Chilean Christmas

This Christmas was my first Christmas away from my family and away from Canada. It was strange, because the one thing that I connect with Christmas is snow. Christmas and winter are synonomous to me. Being on the opposite side of the equator this year, Christmas is in summer. Not only was there no snow, but it was actually 25º on Christmas day.

Christmas here is celebrated mainly the day before, on the 24th. Here they celebrate up until midnight on the 24th. We had a big family dinner that night, and went to the plaza to watch a play on the birth of Jesus. I thought it was pretty funny that I went to watch this show outside at 10:00 at night in my capris and sandals on Christmas Eve. Maybe the only time I´ll ever do that, and definately the first time for me. Technically, we were supposed to open presents at midnight, but my host nephew was tired, so we ended up opening them around 11. None of the presents were labeled as from anybody, they were all from "Viejito Pascuero", Santa. Which means that you never find out exactly who your presents were from. Like Secret Santa. On Christmas day, we basically just slept a lot, ate a big lunch (not because it was Christmas day, but because we´re in Chile.) It was strange that we didn´t do anything special for Christmas day. I got a pair of sandals and a bag and some candy. But the most excited gift was the puppy that my sisters bought for my mom. A 2-month old cocker spaniel named Laicy.

The actual day isn´t as important here as the days leading up to Christmas. There are no Christmas charities in Ovalle, so my mom buys gifts and candy herself and takes them to small schools in the country. I went with her this year, and they were literally one-room schools. The one we went to was grades 1-8 but was only 8 people. For lunch, they all go together to one of the student´s house for a homemade meal, since there is no where for hours around to buy food. It felt good to do something charitable for Christmas, since I wasn´t home to do Santa´s Anonymous this year.

The End of the End-Punta Arenas

So, the day we were going to Punta Arenas, we got up later than most days (finally.) On our way back to Punta Arenas, we stopped at a little Chilean-style petting zoo. There, we saw penguins, ostriches, emus, llamas. Basically all the things in we saw in the wild, but we could touch some of them. We stayed there for lunch, too. We ate lamb (delicious) and really really good potato salad :) After that, we went to watch them shear a sheep. It doesn´t look fun. They have to hold it down really hard because the sheep are trembling so much. There was another sheep waiting in the pen while one was getting sheared, and it freaked out and jumped the fence, it was so scared. They don´t hurt the sheep, the sheep just hate it (Jazz getting her nails clipped...)



After that was the part I had been waiting for the whole trip. We got to go see wild penguins. The ones we saw are called Magellan Penguins, and they are only found here, in the south of Chile. They don´t live in snow, either, but in grassy field type things near the ocean. They were sooooo cute, and when the got excited they would try to run and it was so cute. We stayed and watched them for a good hour, and no one wanted to leave.



On our last full day in Punta Arenas, we went to the third most famous cemetery in the world (behind the one in Paris, which I have also been to, and another one somewhere.) We got 20 minutes to walk around and look at the graves. They weren´t like normal graves, though. They were like small homes, with front gardens and everything, and fences. Most of them had entire families in them. After the cemetery, we went to a park to take pictures and relax. After a quick stop at the hotel for a huge lunch, we went to the duty free area of Punta Arenas, called la Zona Franco. We had two hours to shop there, and wander around. That night, we had a little farewell to Punta Arenas party with the whole group and the chaperones.



On our last last day, we went to a view point that overlooked Punta Arenas and the Ocean. There, there were three tall pilars with little wooden signs that people had made pointing to different cities or countries around the world. They also said the distance to each place. It was a little disappointing, because there was not a single one from Canada. So I guess that mean I HAVE to go back so I can bring a sign to point toward Edmonton. :) After that, we went to a little market nearby. We also went to the plaza in La Serena where we had to kiss the foot of a statue for good luck. We ate one last lunch in the restaurant, and then headed off the airport. Back in Santiago, most people stayed together to go to the bus station. Some were picked up at Santiago, because they lived nearby, and two were taking the plane to farther cities. We went as a big group to the bus station. Of course, me and Nikolaj, being the first to leave Ovalle at the very beginning of the trip, had the very last bus out of Santiago that night, at half past midnight, after waiting 3 hours in the bus terminal. It was boring, but I´d say we got the best deal for our money, because we got the longest trip! ;)

My Trip to the End of the World-Puerto Natales

So, after all that waiting around and the delayed flight and the insanely early bus ride, we were finally in Punta Arenas. The thing with the Punta Arenas airport is that the run way is facing out to the ocean, away from where we came. So when we arrived, we had to go past Punta Arenas, essentially heading toward Antarctica, and do a complete 180º to land at the airport. Over the ocean, with really really strong wind. I have been flying quite a few times, so it didn´t bother me, but not all the passengers were too happy with the turbulence or the hairpin turn.

When we landed, we went straight to our bus, which was basically our home on wheels for the whole trip. We met "Tio" John, our guide. The direct translation of tio is uncle, but in Chile they use it as a respectful term. Like Mr. So we met our guide, who was our guide for the whole trip. Our first stop was lunch in Punta Arenas, at the restaurant at the hotel where we would be staying. The plates were huge even for Chile. Then, we were off to our first city, Puerto Natales, a small touristy town a few hours north of Punta Arenas, where we stayed for the first 3 nights. On our way to Puerto Natales, we stopped at La Cueva del Milodón. That´s a huge cave where the found fossils of a thing called a Milodón, like a prehistoric bear. It took us about 20 minutes to walk through the cave, that was how big it was.

After the cave, we arrived in Puerto Natales. We got a chance to walk around the town. It was really touristy, and I think I heard more English and German than Spanish. Our second day was the day long bus tour through Torres del Paine. It sounds kind of boring, but it was actually so much fun. Torres del Paine is the second largest national park in Chile, centered around this mountain that looks like two giant towers (torres.) We saw a lot of wild animals, like wild ostriches, emus, llamas, alpacas, foxes and guanacos (similar to alpacas.) We also saw a lot of lakes. There were two distinct colors to the lakes. Some were really really blue, and others were sea green. The greener ones had a lot more salt in them, as we found when we were told to taste them. There was one lake that we went to that had both colors in it, and you could see the line where the two colors were separated. We also went to a waterfall that fed glacier water into one of the lakes. The last thing we did that day was see ice burgs. I have never seen them before, and had no idea that they are blue. Like really really blue. Because of how compact the ice is. There were about 10 huge iceburgs just floating on the lake. Then, at the far end of the lake, there was a giant glacier.

The next day, we went on a boat ride to a glacier. Or, we were supposed to. The boat ride was 3 hours each way, and it was extremely windy when we got into the middle of the ocean. These tours are always done with two boats, in case something should happen to one boat. Our group had one boat, and the other boat was a group of elderly German tourists. It all seemed fine, until we were about 2 hours in and the other boat had to turn around. The people on the other boat were all sea sick. Because they turned around, we had to too. It was disappointing, but the boat ride was still fun. At one point, me and a girl named Chelsea bundled up and braved the outer deck. I never did figure out if it was raining, or just so windy that the wind was blowing up sea water, but it was really really windy. We had to hold onto the rail or we would have gone overboard. It was a lot of fun, and we were the only two brave enough (or stupid enough) to do it. When we came back in, looking like drowned rats, we got a nice round of applause. Part of the boat trip was a stop at this remote restaurant literally in the middle of nowhere for lunch. Because we didn´t get there by boat, we drove there. It took about 2 hours, but the drive was also a lot of fun. And the food was so delicious, it was well worth it.

That was our last day in Puerto Natales. That night, we had a little party with the whole group, also to celebrate a student´s birthday. We left the next morning to Punta Arenas....

Second Orientation

Since the first orientation, the one thing I have been looking forward to more than anything else is our Rotary planned trip to the south of Chile. The chance to see all the exchange student again and go "the end of the world" was so exciting. We started off just me and Nikolaj, the other student in my city from Denmark. We left at the ungodly hour of 9am on a Friday to take the bus from Ovalle to La Serena. It took about an hour and a half, and then when we got there we had to wait another two hours for our next bus, which was, of course, late (by an hour) so we actually waited for 3 hours. But while we were waiting, we met up with all the exchange students living in La Serena. There are 8 of them, all from the United States except for one girl from Denmark. We also met up with the students who lived to the north of us, in Copiapó.

From there, we went to Villa Alemana, just outside of Santiago, to a little resort called Valle Verde. The same resort we went to for the first orientation in August. There, we had our half-way orientation. It was pretty boring, except for when we did the talent show. I, as a last minute thing, decided to play hot cross buns on glasses of water. Of course, one of the glasses broke right before, so it sounded more like (really flat note) cross buns. I didn´t win, but I did get chocolate. We all did because the chaperones told us we were the most enthusiastic group about the talent show. I guess the year before half the people didn´t do anything, and one guy stood up and burped the alfabet. I would have been impressed, but Rotary wasn´t. A boy from Antofogasta won for a song he wrote and played on the piano. It was about things he missed from home and things he liked in Chile, and it was hilarious because it was in Spanglish. Whenever he didn´t know a word, or he needed it to rhyme, he would just put in an english word or two.

That day, we also wrote a Spanish test. The first part was just an evaluation of our exchange so far, so Rotary could evaluate us as well as our clubs here in Chile. The second part was listening comprehension. It was actually really hard, because we only got to hear the passage once, and then had to answer questions. I got really worried about that part, but I didn´t really have to, because I got 100%!

So that was about all that happened at the Orientation. On the last night, we had to stay up until 1 am for the talent show, and at that time they proceded to tell us that for whoever was going on the trip to the south the bus was leaving at 5:30am. We all woke up around 5:15, rolled out of bed and fell straight back asleep on the bus to the Santiago airport. We all woke up in the airport, though, thanks to Starbucks. For me, my first Starbucks in more than 4 months. Our flight, of course, was delayed, but we finally left, all of us excited to start the trip.

Graduation

Because my school is so small here in comparison with my high school in Canada, the graduation ceremony is way different as well. There are only about 35 people in a graduation class, so each person is allowed to invite as many friends and family members as they want. Each student makes there own hand made invitations. I met a student in the graduating class, Nicol, when I went to the beach with friends in September. I also met her boyfriend, Daniel, and they both invited me to the ceremony. I had to buy gifts for both of them, a wallet for him and a makeup case for her.
The ceremony started off with the national anthem and the school hymn. Then, sixudent from my grade holding the flag of Chile and the school banner walked down the aisle slowly. Then came the graduating class. In pairs, they took one step every few seconds, walking to the graduating song (I don´t know what it´s called, but it´s the one they always use in movies.) It was very slow, it took almost 10 minutes just for everyone to walk down the aisle and take their seats on the stage.
Then they did each student individually. They came up to the front and their parents handed them their rings and diploma. It was much more personal than it would be at my high school. The school is so small that it doesn´t take too long for all the students to be called individually and then get pictures with their parents at the front. If they did that at Scona, we´d be there all night. This was still long, about 2 hours, but there was the school band and the choir to sing. And the kids in grades one and two sang a really adorable song. My friend Nicol was one of the speakers, and she said a little speech.
After, everyone crowded around the students to give them their presents. It took me almost an hour just to find my two friends in the crowd and give them their gifts. And I lost my mom in the process and took another half hour finding her. She was, of course, talking to another mom, completely oblivious to the fact that I had disappeared. It´s strange how much she reminds me of my own mom...