Wow! I just got back from an amazing trip down to "The End Of The World". I went to the south of Chile and was able to stay with my host family's daughter. I visited the national park torres Del Paine. It is huge and there were more gringos there than natives. My favorite part of the park was the different lakes that had different colors, oh, and then the glaciers. The glaciers were bright blue and huge. When I was climbing up the path to them they looked close enough to touch, but once I got to them they were definiatily out of reach. They are just so big that over the hill I couldn't tell just what I was about to see. And then with the lakes, one of them was grey one was teal and one was a really like blue. They were all clean, just different colors 'cause of the minerals in the water. I always thought that different colors meant that the water was dirty. I also got to go to a place where the penguins go to lay their eggs and then sit on them until they hatch. There were tons and tons of them. They were walking up to the trail and just staring at us like were were staring at them. I found lots of feathers, I don't know which ones are from penguins and which are just from birds, but I am going to keep them as souveniers. I saw milodon remains, flemincos, foxes, llamas, ostrages, everything! Milodons were around in the time of dinosaurs. They were vegetarians (what is the oposite of a carnavour called for animals? I don't remember) and they are pretty big. Hair from the animal has actually been found in a big cave here. We went to see the cave and while we were there there was a fox with it's little babies. The family just wanted to get up close and take pictures. I wanted to run away!! It was a fox with babies!!! That sounds dangerous to me!
It is the end of the school year down here and we went to a little get together with the families of Cata's classmates. It was on this really cool farm and all of the kids got to ride horses. We had an asado (bbq) and one of the dads just cut the goat right up in front of us. Skinned it and everything. I stuck with hotdogs after that. At least with those I didn't see the butchering process! While I was there the kids and I had a blast painting faces. I have lots of pictures of them in different disguises. My Chilean "sister" is Carolina, "brother in law" Pedro, "neices" Coty (Maria Jose) and Cata (Catalina). They were so nice to let me stay there. Soon they are moving to a different part of Chile and I am going to go and visit there there as well.

some other pictures

Halloween

Last night was Halloween and it was a blast. First I went to dinner with some friends and then we went over to Orion's house and had a party. Orion is a member of the church and also doesn't drink, so that was nice at the party to not be the only one not drinking. I was a bee. I am gonna post some pictures cause words just can't describe.

Today

Today I had my first kick boxing class in spanish. They call it "aerobox". It was so much fun but with that today and rock climbing class yesterday I can already feel my muscles hurting... or growing is how I am going to think about it. I was pretty nervous about the class being in spanish combined with my lack of coordination but it turned out all right. It turns out that as long as you follow the leader you don't actually have to understand what she is saying. I had two other classes today. They were a little long, but that's how classes go, I guess. In my second class we got to go out to the streets and ask people about modismo or slang in Chile. That was for my culture class. I know I will not need to know their slang forever but while I am here it will be nice to understand what people are saying.

The other day I got to go to the outdoor market. It was so much fun! There are people every where shouting the prices and things they are selling trying to compete with the other people screaming the same things. I went with Yaya and she bought some flowers. They are really pretty and really inexpensive when you buy them at the outdoor market. After that we went to the artisanean by the beach. There were so many things and I bought a couple of earing for $0.25. I figured for that price it wouldn't matter if I lost one.

Cesaer asked if i would be his girlfriend for a day or two and so of course i said yes and this was our romantic kiss. lol

joking around on a saturday night

i wonder who did this to his hair. ha ha ha. he saw me using hairspray and wanted to get involved, so i took advantange of it

my disaster of a hair cut from all angles. look for the mullet in the back. it is my fav

the guy to my right excaped from this prison when it was still a prison. he has since stopped stealing and now gives tours of the museum there. (he was only 14 when he was arrested and was there for around fifteen years when he and seven other people found a tunnel that had been created during the time that the building was used as a gum ammo storage building

view of valpo

these are all graffiti in Valparaiso

this is on a flat wall in valparaiso

the means "turn off the tv and live your life", but not in the way you would link. turn off the tv means to be so drunk that you don't remember anything and pretty much blackout, hence the turning off of the television. get it?

skipping girl graffitii in Valparaiso

poor hurt chin tomito

women, we can do it, in any language

say cheese

Ariel and Oscar. Ariel was my "latin love"

Mono teasing Tomito

The Martinez fam dancing to Tomito's favorite tunes

Ya Ya making a funny face for the camera

Laura from USU and Farrah our intercambio helper outer