Inside my house

I know my house didn't look the greatest on the outside, but it is really comfortable inside (see mom, don't worry :-) ) This is my bedroom. The walls are a little blank now, but I bought some "Tak" (like teachers gum) and I'm working on it. The lampshade on the light hanging from the ceiling is Winnie the Pooh. cool.
















And this is from the living room looking into the dining room. We don't really spend much time in the living room, unless its sitting right beside the fireplace. Mostly when I spend time with my family we're sitting around there in the dining room playing cards or something.












And from the dining room into the living room.













This is the kitchen- the only thing thats really small. I'm standing in the corner and the only things you can't see are the stove/oven and the kitchen sink on the left, and the microwave on the right.













Well, thats it for now (although, the pictures below are new- look at them too). Classes start tomorrow. I only have two classes tomorrow though, and two on Thursday, and I never have classes on Friday (hooray!). So its just a short week and then a three day weekend.

More mini-tours

This is a picture from our boat ride on Friday (sorry, I didn't get any pictures of the penguins).














Then we went up one of the ascensores, a very tourist-y one I think because there were all sorts of artisans' shops at the top. I can see why though- its the farthest one to this end of the city and so it has a great view of everything. And of course, they planned it so we went up just a little before sunset so everything was beautiful, kind of pink-tinted.
















Today (Tuesday) I went exploring with a friend, Maria. We went up a ascencor somewhat close to the main buildings of the school, and walked almost clear across the whole city. I think we walked about two or two and a half hours. It was pretty cool, it was a nice day today. Now I'm exhausted.

Pinguinos!

I forgot to tell you, yesterday on the boat ride I saw penguins. Swimming in the water. Real live not-in-a-zoo penguins. That is all.

Pictures from the Valpo and Vina, and my walk yesterday:

http://pitt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2128017&l=ed107&id=14218621

This is my house. The tall-ish one in the middle.


Well, orientation week is over. Officially, at least- tonight there's an "unofficial" party. But anyway, the week finished with an activities fair (I signed up with a group called "Hogar de Cristo" (Home of Christ) and hopefully I'll be able to do some volunteer work with them), a program with traditional Chilean music and dancing, and then we finished the tour that we didn't have on Monday because of the rain. We went for a boat ride and then took an acensor (incline) up to a hill on the edge of Valpo. Great view up there. Again. Tomorrow morning I'm meeting up with some girls in our group and we're going to explore more of Valpo, probably just pick a hill and walk around a while and find someplace for lunch. Ok thats all for now. ¡Chao!

Wednesday/Thursday

Again, read the entry below first and then come back to this one.

This is more of the tour from Wednesday. This is the view from behind the marine sciences building. Absolutely incredible. I discovered that you can see big snowy mountains from Valpo/Viña. Sweet. (Then today I discovered you can actually see them from my window- I hadn’t seen them before because I wasn’t in my room during the daytime before, and this afternoon I discovered you can also see the beach if you lean all the way over to the side of the window). Anyway…

Looking toward Valpo.

This is the view directly out my window. Colorful houses on a hill and the daycare center across the street.

This is my new church, its about a 3 minute walk from my house (which I forgot I had a picture of that too, I’ll upload it with the next set of pictures). La Madre de Dios- the Mother of God. Today I had a free afternoon and it was a beautiful day so I went for a walk. I didn’t know where I was going so I basically went up and up until there was no more up, and I came down the other side of the hill. At one point I wasn’t sure where I was but then I saw the roof of the church. Its not the most beautiful church, but it’s a good guide. It was really cool
This is a picture from my walk.
I’ll have more pictures of the tours yesterday and my walk today up later on Facebook. I did upload the rest of my Santiago pictures though, so if you want to see those:
http://pitt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2127773&l=42393&id=14218621

Tuesday/Wednesday

Hola! I don't remember where I left off, but anyway, on Monday it was really rainy and so it was even colder than usual because the sun never came out. The sun is really strong here, so its really cold at night and warms up a lot in the day time. Today it probably got up to mid-60s, and I got a little sunburned when I went for a walk!!! But anyway, Monday we did not do much touring, just school things- a welcome from the head of the university to all the foreign students, tour of the PiiE (Programa internacional/intercambio Estudiantes or something) office, and our written placement test. We also saw the national congress building. On Tuesday we had a walking tour of Viña del Mar.

This picture is from a beach in Viña, looking towards Valpo. So pretty!
The main building of la Universidad Catolica. There are about 4 university buildings and the ISA office in this general area, and the rest of the university buildings are spread all over the 2 cities. A bit annoying.

Yesterday (Wednesday) we toured some of the more spread out buildings. This is one of the art buildings- my contemporary art class will be here. Its in Viña.
The history building, a few streets over from the art building. Pretty cool place, si?

Then over on the other side of Valpo are the music building and the marine sciences buildings. This picture is on the way to the music building. It was gorgeous. You could see all over the place, and all the houses were painted bright colors or various pastels.

More pictures

For more pictures of the first day and a half in Santiago:
http://pitt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2127659&l=c1a43&id=14218621

I'll try to get a bunch more up tomorrow.

Last day in Santiago

Yesterday our first stop was the place where Santiago was founded, Cerro Santa Lucia. The director of my program, Lizette, told us all about the history. This monument was constructed I think around 1900. The cerro (hill) was originally a fortress for the first Spaniards there. This is a part of the fortress, at the very top of the cerro. The view from the top was absolutely incredible, especially because it was such a clear day- relatively early on Sunday=not as much smog as there usually was.
The view from partway up.
Then we drove to the outskirts of the city where there was this Dominican church and a bunch of artesans' shops. We had lunch there and then we had a little time to shop.

After that we drove to Valparaíso y Viña del Mar-we traded mountains for the ocean. I'll have pictures of that later. I am with my family now, they are really great. Mamá, Papá, a sister- Alejandra- 23 years old, and a brother-Ian-11 years old. I have my own room and I share a bathroom with Ale and with the other girl from the US, Sarai. They have a really nice house, and all the food so far had been great too. I'll say more later- right now I need to go get a shower because Mamá just showed me how to light the hot water heater. ¡Chao!

Part 2

(Scroll down and read the next post first- this is the continued part)


These are the new stainless steel barrels that they use at the vineyard.
The cellar where they age the red wines:

After lunch on Saturday we went to Pablo Neruda's house. He was a famous poer- won the nobel prize- but also a politician and an ambassador from Chile. This is one of three or four houses, his Santiago house. He loved the sea and ships and everything nautical. His house was full of collections of seashells and navigational insruments, etc. There are three separate buildings with a courtyard in the middle.

It has been absolutely freezing here. Even with a sweater and winter coat and everything. They don't really have central heating here either. But anyway, it was so cold yesterday that it snowed on this hill, where it hasn't snowed in years or maybe even in forever.

Part of the view out of the window in the room on the 15th floor where we have breakfast every morning at the hotel:

Today we've had a bit of a slow morning- we all had to get individual photos for our Chilean IDs. My appointment was at ten. My hotel roommate and I tried to go to church at a church the guy here at the hotel told us about, but when we went for Mass at 9, the church was closed and locked, and when we tried back after our pictures, it was open but no one was there :-(

Later today we are going to the spot where Santiago was founded, and then I think maybe to another historical site or two before going on to Valparaíso and Viña to meet our host families. We are all really excited/nervous about it. It will be nice to go to a home though.

On Friday we went to the changing of the guards at the presidential palace (la Moneda)- where President Bachelet works. They change the guards every 2 days, so the new set going in did not leave until this morning. It was really neat. Everything was so precise. There was also a military band that played international music for a while before leading the old guard off down the street. Then we went on a tour of la Moneda and learned a lot of the history of Chile. This is the O'Higgins room, where la presidente greets foreign ambassadors. It is named for Bernard O'Higgins, the Chilean son of an Irishman, who was a great liberator of Chile.
This is the Cathedral of Santiago, in the Plaza de Armas, a really neat area downtown.
The inside was gorgeous, but i didn't get any very good pictures. I did get this picture of St. Teresa of the Andes, who was a Carmelite nun.

Yesterday morning we started at a vineyard, one of (or maybe THE) nicest in Chile. These are the old barrels where wine was made, now they have newer machines for it. We got to sample the wine too ;-)

Day1

Well, because I know you are all sitting around anxiously waiting for me to post pictures, and because dinner is not until 8:30 and I need to relax a bit, I have pictures!! From the airplane- Beginning of the sunrise
Mountains:
We met everyone, came to our hotel, went for a late lunch, and then we went across the city to ride a Pittsburgh-ish incline (only much taller and scarier) to the top of Cerro San Cristobal (St. Christopher Hill). At the top of this 800m hill they have a giant statue of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, watching over the city.
The view up there was absolutely incredible! You could see mountains in every direction. And the sun was starting to set (at 5:30pm- its definitely winter! cold too!) Then we rode on some gondolas and it was absolutely incredible.
Of all the things I saw in Rome and everything, this has to be the most incredible thing I have ever seen in my entire life:

I am here!

Just wanted to let you all know I made it safely! More later-adios!

Packing

This is my bag at 12:30 this morning.

Doesn't matter that I couldn't close it though- it was still 27 lbs overweight!!