Today is our last day in the apartment. We have been cleaning and packing all day. I'm totally exhausted. We're staying with our friends Alex and Naoko until Thursday, and then we'll go across the border to Argentina for one night to renew our travel visas. Then we'll leave up to the north of Chile, hitting Pan de Azucar, Bahia Iglesia and La Serena, back down to Santiago over 20 days. We will be camping along the way, and have bought a little camping stove. Our flight to the south of Chile is on November 22nd. We're flying to Punta Arenas, and will take a bus down to Ushuiaia, the southern most city in the world. From there we'll be bouncing back and forth between Argentina and Chile, camping and staying in hostels, to make our way back up to Santiago and hopefully spend New Year with friends in Valparaiso. After that, we'll be either flying or busing to Buenos Aires to start the big trek around the continent! It will be up the Brazilian coast, along the north coast and then down into Columbia and Bolivia, and over to Peru. We won't be returning to Santiago until our money runs out, which we are thinking will be in July. I have a family reunion, hopefully the first week of August somewhere in the US, and am hoping to make it back for that. Hopefully the reunion will be on a lake in Kentucky, which would help me be able to afford it! But we'll be spending about a week in Santiago in July to see all our friends again before heading back to the US.
View Larger Map
I will be blogging and posting pictures as much as I can! I'm anticipating it being pretty hot and sweaty the whole time! But looking forward to it.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
4 Weeks
Hello all!
The last two weeks have been fun, and tinged with sadness, since we know we are leaving so soon. I am sad about leaving these great friends we've made, however not too sad about not teaching English anymore. I don't mind the teaching, it's the traveling that is killing me! Also, the inconsistency, because when students cancel classes, we don't get paid. It's too stressful to live with that kind of ambiguity! So, I'm tired. And ready to stop running around and stressing out. Although very sad to leave the people we've met here.
The weekend after my birthday we went to the horse track. It's called Club Hipico and is truly an amazing track! It was built in 1870 and is about 12 furlongs. It runs about 18 races on race days, a very long race day! We went about 2pm and stayed for about 5 races. We won $16 on the first race! And so that covered all our other bets and beers, since we didn't win again... :( But we came close several times! The free racing form only gave stats from the horses last race, so there wasn't much to go on!
Here is the beautiful paddock. In my opinion, Churchill Downs has nothing on this! Absolutely gorgeous. We are hopefully going again this Friday!
On Saturday we walked around town, sat in the sun and had a few beers, ate some pizza. Then we went home, and were going to have our friends Pamela and Pablo over for a bit. But the power went out and no one was sure when it would go on. I just assumed it was our building, but when we looked out the window, the whole city was dark! We went up to the roof to look at the dark city. It was pretty cool. We learned that half of Chile had lost power. It came back on after about an hour or so. But we ended up just going to bed.
Then on Sunday, we went to Pamela and Pablo's apartment for lunch. They had just gotten back from Australia and showed us all their photos. Then we rushed off to our friend Gregorio's house to watch the Packers v. Bears football game! Gregorio streams it from the internet onto his TV.
The weeks are pretty normal - just working, cooking, sleeping. My classes are either ending or dropping, and I can't pick up new ones because I'm leaving. So I'm feeling a bit useless, as I'd prefer to be making money.
Last weekend we had people over to our place on Friday to play games. We wanted to keep our spending low, so thought games at the house was a good option! Then on Saturday we went to a museum that was having an exhibit of gold from Italy. It began with old Roman jewelry and then had an exhibit of crazy Italian designers gold dresses. There was also a great photography exhibit by Juan Diego Perez Arais of stunning photos from Ecuador. On Saturday night we went to Pamela's birthday party at our friend Oliver's bar. And on Sunday we went to two more museums! At the Bellas Artes they were having an exhibit of Degas we wanted to see. Yes, the 14 Year Old Dancer was there!
And then, of course, we watched the Packers game again, which they won again. So Jesse is very happy.
The last two weeks have been fun, and tinged with sadness, since we know we are leaving so soon. I am sad about leaving these great friends we've made, however not too sad about not teaching English anymore. I don't mind the teaching, it's the traveling that is killing me! Also, the inconsistency, because when students cancel classes, we don't get paid. It's too stressful to live with that kind of ambiguity! So, I'm tired. And ready to stop running around and stressing out. Although very sad to leave the people we've met here.
The weekend after my birthday we went to the horse track. It's called Club Hipico and is truly an amazing track! It was built in 1870 and is about 12 furlongs. It runs about 18 races on race days, a very long race day! We went about 2pm and stayed for about 5 races. We won $16 on the first race! And so that covered all our other bets and beers, since we didn't win again... :( But we came close several times! The free racing form only gave stats from the horses last race, so there wasn't much to go on!
Here is the beautiful paddock. In my opinion, Churchill Downs has nothing on this! Absolutely gorgeous. We are hopefully going again this Friday!
On Saturday we walked around town, sat in the sun and had a few beers, ate some pizza. Then we went home, and were going to have our friends Pamela and Pablo over for a bit. But the power went out and no one was sure when it would go on. I just assumed it was our building, but when we looked out the window, the whole city was dark! We went up to the roof to look at the dark city. It was pretty cool. We learned that half of Chile had lost power. It came back on after about an hour or so. But we ended up just going to bed.
Then on Sunday, we went to Pamela and Pablo's apartment for lunch. They had just gotten back from Australia and showed us all their photos. Then we rushed off to our friend Gregorio's house to watch the Packers v. Bears football game! Gregorio streams it from the internet onto his TV.
The weeks are pretty normal - just working, cooking, sleeping. My classes are either ending or dropping, and I can't pick up new ones because I'm leaving. So I'm feeling a bit useless, as I'd prefer to be making money.
Last weekend we had people over to our place on Friday to play games. We wanted to keep our spending low, so thought games at the house was a good option! Then on Saturday we went to a museum that was having an exhibit of gold from Italy. It began with old Roman jewelry and then had an exhibit of crazy Italian designers gold dresses. There was also a great photography exhibit by Juan Diego Perez Arais of stunning photos from Ecuador. On Saturday night we went to Pamela's birthday party at our friend Oliver's bar. And on Sunday we went to two more museums! At the Bellas Artes they were having an exhibit of Degas we wanted to see. Yes, the 14 Year Old Dancer was there!
And then, of course, we watched the Packers game again, which they won again. So Jesse is very happy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)