Valle de Elqui

Last Friday, I got home from school looking forward to doing nothing all weekend. I was exhausted, and I really needed to sleep. But of course, that was not in the cards. As soon as I walked in the door, my host mom told me that we were leaving in an hour and I had to pack. Apparently they had told me this earlier in the week, but I hadn´t understood. I still didn´t really understand where we were going, or why, as I got into the car. We drove for three hours, through La Serena and then north. It was a long ride, especially since I was squished in the middle of the backseat in a very small car. The ride, however, was not a boring one. The scenery was beautiful. After driving through La Serena, we drove through what looked like a desert to me. After the desert, we started driving though the mountains. We were going 80 km around hairpin turns on the side of the mountains. The rest of my family didn´t seem to concerned with this, so I suppose this is yet another thing that will take getting used to.

When we finally got to our destination, it was 10:30. I found out it was a small tourist town called Valle de Elqui. It was so beautiful. It was in a valley between the mountains. There were palm trees and cacti everywhere. We stayed at a place called Elqui Domas, just outside the town. They were little dome shaped tents where people go to look at the stars. There was a telescope in our tent, which we never actually figured out how to use, but was cool anyway. There was a loft in the tent, where my host sister Fernanda and my host parents slept, and two beds below where me and my other host sister Xime slept. It looked small from the outside, but actually fit five people more comfortably than a hotel room. And the bathroom was bigger than my bathroom here in Ovalle.

On my first morning in Elqui, we went to a little place about 15 minutes from the Domas. It was a bunch of little shops in houses with tatched roofs. There, you could buy jewellry and house decorations. There was also a guy who read your runes to tell the future. He told my sister Xime she would be going on long trip very soon, and that she would learn a lot on her trip. That was so wierd, because she leaves in a few weeks to go on a Rotary Exchange to New York!

On the second day, Sunday, we got up late. We packed and ate breakfast around noon. Check out time here is noon, but like anything in Chile to do with time, it is very flexible. We went to the actual town of Valle de Elqui and walked around. There were really cute little shops everywhere with hand made jewellry and lotions and stuff. We went for lunch at a resort near the city. It was delicious. After lunch, my family told me we were going on a trail ride. I was so excited because I´ve never been on a real trail ride.

On this ride, we had to actually stear the horses, because they didn´t just follow the butt of the horse in front. I had a horse name Payaso, which means clown in Spanish. He was light brown and white. Our guide, a true Chilean Gaucho, took us through the mountains in the little valley. At one point we went by a rock that is supposed to give you good luck. You have to rub it in this one spot. That spot was worn in from hundreds of years of being touched. The ride was about an hour and a half. It was so much fun. The only bad part about it was that I discovered that I am very allergic to horses. On the ride home, I was sneezing and coughing the whole time, and both my eyes almost swelled shut! But it was still a lot of fun.

¡Earthquake!

Okay, well it wasn´t actually an earthquake, but it was definitely a tremor. And to me, who´s never felt one before, it seemed like an earthquake. I was just sitting in the living room watching TV and there was a shake. And not at all what I would have expected. I though a tremor was little, and I guess this one was fairly small, but it actually rattled the picture frame sitting on the table beside me. I forgot that when I got here, my family had told me that they get almost weekly tremors, and there hasn´t been one yet. My family says I´ll get used to them, but it definitely rattled me (no pun intended.)

I don´t really have anything else to say. Today was a good, restfull day, probably the first one I´ve had yet (and maybe the last!) We had the day off school because there was a Catholic holiday. My host dad went to work for a bit and my sister Fernanda went to a friends. Xime, my other sister, went to Santiago yesterday afternoon for some kind of concert, and will be getting back tomorrow night. I went out for groceries once, and then caught up on some reading, which I havn´t had a lot of time to do yet. So the earthquake was about the most exciting thing that has happened to me in the last few days. And it was quite exciting.

The pictures above are of the grape fields that are everywhere in Chile. We drove by them on the way home from the grocery store. They are enormous, but youu can´t tell from the photo. They go on forever and they are all in perfect little rows. They´re kind of ugly right now, because they are all brown, but when they bloom in the summer, they are apparently beautiful!

A Busy Weekend

When this weekend finally came, I was really looking forward to just resting. It´s been such a busy week, and I´m exhausted from having to think so hard constantly. Of course, the weekend was anything but relaxing, but that´s not to say that it wasn´t fun. I´m actually really glad that I kept busy, because it leaves me no time to think about home and my family and friends.

On Friday night, I went to a restaurant with most of the girls in my grade. It was called Tremenda, and it has amazing fruit juices! When I got home around 10:00, I was really tired, and ready for bed. But Xime, my host sister, wanted to rent a movie. I went with her and her boyfriend, Pedro, to the supermarket to buy snacks and we rented a movie called If Only. It was in English with Spanish subtitles, which was good, because I was way to tired to try and understand a movie in Spanish. I probably should have been reaading the subtitles and trying to understand, but I was way to tired.

On Saturday, I slept in until 11:00. After I had had breakfast and gotten ready, my host mom and sister, Xime, took me to Embalse Paloma. It was a giant water dam on a man made lake. It was really windy and cold, but really beautiful, because it was really close to the mountains. It was about 20 minutes outside of Ovalle. That´s one thing that I love about Chile. You can´t go anywhere in the country without seeing mountains. The dam also had a long lookout thing sticking out into the water. It was really high up, and with the wind, I thought I was going to get blown off into the water.

After Paloma, we went back to the house to pick up my host dad. We drive the to the other side of Ovalle, toward a town called Limari. On the way, we stopped at an Equine Center to eat at the restaurant there, but it was closed. We continued on to Limari, which is about 15 minutes outside Ovalle. There, my host mom showed me the school where she teaches English to young kids. We also went to a church where, I think, Xime and Fernanda were babtised. I couldn´t really understand them. Beside the church, there was a little house that was made out of mud! It was so weird. On the way back to Ovalle, my host mom pointed out the little shrines set up by the side of the road. I´ve been seeing them everywhere in Chile, and was dying to know what they were. My mom explained that they were little memorial shrines dedicated to people who had died in car accidents. She told me they are only in Chile.

Today (Sunday), we went to La Serena. La Serena is a bigger city 45 minutes away from Ovalle. It is really beautiful, right on the ocean, but you can still see the mountains in the background. There, I met up with Javier, who was an exchange student from Chile who lived in Edmonton. He just got home three weeks ago. It was good to see him, and my family said that they go to La Serena once or twice a month, so I will have more chances to see him and the other exchange students who are in La Serena. I also got to talk to Nynne, a student from Denmark, who was in the mall when we were. We are planning to get together with all the exchange students in La Serena and Ovalle in the next few weeks. Me and Javier walked around the mall and talked (in English, even though I shouldn´t have) and he taught me a few slang words that Chileans use that are different from traditional Spanish words. Like instead of "¿entiendes?" for "do you understand?" they say "¿cachai?." Also, instead of "¿como estas?" for "how are you?" they shorten in to sound like "¿comoestai?"

So that was my weekend. Tomorrow is Monday and (sigh) school again. I´m sure it will be another very busy week.

First Day Of School

I did it! The one thing I was really nervous about was going to the first day of school. But I didn´t really need to be worried. The people were really nice. One of the counsellors at the school who spoke english took me around the school and introduced me to my classmates. Unlike most schools in Chile, Colegio Amalia Errazuriz is like schools in Canada. Instead of staying in the classroom and having the teachers change classrooms, we went to different classrooms for each subject. The first girl I met was Yiliana. She introduced me to all the other people. It is a small school so there is only one class in each grade. There were so many names at once that I only remember a few. Cote was the girl who led me around the school all day, and her friend Mariana also. In the classes, it was really laid back. Not like at Scona where, when the teacher walks in, the class starts. Here, the teacher walks in, talks to the students and 15 or 20 mintues after the bell, the class starts. Also, everyone talks during the entire class, and the teacher doesn´t seem to mind. It was a bit hard to concentrate, but I´ll get used to it.
The classes I had today were philosophy (i think, the translation was weird), Physics, Spanish and History. I understood a lot of the physics stuff because the words are very similar to English. Also, I figured out that in History they were studying the Renaissance, which I just did in Social Studies, so I caught on. The teachers talked really fast so the lectures didn´t go well, but when they wrote on the board, I usually understood.
All the people in the class were really nice, and they talked to me a lot. They were very interested in Canada and my life there and my hobbies etc. Then we came to soccer (of course) and they were all really loud and excited about something. I figures out that they were talking about the riot in Toronto after the world cup, and people from Chile getting arrested. They also knew about West Edmonton Mall.
Because lunch is the most important meal of the day, and usually it is a large meal, I did not bring one. Instead, my host mom brought me lunch at 1:00 when the lunch hour started. I thought this would be embarrassing, but when I went there, there was at least half the school waiting for lunches to be dropped off at the front. My lunch was, of course, huge and I didn´t finish it. All the girls at the table thought it was funny that I barely ate anything, but I was so full! At lunch, I also had a chance to talk to Nikolai. He told me he doesn´t understand anything in his classes, either. There is supposed to be another exchange student from Sweden in my class, but she was sick today. Her name is Nicole. I hope tomorrow is as eventful as today!

Orientation

So, after we drove almost two hours to the Orientation (I thought it was going to be in Santiago) we were shown our cabanas. They were little individual houses with 4 or 5 to a house. I was in Cabana Dies. The first thing I notice about Valle Verde was that there were palm trees everywhere. It was barely above freezing and there were palm trees! I was very excited (I took a ton of pictures.) At dinner on the first night, we had an empinada, which is basically a huge pizza pop, but with only mozzarella cheese inside, and it is deepfried. I have now found out that almost everything in Chile is fried, or is loaded with carbs. I understand why Rotary made our jackets so big: I´m barely going to fit mine when I come home. I really miss fresh fruit and vegetables though. I havn´t had any since I´ve been here.

At the Orientation, we talked about exactly the same stuff that we did at the Spring Orientation in Edmonton. The rules, what to expect, the rules, the culture, and the rules. There are alot of rules, but I´m sure we´ll all find some way to have fun :) I also had a chance to meet all the other students, including Nikolai, from Denmark, who is the other student staying in Ovalle, and going to my school. Our two host families are very good friends so we will probably see a lot of each other. This morning, at 9:00 am, the bus picked us up and took us to the airport in Santiago where we all took our connecting flights to our cities. There are a ton of students going to La Serena, so we were all together.

At the airport, we were met by our families, who cheered and clapped when we came. My family is soo nice. The mother is Ximena and the daughter who is 18 is Ximena too. The father is Luis, and the 20 year old son, who is not at home, is too. Fernanda is the only child living at home right now, she is 9. They were so welcoming, and although they spoke to me in English today, they promised that tomorrow it would stop, so I can learn Spanish. Anyway, there is so much more to tell, but I need to go now. Keep reading by posts, I´m sure there will be even more to say later!

The Beginning

So finally, after all the preparation I did, and all the mixed messages I´ve been given, I was off! I left on Thursday August 2 at 4:30 pm, but it was more like 5:00. Saying goodbye was sad and when I first went through Security in Edmonton and turned around for one last look at my family, I was a little overwhelmed. My flight to Toronto was uneventful and passed quickly. When I landed in the Toronto Airport, I had about 45 minutes until my plane boarded and it took me at least 25 minutes just to walk from my arrival gate to the other side of the airport and my departure gate. When I finally got there I was a little stressed out but I saw something that lifted my spirits; a red Rotary Canada blazer. I went over and introduce myself. His name is Jake and he is from a small town (literally with a population of about 100) that is about 3 hours north of Toronto. We talked about all our mishaps with preparations for our trips, and I learned that I was not the only one going through it. When we got on the plane, we were two seats apart, which was handy, but of course, the instant the plane took off, we were both fast asleep. The plane ride was long, and the sleep wasn´t that great, but I have to say that my mom was right about the neck pillow she insisted I buy; it saved me. As we were circling Santiago waiting to land, the pilot told us to look outside and get our first glimpse of Santiago, and I looked outside and saw gray. I learned that Santiago is one of the most poluted cities in the world. I got my real first at Chile when landed. Customs went surprisingly smoothly, except when they tried to make me pay a tax that I didn´t have to pay ($132 american!) and Jake and I were soon done. There was a group there to greet us, Rotarians as well as students, because we were the last to arrive. 20 out of the 30 students in districts 4320 and 4360 (northern and central Chile) are American. There is only the two of us from Canada, 3 from Denmark, 4 from Germany and 1 from Finland. Everyone is really friendly, although the Amercans do ask some pretty funny questions ("Is hockey mandatory in Canada") and no one knew what a touque (I think thats how you spell it) was. From there we went to the Orientation Center, a little resort type place called Valle Verde. That was where it really began.