Feliz cumpleaños a mi mamá :)

The title in English: Happy Birthday to my mom :)

Hola a todos!!!

First off, I want to do a big shout out to my mom...as you can tell by the title, it's her birthday today! Sooo HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!! That huge fish you catch today up north is my present from Chile ;) hehe. Ok it's been so long since I've written you, and I want to apologize for that. It has just been super crazy lately here. I guess I will start with last Sunday...hope this doesn't get too long ;)

Ok, so last Sunday, we woke up pretty early (after a late night, and an amazing night of dancing), and Ligia took Rachel and I to a cemetery and museum that is about twenty minutes from where we live. I know this sounds a tiny bit odd to go to a cemetery, but I was so happy that we were able to visit one here! It is SO much different from back home, but it was very beautiful. There was a little restaurant right next to the cemetery called "La Pica del Muertito" (honestly, I'm not sure exactly what that means, but Muertito means dead man haha). The graves were mostly above ground, and many of them have a little structure built above it, and all of the flowers are fake flowers because it never rains here. We went, and saw the resting place of Ligia's parents. I must tell you, it was an amazing and emotional experience for me. I felt really at peace while we visited and said our prayers. There is a picture below of the cemetery..hope you can see it well! Ok, so after the cemetery we visited the museum that has the oldest mummies in the world!!! It was really interesting, and had artifacts from the very old indigenous people that used to live in the area. And of course, there were mummies (no daddies...sorry dad! hehe). Most of them weren't too scary because when the people died, the people put a type of mask on top of their face, but there were a couple skulls that were freaky. The one thing that really made my stomach turn, was the little baby and fetus mummies. Even if a baby wasn't born, the community treated it as if it was a part of the community. So yes, there were tiny mummies, and there were even a tiny pair of ribs..ok I can't talk any more about dead people..haha. sorry. But there is a picture below of three mummies.

Ok, so Monday was a really difficult day for me. The Spanish button in my head turned off, and I was getting pretty frustrated with trying to speak and listen. Mondays are our longest school days too, so that makes a difference. Anywho, we went to the beach again on Tuesday, so I had a lovely lazy day, and that was the first day I felt completely rested on the trip! It was so nice just to relax! Rachel, Samantha, and I stayed a little bit longer that the others because they went home for lunch, but we told our families that we were going to eat at the beach. So we went on a little walk along the beach, and walked on this long bridge type thing that goes into the ocean. It was scary for me because the waves come up on it a little bit, but it was worth it :) There's a picture below of the view looking back at the beach from the bridge. After we walked, we went to eat at my FAVORITE place here; it's called Dimango's. They have the BEST ice cream and food and coffee and anything else you want :) It's great! There's one in the centro and on the beach, sooo it's perfect. If I could bring one thing back with me...it would be Dimango's :D After this we went back to the university to watch a movie for a class about the indigenous people and when the Spanish and Portuguese came and conquered it. (Crazy fact about conquering...so when a guy really likes a girl here, he will say "Quiero conquistarte." In English "I want to conquer you." Ok, so here I guess it's not that weird..but in English, obviously this sounds crazy :p haha. But yeah just a little fact. They even have this little cookies in the shape of a heart called Conquistas. Haha :)

Wednesday was just a typical day here. Wake up, class, homework, and great Chilean food :) haha. Oh! I guess there was one thing..the students at our university took total control of the university. Here it's called a "toma" (take over). I think I talked about the students protesting against the education system right now and everything...so yeah. So instead of just part of the university, they took over the whole thing. Rachel and I realized this on our way to a basketball game inside the grounds, but we ended up not going because all of the students were stacking up the chairs at that point, and we thought we shouldn't intervene haha. So yeah, they stack chairs, put up posters about being on strike, and there are kids that live in the school 24/7! It's so different from back home, but yeah a super interesting aspect for me to see here!

Ok, so on to Thursday... I talked to mom and dad on Skype :) It was nice talking with them! haha..also, Jorge from the American Corner took Rachel and I to Presencias Tutelares (Tutelary Presence in English..and if you don't know what that means-I didn't-it means a guardian or protector presence). It was about 20-30 minutes from where we live in the South of Arica. I told Jorge we wanted to go a little bit too late because it was almost dark when we got there, but it was still beautiful. There were these HUGE old carved rocks that were in the shapes of the moon, sun, and I think a person. There is a picture below of the moon one. It was amazing! Jorge told us he'd take us there again when it's light out, which I'm thankful for haha. After that, we went to Dimango's on the beach, and I had some blue berry ice cream-which was super tasty, and then we walked on the beach for a little bit. We walked to the same bridge that I talked about before, but just turned around and walked back to the car. BUT when we turned around there was this massive group of army guys behind us about 100 feet! They scared the crap out of me. They had to have been following us for quite some time, but I didn't realize it until we turned around. They kept walking on, so no craziness, but yeah, just a scare for me :) haha

On to Friday..we had classes, and then I came home to eat. Afterward, Phil and I took a taxi to meet Kenzie, Samantha, and Loren down at the centro at a little restaurant to sit around and socialize. It was a great time! We were there for a super long time, and we met these really nice men from the Philippines who work on a ship that stopped at the Arica port and were on their way to San Antonio! I guess it only takes them a day and a half to get from here to San Antonio! A couple of the girls wanted to sneak up with them to get back to the USA ;) haha. Samantha said she wanted some Cheetos after she saw that they had some, and guess what...a little bit later, they gave us a new bag full! Haha they were super nice! We ended up talking with them for a really long time. They spoke English pretty well, and yeah, it was just a really really great night :) :) After a little while some people that sing/play instruments for money came by and that is what the picture is below :) After that, some more girls (UNI students and Chileans) came down to the centro, and we had a little girls night. We went to a place called Tortas & Tartas-and we ate some amazzzing dessert! I got a soufle chocolate (it tasted similar to a brownie), and some other things that people got included panqueque (pancake with dulce de leche), and some pies with the types of fruit that can be found here. We always try a little bit of everyone's dessert, so we know the flavors of Chile :) Later, a couple of us went to Janae's house, and watched the Green Hornet..but I fell asleep almost right away. Haha lame ;) But we had to wake up early for Saturday for an excursion.

When Rachel and I made it back home, I got on the computer and mom was on gmail chat, so I wished her a happy birthday. It was 12:35 am here, so it was her birthday in Chile, but not in the US yet. haha oh well :) Good luck fishing up north guys! Catch a big one for me :) After a bit, I went to bed...and well I was just about asleep..and shake-shake-shake. An earthquake!!! Yes, I felt my first earthquake, half asleep. It felt/sounded like a big truck was coming down the street, but then there was nothing and then there was another shake. Let me just say that my heart was pounding like crazy, and I started imagining the whole house falling down on top of me...not the smartest thing to do, but I couldn't help it. I hurried up and got out of bed said "Rachel!" in the hallway and she came out of her room, and we tried to go outside, but the door was locked and we couldn't figure it out. No one else woke up since it was a little past 1:30 am, and then we decided that it was probably over, and we should go back to bed. I was definitely a little worked up after that, but eventually I fell asleep. Rachel just told me it was about a 4.9...yeah, I would be okay with not feeling one of those again soon ;)

Ok, so we had an excursion today, but I'm going to save that for my next post. I hope this didn't get too long and boring for you :/ But if you made it to the end...CONGRATULATIONS! :) I also included a couple pics below of some of the awesome people that I have been hanging out with down here :) First, with Phil, then Loren, then Carolina, and then the kind of blurry pic with all of the girls in the order of Samantha, Liz, Janae, me, and Rachel. Enjoy! I love you all! <3 Chau! :)