La Serena!!!

Hi everyone,

I hear its nice and warm, and a little soggy back home. Its starting to get chile here (get it?!). Boy, I'm just a riot. I'm sitting on my bed with my guatero which is just a big bag of boiling water. Central heating is a concept this country doesn't seem to want to understand so we have guateros. When it gets really cold then there are estufas, which sounds like a space heater stove thing. So when we last left off I was getting ready to go to La Serena. I will now fill you in!

Last Wednesday at 11:15 I boarded the bus with my bag of Passover food. We sat on the second floor of the bus which i thought was cool in itself. Busses here are super comfy. We traveled on a semi-cama (semi-bed) bus, so we had recliners and pillows and blankets. Airlines should learn from Chilean bus companies. I slept a decent amount. It took between 7-8 hours unfortunately. We got there and walked to our hostel. We rented, like, an apartment pretty much for about 40 dollars. We slept till about 11 then decided to go grocery shopping. No sense in eating out when we had a stocked kitchen. After that we made lunch and then hit up the beach. We definitely didn't make it to the right beach but it was beautiful and fun. I collected some shells. Then we walked back home and cooked a yummy dinner of stir fry. We were pretty tired so didn't go anywhere. Then, on Friday, Chris decided to sleep the whole day while the girls decided to explore the city of La Serena. It's pretty tiny so we just walked around and explored. It was a beautiful day. I also rocked my fannypack, pictures soon to follow. There were lots of ferias artesanales (like, marketplaces of local art). I bought some things for people :). We took lots of pictures and just enjoyed the weather. It is a gorgeous town with pretty architecture. I found out that there are 29 churches there. We also went to a restaurant for lunch thats in all the guide books for its seafood. I ate fried fish while the girls all got like, shellfish soup. I tasted theirs and it was delish, but I don't regret my decision haha. Then they got shellfish empanadas, which I also tried. Very good, but I would never eat my own obviously. We also made reservations for tours of Valle del Elqui and the observatory, ridiculously cheap ones too! That night we made steak and choripan. I was in charge of grilling the steak hahah!!!! We went to bed early to prepare for our long Saturday of tours.

Saturday was amazing. Our tour left at 830 to go to Valle del Elqui. Valle del Elqui is just a region up north where there's a lot of cool stuff, which I will tell you about. We stopped first to see papayas growing; this region is known for their fruit, mainly grapes and papayas. As we drove the weather got to be gorgeous! We stopped at the side of the road to buy grapes. We got 4 kilos for 1mil!!!!!!!! Translation: 8 lbs for 2 bucks. Valle del Elqui is where pisco is made, and some wines. Pisco is distilled grapes. They are so sweet, we divided them up and I still have some left. We stopped at a big dam to look around, I got some great pictures. Then we continued up to Gabriela Mistral's school and bedroom, which is now a museum. Gabriela Mistral is from Vicuna (part of Valle del Elqui). She is a writer, and the first Latin-American to win the Nobel Prize which she did in 1945. Practically every road in Valle del Elqui is called G. Mistral! The museum was cute. Then we rolled onto a pico distillery. We went to the oldest one in the area, opened in 1860. We learned how pisco is made, and we saw some old machinery. They gave us some to taste, which I happily passed along to Chris. It was fun, and very hot. But the climate is mediterranean, meaning its very toasty but no humidity! Then we drove to the centre of the town to poke around and chill. There was a feria there too. They're all over the place here! Then we finally went for lunch. We went to a restaurant started by two women that decided they wanted to cook with solar energy. All of the ovens are outside. It takes about 4 hours for everything to cook. It was absolutely delicious though, I had salmon. I took pictures of things cooking :). I also kept the label of my homemade juice. Then, our trusty tour guide dropped us off at the tour office for the observatory. We had about three hours to kill. There was another couple from our hostel so we hung out with them too. We walked around the feria in their plaza, where I bought a fun souvenir. We had gelato then completos for dinner. So healthy! Completos are hot dogs with tomatoes and avocado. Soooo good! After chilling and waiting it was finally time to go to the observatory. We had a moody, crazy driver but we made it there in one piece. It was a perfect night to look at the stars cuz there was a small moon. The light from the moon makes it hard to see the stars. But since there is a hole in the ozone, Chile has some of the clearest skies. You can see the Milky Way and the Magellin clouds with the naked eye. I took a picture of Saturn through the telescope! The guide also pointed out and explained the Southern Cross, which is like the North Star for this side of the world. You can see Orion here, but not the Big Dipper, cool eh? He also pointed out the astrological constellations and some Aztec constellations. Then we looked through the telescope to see that a star that we see is actually a whole lot of stars!!!!! It was so pretty, and it made me feel very small. When we got home we all fell asleep right away! Sunday was kinda shitty weather, so we hung around the hostel and made a big lunch. Some of the group went out, but I stayed in cuz I was having an upset stomach. Its just as well that I didn't go, cuz they ended up at a sketchy area and never got to a club! Then on Monday we cleaned the place, paid the guy, and went on our merry little ways. We spent the whole day on the bus, and I was thrilled to be home. Not that I didn't have fun, but I missed my home-cooking and seeing mama. I guess I got used to the idea that Vina del Mar is home. And strangely enough, that night, my stomach was fine after mama's cooking.

This week is Semana Novata, which is like initiation week for the freshmen. There are only morning classes. Yesterday I had my CIEE class. Then I went out for a little while. Today I went to get my Chile ID (yay!) then realized I have tons of work for a test on Monday, yikes. Tomorrow night at 8 CIEE is taking us to Pucon, which is south. We get back Monday at 8am. I think I am going to climb a volcano! There are other options but that one sounds coolest. Sounds like a jam packed (and expensive) weekend. Tonight I need to read and study. Monday I have class then my test. In two weeks I am getting some visitors, i am very excited! I'm about ready for some familiar faces.

In other news, I went to Dunkin Donuts. They don't sell coffee. Bummer. I also helped mama make dinner. How do you make guacamole?! I'll teach you! Pictures coming shortly of everything, I swear!!!

Miss yous,
Carolina