Cuatro semanas en Chile...QUE?!

Title in English: Four weeks in Chile...WHAT?!

Hola a todos
(if you haven't been reading my blog the whole time, and have no idea what Hola a todos means, I'm sorry haha...it means "Hello everybody." Hope that helps!)

Ok, so four weeks in Chile?! I can't believe that! The time here has gone SO fast, and I still can't believe I'm here...I hope that sinks in soon ;) Well, what has happened lately? hmm let me begin with Friday!

Ok, so Friday we had school like normal. I'm starting to get used to the classes a little bit more. It's really weird because sometimes in the middle of class I think "Wow! I'm understanding everything that the professor is saying..IN SPANISH!"..and then I realize I'm thinking in English and I that I just missed what the professor was saying as I thought that little sentence. Then I have to totally try and focus to think in Spanish again haha. Two of our professors are usually really easy to understand, and the other..well as soon as I start to think that I'm understanding her more, the next day, we read something and she talks about it, and let's just say..it's waaaay over my head! haha. Oh well. Friday night, we went to this little jazz festival that was close to the centro. The bands there were awesome! I was really disappointed because my camera died, so I missed out on some pictures and video..but let's just, I usually am not a huge jazz fan, but this music was fantastic! Rachel and I are attempting to locate where we can buy a CD, or if we're even able to..we both really want to share this fabulous music with friends and family back home :) After we saw a bit of the jazz festival, we got some ice cream, and then we headed over to "el monestario"-a little chill bar where we were able to watch an AWESOME band play :) Actually, one of the guitarist of the group, Javier, is actually a friend of mine and the others here. He's super nice! They played all English songs, so it was kind of nice that we could understand and some of them I even knew! They played an Alanis Morisette song (she was popular when I was really young) and the song "Kiss me" by a band that I don't know the name of. We headed to one of Javier's friends later that night. Overall, a really great night :)

Saturday was pretty much a lazy day for me. I caught up on some sleep, and worked on some homework. Then we headed to an asado (bbq) at one of Javier's other friends. The house was across the street from the beach..NO JOKE! It was BEAUTIFUL! There's a picture of the view..but it's kind of dark. The sound of the ocean, people laughing and talking, and the tastes of beef, chicken, and chorizo (I think that's the name...it's a meat that's really popular here..kind of similar to a sausage link?). They marinate the meat differently here, but let me tell you-it's wonderful! There's a picture of it on the grill-YUM! I think Javier told me what they use for a marinade...but I'm going to make sure before I tell you :) There's a picture of Javier and I and also one with Sam, Loren, Bri, me, Phil, Jonna and Liz..haha Anywho, it was a really fabulous and a chill night to spend with friends :)

Sunday was another chill day for me. It sounds like I just had a lazy weekend huh? Well...I guess I kind of did :) BUT I did talk to almost all of my family who was in Minnesota this weekend via Skype! Here's a shout out to all of you that were at the farm on Sunday--> "It was SOOOO good to see all of your smiling faces! I hope you all had a wonderful time with Greg and Heather and with each other! It made me miss home a bit, but I felt like I was there at the same time. I have one awesome family! I love you guys all SO much!" Ok...so later that night Rachel, Katie K, Ally, Emily, and I headed back to the jazz festival (it was Fri, Sat, and Sun), and we saw some more GREAT bands! My camera was actually charged for once, so I will share some photos below. The first is with Rachel and I as we were walking down to el centro. She's the best "sister" ever! We're both so happy with our Ariqueña family here :) Next, is this store that was closed..but I LOVE the saying on it "Sonríe...Jesus te ama" English version --> "Smile...Jesus loves you" How precious is that! I love it :) Ok, and then there is a picture with el centro and me! This is el centro, which I'm sure many of you have been wondering what it looks like :) It was SUPER empty though because today (Monday) was a holiday, so all of the stores were closed late Sunday. It NEVER looks like this haha.

Ok, so more about the following photos...I took some photos at the jazz festival. Gosh, it was just SO great! The first one is of this little old man, that was AWESOME! He had some people help him out onto the stage..and then all of a sudden he just came ALIVE! He was crazy on his bass! :) I took some videos of him and the other bands that night, so please look for them on facebook :) After him, there was another good band (the picture that shows all of the people there), and then after them was this GREAT band called Jazzimodo! I LOVED THEM! The girl singer was super cute haha I loved her style! She had a red and white polka-dot dress with purple tights and purple shoes. I wish I could just throw colors like that together and look decent ;) haha. And the last photo is of me with the awesome giant poster..there were all kinds of smaller ones around town plastered to the walls for the jazz festival. Gosh, it was just SO great...I can't stop talking about it :)

Ok, and today (Monday) was a Chilean holiday..that I think celebrated Saint Paul and Saint Peter-they were fishermen...and that's as much as I understand about the holiday besides the fact that everyone had the day off and we had no school :) woot woot! The sun FINALLY decided to show it's face today in Arica. It hasn't come out for the past five days, which my host mom said is SUPER rare here. Usually, it's kind of cloudy in the morning, and then around 3 pm it clears up, and is beautiful for the rest of the day...yeah, I could probably handle this weather all the time! It's great :) Rachel went on a walk around the area after we worked on our presentation for this week. We attempted to walk to Hiper Lider, it's pretty much Walmart, but just with a different name and in Chile. Actually, Walmart owns it..so yes, no matter where you go, there is always some form of Walmart to remind you of the crazy late night stops at Walmart back home. Anywho, we could see the sign for it, but couldn't find our way there. Well we did, but the rest of the way looked a bit sketchy, so we decided to maybe try finding our way during the day haha. Also tonight at "once" (-->I will tell you why our last meal is called "once" in another blog-I promise! It's just super late right now...), we watched the Spanish version of Who Want's to be a Millionaire. Let's just say, Rachel and I could maybe win that show! It's really similar to back home, but the questions were mainly based on pop culture from the US. I don't think I've ever gotten so many questions right on Who Want's to be a Millionaire back home! It felt good to finally be good at something ;)

Wow, I think that's it for now. This week will be pretty busy with a couple tests and a presentation...and then Friday we head to Putre, Chile...and then Sunday we'll begin our travels to Machu Picchu! WOW! Ok, and last but not least...at the bottom is a photo of Rachel and I as I was writing my blog :) cute right? haha let's just say I need to shower! hehe. Ok, talk to you all SUPER DUPER soon!

AND...one more thing....HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OLGA GUR IN POLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

Take care! Love you all :)

Chauuu de Chile <3