipment and everything, although I think it was more expensive than at other places, but oh well. The road up to the mountain was a little bit scary because it was only one lane (because it had been snowing) but for two ways; luckily there weren't too many cars coming down as we were going up, so it wasn't too bad. Also, there's no chain control like in Tahoe, people just pull over to the side of the road whenever they feel like they need their chains and put them on. But, the skiing was pretty awesome.

This week is our last week of ILP (the "orientation" class we all have to take before school) which is crazy, it seems like we just started. I'm kind of happy to be finishing up though, it will be nice to have a little break, because 4 straight hours of class every day is a little much, although I have been learning some interesting things about Chile, especially the culture and politics (and slang). After this week we have a week off before we start our real classes.

Last week we got to visit La Moneda which is the presidential palace. It's kind of like the White House I guess except the president doesn't live there (they used to, but not since the 1970s I think), but it's where the government is based and the president goes there every day to work. We got to go in the room where he holds conferences and gets televised and everything. They had one display with a coin for each president Chile has ever had since their independence, but Pinochet didn't have one because he was not democratically elected. Also right outside the main entrance is a statue of Salvador Allende, which I thought was interesting.

We also got to visit a vineyard called Viña de Concha y Toro (literally Vineyard shell and bull). It's the biggest vineyard in Chile and has the most exports of any vineyard in Chile. They make a side variety of wines...my favorite that I've tried so far from there is Casillero de Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon. They make a kind of wine in Chile called Carménère which they don't have in California, or at least they don't make it California and I haven't seen it in the stores. Anyways, the vineyard was really pretty, although most of the vineyard part of it looked kind of dead since it's the middle of winter. But, we got to see a few different rooms where they had barrels of wine sitting and we got to go into the "Devil's locker" (which was more like a dungeon) which is where they keep the wines for Casillero de Diablo. While we were down there, because it's underground, they turned the lights off and played a "scary story" about that wine and how it came to be, then they cast the devil on the wall, it was kind of funny, but creative on their party I guess. Oh, they also had a kind of wine called Amelia! It was one of the more expensive ones and only came in Chardonnay, but it made me smile.

Well, that's a little bit about my adventures so far. I'm still loving Santiago (and Chile in general) and I'm so glad that I'll get to be here for a year because there's so much to see and do. But, I also cannot believe that I have been here for almost a month now! The time has gone by so quickly.