My weekend with my Chilean Family!

Ok... so sorry everyone... I am still missing some days here and there so hopefully I can post those soon.
Weds 16th
So This week I did not have school on Weds. It was a holiday for the Saint Carmen, I believe. So early wednesday morning we made the drive north. We drove for a couple hours and then stopped for some Cheese Empanadas. They were delicious! My brother Tomás bought the newspaper called La Tercera and I got to read a little bit. The drive was beautiful, we drove on the thinnest part of Chile, where the distance between the mountains and the coast is the shortest. The landscape is very similar to California. It reminded me of the drive up to grandma Tomi and Grandpas house in Aptos. We drove to a city named Vicuña. We saw a procession for the Saint Carmen. We walked through the plaza. Tomás says that every city in Chile has a plaza and usually it is with an iglesia or church. We stayed in a cabaña and the place we stayed was called Los Pinares. This was nice because it allowed us to bring our own food and cook it. The sky here is amazing. It is so pure, and so blue. A beauty so breathtaking. It is unlike anything I have any seen before. We were spoiled because out of the 4 days we were there we had 3 days of almost complete blue sky. I ate my first completo our first night their. It is really popular here and especially common with the younger crowd here in Chile. It is typically a hotdog with piles of compliments. haha So I decided to be brave and try it the completely Chilean way or what was the point right? So I ate one with chopped tomatoes, guacamole, ketchup, and mayonaise. haha It was not too bad. My littlest brother Lucas and I played cards, the game uno several times throughout this trip.

Jueves o Thursday 17th.
A very famous poet named Gabriela Mistral was born and grew up in this La Serena and Vicuña. I felt embarrassed that I had never learned much about her, or read her poems. Her and Pablo Neruda are the most famous from Chile for their writing especially in poetry. I have however learned more about Neruda in my history and english classes. I think that is interesting. However, the spirit of Gabriela still has a strong presence in the towns she influenced. She has numerous schools and streets named after her. Neruda was not accepted the same by the people. He was seen differently because of his communist views. I really liked learning about Gabriela because she was a teacher of young children. She wrote alot of amazing poems for children. I love children too, so Gabriela and I definitely shared that in common. We also went to a museo of a house and how it looked during the 1800s. That was interesting too. They had all the furniture and everything in amazing condition. We got some gelatto. I had a flavor of Lucuma, a fruit from the Andes, and manjar. Manjar I might have already said is my new guilty pleasure. hehe. I love it. Similar to caramel. Then we went back to the cabin for some dinner and resting time. We ate pasta with tuna. Then we waited til 10:30 to go to the Mamalluca observatory. We had a tour reservation at 11:30. The entire powerpoint presentation was in Spanish, so I only caught parts of it. Then we got to look at Jupiter and see its 3 moons in the big telescope. We also got a closer look at the moon and a constellation that looked like a mariposa or a butterfly. I met some other ¨gringos¨ that were from New York and Conneticut. The guys from NY were traveling to alot of South of America. The guy from Conneticut had just finished his semester down here and was traveling with some friends. We got back to the Cabin at 1am.

Friday 18th.
We woke up pretty late again... haha Trying to get everyone up and going was tough. We went to see the tomb of Gabriela Mistral. We had to hike up some stairs to get there but we finally got their. Her tomb was surprisingly simple for a woman who had changed so many lives. Then we went to a local place for lunch. I had chuleta and papas fritas. Pork chop with fries. The restaurant was really interesting. I loved the atmosphere it had. The floor was sand and the walls were clay like. I learned about a tribe of Indians that used to live here. They were called the diaguitas. I learned that my Chilean mom Alicia used to sing in a choir when she was younger. After lunch we made our way to another museum of Gabriela Mistral. A man inside happened to be giving a tour to some gringos in english, so Tomás and I listened in a little. Apparently she was very tall especially for a woman. Her and Pablo Neruda knew each other fairly well and we read a letter on display that he wrote to her. Later we drove to a place called Los Nichos where Pisco is made and sold. We went down to a cellar where some bottles of Pisco have been stored for over a century. Everything is down by had in terms of bottling. Tomás and I got to try some fresh Pisco and boy was it strong! haha We needed to get food for onces, which is like the British tradition of tea time, but here in Chile it is at 5 or 6. So Tomás, Lucas, Alicia, Nacho and I drove into town to find something to prepare. I got to do some window shopping at the little ferias. We walked around alot and finally we decided to buy something at the supermercado. We bought a sweet dessert called Torta de los hojas. Hmmmm. It was cake full of manjar and sugar. We also ate some bread with tuna. And Cheese and crackers. After onces Lucas and I played an endless list of games. Haha I think he likes having a sister and someone to play with. We played hide and seek which was hilarious. We scared each other a couple times. haha I also made him some folded paper treats. Then with the family with watched some local Chilean comedy show and then we watched Robots in Spanish.

Sat 19th
We packed everything and breakfast and we were on our way. We eventually made it to La Serena. We took some pictures by the famous boathouse. My mom Alicia bought me a gift. She bought me a heart carved out of stone that says La Serena. Then we made our way to the Mall and plaza of La Serena. I thought I would be able to go on this trip without eating American fast food, but the boys wanted McDonalds. haha So even though I am not a big fan of McDonalds in the US I ate McDonalds in Chile. Was it really different? haha not really, but I think the fries were better, more crispy. Then we went to a little feria and out door market to buy some sweets. My mom bought some sweet dried papaya treats and manjar candies. We then were on our way. It was another 5 to 6 hours of entertainment. I think that living in a family with only sons is sooo different. haha But they definitely kept me laughing. It was a car ride of reggaeton, brothers teasing and hitting each other, Lucas praticing his reading of French with Tomás, Argentinian love songs, and the Universidad of Chile winning game. On the way home we stopped at a local pastry place and bought some yummy sweets. Finally we made it home. We ate dinner of carne hamburgers. And for dessert we had the postres we bought. My mom and I had a nice conversation about children and the relationships between siblings. We understood each other. Tomás and I watched some random youtube videos of gringos and funny clips.