Vamos a la playa

Thanks for all of the birthday well-wishes from all you well-wishers. I indeed had a great birthday here with a lot of family that came over for a barbeque on Saturday night of the 21st. I guess it was supposed to be a surprise birthday party even though my little cousins talked about it non-stop for a week and the cake was obviously in the fridge but they dutifully waited until midnight to uncork the champagne and let the festivities begin. Some of my cousin, Jose´s, friends came over too and one played the guitar for us from 4 am until I called it quits at 6:30 am because I was exhausted. The next day some Tias, cousins and myself did the have-to trip for Santiago up a large hill in the middle of the city with a huge statue of the Virgin Mary on top. Since we were with little ones we took the steep miner´s cart thing to the top and back, plus I already did the hike on my last visit here and I didn´t really feel like testing my capacity for passing out again in the 33 degree celsius weather, "now it´s my nausea". The view of the city was great and as you can see, we were a very happy clan.

Today my tias and I made one more final trip to the beach, this time to Valparaíso/Viña del Mar which is just west of Santiago. We did the miner´s cart thing again to the top of a hill to check out the scene over the port and some touristy browsing. Then to this huge garden/concert arena place in the middle of the city where they have an annual 5-day festival in February that apparently every Chilean attends every year. Since it was a lull time we got to walk the grounds, see cool trees from all over the world and tour the museum. After this we sprawled out on the beach until we couldn´t stand the heat and took cover under the shade with these tasty pineapple/icecream combo delicacies straight from heaven (only 2 bucks). I include a pic of me on the beach in case you don´t believe that I am actually living the life. If you ever find yourself in the area, I definitely recommend this city.
Alright, so tomorrow night I head back to the great northwest (cue the countdown music). Although I will remember my family and the places here fondly as I have recorded them in this blog for you, I am ready to head home to drink some real coffee, see some familiar faces and actually talk when I have something to say instead of letting the conversation pass by while I try to find the right words with this elementary vocabulary. Thanks for following me through this journey and I hope to see or hear from everyone once I am back in Seattle. Que lo pases bien.

Good things come in 3s

These past couple of days have brought three great events during my visit here. The first occured on Monday afternoon when my cousin, María Soledad, gave birth to her second child, Sophía Antonia. We went to visit the family in the hospital on Tuesday and this is a picture of the newborn. She looks really big but she really is just a day old. The second and third events occurred yesterday and are represented in the second picture where clearly my friend, Melissa Kagele, came to visit the house on her brief stop in Santiago. She and Tricia are travelling on an 8 month journey hopping from continent to continent exploring this great planet and, coincidentally, Chile at the same time I am here. My Tia Ximena and I met them at the Plaza de Armas and we came back here for lunch and 5 hours of conversing. My family really liked having the gringas here and were impressed at their bravery to undertake such an adventurous expedition. The third event is inconspicuously represented in the second picture too where you can kind of see my right arm is no longer in a cast but an elastic wrap thingy that is not nearly as bothersome. We went to the clinic yesterday morning where I anxiously waited to be freed from that torture device. The nurse cut it with this saw-looking thing and I guess I just wasn´t prepared for all the grossness of pale dry skin, plaster and loose hair because I got light headed and fainted right there in the clinic. Apparently my aunt called over for the doctor who was just across the hall but he looked over and said I only fainted because I am "norte americana" and didn´t come over to help. I must add that this doctor hasn´t liked me from the beginning when I first came to see him a month ago, but nevertheless after I came to my aunt was angry with him for being so discriminatory but he didn´t even look up from his papers. When my other aunt, Tia Cecilia, found out she was furious and called the clinic to protest saying that I have a step-dad in the states who works for the government so they should watch out (he works for the IRS-- so his occupational influence doesn´t quite extend as far as international injustices regarding inconsiderate doctors). Anyway, we met the girls at the plaza afterward and now the wrist is still in some pain when I try to move it past where the cast restrictions were but given some rehabilitation I will be "all right" again in no time (incorporating Arrested Development lines is not nearly as hard as I thought it would be). So, I hope everyone remains well and I will see most of you next week. Later.

From Sunny Santiago

So, it has been a pretty busy week away from Santiago and lounging on the beach. It´s a tough job but somebody has to do it. I left Friday the 6th with some family for San Sebastian where we went to a different beach everyday and ate ice cream as full meals. The first picture is of me, my cousin Paulina´s husband Keko, and cousins Paulina, María Paz, Juan Enrique and María Soledad waiting for pollo asada. I don´t know if you can tell but Sole is very pregnant and due on January 22nd (an excellent day to be born) . The boys know some English but they are trying to practice their accents and on this night Keko wanted to know the word for ¨print¨so I said ¨pr-i-nt¨and he responded with ¨tr-ee¨it was hilarious, but I´m sure I sound the same way speaking Spanish sometimes. On one drive we passed by the house of Pablo Neruda but it was full of touristas so we didn´t stop, the places we did stop though were beautiful. btw-I heard about the 33 straight days of rain over in Seattle so I´m sorry if this news of endless beaches and sunshine from 6am to 9pm is hard to take... it will be summer over there soon enough. Oh yeah, we beat the ¨how-many-people-can-we-stuff-in-this-car¨record with 10, the 9 in the second picture plus me taking it.

So we returned from San Sebastian on Tuesday the 10th, unpacked and washed our our clothes then packed them up again for our next excursion to Coquimbo up north. This trip was just Tia Ximena, María Paz and me mostly to see Cerro Tololo, a huge observatory with 7 telescopes, but we did the toursity things too. We spent a day in the neighboring city of La Serena, visited the Cruz del Milenio which is a huge cross on the top of a hill that was built as a place to pray at the sanctuary there ("It´s a cross" "Across from where?") and walked around the downtown and port. Then on the 14th we took the 2 hour drive up to Cerro Tololo to tour the facilities. From the top of Tololo (cerro=hill) we were surrounded by more hills as far as we could see. Although they should be considered more of mountains because we were so high up that we were continually warned about altitude sickness but everyone remained fine. The view was incredible, the telescopes were massive and it was totally worth the near 8 hour drive from Santiago. We left Coquimbo at midnight last night and returned home at 6am this morning for my family to vote in the presidential elections. The winner should be known tonight, surprisingly they don´t have to wait months before a new president is named. So I had a great time on the auxiliary vacation but I am glad to be back in the city to get this annoying cast off on Wednesday and get ready for the family party on Saturday. Hope everyone is well and don´t let the rain get you down. Chau.

Update: The woman candidate, Michelle Bachelet, won the elections. The house where I am staying is only about 10 blocks from the city center and we can hear all of the honking cars on their way downtown. The family here didn´t vote for her because she was supported by communists among many other reasons but some other family members love her and what she can do for Chile. It has made for some pretty tense meal time conversations that will either be amplified or diminished by the recent outcome. We´ll see.

Party People

We had a pretty memorable New Years here in Santiago. It started off with a big dinner with the usual 5 (I forgot to take a picture but trust that it was very similar to the Christmas dinner pic). Then we went downtown to see the fireworks set off from this towerish thing comparable to the Space Needle. It seemed like everyone else in the city had the same idea- it was packed. This is a picture of my Tia Ximena and abuelita Juana watching the show. After this we returned home for some drinks and headed off again to my Tio Pepe´s house where they were having a New Year´s party. We arrived there at 2:30 am and didn´t get back home until 6:30 am- the sun was already up when we finally went to bed. The next picture is of my Tio Pepe, his sons (my cousins) Ivan, Jose and Sebastian and his wife, Tia Anna. I met Ivan´s new family and some of my cousins´ friends, one of whom attended the Pearl Jam concert here in November.
Tonight we went to the house of my dad´s oldest brother, Tio Enrique, who has at least 35 people in his growing family. I (re)met them all tonight minus one cousin. I forgot my camera again but that´s ok because they´re ALL planning to come over here some time before I leave. So, I hope that everyone is well and also had eventful New Years celebrations.
Oh yeah, I´m going to have to take back #2 on the countdown list from the last entry as I learned that to "fulfill our obligation" to vote is more than just patriotic sentiment, turns out that if you don´t vote on the 15th you´re taken to jail or have to pay $50 USD if you know you´re not going to be in town. hahaha...(?). That´s ok though because I have a replacement:
#2 -There are 4 Quezada families within 10 minutes of each other and only one 5 passenger car between all of us. It´s quite a chore to stuff everyone in when we´re going some place. The record so far is 8 people, it was quite a sight.
Alright, until next time Dios te bendiga.