After this you will officially be caught up with the life of Wayne, and Blogasarus is doing it's job

So the program has ended. I have struggled through one more semester of school. I have hung up my bike shoes, and put my helmet down for the next month. The Sister, and The Old Man are here, and we're headed out in the morning...

Here's the count for the semester:
Flat tires -4
Broken Spokes - 1
Me hitting car (my fault) - 1
Car hitting me (their fault) - 1
New friends (estimated) - 75
People I NEVER want to see EVER again - 1 (and it's not the person that hit me)
Times I have ridden the metro - 45
Money spent on cell phone (here) - $30US
Weekends spent in the city - 2
Photos taken thus far - 5924 (true story)
Time here - 4 months
That's about boils down to an average of 40 photos a day.

Anywho, I have one more month here, bellow the equator. Our plan is as follows.
We plan on leaving here (Santiago) tomorrow (Monday the 10th) and heading for Mendoza Argentina. From there, we will travel our way north in Argentina untill we just about hit the Bolivian border. We will then head back over the Andes toward San Pedro de Atacama, In chile. From there it's north again. Kick it for a weekend or so with my buddy, Bret, in the north and surf. Then head into Peru, do the Machu Pichu thing, lake Titicaca, and then head back down to Santiago.

That's our very rough plan. From here the blog posts will be shorter and more sparse, however hopefully equally as entertaining.

At this point the adventure should really start, now that I have liberated myself from the oppression of the education system, and can finally open my wings of exploration, to see the big shinny world that is out there for the taking.

As we were helping my sister decide what, of the 3 bags she brought, would go into the one bag for our adventure, my sister said this:

"There's nothing mysterious about women... they just expect things"
-Theresa Smith-

and that's all I have to say about that.

now, for the first week that school was out I went down to Chiloe with Steve.
We flew from Santiago to Puerto Mont, spent one night there in an incredibly musty and smoky hostel, we did get to watch Wallace and Gromit in Spanis, and the beds were big (atleast mine was)
This little guy I found in the morning,

3rd wheel attack room if I've ever seen on. Could you imagine renting this room with a friend and a significant other. It would be like all sleeping together, but not.
For those having trouble it says "Nuts 5 Nuts" this is a Chilean franchise that has derived from another franchise called "Nuts 4 Nuts" which makses sense. This however does not.We finally arrived in Castro (a town) Chilloe, near the fishing boats Steve and I found these guys selling ceviche. that's literally all we ate here, we stayed for 3 days.

Does this appeal to anyone?

The island of Chilloe is famous for its old wooden churches, some dating back to the 1700s. This is one of them. This one is the oldest with a birthdate of 1730. Oh yah, and it's only wood, they didn't even use nails. Seriously
Steve with his huge plate of death. It cost $5 US.
Another wooden church, a bit newer, they used nails on this one.
Castro's "wooden" church. it's actually wood (covered with metal) but it's still labeled as a wooden church. This is decidedly the most colorful, and coolest of the churches. Great work Castro.

This is at the enterence to our hostel. On the right... Martial Arts of Castro. On the left... hostel.

Boats at night.
We stayed a night in a town called Dalcalhue, or something like that. The entire building had 6'4" ceilings, except in the shower, it got a bit shorter in there. Yes I did shower. no it wasn't worth it.
Good view from an Island of an Island.
The dock was linned with tires, that's not that unusual, in fact, it's a good idea but...

They were NEW tires. When I asked my host mom why they did this she simply replied "because we're Chileans"



This was the ONLY decoration in the hostel in Castro where we stayed, it's a turtle.

This is the Ocean, on the west side of the island.


Brightly colored wooden church, taken from the bus.

Yes, they are selling matches with a FREE bottle of wine. Good idea?


That about sums it up. All except for the day we got to spend with Lia, and her Dad from the states. Thanks again for tollerating us Lia, and it was great to get to know your dad.

Lia eating sea urchin her dad behind her.

Steve and I returned to Santiago after 6 days down south, and the next morning I went to get the Old Man and the Sister.

Last, but not Least,

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

To all the mothers out there, but especially mine, mostly because she rocks just that much. Thanks for everything Mom, I love you.