The Last of Lima/Basquetbol

I woke up the next morning, relaxed in my hostel, and went over to the airport to fly back to Lima. After my one hour flight, I went to the ATM to take out a few more dollars. Once again, being me, I left my debit card in the machine. THE SECOND TIME THIS TRIP. Total lack of awareness. Luckily this time, a woman found it, gave it to airport security, and they tracked my down while I was waiting in the airport for my ride. I signed a few papers and got my card back. Lesson learned (again).

Alexandra's Aunt picked me up, and we went back to the grandma's house for lunch. They continued to impress. I was pretty sleepy after a few nights of 3:30am wakeup, so I took a little nap in my prepared bed. I woke up and hung out with the cousins for my remaining time. Check out the pics/vid. I went to the airport veeeery early, still paranoid from my previous close call, and waited in my gate for 2.5 hours before we boarded at 1am for the red eye (like father like son!).

I was so excited for my personal TV screen, but we had another type of plane without the TVs, so my buzz was quickly killed and I dozed in and out of cat naps the whole way home. I arrived in Santiago in zombie mode at 5:45am, and caught a bus back home, I got my money's worth on the adventure!

Sidenote: the rest of this entry is only basketball stuff, so those of you who are only into my travel adventures should stop here to avoid disappointment!

I have been in Santiago for a few days now, but I quickly hopped back into my daily grind. We had a basketball game Tuesday night (loss), and Wednesday night. We needed to win the Wednesday night game to get to the playoffs, but things didn't go according to plan. With about 5 minutes left in the game, a player on our team fouled another player, which resulted in a pushing and shoving match between two players. We all hopped off our bench and ran over. A few kids got into some wrestling/pushing/shoving, and I was standing guard helping up one of my teammates that fell down, practicing my new Spanish curse words. Both benches were cleared and kids were flying around in every direction. We were ALL promptly expelled from the game. Only 4 players from our team, and 3 players from the other team were not expelled.

We continued the game 4 vs 3, but in a very physical game, two more of our players fouled out, leaving us with 2 vs. 3 for the last few minutes. We lost by a good chunk of points, and everyone is suspended for the first game of the next semester. Not what we had in mind!

The official season is done for la Universidad Alberto Hurtado, but I still have my other league "Winnipeg". We also had the biggest game of our season on Saturday night. Winnipeg used to be one large team, but we had too many players, so we split into two teams. The team we played on Saturday was the other half of our original team, so the competition was fierce.

Our big man, la mano, didn't show up for the game. He is about 6'5'', and a very good defender. In his absence, I had to play as our Center for the game. Luckily, we were playing this game in Chile, and at 6ft, I was still the tallest person on the court. I won the tip off and the game started. I had played HORRIBLY in our two losses at my University, so I was eager to make up for it, and I played pretty well. I made the first basket, with a foul, and our team got pretty siked up for a good game. It was a great game, and we went into the half completely tied.

Our Winnipeg team has no coach, we just have a team captain, Marcelo. Everyone on the team is Marcelo's friend, but some people are better than others. It makes for a sticky situation when it comes to winning/keeping friends. Our starting 5 players were playing really well, and we stayed in the entire first half. At half time, I offered to bench myself to give the other players a chance. I took a seat, with our second tallest player as well, leaving us with four players under 5'9'' on the court, bad news. Our defense could not hold up, because we had very little height, and we quickly got down 8 points. At the start of the fourth quarter, Marcelo told the two new players to take the bench again, so the original starting 5 could play...drama!

We put the drama behind us and focused on the task at hand, winning the basketball game. We started strong in the fourth quarter, all of us hitting clutch shots. I would get the ball underneath the basket, and when the double-team arrived, I would dish it out to one of our players for a three pointer, CA$H MONEYYY. The players on Winnipeg are better than our University team, and its fun to play with a bunch of talented guys. We played strong offense and defense, and with 30 seconds left, the game was tied.

The other team brought the ball down, looking to take the final shot. I was playing defense against their tallest player at the time (this guy was actually taller than me). They passed the ball to him down low, he started backing me up, using his power against me. I did a VERY risky move, and as he was backing into me, I fell down to draw a foul. It worked! Hooray! The other team started complaining, my team was congratulating me, and with 15 seconds left, I went to the foul line for a "1 and 1".

1 and 1 means: you take a foul shot, if you make it, you get another. For some reason, I was very calm and collected, and despite the jeering/distractions from the crowd and other team, made my first shot, earning me another. I sunk my second shot as well, putting us up two points with 15 seconds left, we were in good shape.

The other team in-bounded the ball, but we intercepted it right away! The fouled us instantly, and our player went to the foul line with 10 seconds left for two shots. We were already up two points, with two more foul shots...GAME OVER (maybe). He missed his first shot, but made his second. We were up three points when the other team brought the ball down with 9 seconds remaining. 8, 7, 6, 5...I was playing light defense on my big man to avoid a foul (they needed a three anyway). Someone launched a three pointer with 4 seconds left-MISS. There was a long rebound, recovered by the other team, a quick pass out to another player, and with 1 second left, he launched a three pointer, ball cocked over his shoulder like a shot-put. The ball was in the air, the buzzer sounded, and it rattled in the hoop. Everyone went crazy. Overtime.

The other team rode their momentum, our team forced too many three point shots, and we lost by 4 points in overtime. It was a heartbreaking loss, but an amazing game nonetheless.

Sunday I woke up early with my Chilean mom and our neighbor, we went to mass then to lunch at a friends house at the base of the Andes mountains (picture). Everyone was so nice, we had empanadas, rice, ribs...it was delicioso! I am getting ready to start another normal week, and actually work on SCHOOL WORK for the first time this semester, so don't expect anything too interesting for a little bit. Thanks for your support I'll be home to see all of you in two months!

Vale la pena

I woke up on time the next morning at 3:45am so I could meet my friends outside. I sat down to breakfast with some other motivated hostel stayers and chatted for a while. I figured that a group of three college girls and a guy would not actually be ready at exactly 4:15am so I waltzed out at around 4:18am but they had already left...they meant business. I made my way down to the bus station. The line to board the buses was already about 40 people long at 4:20am. I saw my friends in line for the buses, but I still had to buy my ticket so I went over to the other line. I was about 10th in line for bus tickets. I waited, waited, and waited.

I watched the line for the buses get longer and longer, and around 4:45am (15 minutes before bus tickets went on sale) I estimated about 200 people in line. I felt so powerless! If I had been able to buy my ticket the night before I would be in great shape, about 50th in line, but when the tickets went on sale at 5:00am, I knew there were at least 300 people in line, and there was no hope of me being able to do the climb.

Once tickets went on sale, a bunch of people started squeezing in the line in front of me with their "friends" that were "holding their spot". I was getting frustrated. Then a scalper came around selling one-way tickets for exactly half the price so I took the opportunity, bought the ticket from him, and made my way over to the boarding line.

I felt really bad about myself, but I had to do something because I wouldn't have made the cut to do the hike. The line was on the sidewalk next to some little stores. I entered a store, bought a little cookie, took about 10 minutes to eat it at a little table, and morphed into the line of people waiting in front of the store, surpassing about 200 people in the process.

The whole time I was thinking of the VMI values "will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do" (shout out to Fr. Butera, Jake) and realized I was violating most of those values...but tried to calm my conscience with my new slogan "You gotta do whatchu gotta do to do Machu Picchu".

Needless to say I made the cut for the first 200 people to climb at 7am (number 138 i think). I met my crew, and started our hike up to the lookout at 7am. It wasn't easy, but compared to the Torres del Paine hike we did earlier in the semester, it was a piece of cake.

After about an hour hike (almost straight up) we made it to the top with a great view of the ruins. There were also some ruins at the top of this lookout as well. We spent a lot of time up there, enjoying the fruits of our early rising/hiking. Once again, I will not even try to describe it with words, go there yourself!

Our little group split up into two. Ruth and Katie did not want to do extra hiking on this mountain, but Brett, Amanda, and I wanted to check out the "gran caverna" about an hour away. We set off on the hike after a little snack on the peak. It was really cool taking the Incan stairways and imagining the runners taking the same path (without the safety tourist handrails).

We arrived at the not-so-gran caverna, but the hike was fun anyway. We made our way back another 2 hours back to the ruins. We got back around 1pm (when I normally wake up) so we still had a lot of daylight left. We took a little break in the shade before we set off for another lookout. Llamas crowded the paths (Brett was pretty scared of them and made me go first) but they couldn't care less about us tourists as they munched on their grass.

I had a real nice day with my new acquaintances and we went back into town after a VERY full day of hiking everything Machu Picchu had to offer. I went to the bus station to "bathe" myself in their sinks, and met everyone for dinner. We went to a cheap place since we were all counting coins at this point. I got a soup with chicken and potatoes, a drink, and an entree of a lo mein type chicken dish...all for $2.50...viva Peru!

I relaxed on the train ride back to Cuzco, and we were all pretty sleepy when we got a cab back into center city, but I couldn't relax yet because I had no idea where my hostel was. I walked my friends over to their hostel, then started asking around for my hostel "Pariwana". I had to repeatedly clarify "no no no...I am looking for Pariwana, with a P". One lady said she knew where it was, told me to "go three blocks over, then one block to the right (pointing left)". Spanish is hard enough for me without people mixing up their directions!

On my way over I saw two young men (drunk). I kept my eye on them. There were a few wild dogs playing by a large fountain, and the guy walked over to the dogs, they started whimpering at the sight of him coming. He came up to one, and kicked it as hard as he could in the belly. The dog let out a scream and ran away, all his friends by his side. The group of police stood by the corner nonchalantly and said nothing. The culture is much different down here.

I decided against confronting the guys, not afraid of them but of Peruvian jail. I asked a few more people until finally I found my hostel. After hiking all day, and being awake for almost 24 hours straight, I passed out in my nice hostel bed!

The First Sighting of the Bunnysquirrel

My plane landed in Cuzco, Peru on time at 7am. I was in a hurry to catch my train, so I didn't have a chance to shop around for a taxi, and got hustled with a ride to the airport for $7. I later found out a ride to the airport costs $1, but I learned my lesson. I got to the train station in time to "shower" in their bathroom sink since I had not bathed myself in quite some time. It was a little depressing being by myself, but I also liked the alone time to enjoy the train ride.

The only company that runs a transport service (other than going by foot) to Machu Picchu is Perurail. They make a fair profit on the monopoly by charging around $100 round trip, but the train ride was great. The views were amazing, the mountains were truly awesome. We stopped in a small town for a connecting train, and I met some people my age at the station. Brett, Amanda, Ruth, and Katie. We chatted for a while and got back on the connecting train. When I arrived in Aguas Calientes (the closest populated area to Machu Picchu), I pumped gas over to the ticket station. I got my entrance ticket for the student price of $31, and hustled over to the buses that take you up to Machu Picchu. I was very excited to see the Citadel and to meet the girls up there and tour it with them. The bus ticket was $15 round trip.

I got up to Machu Picchu at 1pm...after a plane ride, a taxi trip, train ride, bus trip, and a hike up there, I somehow met the girls within two minutes at the top of the lookout onto Machu Picchu at 1:15pm, pretty good time. I am not going to even attempt to describe Machu Picchu because I will just be disrespecting it. The pictures can't even begin to describe the feeling of being up there, literally above the clouds. You can see the clouds in one of the pictures, at our eye level. After going to this World Wonder, I sincerely hope that every human gets the opportunity to do the trip. It blew my mind!

We walked around the ruins, chasing some wild llamas, pretending to be part of organized tours, and relaxing on the grass, gazing down 8000 feet into the valleys below. I won't write any more except a petition for everyone to try and make the trip! We came back down into town so the girls could catch their bus, and leave me once again.

We stopped in a little restaurant for dinner. A refreshment, nachos, and entree for $5, booyah. I ordered a traditional peruvian dish of papas rellenas. It was potatoes filled with heaven. I also had some Alpaca (llama meat) on the side. Delicioso! We got hustled when our check came with a $5 "local tax". We negotiated the price down from $7 a person to $5 a person before we ate, but they just add a tax at the end to make up for it...lesson learned. We split the bill and the girls got their stuff ready to do back to the train station.

I was tempted to go back with them, switch my bus ticket, and go back to Cuzco for an extra day. I went all the way to the train station with them, but when we got to the train station, we found some other people from our exchange program...small world!

The girls from our program said they did the Huayna Picchu hike that morning, and it was amazing. The HP hike is a hike up the mountain next to Machu Picchu, with an even better view of the ruins and surrounding nature. It is in high demand, and the government only allows 200 people to hike it at 7am, and 200 more at 10am per day. The girls woke up at 3am to get in line for the buses to do the hike. They said it was worth the effort, so I was contemplating my options.

I decided against being lazy and wasting a day in Cuzco when I had the opportunity to see more of a World Wonder, so I stayed behind, even if that meant being alone. I gave a farewell to the girls, and made my way through town trying to find my hostel for the night. I got to the street of my hostel, glanced over to my left, and Brett, Amanda, Ruth, and Katie were in a restaurant eating dinner. Cray-zay. I talked with them, and they were doing the hike the next morning as well, so we decided to meet in front of their hostel at 4:15am, dealio yo.

I went to buy ANOTHER entrance fee, and a bus ticket. The bus ticket stand doesn't open until 5am, so everyone buys their ticket the day before so they can wait in front of the actual buses instead of wasting time at the stand. However, it was late at night so I did not get the chance to buy my ticket. I went back to my hostel ($10) for an early night's sleep, with my plan in place to wake up, meet my friends, buy my bus ticket, get in line, and be one of the first 200 to enter in Huayna Picchu. Didn't work out exaaaaactly like I expected.

Abuelita de Lima

We (Me, Dana, Kristin, Tara, Cynthia, Alexandra) had a GREAT flight to Lima on May 19th. They served a hot meal of meat ravioli, free drinks, and each seat had a personal screen to watch movies or play games. I watched "El libro de los secretos" with Denzel Washington. Known in the states as "The Book of Eli". We landed around 11pm in Lima. We were immediately met at the airport by Alexandra's aunt, uncle, and cousin. The people in Peru were just great. The culture in Peru is very warm and inviting to everyone. They drove us back to the apartment for a little meal and a few drinks. After a nice evening with the family we all had a bed ready for us to deposit a little in the sleep bank before the adventures started the next day.

I woke up to the smell of breakfast, rolled out of bed, and did a zombie walk out to the table. We were served some great Peruvian food. We had a pork sandwich, some juice, coffee, bread, and some kind of ham spread. I will not hesitate to say that Peruvian food is the greatest food I have ever had. I am not a food connoisseur in any sense, but there was something about the food that was very unique and flavorful. I ate until the ham spread was practically squirting out of my ears and plopped back on my bed for a few minutes to digest a little so I could function.

I really wanted to go swimming with the sea lions off the coast of Lima. It was something I found online and really tried to sell to the girls. I pushed the idea on them really hard, did all the research on price, location, times, even water temperature...but shopping won the popular vote. I moped around for a while, with some passive aggressive and sarcastic remarks, but decided not to let it ruin my day so I got ready to go out with them.

We went to a little string of stores with "hand made" Peruvian crafts. It seemed to me that 95% of the stuff was cranked out in an assembly line considering every store had matching inventory. I bought a few little gifts (VERY little...don't get your hopes up). I really liked bartering with the store owners, and I was amused by the games they would play with me.

I started browsing through a pile of shirts and I asked "how much are the shirts" and the owner responded "$5 each". After a nice search, I found a shirt that I wanted to buy, so I pulled it out of the pile. The shop keeper said "That shirt is $9, that is not part of our regular selection". I smiled to myself, amused with her techniques. We went back and forth for a while and I ended up getting the shirt for $3. I was happy that I proved to myself I could successfully barter, but later decided that these shopkeepers really needed the money more than I did, so I tuned down the bartering and bought things at a fair price.

After shopping we went to a Peruvian buffet. I was not at all hungry, still stuffed from breakfast a few hours back, but with Peruvian food there is no stopping. All the food was amazing...my stomach kept saying "no" but my taste buds kept saying "more". Very sleepy from my food coma, we got in the car and went over to Alexandra's grandma's house. Alexandra's cousins were there too. A girl about 13 years old, a boy about 8 years old, and a little 3 year old girl. Once again everyone was so kind and generous. We hung out with the family there for a few hours until we were picked up for our city tour.

We went around the city in a little bus, and stopped at the Plaza de Armas. It was really beautiful. There are some pics of the plaza, and Alexandra with her aunt as well. We went back to the house to get some sleep because the girls had to wake up at 3:00am to catch their flight in the morning. I was on a later flight so I slept until about 6:30am, and got up to hang out with Angie.

Sidenote: I chose different flights than the girls to save money ($250). I also thought that Cynthia and Tara were going to be staying in Lima, so I would be able to hang out with them and not be alone, but they changed their minds and decided to go to Machu Picchu with the girls leaving me in Lima.

Anyway, I went to Angie's house with her to meet her family. They offered me lunch with some kind of pepper filled with meat and onion and heaven...it was great as usual, I had multiple servings. Angie had class at 3pm so her uncle picked me up and took me over to his house where I would spend the night. Right when I got there she rushed me into the prepared room to "rest". She was overly hospitable. I called the cousins in the room and hung out with them and watched TV. We talked for hours. We went to the shore to hang out, met some other family members for tea, came back to some dinner, went out to some stores, a very full day. I went to bed around 10pm because I knew I had to get up at 3:30am for my flight!

My flight was at 5:45am so I was ready to go at 4:00am, assuming my taxi would get there at his scheduled time of 4:15am. I waited, and waited, and waited. It was 4:45am and he still wasn't there. I started to panic a little bit, my flight was scheduled to arrive at 7am in Cuzco, just in time to catch catch a taxi to the train station for my 8am train to Machu Picchu...everything would be ruined if I missed my flight. More minutes ticked off, until FINALLY he pulled up nonchalantly at 5:00am. I rushed into the cab, and we got to the airport at 5:15am. I ran through the airport, and got to my gate while we were boarding...great success!

yo tambien te (ll)amo

Well nothing too crazy has been going on. We won our first basketball game by 26 points (1-2), our team is getting better with every practice. I hung out in a social setting with the team and we had a lot of fun. I still have a hard time understanding them, especially if I get sidetracked and try to rejoin a conversation. It's kind of frustrating not to be able to speak/understand everything, but it takes a while to fully learn a language and I still have two more months so we'll see.

I started my community service at a highschool about a half hour away. The kids are great, a lot different than I was as a highschool freshman. My freshman year was full of cliques, "being cool", fitting in, expensive clothing, and doing anything to be accepted by my peers. In Chile, the solidarity is much more evident in the classroom. Kids came up in front of the class to sing songs in English, embarrass themselves, and then all laugh together. They are genuinely good kids and I look forward to every week. I have gone three times, all of the kids know my name, and they reach out to me inside and outside of the classroom. We have been learning a song "That's what friends are for" and also the significance of "can" and "can't". I came up with a side activity where I drew a crude map of the USA, had the students call out cities/states that they knew from the states, marked them on the map, and taught them nicknames for all the cities (brotherly love, big apple, windy city...surprisingly almost every city has a nickname when you think about it)

I have been busy with my daily activities, and on weekends I have been getting together with friends and practicing my Spanish. My camera broke just in time for me to leave for Peru tomorrow, so I will have to figure something out for that in the next few hours. The camera won't focus by itself anymore, and I have to manually assist it with my fingers, so the pictures that I listed are some random ones as I was practicing my finger zooming. One is the view from my bedroom window, one is the street I walk down to get home, and the other is the school where I do community service.

I promise to update with some actual interesting stuff in a week when I get back from Peru!

Chao!

Pacos Culiaos!

Ok pretty crazy week. I'll start with the less interesting stuff. Our basketball team lost our second game dropping us to 0-2...yikes. We got down early by about 15 points and it wasn't looking good. I would bet the other team shot literally 80% including three pointers...they just wouldn't miss, they were a good team. We fought back and were actually up 2 points with about 2 minutes left, but fell apart again and lost. I played the first half, but got very tired and started playing badly so coach pulled me out of the game. I need to work on my conditioning, but the air here is really bad and doesn't help at all. It was a heart breaker. As for my other team, the Winnipeg Weons, we lost our first game on Saturday night leaving us with a solid 3-1 record. Basketball has been fun and I look forward to every practice and game. We also got really cool warm-up gear and jerseys...its legit.

In other news...there was a riot at my University on Wednesday...crazy stuff. I will start by saying I didn't have my camera during my riot so I have no pictures of the absolute chaos but I will try my best to explain it. Two of the pictures I've included I got off the internet (the picture of a different riot at my school in 2008 and the picture of the two Chilean riot trucks), the other two I took about two hours after the riot with the lingering effects of the tear gas and the patrolling riot trucks, but it is nothing compared to the actual experience.

Well I wasn't supposed to be at the university in the first place Wednesday morning, but my Chilean friend Cecy asked if I would come to her English presentation that morning. I went to her presentation, everyone did really well, and we hung out at the University's patio for a little. I got a little hungry around 11am, so I said goodbye to Cecy and went out onto the street to walk home. The entrance to the University is on a side street, about 30 meters from the main street of Santiago (Alameda). I stepped outside, glanced over to the right (Alameda) and saw a group of about 40 students standing in the street. They were jumping and whistling and yelling various things, so I wanted to check it out.

I walked over, and it turned out it was a protest. I found a few of my friends from the U in the crowd and asked them what we were protesting but they didn't know. Oh well, the energy was really fun so I hung out in the crowd. They were blocking the main street of Santiago, and men were leaning out their car window yelling stuff at the students, but the students stood firm in the street. No sign of cops, so the yelling and whistling and jumping continued non-violently. I was in the middle of the street enjoying the aura of the protest around me. It was full of energy, but peaceful....until BOOM!

The cops threw/launched a tear gas grenade into the group of students about 2 meters away from me. It was loud, and there was a little panic in the crowd as the students started running/tripping/climbing over each other to get back to our side street away from the burning gas. I had a little smirk on my face as I was pushing, being pushed, and running away from the bomb. It was a unique experience. Everyone settled down onto the sidewalks of our side street and the road was cleared (except for lingering tear gas). People were rubbing their eyes, sneezing, and crying from the gas, but we were out of immediate harms way safe on the sidewalks in front of our school.

A few brave students were trying to make their way back to the main street. But then a huge riot police truck peeked around the corner on the main street and started shooting its water cannon to keep us back. I have a picture of the big green truck with the water cannon. It parked in front of our side street, cannon blasting, keeping everyone at a distance from Alameda. I was out of reach from the water, so I stood on the sidewalk catching my breath. At this point there were about 100-150 students total. We were quieted from the tear gas, people hunched over spitting, sniffling and crying trying to regain their senses, but it wasn't over yet.

Another smaller truck appeared (also in one of the pictures provided). It came screaming down our street, with tear gas cannons on full blast shooting each sidewalk. I saw it coming about 50 meters away, but there was no running from it. People were panicking at this point, trying to pry their way into the university to escape the searing gas. The truck got to me, and the gas filled my lungs, I took a few quick steps to the right, turned around, went to the left for a little, then my instincts took over telling me how to escape from this horrible thing happening to my body!

I found an entrance into the University, crowded with everyone else trying to escape the fumes. I went deep into the University, and found Cecy doing the same thing. We hung out in the "bunker" for a while, the gas had poured into the school (but not as strong as outside), and everyone was in bad shape. Girls were sobbing, eyes were swollen, and the protesters were getting riled up.

I waited about 15 minutes in the University, and decided I had my fair share of chemical warfare, so I made for the exit to try and walk home. I went outside, but at this point it was just me and about 40 of our bravest protesters out on the street. I glanced over to the right (Alameda) and now they had a line of about 10 Carabineros (cops) on horseback guarding the main road. The big riot truck was out of sight. The a few rebels used this to their advantage, and a few started hurling rocks in the direction of the cops on horseback. Uh oh.

More tear gas bombs started exploding from the direction of the horseback riders, and everyone started running in the opposite direction. Out of the frying pan into the fire. The big riot truck had flanked us! It was approaching from behind, with about 15 cops marching on foot (gas masks on) beside it. The big riot truck turned on its tear gas cannon (this thing could launch like 30 meters) and we were in a cloud of tear gas, sandwiched by cops in both directions.

Since there were only about 40 students, I knew I was going to get arrested. They started screaming "HANDS UP HANDS UP" to all the students. We were crammed together in a group, pushing, stepping on each other, scrambling for clean air that didn't exist. I had my hands straight up, trying to find an escape rout...but this was the first time in the event that I was truly scared. I thought they were going to start shooting bean bag guns, or at least arrest all of us.

Adrenaline took over, and I spotted a brave old man across the street standing in the midst of the tear gas. He had opened a gate for the students and was waving us over. I made a break for it across the open street. I had my hands straight up the whole time, running like an Orangutan for the cracked gate, chin tucked into my chest ready to take a bean bag from the police at any second. Everyone followed doing the same thing, and the police were hot on our tail.

Everyone poured into the gate like a bunch of 12 year old girls getting into a Jonas Brothers concert. The police were trying to do the same thing, so we had to close the gate before everyone was in. I made a break for the farthest corner I could find of the complex to get away from the gas. We closed the gate, and some unlucky students didn't make it in. I heard at least 6 were arrested and got taken into the station.

I will give props to the students, and that old man, because they were very brave and blunt with the police. Standing proud in the tear gas screaming curse words with their scratchy throats at the police from the locked gate, telling them they can't enter. And if they tried, the students would be ready. They had stockpiled desks and chairs in the hallway as ammunition if the police tried to get in.

Kids were hunched over in the back patio of this refuge. Spitting, coughing, sneezing, muttering curse words under their breath, and things quickly settled down in the streets. After about 15 minutes, I decided (for the 2nd time) that I was finally done with the tear gas, and I went back to the gate. The old man was standing proud guarding it, and the rebels were standing guard ready to launch some classroom equipment at the police. I peeked my face out through the gate (tear gas still very present) and decided I could make a break for my house. I told the man I was ready to leave, and he cracked the gate open so I could slip out. I ran like Forrest Gump until I was clear of the warzone. I went back to my house to recover from the day's activities.

When I went to class about 2.5 hours later, I finally figured out why they were rioting. The government was imposing a 10 peso ($.02) increase in the price for students to ride the subway.

2 cents??? Not on our watch!

Crossin the border, homes

w


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Macarena left a few days ago, and we all went to the airport to see her off as a family. It was really nice and of course Judith took about 300 pictures so it was well documented. Life settled down again back into the normal routine of quiet lunches and the Chilean version of "Are you smarter than a 5th grader" at night.

Classes and basketball filled my week, I hung out with Esteban Friday night, played basketball Saturday night, but then early Sunday morning I left with Judith for a little trip.

We went with her brother Freddie to his newly opened business headquarters up in the Andes mountains on the border of Argentina. It was really really cool. We drove about two and a half hours weaving through the dirt roads to get to his building right on the border of Argentina in Eastern Chile. The building is really nice. Freddie has a security/safety company and he is based out of the building. It was built in 2009 and it is very modern and impressive.

We arrived to meet the two workers who live in the building to maintain it, Alejandro and Irene. I could tell they were happy to have visitors because they talked a lot, but I don't blame them it must be very lonely up there all alone in the mountains all year. red rum!

We had a little something to eat in the kitchen. We spent most of our time in there because it was efficient to heat...and we eat a all the time so it worked out perfectly. Alejandro gave me a tour of the building. It was really cool...my dad and Jake would have loved it. They are almost entirely self sufficient and off the grid. Every few months someone comes with gasoline, and they have to go into the closest village to get the essentials; sacks of potatoes, nuts, and cigarettes...but for the most part they take care of everything else. They have a big John Deere generator in the basement (vented to the outside obviously), and they tap their running water directly from the mountain. They have two sources of water. One from a running stream down the mountain, and the other is a well. The well water is drinkable but it has a yellowish color from all the minerals, they used that source for toilet water and shower water. The other source was used for drinking and washing dishes. You can see in one of the pictures how the water leaves a yellow tint on the rocks.

After we got settled in and I received my tour, Alejandro took me down to the natural hot springs at the bottom of the mountain. Someone constructed baths to trap the bubbling water from the earth, but it did not look very tempting to me. It was covered with an orange and yellow film of sediment and minerals...and it wasn't even that warm...but it was still cool nonetheless. After we ate (what else is new) Freddie took Judith and I out for a border crossing excursion. The border police go home mid April before winter because the roads become unusable, so we had free run of Argentina for a little bit. The border was marked with a metal sign and a statue of Jesus on the cross.

We had gone almost three hours without eating so it was time to head back to Freddie's building. We sat at the table and talked a lot with tea and chicken soup to "matar el frio" or kill the cold. Someone stopped outside the building and it turns out they had some vehicle problems. There were two vehicles, one had a flat tire, the other was leaking radiator fluid. We went out to help them change the tire, but their spare tire had a leak too. Freddie lent them a small electric compressor so they could stop along the way to fill the tire...they promised to come back and return it. Freddie told me that people from that area are good people, and he trusted them. Sure enough they returned it the next day.

I got ready for bed and read a little bit of "Las Cronicas de Narnia". I had some trouble sleeping, I think I had too much tea. The next day I woke up and decided I was going to climb one of the mountains. I set off for a mountain behind the house and started my ascent. It was very steep, and at an altitude of around 9000 feet above sea level, I had to stop and take a break every 50ft or so. After a healthy trek I made it to my goal over looking our valley. You can see in my pictures that I was pretty high up, looking down you can see the green roof of our building and a truck next to it for perspective. I was happy I did it, even though I didn't get to wrestle a puma while I was up there.

I came back down for some food before we headed back out for Santiago in time for my basketball practice. It was a really cool place and I hope I can go back again in the winter sometime in June to see it covered in snow. Apparently the pumas come down into the valleys for food in the winter when it is more scarce at the higher altitudes, I have a chance!

El primer partido-Relationships

Hey everyone. I just got back from my first basketball game. Since my Chilean sister Macarena came down to Chile from Miami, I have been in full on baskeball/family mode. Nothing too interesting but I'll talk about some things that have been going on in my life.

We had our first basketball game today as a team. They took some pictures I will try to get a hold of them ASAP to let you see what we're working with! The game didn't go so hot. I was able to start with some other good players on the team, and we were full of energy and got up early. At one point late in the 2nd quarter we were up 7 points, a comfortable lead we would have liked to keep going into half time. We started to get a little tired and our coach made some subs. I guess he decided to put all the slowest players on the team in at the same time becuase in those 6 minutes or so we lost a 14 point swing and were down 7 at half time.

We never corrected our ways and since we got down we felt pressured into taking some dumb shots. I only took two shots the second half but I think the team felt rushed and hurried since we were down and things just got out of control. We need to practice a lot more and hopefully we will be able to correct our mistakes and improve in the future.

Well this is pretty much the only thing going on in my life. I play University basketball (I love saying that even though I doubt you'll see me on ESPN anytime soon) I also play on a side league with my coach and another ex-player, so I am playing at least 4 times a week, I go to the gym every other day, I have 4 classes, and I just started my community service! Its a full plate but its tough to write a good story about running suicides in practice or lifting tiny weights at the gym!

The important thing is I am learning the language the best I can. Almost every night I talk with my friend Cecilia...she wants to be an English teacher, but she speaks better English than I do Spanish, so we talk in Spanish so I can get better...she is really understanding and a good teacher. She teaches me basic Spanish phrases and I teach her ghetto hood rap terms in English...ya digg?

Well now I will cover one of my more interesting subjects in cultural difference-Relationships.

Relationships are very different down here. First off, kids don't move out of their parent's houses until they are at LEAST 26. It's not uncommon to find 30 year old "kids" living with their parents. So that makes relationships a little bit different...it is not to say that young adults don't have relationships when they live with their parents though. Now you may be thinking...do they have any privacy in the relationship if they live with their parents?-HA!

They have figured out the ultimate secret to privacy...why use it? Everywhere you look there are people hooking up HARD with their significant others. Eyes closed on the metro, lips smacking, tongue swapping serious stuff. Laying down in the grass at a crowded park going at it...no problem. They must be watching too much MTV!

Another interesting thing is marriage here. Marriage is pretty normal, but the idea of divorce was just recently introduced into Chilean culture. Back in the day (maybe 15-20 years ago) divorce was illegal...you got what you signed up for and promised to God. But in the last 2 decades, divorced was legalized, and the Chileans are still kind of figuring it out.

Eduardo and my Chilean mom broke up a few years ago, he has a new woman (wife? not sure) but he still comes over almost every day and my mom makes him lunch. It is a very awkward relationship. They act like best friends, and like he is part of the family...but he only comes over for some family activities and meals! I have heard that a lot of other families are the same way...the culture is a little different!

The abundant wildlife of Santiago

Its been a while, but you aren't missing too much. I am just focusing on learning the language right now. I had a 2.5 hour chat last night with a Chilean just drilling her with questions about different things in Spanish. I am always really discouraged after basketball practice because I don't understand anything my teammates say during practice or in the locker room. I can watch a movie just fine, talk to my family just fine, listen to dinner conversations, but I am still struggling amongst my peers.

School has been good and basketball is always a lot of fun, the teammates are great guys and they have all accepted me onto the team, I just don't talk to much! Since I have been on the grind of school, family, gym, basketball, I have not had too much interesting to write about. This past weekend was Christian's birthday party. He gave the gringos VIP ACCESS. He rented out a large house and we had a nice dance party...I had a lot of fun...but the bus didn't come to pick me up for about 45 minutes and I didn't get home until 6:30am...crazy Chileans. Other than Christian's (Breezy's) party, my life has been routine. So as promised, I will talk less about my boring life and on some cool things about Chile.

The animals/wildlife/organisms. First off I will say that there are no bugs in Santiago. I can count on one hand how many times I have seen a small fly or something here. One time my mom called me into the kitchen and was pointing at the ceiling saying "what is that????" It looked to me just like a normal fruit fly or something of that nature, but she made me kill it just to make sure it wouldn't kill any of us. (And I highly doubt she was worried about food contamination because remember we leave our ground beef our for multiple days)

I think that the absence of bugs creates a crucial kink in the food chain, because there are no other small animals either. In all seriousness, I have seen three species of macroscopic life in Santiago. Humans, stray dogs, and pigeons. I am not sure why this is, maybe all large cities are the same way, but I bet you could find a squirrel in some park in NYC.

Outside of Santiago, Chile is a little more diverse. I've seen vultures, penguins, dolphins, emu, llamas, and many other kinds of animals. Even so, I have traveled almost the entire length of Chile, and I don't remember anywhere that had a "normal" amount of bugs. In Uruguay is where we encountered most of the bugs (including a giant moth the size of my hand-page down a few for pics).

Chile's national animal is the condor. To me it seems to be an undesirable image for a country doesn't it?? An ugly carnivorous bird that picks dead rodents off the road? I think Chile may agree with me because they recently introduced a second national animal. It is some deer type creature that is a little more conservative than a condor.

I also included a picture I found entitled "Degu huddling together for warmth" The Degu is a rodent found only in Chile...I will keep my eyes peeled for one in Santiago but I don't have my hopes up.

I'm not sure if I mentioned my trips I have on the radar:
April 24-25: Isla Negra
May 19-25: Lima, Cuzco, Machu Picchu Peru
Sometime in June: Mendoza, Argentina
July 1-16: Volunteer work at a wildlife refuge in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador

I'll keep you posted on everything interesting!!

Keeebin....a la mesaaaa-Food

Okay well today I have done nothing except research things to do and ways to travel in Peru. We are going to Peru in May and there is still some questions/drama as to where we're going and what we're doing...but I found some really cool stuff I will keep you informed of our decisions.

Since my life has not been filled with action and I have been settling down into normal Chilean life style (eat, eat, sleep, eat, eat) I wanted to dedicate a few posts to the differences in culture here versus the states. First off, I will quote something I read "Santiago has nothing to envy of any other city on the planet". This is kind of true because Santiago has everything, and is arguably the most advanced city in South America. The cultural difference is not as great as I expected, but there are obviously a lot of differences between Latin America and the US.

Starting with food. I like the food here a lot, but it is much different. Fruit has to be their specialty. The fruit I've had is absolutely amazing. Maybe it is the way Judith prepares it, but the fruit is always very good, and we have a lot of it. The kitchen always has a big bowl of fruit. We eat fruit for desert with every meal, and Judith makes a realllly good juice with it. She mixes all different kinds, a lot are hand picked by her friend and delivered to our apartment. The Juice is made with 100% real fruit and it is really really good. When I first arrived I told her I liked soda better than juice, but since I tried it, we have not bought another Coke.

They don't eat a lot of meat here, and by my theory that's why all the Chileans are little. Judith also says that all the Chileans have very dark hair because of the water. My friend Christian was born in Argentina and had blond hair, but he has lived in Chile for the past 20 years and now has dark brown hair. Judith also claims that Francisco (my Chilean brother) had really light hair and now it is completely black. You guys will have to tell me if my hair has changed I'm not really sure.

The pictures are of; humitas (the corn type thing), porotos granados (the beans), and pasta with an egg on top. I included the pasta because here in Chile they will put an egg on top of anything. If you go to order something at a restaurant, you can always add en egg. My friend Kristin says her mom will even plop an egg into her soup sometimes.

Milk expires in about 6 months, and it is unrefrigerated in little cartons. Maybe it is powder based but you can definitely taste the difference. We don't drink a lot of milk here at all. Milk and burgers has to be the weakness of Chile...the US does it the best. Another weird thing...if my mom cooks ground beef, she will leave it on the counter for DAYS. Literally days. Maybe she is giving it a natural seasoning? I heard the other Chilean moms do the same thing as Judith too. Who knows, but I trust her and I haven't been sick yet!

Bread is also very very good here. I think that's why Chileans are a little gorditos (fat) because they have a course of bread (and normally butter) with every meal...but I can't blame them because it is very fresh and tasty!

Whenever I have a hankerin for some good American food I can always find a McDonalds or Burger King within a few blocks for some safety food, but I have only done that a few times because the Chileans know how to cook!

CORRE RALFITO! TU PAPA!

It has been a pretty normal week except for the uproar at Parque O'Higgins on Thursday. Thousands of young people gather at the park on occasion to have parties and hang out together, but the police weren't really feeling it this time. I was there walking around looking for my Chilean friend Salvador, and there was a group of kids running through the park with a large smoking branch. The riot police didn't like that and told all the students to leave. My friends and I bounced out of there and went to a little park next door too hang out and play some guitar. We looked back into the park, and the riot police were GETTIN REAL with the kids.

The armored vehicles were out and the tear gas was flying. People started screaming and running out of the park, and the tear gas drifted our way. It was chaos for a while as people were running around the streets trying to escape it and I had my first taste of the tear gas. They picked the perfect name for it, because my nose was really itchy and my eyes started watering and a lot of people started sneezing. It was actually pretty cool to experience, but I'm very happy I only had the afterspray and I didn't get hosed in the face!

I laughed for a while when my Chilean friends made a joke. When the police were coming toward us with the tear gas, a Chilean friend yelled "corre ralfito! tu papa viene!" Which means "RUN RALPH YOUR DAD IS COMING!"

The kid's name wasn't ralph...so I asked Cecy about the joke, and she explained that the boy looks just like the character "Ralph" from "The Simpsons". I glanced over, and sure enough, the kid looks very much like Ralph (picture provided) from The Simpsons. And in the show, Ralph's dad is the police chief...I laughed pretty hard while we were all running for our lives.

Things got a little crazy, but it was time for me to go to church with Judith. I walked over to the Parque O'Higgins metro station, but it was closed because of the riot. There were hundreds of people waiting outside, and the bus stations were filled with the people who couldn't get on the metro. Luckily they were letting people off the metro one-by-one, and Judith emerged through the crowd.

She looked at the bus station, and realized there was no way we were getting to church on time if we waited for a bus, so we went to look for a cab down the street. EVERY cab was filled, but luckily, we found a bus down the street stopped at a red light. He must have felt sorry for us because he opened the door and let us on. As we were passing in front of the riot zone, someone threw a large rock at our bus. It crashed through the shatter-proof glass and hit a man sitting down. There was a little panic and everyone ducked down in the bus screaming to avoid other projectiles, but we got out with minimal casualties!

I tried to get a pic of it, but it's hard to see where the rock actually came through...but it was pretty crazy. I went to mass with my mom to calm down the night a little bit, it was very very nice. Afterwords I came back to the house, talked with my family a little bit, and went out to a friend's house-Gabriel. Gabo is a really really nice guy. He speaks perfect english (what else is new) because he spent a year in Australia. He has a really funny accent. I also met a Brazilian guy and another Chilean that I spent some time with to practice my Spanish. They were really cool. They had a guitar, a Ukulele type thing, a small piano, and other handmade instruments and we all jammed for a while Bob Marley style. American music is really big so they knew a lot of songs in English...we had a really good time. At around 4:30am we called it a night and I took a bus home to get asleep by 5...long day!

How do you expect them to win the battle......if they can't even fit in the truck

Hey everyone...sorry I haven't been doing too much lately I have worked my way deep into routine of family time, gym, basketball, and classes. I have not been doing anything too exciting but its nice to have some time like this to learn the language and make some friends at school. I decided since nothing too cool is going on I'll take the next couple days to fill you in on some of the differences, surprising similarities, and fun facts about the beautiful country of Chile.

First I will cover the really cool thing I went to last weekend. The airshow they had here in Chile. It is the biggest airshow in South America, and the war didn't stop the USA from showing off the biggest and fastest toys at the demo. Francisco hasn't missed this airshow since he was 2 years old...and it is an important tradition to him. That's why we got up early and left around 7:30am to beat the crowd. We also beat the airshow because no planes were open or flying for the first two hours, but Francisco was happy so we were all happy.

The airshow turned out to be really cool, and I was proud that my country represented with some multi-billion dollar bombers and a bilingual crew to explain to the Chileans. It was also nice to be able to talk to some American guys for the first time in over two months (even if it was only the Airforce!) But I did gain a lot more respect for the Airforce guys they had some really cool equipment. Some guys I talked to had a big transport plane that could hold hundreds of troops, helicopters, tanks, a few humvees, you name it. Their motto was "You call it, we haul it...any one, any time, any where." Pretty B.A

We got lunch at the show, and went back out to watch the plane demos. It was very busy and full of people but it was really cool to see the planes flying around overhead. Here is a link to a Youtube video of the Halcones. The Halcones are Chile's special trick group of the airforce. They were really good. This is a link to just a short video but if you search for more there are some videos of their better tricks they were really amazing.

A quick sidenote. I forgot my camera and these are all Judith's pictures. While I was creeping around on her memory card I found some others that I randomly threw in of some people that stayed with us. Another sidenote....Chileans LOVE to take pictures. I was actually irritated at people and their picture taking...not sure why. I searched through about 1200 of Judith's pictures of the airshow to find some good ones, and in one of the pictures there is actually a kid...taking a picture with his cellphone. And I can guarantee you that he was capturing the left tail section of the model truck, because he already had the front, back, upper right, and birds eye view of it. People would take pictures of everything and anything. I don't think Judith missed one of the 900 model planes they had on display in the hangers, but I guess a picture is worth a thousand words (86 million words and counting).

We stayed at the airshow for a veeeeery long time. We saw each plane about three times, and I got sunburn for being out so long, but Francisco had a good time and it was his kinda thing. At the end the Halcones did a cool thing where they spelled "FUERZA CHILE" (reference video below)...I was impressed.

We waited to leave in the congested parking lot for 2 hours...yes 2 hours, but I took a nap so it was all good. Other than the airshow nothing too crazy has been going on in Chile, but I am learning a lot. I will dedicate the next few posts to cool things I've come across that I hope everyone finds equally as interesting. Thanks again for your support I hope you are enjoying my entries I'll keep em coming.

Besitos