Well, yesterday wasn't all bad...

In the afternoon, before we heard the news, we had a tour around part of Vina del Mar. First we went to this old house/palace I think from the early 1900s. It was the house of the family that founded Vina del Mar. Now its a museum, both a historical museum (a lot of the original furniture is still there) and an art museum. It was pretty cool. There was religious art, art by Chilean painters, lots of portraits of the family and of famous Chileans, etc.

Then we went to this old archeological museum, but it was closing in 5 minutes- our program people didn't realize that on Saturdays in the wintertime it closes early- so they wouldn't let us in. This was outside it however- its one of the actual statues from Easter Island. And the guy on the left was our tour guide, a history professor.


Then we went to Renaca, a bit north of Vina del Mar proper, and climbed the ConCon dunes. That was pretty awesome. Climbing them though was tough- resting about every 5 steps after we were about half way up.


The view off one side of the dunes:


A bunch of us bought these wooden sleds for a dollar and went sledding down the sand.


We were supposed to go to a beach nearby then, and then we were supposed to do some touring today but that all got cancelled when we got the news. I haven't heard much today, except some more of the details of what happened Friday evening and that her dad and stepmom and a brother are here now I think. Tomorrow we're all meeting at 3pm I think just to get together and talk, and it sounds like there will be a memorial service on Tuesday.

And finally, so I can end on a lighter note,
Things I am thankful to have here:
-la estufa (space heater)
-peach jelly
-Sarai (my roommate... we'd be totally lost and confused all the time without each other)
-wearing 2 or 3 sweaters at a time
-my host family, especially my host dad, he makes me laugh
-beautiful views
-sunny days (when we have them of course)
-my gloves
-the fireplace downstairs
-warm soup
-the pancakes we had for dinner
-the ladies I met at church
(notice how many have to do with being warm...)