in the home stretch

i haven't written anything in ages but millions of things have happened:
machu picchu and hiking the inca trail
pucon, rafting, ziplining for miles in the air
querer-ing alguien
pololoism :)
club de lulu every tuesday
finding that really happy place inside of me
alonso growing SO much
taco, bravissimo, and chorrillana dates
nights in the casa de chueko
choosing between the clouds or a palace...
zoologico
empanada adventures and dancing until sunrise
finding best friends and watching them leave me or leaving them behind

i am so scared to come home but so thankful for these experiences that i know have changed me. my dad (real dad) is coming to chile today and we are going to spend the week together until we go home dec 11, and then i expect to see all of my best friends. but don't get too excited, i'm tan, my hair is a little longer, my spanish is a little better, and my belly is fat with pan and mermelada. i'm already planning my return to chile- i swear.

short story and then i have to go to the airport:
i saw a boy wearing a shirt one day that was red, had a yellow heart that said "CH" in it. now i should have known that CH did not mean chile because chile is abbreviated with CL, but i bought it anyway because i love chile. right so i didn't think anything of it and maryann and i went to take pictures of the plazas in valpo today and i wore the shirt. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE SHIRT MEANS?! it means el chapulin colorado. he was a mexican superhero who dressed as a bee. as i walked down the street, some vendor came up to me and asked me to save him. let's talk about embarrassing. oh well, the shirt means i love chile to me so if i wear it when i come home, don't ask me to save you. because i won't.

i'll write more i swear.
nos vemos mis guachones :)

chilenismo:
chaleco- means chao. any word that has chao in it can mean chao.. idk

feliz cumplefran!

we finally had the birthday party for fran this saturday night- GREAT SUCCESS! jejeje she was shocked, surprised, and spoiled by all [oh yea except her devil of a mother who only gives gifts of half eaten bags of cornflakes- someone tell me what you do with half a bag of cornflakes]. the baby was locked away in the room for the night and fran was allowed to drink [recuerdate que ella esta breastfeeding]. her friends seem nice enough aunque they made 0 effort to mingle with alyssa, katelyn, and i [with the exception of la guata- a kid named ricardo who had moved to the US before to work as a waiter and go to funk concerts]. it was nice to see her really happy though and i'm glad we [well, mainly manola] were able to do such a small gesture for her.she was the princess of the night and we had salsa golf [ketchup and mayonnaise], doritos [what they call chips], cheetos jejeje, wine with peaches, cakeeee, and everyone was in good spirits. yesterday i went to muelle baron and cerro alegre with cristian and it was a wonderful day to spend an afternoon- outside with two amazing views of valparaíso. it is SO nice to be treated well and with consideration and respect. i only hope i can make sense of what's going on in my head right now.

now something in spanish:
tanta emoción te encuentres cuando te ves que la vida es una hermosura y hay tanta esperanza y amor en el mundo. y mucha más emoción te encuentres cuando te ves cuánto amor tengas a compartir con el mundo. la esperanza no es la convicción de que las cosas saldrán bien, sino la certidumbre de que algo tiene sentido, sin importar el resultado final.

how was that gb?

i'm going to see where being happy takes me. actually it's taking me to peru on thursday night and to machu picchu after that.

and i am currently on the phone with adrienne and i got the wonderful news that on february 11 we are going to the SPICE GIRL REUNION TOUR concert! AAAAAAAAHHHH

chilenismos:
weas- things?

wena naty

so. my family has talked about a "buena naty" for weeks on end. it's a video of a 14 year old girl in chile fellating a boy in the school and it's infamous here. milotron is trying to send me it along with tracks of his music and the lyrics. i had a breakthrough with camilo this weekend porque i was supposed to be home alone all weekend in the house but he came home when my window was open and the cover to the keyhole on my lock box taken off and we thought perhaps someone could have broken into the house. usually we are both mad awk and just stay silent in the house if we're alone together but for some reason, he expressed actual concern and sat and talked to me just about things that had happened in his day, in his life, etc. for a good while. i la-ed it bad. and now he's talking to me on messenger. that just makes me happy that i can get to know my brother. feliz!

his band is called mutilation because within the death metal community he thinks that's a badass name. and he was telling some story about daddy yankee and death metal i don't know he's just being a riot today. so the lyrics [which are in english, because he says it's more bakan]:

blood and gore
screams of people
and pains come to me

when the ritual
is coming and i'm weak

This is my sickness
This is my sickness
this is my sickness
This is our sickness

the evil open my eyes
destroying my soul
and taking my blood

chaos and fire burn
the walls of kindness
confusing
everyone

when this approaches
you're alone
abduced by everything
the screams in yours ears
the putrefaction
in your body

This is my sickness
This is my sickness
this is my sickness
This is our sickness

beast take me
creature lead me

the evil sickness
and ritual masters
they want death
want me fucking death

it makes me laugh. after this weekend, i just can't emphasize enough how kind chileans are. they welcome you into their homes, and really focus on the finer things in life like family, friends, food, and good conversation- things i feel like we really push aside in the US. i'm reconsidering this semester thing again and maybe i will stay the year...

chilenismos:
wena naty- the act of fellatio

i don't know why i didn't lead a double life before...

because in chile i feel pretty invincible.

i would say 99% of my actions here are followed with the justification, "well, i mean, i'm in chile..." i might as well be in another stratosphere. i think it's better- it's helping me be a little more open to new experiences, challenges, and unexpected possibilities. and manola is the biggest advocate of aprovechar-ing everything under the sun in chile, which is really helpful. and for some reason, i don't feel ashamed of telling her all of the terribly embarrassing things i do on a daily basis.

as for my second language acquisition, i find that my abilities seem to fluctuate depending on who i am talking with. when i am with my social geo group and marie [the french girl] is there, i start to get overwhelmed with them speaking fast and sometimes tune out or get nervous when i have to talk. when marie isn't there, i am fine- i think the fact that another extranjera is in the group and speaks better than me causes me to be nervous. when i'm with the family, i can pretty much hold a decent conversation except if camilo is around, and then i crash and burn. i can talk to ricardo, conny, apparently favio and cristian as well without floundering too much, but there is this wall that i've hit and i'm not sure how to get over it. and it shouldn't be there considering the paragraph before.

this was a wonderful week full of stories to tell the kids-and the kids might very well be chilean by the end of this semester. jajaja. so now, let me take this to a vote:

-a kind dancing bear that offers a wonderful circle of friends and i mean, great dancing
OR
-a suave little snake with really good teeth and nice eyes but might be a bit flaite [or maybe i just don't understand the full meaning of that word]

heck, i mean, i'm in chile...

chilenismos:
ponciar- to get with more than one person in a night

horses and happy hearts

amazing colors

zapallar

horse and i in concon

so we went to horcon, concon, and zapallar- three wonderfully gorgeous beaches this past weekend. we rode horses in concon, ate empanadas in horcon, and laid on the beach in zapallar. zapallar is set in the middle of the forest and i want to live there. i don't have too much to say, i'll let the pictures explain, but i am just concentrating on living and living well/happily right now. alyssa and i have been frequenting the beach in front of our house every morning [even though manola tells us it's too cold] and we WILL get tan. and if we don't, oh well, it's incredibly amazing to wake up to that everyday. a lot of exciting things have happened lately and my fingers are crossed for the future. i can't stop feeling excited.

chilenismos:
(these are more so messenger slang things that i didn't get at first)
pera- wait!
listop- ok ok go ahead i'm ready

oh it's coming...

i put off writing about my travels and our trip to santiago to see the torture camps and take a visual tour of the fallout of the pinochet regime, but you can read kristina's account of it aqui

i think these are the kinds of experiences i'd prefer to tell people about in person so until then, my memories are sealed. in other news, that which was so small but made me so happy today was...

i saw a man with a hose watering flowers.

do you know what that means?

it is spring. i am feliz

chilenismos:
¡Chuta!- you say this when you forget to do something- it's like oh shoot!

what i see everyday

walking down the calle which is across the street from my house you can see the ocean and the sheraton miramar. everyday when i walk to class i pass this. keep in mind at this point i am high up on the side of a hill overlooking the highway and this is on the other side of the highway.

this is balmaceda the long and semi-uphill road [downhill from this angle] i walk along to class. apartments to the right, calle alvares to the left. and that cute yellow/red building that i want to explore one day.

this is the reloj de flores which is a giant flower clock that means you're heading towards downtown viña del mar.

i think it's cool to walk past the ocean everyday