Thank You Chile

While I am here in Chile on this great American holiday, mourning my lack of stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and other delicious Thanksgiving foods, I was suddenly hit with this thought: "Hey! Look at the bright side! You won't be feeling guilty about the size of your ginormous stomach afterwards! And, there are so many wonderful things here to be thankful for too." And that got me thinking, there really are so many things! In fact, I decided to make a list. While in no particular order, I'd like to say thank you to Chile for:

1. Empanadas.
2. The delicious panadería on the corner of my street.
3. Pisco Mango.
4. Watching "Los Tres Chiflados" (The Three Stooges) with Mamá as she cries laughing so hard.
5. Cooking with my host sister Leslie.
6. Seasons 1-7 of Dexter.
7. Skype and WhatsApp.
8. Sunny days at the beach, and living only 15 minutes away from it.
9. Finally being able to understand Chilean slang po. Cachai?
10. Being able to see the desert, beach, mountains, lakes, and glaciers all in the same country.
11. Good wine.
12. Cheap public transportation.
13. Friends who have turned into family down here (Laura, Rachel, Geneva, Lindsey, Katherine, Kassi, Nolan, Nathan, Katie, Karina... to name a few).
14. The openness and caring attitudes of the Chilean people.
15. Llama/Alpaca sweaters.
16. Flor de Chile.
17. Finding the bagel shop on 7 Norte.
18. Thursday morning coffee dates with Rachel and Geneva.
19. Bros like Nolan, Nathan, and Laura.
20. A host family that loves me.
21. ISA.
22. The old woman who found my wallet back after it was stolen.
23. A wonderful family back home who are so supportive and caring.
24. DU for having such a great abroad program and the Cherrington Global Scholar Program.
25. My grandparents for sending me cards with frogs that hug you.
26. Sunscreen.
27. Morning runs on the beach.
28. Warm showers.
29. The coconut cookies that Mamá buys.
30. Mint tea at once.
31. Pazookie and movie nights.
32. Friends from Steamboat and DU always there for me.
33. Orbit gum.
34. Peanut butter.
35. Earplugs.
36. Chorrillana, even thought it's a giant plate of grease and occasionally undercooked meat.
37. Only being able to talk in Spanish with my host family.
38. Discotecas (Bar Arena, Oasis, Ovo, etc.)
39. The colors in Valparaíso.
40. Llamas.

Well, there you have it. There are so many more than 40, but this is what I came up with for now. And yes I ended the list with Llamas. Duh. They're awesome. I can only hope everyone else has as many things to be thankful for as I do today... Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends currently abroad and everyone back home too!

Pucón: Land of Volcanoes and Tarantulas

Thanks to my great study abroad program, ISA, we had the opportunity to go to Pucón, a city in the lake district of Chile. It was absolutely beautiful, and really reminded me of Colorado which was really wonderful! After a longggg 12 hour nighttime bus ride, we finally arrived and got a couple of hours to rest at our cabins. From there, ISA took us to several beautiful places throughout the day, including waterfalls, blue lagoons (really really blue!), a lunch at a Mapuche woman's house (so cool!), and to top of the day, we got to soak in some hot springs in the mountains. So wonderful.

Beautiful flowers/river in some old lava runoff from the volcano.

Light coming through the roof of a hut at the Mapuche woman's house

Blue flannel, blue lagoon

The next day was a big one, we had to wake up at 5:45am in order to get all set up to hike Volcán Villarrica! This volcano is absolutely beautiful, and can be seen from pretty much everywhere in the surrounding area! We had quite the group (mostly just girls...girl power!) hiking up with us, and it was so cool! We were pretty lucky with the weather to have been able to go up in the first place... they've said that even if there's one big cloud in the sky, they sometimes won't let groups go up! Thankfully we had perfect blue skies. The first bit was just dirt, but then after awhile we were just climbing in snow... which was the best part! We got to use ice picks in order to help us on our way up and down, I know I was feeling pretty legit, just saying. After about 4.5 hours, we made it to the top. It was not an easy hike! At first I was complaining a little about how slow we were going in the dirt part, but I was pretty glad for the slow pace after awhile. However, it was all well worth it once getting to the top, what an incredible view, so amazing! At the top, we walked around the crater of the volcano a bit, but had to make sure to not get too close because there were parts where there was snow, but no supporting ground underneath the snow, so it could have broken off and had someone fall in! Ouch! After getting our fair share of pictures in at the volcano and finishing our lunches, we had to get geared up for going down the volcano. Remember how it took 4.5 hours to get down the volcano? Yeah... it only took maybe 1 hour or so to get down. How is this possible you may ask? Well, we glissaded down! Basically, we slid down the snowy part of the volcano either on our behinds or on small sleds fitted for someone's backside, and let me tell you... it was AWESOME. To give you all an idea of what it was like, my friend Nolan had his GoPro with him, and took a video of part of the way down... here is it's link!

https://vimeo.com/53548844

Basically, it was totally awesome. I mean, who can say that they've been sledding down a volcano in Chile before!? Once we got to the uncovered dirt part, we had to walk the rest of the way down (super sad day), but it was only about 20 minutes... not too bad. We got bussed back to the tour company, and were welcomed back with some cerveza! Awesome, yet again. Thanks tour company! The rest of the day we just lounged around by the lake... hiking volcanoes kind of takes it out of you.  Pictures from the hike are below!

Chairlifts on the volcano... it also has a couple of ski runs!

Laura and I at the top, with a different volcano in the background

Our last day, we still had a full day around Pucón and didn't have to be ready to go until 7pm. We woke up early to catch the earliest bus, and made our way to Huerquehue National Park to do some hiking and sightseeing. It was really beautiful, and we had a great view of the volcano as well as many lakes and waterfalls along the way! A couple of the girls wanted to swim in the waterfall area, but Laura and Emily and I wanted to keep going in order to see the lakes which were higher up! And luckily, we made it and got to see two of the three main lakes. They were really gorgeous. Hiking down had to be quick, because we had to be back in order to catch our 2:15 bus... with a little bit of running at the end (for about 20 minutes actually!) we made it back with a couple of minutes to spare before the bus got there. Before we did though, Emily all of the sudden asked, "Hey guys, did you just see that spider?" And we said, "No, where?" She then proceeded to point at not just any old spider, but a freaking ginormous wild tarantula. Let me tell you, that thing wasn't a spider, it was a stinking monster! Bleh... the picture still gives me the heebie-jeebies. Gross.

Giant, disgusting tarantula monster.

Laura, myself, and Emily at one of the lakes we made it to!

Oh well, it was still another beautiful day in the mountains surrounding by the beauty that we have in the world! Made me feel right at home again (minus the gigantic "spider"). The weekend ended with another 12 hour bus ride back, brutally just as long as the first one, but well worth it after a great weekend in a beautiful place. I can't wait to head back south in December when I go to Patagonia, it's really like a whole other world down there! It really is true what they say about Chile, God took the scraps of every kind of geography in the world, and put it in this country!

Gratitude

Yesterday, somewhere in between getting on the bus to school and coming back from school, my wallet was stolen out of my school bag. It had my credit card, debit card, $100 of Chilean Pesos, my metro student pass, and my Chilean ID (I can't leave the country without that).  I didn't notice it was missing until last night when I was getting ready to go out with some friends, and afterwards, ending up needing to call several people in order to cancel cards, figure things out, etc.  With incredibly good luck, this morning as I was doing homework, I received a call from an unknown number on my phone. It was the office of the metro station, and a woman had found my wallet and called the metro station since she knew they would have my contact information. They gave me her number, I called her, and we agreed on a meeting place in front of a supermarket near where she lived.  I called my friend Nolan to come with me just in case (you never know, and this neighborhood is a little far from me and kind of sketchy).  We made it up there, she and her husband came and gave me my wallet, and it had everything in it except the cash, big relief! She was so kind, and her husband was a bus driver and had found my wallet stuffed between the seats of his bus as he was cleaning it for the night last night.  While it was a bummer to lose the cash, I still got everything else back which is probably more important anyway.  I wish there was something I could have given her... a finders reward, something, but unfortunately without my cash/wallet I couldn't.  She told me she wouldn't have taken it anyway, and was just glad to have been able to help.

Moral of the story, I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who helped me last night and today! My Mom and Dad for skyping and calling banks for me, my program director Elena for giving me advice on what to do, several of my friends for being supportive and calling/texting to make sure I was ok, Nolan for coming on the bus with me, and Alecía, the woman who gave the wallet back!  Before my four months here in Chile, if I had been in the same situation that happened last night, I probably would have freaked out, been crying, and just really stressed about the situation.  But instead I stayed mostly calm, realized that while yes it was a pain to lose all of that stuff, it could all be replaced. And I hadn't been mugged or harmed at all, so yet again, one more thing to be thankful for.  I really think my time here has helped me to realize that as much value as we give to certain things, usually materialistic things, there is always something more important and more valuable to be grateful for.  Basically, as we come upon Thanksgiving next week, I'm really realizing how much everyone in my life means to me, and how thankful I am to have each and every one of you around!

"All we have is all we need. All we need is the awareness of how blessed we really are."
-Sarah Ban Breathnach

La Familia Swiggart en Chile

Three Swiggart's in Chile at the same time. It's a potentially terrifying concept for those of you who know us for who we truly are... but don't worry, Chile, and my parents, made it out alive. It was a whirl-wine... I mean whirl-wind... 12 days, but I wouldn't change a minute of it! I'll give a day-by-day play-by-play, so here goes:

Friday, October 26: Head out of Viña at 7am to make it to the Santiago airport in time to pick the padres up.  Their flight got delayed an hour, so I had about an hour to sit and read my book before they got there, but when they did, the reunion was just as great as I had imagined!! Mom spotted me first, and we did all our hugs and kisses and went off to find a taxi.  While reminding Dad to keep his luggage close to him and not on the opposite side of the airport hallways, we made our way to the taxi area, got one, and were off to the Santiago hotel where we were going to spend 3 days. The hotel was GREAT. We had an awesome room, with a waterfall shower that gave hot water 24/7 (who would have thought!?), and a great pool/deck.  Since they were pretty wiped from their long travels, we decided to have a leisurely day. We walked around a nearby park in our Las Condes area, spend some time at the pool just lounging and relaxing (Dad may or may not have let a snore or two slip) and then got ready for dinner. To say that the dinner we had that night was amazing is an understatement. It was SO good. Afterwards we were all pretty exhausted, and a good night of sleep was much needed.

Saturday, October 27: Before my parents got to Santiago, I had found out about a free walking tour from a company called Spicy Chile. We decided to go to the meeting spot for the tour at 10am this day, and we are really glad we did! We met outside of the Palacio de La Moneda, where the president resides, and were lucky enough to see an incredible changing of the guards. Once we found our guide, Carla, she told us that she had never seen a changing of the guards quite like it, it was much more extravagant.  We got to see a parade, music, and lots of other cool exchanges.  From there we started our 4 hour walking tour! We got to see Bellavista, Cerro San Cristobal, Cerro Santa Lucia, Parque Forestal, Pablo Neruda's Santiago house, and many other things! Along the tour Dad also convinced the guide to take us to an incredible ice cream shop that she had pointed out as her favorite, Dad's treat. Definitely not upset about that one.  After the tour we went back to Cerro San Cristobal so we could go up to the top, and after having walked for about five hours already, we decided to take a $4.00USD taxi up and down the 6km hill. Hey, it was steep okay!? We then made it back to the hotel, had some more pool/relaxing time, cleaned up, and went to an excellent restaurant called Tiramisu right across from our hotel. If you are in Santiago in the Las Condes area, this is a must stop! Great pizza, salad, and wine! Yes, my parents and I LEGALLY shared a bottle of wine. And we finished said bottle of wine. I won't go into details for my parents sake, but they were both rather giggly and red-cheeked, and I may have heard stories that I'd never heard before about their pasts! Oh my! It was definitely a dinner to remember, and still makes me smile to think about it :)

Sunday, October 28: Well, we tried to go to Los Dominicos artesian shopping district on this morning, but unfortunately due to Chile's elections which were being held, it was closed! Not to be discouraged, we went back to the hotel, and enjoyed some more poolside relaxing in the wonderful Chilean sun.  After a day of bumming around, we went back to an area we had walked through on our walking tour called Lastarias, which we really liked! Cerro Santa Lucia was also really close to that area, and we decided to try to make our way in/up to actually see the beautiful water fountains it has.  We walked through the gate, when a guard told us they were actually just closing up. Thankfully, with a little gringa sweet-talking, he caved and let us go up and take a couple of photos before hurrying back down.  Thank you blond-ish hair!  Most restaurants were still closed in that area due to the elections, so we took the metro back to our area and found a great steak restaurant there.  The stars were really out that night, and surprising actually visible through all of the Santiago pollution, so we enjoyed those for awhile before finally going to bed after another long day!  Side note- Santiago metros are not quite as clean as those in Viña/Valpo... we constantly had clumps of long black Chilean hair floating across the floor as the wind blew through the moving metro train car... super gross.

At la fuente in Cerro Santa Lucía

Monday, October 29: Mom and I went back to Los Dominicos to do a little shopping, and had a blast doing so! We let Dad stay home to do whatever it is that guys do when women go shopping, and came back, grabbed some lunch, and took the metro to our bus station! Getting all of the luggage to the metro and onto the bus was a little interesting, but the parents were such troopers and did great! We got to Viña with time for me to go back to the hotel with them before my class, and checked into their room there... such a beautiful hotel yet again with the most amazing ocean view!  Unfortunately I had to ditch them to go to class for an exam, but I came back afterwards! I went up to the room expecting to find them in pajamas watching tv or playing cards, but alas, the room was empty! From our balcony you could see into the restaurant, and after a significant five minutes of creeping, I determined a couple down there was them and went to join! I got there, and not only were they almost done sharing an ENTIRE bottle of wine, but they were just jumping into a big dish of ice cream! The ice cream is definitely no surprise, especially coming from Dad, but the bottle of wine!? I was thinking, who are these lush people and where have my parents gone!? Guess they just had to celebrate finally making it to Viña!

Tuesday, October 30: Lazy morning, and then we went to my host family's house for a big almuerzo! It was anticucho time, and we came with hungry stomachs. With the exception of Francisca, my 21 year old host sister who can speak some English and understand a lot, and myself, nobody else understood anything of the other people speaking! It made for a very interesting translation process, but it was great practice, and everyone got along incredibly well, and we had a great time! Papá's food was delicious, and there was definitely no shortage! Chileans really do know how to eat lunch, and a lot of it! Told you Mom and Dad!  At one point, my host family was showing my parents some old pictures, and there was one of Mamá looking rather sexy with a diva pose when she was younger, and when my Dad saw it, he wanted to jokingly say something along the lines of "Wow, hot!" in his Jim Swiggart-esque way... and so, in Spanish, he said, "Wow! Caliente!" while touching Mamá's arm... and in that specific situation, the word "caliente" was referring not towards "hot" but actually to "horny"... so Dad is touching Mamá's arm, while talking about horny references... needless to say, there were some wide eyes, then a lot of laughing, and then when I told my parents what it actually meant, there was even more laughing on their parts. It was quite wonderful, and definitely an unforgettable, yet slightly embarrassing moment!  Another great part, lunch ran a little long, and rather than going to class, Mamá and Mom both gave me permission to ditch. Awesome! Thanks Madres!

Wednesday, October 31: After running some errands in the morning, exploring a nearby castle on the water, and me registering for my classes for next quarter at DU, we all enjoyed some empanadas at the pool at the hotel. Rough life, I know.  That afternoon I had to go to class unfortunately, but I didn't feel guilty, because Mom and Dad had plans of their own! The day before, my Chilean Papá had offered to take my parents on a driving tour of Valparaíso this next day since he didn't have to work.  I told him I had to go to class during the time he wanted to go, but he said it didn't matter, and that they should go anyway! I asked Mom and Dad if this was okay with them, and they said it sounded great! However, the part they apparently didn't understand was that I wouldn't be there! When they found that out, they were a little nervous, but were game for anything! After class I came back to the house, where we were all going to have oncé together, and they still weren't back! But when they did come back, Fran was with them, so thankfully there had been at least some kind of translating, and they had all had a blast! Oncé was yet again filled with hilarious little mistranslations and conversation, and we also left VERY full. We had panqueque's and my favorite "traigo" (alcoholic drink) called Cola de Mono. YUM.

Laughing at oncé

Thursday, November 1: Today was a tour of Viña! We saw Parque Quinta Vergara, La Parroquia, La Plaza de Viña, and ate at my favorite ice cream shop (anyone noticing a trend here yet with the ice cream?).  We had a nice homemade sandwich lunch on our hotel balcony and played cards, and then went for a tour of Valpo in the afternoon.  My friend Nolan came with us, and Mom started off on the right foot with him by bringing him a sandwich and cookie! What a lady.  In Valpo we just explored the hills of Cerro Concepcion and Cerro Alegre, got lost, but as one of my favorite quotes says: "Not all those who wander are lost." So true!  While we were definitely a little turned around at times, we got to see some amazing wall art, colorful buildings, and Dad was especially amazed by a tree growing out of a wall.  To end the tour in Valpo, we sat at a small restaurant/café with a terrace overlooking the port and all of Valpo, and shared some wine (yes, more) and cheese. Yum. Then to really top it all off, we did a quick/cheap boat tour of the port, while wearing super cute orange life vests. We were definitely the best looking gringos around in those things.

Parque Quinta Vergara

Mom walking the colorful hills of Valpo

Boat tour of the port of Valpo

Friday, November 2: Día de la bodega! We went to Casas del Bosque, in the Casablanca Valley. In the past almost four months that I have been here in South America, I have visited six wineries in total, and this was above and beyond my absolute favorite. We started the tour off with a bike ride through the vineyards, which were massive!  We stopped at a beautiful dam at one point, and at another, Mom saw a big Lion-King-esque tree that she wanted to bike up too. I thought the hill looked a little intimidating to bike up, but she insisted we could do it.  And when Momma insists, you don't get the option of saying no.  My Dad says that my Mom is always right, even when she's wrong, but in this case, as we were walking our bikes up this incredibly steep dirt hill, I was really wondering how that statement came into play.  I guess when the view was so incredible from up there, that might have been the "rightness" he was talking about.  After a little more biking, we made it back to the main area of the winery, and we all decided that we needed to do some wine tasting before lunch, naturally.  Now in most places that you taste wine, a taste is just that: a taste. However, at this winery, a taste was about 3/4 of your normal glass. And we got three different wines to "taste". Mom couldn't finish her third one because she was feeling too buzzed. Needing some food in our stomachs, we got to the lunch table, and ordered what was about to be potentially one of the top 3 meals of all of our lives.  We also shared another bottle of the winery's famous sauvignon blanc wine. The meal of steak, salmon, potatoes, salad,  mousse, and wine among other things was just incredible, and we all left very satisfied and quite tipsy as well. Job well done I'd say. I may or may not have fallen asleep on the 40 minute taxi ride back to the hotel. Just throwing it out there.  After getting some advil in us, Mom and I did a little more shopping while Dad took a nap to wear off the wine, and that night I spent the night with my host family in order to get a little school work done!

Dad and I at Olivos Dam

Mom and Dad are tipsy.

As I'm getting a bit tired of writing and the last couple days were a little bit of a blur, I'll summarize: We played lots of cards.  We went to my favorite restaurant, La Flor de Chile, for a typical Chilean meal of chorrillana and pisco sours with some of my friends, Nolan, Laura, and Ellen.  We took my host family out for an Italian meal dinner, and Esme brought her own little "purse" filled with a toothbrush, hand soap, shampoo, hairbrush, coloring things, a sweater, oh, and my host dad's gold wedding band. Casual, and normal.  We had a nice, relaxing day at the Reñaca beach (after waiting about an hour for the fog/clouds to clear).  We had a picnic and wine at the sand dunes in Concón for sunset, and took a crazy fast micro bus back to the hotel. We got coffee with my friends Geneva and Rachel, and they had to suffer through my Dad's 25 minute long story of how he met/married my mother. And the last night, we ate at a beautiful restaurant, Tierra de Fuego, that I've wanted to eat at since I got here! I was not disappointed. Yum. So good.

Picnic dinner at the sand dunes in Concón!

Overall, this trip was absolutely incredible.  It was an amazing experience to be able to show my parents where I've been living almost the past four months, and I'm so glad they were able to understand a little bit more of what I've been doing/experiencing since I've been down here.  A big thank you to both of you for helping me to make this experience possible and always being so supportive and understanding of me, and having you two down here is something I will never forget! Ciao for now, updates on my weekend in Pucón will come soon when my fingers can type again!

Sunset from Viña over Valpo