Pucon

First off, I hope everyone got a chance to check out my sister's awesome performance, if you didn't, go back one post, and check it out. I tried to add a picture of my sister, so everyone could get a feel for what she really looks like, but the Chilean computers said "no" (that's spanish) so here she is, now that I have my own computer.


and with no more adieu, my weekend in Pucon.


So for those of you that don't know, I turned 23, and yes that's how behind I am on my blog postings. This took place on a Thursday, however, a going out Wednesday was a must because I would spend my real birthday on an overnight bus.

We met up in Plaza Nunoa, and as per usual hung out in a park for a bit.

You reno folk may recognize some of these guys, I'm obviously the one on the right, then we have Max Will, and Jaron. Jaron isn't from reno, but he's cool anyway, so we let him slip through the cracks on this one.
We then got a bit more civilized, we walked over to an 'artesenal' essentially the Chilean equivalent of a micro brewery.

Alright beer, good atmosphere, and a good time with the friends.

The next day, Thursday, I woke up feeling great (not kidding, I felt great) I was supposed to be at school at 9:30, I woke up at 8:00 and still decided to not go to class, after all, it was my birthday. My family invited me to join them for a trip to a friend's pool.
It was a great relaxing day, we swam, played cards, and hung out. I also found a 4 leaf clover

and drank chocolate milk. For those of you that don't know me, I only drink these 4 items: Water, Beer, Chocolate Milk, G&T, and Coffee. It's probably in that order too. So this was a pretty big deal for me, my first chocolate milk in Chile. Yah, and it comes in bags. It's still delicious, just in a bag, possibly even more delicious than USA chocolate milk.

I took off a bit early from the pool party to play some disc. After frisbee, I bolted home on my bike, grabbed some dinner, and headed off to the bus station to meet the rest of the crew to head down to Pucon. This is how tired everyone was:

We arrived at our hostel, in Villarica, in the morning, half the kids were staying here, and the other half continued on to find lodging in Pucon. (1/2 hour more by bus) This is our hostel.

The hostel, La Torre Suisia, is run by a swiss couple that came to Chile on a bike tour at first and decided to open up a hostel. The woman is an extremely loud single minded swiss woman that seemed nice enough at first. By loud, I don't men that she talks all the time, it's just when she does, it's turned up to 11. The husband is a quieter person (especially compared to his wife) and is not willing to give me any advise on stuff to do or places to ride bikes, in any language. He speaks both English and Spanish. There was also this incredibly unintelligent and annoying British lady that was also staying there, she also took like 1hr 15min showers. There were only 2 showers for 30 or so beds. She has an interesting story that I will tell later, or not, because I don't want to think about her anymore. Anyway, her's a picture of the annoying British lady.


It may seem like I was in a bad mood or something, but the people that ran the hostel were only welcoming to their European clients, and the British lady was a horrible person.

We dropped our stuff at the hostel, grabbed some food, and my friends were willing to let me go into a bike shop that we found. I learned a lot there:When I had finished my Spanish bicycle education we decided to be more objective than following me into Chilean bike stores. We decided to make rafting an objective. For this we had to get to the town of Pucon from where our Hostel was in Villarica. Here's a picture of some gringos in Pucon:
And apparently this is how you "go for it" (we went for it)


So rafting consisted of paying about $18 US for 2 or so hours of water time on class 3 and 4 river with one class 5 that we would have to portage, and the guides did alone. So the first step was to get dressed in EXTREMELY weathered water gear, and helmets, lifejackets, water booties, the whole deal then...

we were loaded into a bus for an hour dressed like american gladiators

No nudity on this one, but still a large quantity of awesomeness

For those of you that don´t know, I have a sister. She´s 16 months older than me, and in school about 5 years older than me. She is studying in Texas (of all places) and has just finnished a recital that is pretty darn impressive.

So, everybody check out my sister, she´s the one in the blue.







And everyone should leave comments of great praze and amazement as to my sister´s awesomeness.

Large quantity of awesomeness, copyright infringement, and nudity.

Saturday after visiting the Neruda house, I figured it might be a good time to have some good old fun with some South American roller coasters. That's right, a theme park. How could you resist with a name like "Fantasialandia"? Actually one of the major reasons for going was; it was McKenzi's host family's cousin's last weekend in Santiago. He was here taking math classes, and has to return to southern Chile. He had never been on a roller coaster.

http://www.fantasilandia.cl


This is also the morning I caught a thief. I was on the subway, it was at least 900 degrees, and I saw a guy get on with a sweater. He then proceded to drape the sweater over his right arm to hide his arm, and buddied up next to this Chilean with a stroller. Questions I was asking myself:
Why is it so hot?
Why does he have a sweater?
Who the hell does that with a sweater?
I wonder if I can find a place to get coffee?
Is he really trying to rob that guy?
Does he know I'm searing at him?
Then out loud I said (in English, because I couldn't remember the words in Spanish, and I wanted to sound big and tall)
"What the hell are you trying to do"
He looked at me and proceded to "work" I then told him, "I was watching you" (in Spanish)
He continued. I then grabbed his arm, and told him, "you are bothering me" (again in spanish, I could have used some more manly words, but that's all that came out). He then ran...

What an amateur.

Now addressing the issues (or lack there of) of Large quantity of awesomeness, copyright infringement, and nudity. Oh yah, I almost forgot, zip ties, tons and tons of zip ties. Here's Andres, Mac, and Tati, out in front of Fantasialandia.

Tati's firs roller coaster.By the way, Tati is pretty tall, especially for a Chilean. he's like 6'4" or something, so together we stood out pretty well, and our heads on everything.

Inside the park everything became clear, they use whatever theme and attractions they want.
And yes they were playing the music from the movie, and quoting the movie. We didn't go on this ride, there were too many pirates.

Plush toys
they also had kellogs characters, Mickey Mouse, and other weird Chilean things. But all form of copyrighted cartoon character showed up here.

This next ride is called "Top Spin", because it 'spins', we'll address the 'Top' portion later. Here's Andres and McKenzi enjoying their time.
And here's why (I guess) they call it "Top Spin"
So... we've addressed copyright infringement, and nudity (for those that didn't notice the girl in the above photo had her top spun) and we still have to get to awesomeness and zip ties.

We'll start with awesomeness. these are a couple of USAC kids on the right, on the left is a pretty good screamer of a mullet.
Awesomeness!!!

Now this is a good use for zip ties, holding an umbrella for shade, no structural importance, not a whole lot that can fail and kill people.

These zip ties were holding together (in more places than one) the water raft ride, yes structural, yes they were holding together broken welds. We had already waited in line for like a half hour, so we decided to ride anyway.We lived.

Here's a picture with me in it.

All in all the park cost around $12 US. It was a pretty good time.

The next day, Sunday, McKenzie made lunch, it was AWESOME. We had cheese cake. Thanks again Mac, and Milena for letting us use your house!

Then I played frisbee.

McKenzi's host family also has a piano, I learned to play salsa on it but have since forgotten.

It's not even an Island

I know just yesterday I posted a man sized post, but I've got some time, so I figured I would let the stories continue flowing from my brain to my fingertips.

It has actually been 2, count them, 2 weeks time since the happenings I wrote about in yesterday's post. Since then much has happened, and much has changed. (Did anyone get the Obama reference?) Actually that happened before my last post, so I'll write about it anyway...

Inauguration day all the gringos went to 'the american bar' it's called 'Basic Bar', and it's situated in a central location that is more or less pretty difficult for all the USAC students to get to. It's run by an old USAC alumni from Reno, I guess. It's an OK place, nothing too special, except for the whole English language thing.

Here's some Reno guys, some of you may recognize them, Will and Max.
I miss you Sierra Nevada, there is NO pale ale down here. Also take note of Frances in the bottom right mirror. Hi Frances!!
Americans
Bret, Jaron, and myself


After the inauguration party, those of us that (thought we) lived close together took the bus. We ended up missing our stop by 5 or so blocks, getting a bit lost, and finally finding fascination in a very large door at the entrance of Rebecca's host family's apartment building.

About 2 hours after leaving the bar, I found myself finally in my bed. All in all it was an interesting night.

The weekend after our trip to Lonquimay I spent the weekend more or less in Santiago, It's been my first weekend in the city. Friday we all went to Pomaire and 'La Isla Negra' with the USAC program, and our director Luis.

Pomaire is a small town outside of Santiago known for their pottery especially that used to cook the traditional dish of 'Pastel de choclo' which is definitely delicious. They are also known to have resturants that serve 1kilo empenadas. That's 2.2 lbs of empenadas. I took this as a challenge.
And boy did I win, I ate the whole thing, the best part was I wasn't hungry all day after that.
This is Pomaire, it's a beautiful town with tons (literally) of pottery.
The next destination was 'La Isla Negra', a town on the coast, famous for the house of Pablo Neruda, one of Chile's and South America's most famous and well know poets. He's pretty good, he had 3 houses in Chile, Valpariso, Isla Negra, and Santiago. He also has one in France, but I dobut I'll get there on this trip. Here's his house in 'La Isla Negra'
Now, this town (La Isla Negra) translated means 'The Black Island" isn't even an island at all, it's just next to the ocean. It used to be called 'Seagull', but Pablo Neruda is such a cool guy that he re-named the town La Isla Negra.
Here's me hanging out with Pablo himself:
He wasn't actually that tall in real life, he was a short dude, otherwise he would have died from back pain from living in the houses he had.
A bunch of USAC folks hanging out just outside the house of Pablo Neruda, just above his final resting place.


What does this sign mean?
This is a famous metal sculpture outside of the Neruda's house.

This one of his bars that he had in his house, the guy knew how to party.He loved boats, and collected boat stuff, thus the masthead in the previous photo, he also had a room that was filled with them. Outside he had this structure, next to his boat that he never sailed.
He was burried at his favorite house with his favorite wife.


After the bus took us back to Santiago, I rode the bike home, and it was Mike's birthday. We celebrated in a fashion that made me feel a lot like I was at home.

We had some beers in a park. Illegal -I don't know, Fun - yes, Cheap - yes.
That's the birthday boy on the left there, Hi Mike, Happy birthday.

The rest of the weekend will come in a later post due to it's large quantity of awesomeness, copyright infringement, and nudity.