Chileen in Chile

Hello hello hello!!! After my week long hiatus, I return with plenty of new stamps in my passport! Last Thursday, six of the Jumbos in Chile headed out for a week long journey to Peru. (Due to different schedule preferences and flight plans, the other portion of the group left on Sunday). Our fun adventure began in the Santiago airport when we realized that, when leaving Chile, you have to go through backward customs. How fun is that? Well not so fun when you don't have the PDI paper that word on the street is that you need to leave and then return to the country! But only 33.333333 (repeating)% of our group had said paper so the other 2/3 of us hedged our bets knowing there was absolutely nothing we could do at that point, accepting possible detainment. I rolled up to the PDI officer (kind of like the FBI of Chile but also still considered half of the chilean police force) a little nervous with all forms of documentation I could produce. He made a joke about my last name ( "...

I come to you from Santiago on a rainy Sunday listening to Bohemian Rhapsody because the music tastes of both Maria and Polo the pololo are starting to rub off on me (especially after hearing them on the brand new loud speaker that was purchased for the sole purpose of improving karaoke nights). Happy first week of school to my Bo's back in Medford and happy move in day to my once second formers out in the 01450 who are now 5th FORMERS (!?!?!). Santiago got a break from the 15 Jumbos this weekend as we headed out to Valparaíso for Friday and Saturday. You may remember this city from previous blogs as we visited during our initial orientation weeks (remember the rooms of the diputados and senadores  and their backdrops made from different forms of copper?) But this time we went back with a day of freedom to explore this incredibly colorful city on our own and stay at AN ECO HOSTEL. First compost bin in Chile has officially been seen and used. I was giddy as I popped my pear core...

Second time in the desert in 3 weeks? SIGN ME UP! A group of 6 Jumbos in Chile along with one friend on the American University program in Chile hit the road to head up to Caldera, a famous destination for being one of the closest cities to El Desierto Florido (The Flowering Desert). This wild phenomenon occurs unreliably every two or three years following abnormally large amounts of rain due to El Niño. The last flowering was in 2015, but this year's bloom has hit news outlets around the word for its exceptional display (to all my French speakers out there, check out the article my wonderful Aunt Heidi sent me:  http://positivr.fr/desert-atacama-chili-millions-fleurs-pluies-el-nino/ ). A lot of this has to do with, ¡¡¡WAIT FOR IT!!!, the blizzard that hit Santiago when we arrived in July. What was snow to us was rain for the desert. The 7 of us moseyed on over to Estación Central to catch our overnight bus from Santiago to Caldera on Thursday night. Never having been on such a f...