Las cosas que me olvidé :)

Title in English: The Things I forgot (referring to my last blog post)

Hola a todos!

~Arica is just as beautiful, welcoming, and wonderful since I have last written you :) I keep meeting new people, and I am beginning to see those whom I have already met again and again :) I love my friends here (from UNI and Chile!), and my family!

~Ok, so there were some BIG things I left out of my last blog post! Tuesday was actually one of THE biggest days of my life! I touched the ocean for the first time!!!!!!!!! It was wonderful :) We stayed for about four hours, and most of the time a few other girls and I were wading in the ocean while the others just relaxed on the beach :) I hope I never forget how beautiful it is here! It was kind of a cold day to go to the ocean, but for me, no day is too cold ;) I made a "I <3 Arica" in the sand, got some of my clothes soaked when the waves came up a little faster than I expected, and did the "Baywatch run". :D It was all kinds of fun! Carolina-one of the Chilean students here who studied at UNI this past year (she's sooo sweet!) went to get helado (ice cream) with some of the other girls, and when she came back she had NUTELLA ice cream!!!! Ok, I don't know if everybody knows this..but I LOVE NUTELLA :) She let me share her ice cream with her, and I think she knows how much I really loved it and how much I really love it here ;) Sorry, I don't have any photos from the beach. I was to excited and wanted to enjoy it ;) Some other people took some photos, but unfortunately, I'm having difficulty taking them from facebook. ~Thursday night, Rachel and I went to go meet Bri, Phil, Janis, and Loren and some others (all people from our group) at McDonalds to go to some outside games at the market. Rachel and I decided to walk, and we were supposed to meet the group at 820ish at McDonalds. Let's just say it took us a lot longer than we expected, and we left close to 8:10 :) We didn't arrive to McDonalds until 9ish!! We thought about 20 minutes late would be ok since we're on Chilean time (they are really relaxed about time, and usually leave for a place at the time they are supposed to arrive. But this is only for going out with people-not school and work), but we were a bit later than that, and no one was there. We found a couple of the girls from the group watching some painters that used spray can paint to create master pieces! It was pretty amazing :) I've never seen anything like that before! They worked so fast and then they would take some type of fire while they were working and put it close to the painting...I think it helped hold the paint better. While we were totally intrigued by that, I heard some music coming from closer to el morro, and so Rachel and I decided to go and find out where it was coming from. On our way to find it, there was this person dressed up like a pirate/alien who dresses this way to get pictures with people who want them for money- who was standing behind most of the people who were watching the music, and he saw us and I saw him and I made a FAST walk for it. He was scary as heck! And so he was chasing two gringas and everyone laughed. A little bit embarrassing ;) But anywho the music was great! It was SO cool! There was this little set up where a band played in the old type of army uniforms the Chileans used to wear. They were pretty good and I even got some film of that :) They even played "We are the Champions"-by Queen ;) After that there were some girls that danced in traditional clothing-it was so pretty, and I wish we could have stayed longer, but we had school the next day. A picture below though people :) ~Ok some quick facts for a short paragraph-our showers don't get automatically hot. We have to light it with a match somewhere behind the house..I haven't done it since Ligia usually does it for us, but I thought it was kind of crazy :) It wasn't lit one time though, and well...it was pretty darn cold ;) haha. Next quick story, I was talking to one of my Chilean friends on facebook in Spanish, and I was telling him how good my food was for lunch that day and what was in it. I told him that there was cabello in it...when I really meant to say cebolla! Haha I told him that there was horse in my food when I meant to say onion :) Also, at our school there are protests going on. The government wants to privatize all university education which means education would be super expensive. They wouldn't give out very many scholarships either, so the students are protesting by not showing up to classes at the moment. It's possible that it could get violent, but for now, they just don't go to class. Our professor had to ask for permission for us to still have class in one of the classrooms, and he was told we could, but at any time, we might have to move our location to another university in town! Crazy! There are some pictures of the posters that are for the strike below. ~So Friday night we had an "asado" (bbq) with our primos to welcome us to Chile! It was so much fun! We ate some more meat, had potatoes w/ mayo (they LOVE mayo here! it's crazy haha) and also some rice (it is SO good! they must add some butter or something). We played musical chairs (which is a favorite game here-I didn't realize how much I missed it), and we even had a dance party :) fun times! There's a pic below of the cute poster they made for us :) ~Saturday- Rachel and I went to el centro, and looked around and bought a few little things. It was the last day the the open-air-market was fully open (There were more vendors here because the Day of Arica was this past week-and a pic below). We had a good ol' time, and even had some majar nunz ice cream! Delicious! While we were eating it, a man came over and started talking to us. We could tell by his accent that he was definitely not a native speaker. Turns out he is from Paris, France! He's traveling for 3 months in Chile and surround countries. As we were eating, one of my friends, Orlando, also saw us and said a quick hello. Arica is a huge town, but it's crazy how many times you see someone you know :) Later Saturday, we went to church with Ligia. Funny story-so the church is very open, and for a door..well there isn't one :) and when the priest walked in that night there was a cocker spaniel dog that followed him in! He walked directly behind him, and walked right up to the alter and then sniffed some flowers :D Funniest thing I've ever seen! Nobody told him to leave or anything, he had just as much a right to be there as we did :) Later that night we went to the disco with part of the group and danced the night away :D ~There's also a picture below of a dog that looked EXACTLY like my brother and sister-in-law's dog, Spatney! He must've followed me here ;) haha I just had to share that photo though. "Spatney" was on one side of the street and there was another dog on the other side of the street, and they just stared and stared at each other for the longest time :) it was pretty cute haha. ~Ok that's all for now folks...it's time for sleep! I'm hoping to write more on Tuesday when I don't have class :) Hope all is well with everyone and you aren't too bored from reading this ;) miss you and love you all!!! Chauuuu :)