By Jonathon L., guest blogger studying Spanish and skiing in Santiago, Chile

For those who await my return in the states, I cannot wait to see you and hear about your amazing summers.  For those who I am leaving or will be leaving after a wonderful time in Chile, I love you the most (but not necessarily more than others). I will miss you like woah…and I apologize that this is in English and many of you may not be able to comprehend the words I am typing.

And of course, on a final note I want to take a moment to think about the significance of tomorrow.  Not only will I be departing a home that I have learned to love dearly over the past few weeks, but I will also be celebrating my birthday with them.   And because it is pretty amazing I want to share a quick tidbit of the previous years that have come before…

• 18th Birthday – UCLA Summer Orientation

• 19th Birthday – I think i was at summer school, but I am not sure

• 20th Birthday – Getting belligerated in Australia, after a “throwing some shrimp on the barbie”

• 21st Birthday – Celebrating my Final Day off from an amazing summer at Camp Towanga

• 22nd Birthday – My first week in my house in Redondo Beach only a few days after finishing TFA Summer Institute.

• 23rd Birthday – Tomorrow I will be in Chile, and then in Florida, and then by the 10th I should be in California. 

So despite never trying to make a big deal out of my special day, they have always been memorable, they have always been with people I love, and they always manage to capture some of the most significant aspects of that year of my life…

With love, and with great anticipation of further reflection of my voyages and the people who accompanied me, I cannot wait to go an enjoy the final 30 some hours of this country with some of the most beautiful people I have ever had the opportunity to meet/miss/love/enjoy/combat/disagre/agree/cry/laugh/smile/dance/snowboard/travel/adventure/grow with!

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By Jonathon L., guest blogger studying Spanish and skiing in Santiago, Chile

I am going to take the Dani Duran approach to starting this blog and see where that takes me:

This last week, I basically had to restart my Chile family experience because Morgan had returned to the states, Lauren was living it up in Uruguay and Buenos Aires, and for some ungodly reason, Clau (who normally works from home) happened to have one of her busy weeks where her trabajo is actually filming and she needs to be there to do her thing (I don’t think she is the star but she does some of the behind the scenes work…HOWEVER SHE COULD BE IF SHE WANTED TO!!!) 

So having the stilts who had lifted me up throughout my Chilean youth (the first three weeks), I entered into adulthood like a true Gringo…calling my family occasionally, and thinking of them as we separated physically…However I still had my Chilean mama and papa and max and the occassional Clau/extended family members (Pato, Andreina etc.) who came in for dinner and a laugh from time to time, so I turned to a new source of love and affection, and found it at my school.  The staff, fellow students and I had all grown fond of each other and they became like a second family to me.  (Including of course my 3rd family, who now consisted of two new sisters….never a brother…come on boys, you gotta get out more and travel…)  And throughout this week, I entered what all Tawongans know is the window of vulnerability.  That time in your life, where you are anticipating a big change, and you tend to let your emotions get the best of you from time to time. 

Despite my two new sisters bringing completely new personalities to the table, and sweet loving kindness to the family (albeit in their own less-traditional ways) My heart was not ready to open up to them in the way it had for the first three weeks.  While last night, we all curled up into my old king size bed, to look at photos, and google map the places where we grew up!  And while my new family may not be the unified indestructable force my previous one was, they are once again my family and we do make a fairly interesting team, to say the least.??But I think what really sealed the deal for my week was my fourth week of school.  I took an afternoon class, and a morning class but between my 8 hours of class each day of this past week, I went to lunch everyday with amazing people, jammed during recesses, shared our stories, opinions and jokes, and feared the upcoming end of the week where people would leave because, while we are all happy in our everyday life, we are also happy here, and CHANGE IS SCARY, but like in bunjee jumping, snowboarding and (one day) acupuncture, facing my fears has always been one of the most important elements of my personal growth.

So, I am feeling reminiscent of this last week, as it was an entirely different experience from the previous weeks, while the things I did were fairly identical.  Class, lunch with other students, snowboarding, Miércoles Po!, and of course the Almuerzo despedido on friday afternoon.  However, this time I was saying my goodbyes to a staff of teachers, administrators, tutors and students who I had grown to love, and I could tell from their uncomfortable laughter, that I too was a valued member of the family.  Within my four weeks in Chile, I have learned to love 3 very different very wonderful families.  I have learned to cope better with change, however as I am about 30 hours from my final “chau” in this wonderful country, I find myself nervously awaiting the return of one of the original sisters (and Clau being done with work) and for one night and the better part of one day, I will learn to love a new combination of the same people who have made this month incredibly memorable!

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By Jonathon L., guest blogger studying Spanish and skiing in Santiago, Chile

As I sit here in bed, my body aches from snowboarding yesterday, my mind aches from the thought of leaving Chile (despite the fact that I am coming home to wonderful people, and exciting things that I get/have to do) and my wallet aches, just a little, after spending $30 for a salmon lunch on the mountain.  But after all, I am coming back from traveling so I have no excuse not to be BROKE:

- Physically
- Emotionally
- Financially

Because, as I have discussed with some of my fellow skiers, those are kind of essential characteristics for someone returning from abroad.

So where did I leave off?

Well, lets start with the fact that exactly a week ago, yesterday, I said goodbye to my first Chilean friend (well half-Chilean) as she got in a car with her family to fly back to Mississippi to continue law school in Indiana (Ya, I remembered!).

But before we let Morgan leave, we had a few adventures together!  We sumitted the top of Cerro San Cristobal, which is only about a 30 minute walk (on the way down) but took us about 2-3 hours on the way up…because we stopped for a picnic lunch…The we made our way to the artisan markets of Santa Lucia and Bella Vista where we windowshopped and real shopped for some touristy/artsy/authentic Chilean gear.

The next day, on Morgan’s final morning, we returned to Santa Lucia, not to shop (well maybe a little), but to climb the small hill that surrounds it to get to the top of a castle like fortress with treacherous (and slippery) stairs to reach the top of a pillar where we had a 360 degree view of the city…and all of its smoggy goodness..

After that (or before..I don’t truly remember the little details), we went to the amazing museum underneath LA MONEDA (the Chilean White House) where we saw heart wrenching photos of some of the children and lifestyles of South America. The pictures were next to each other in a very dramatic fashion. The first one to catch my eye (and my heart) had a 6-7 seven year old playing in the street, with a gun, pointed directly at the camera (audience).  Which then drew my attention to the neighboring photo where 3 kids were sitting and hanging out, while a blanket covered up what could only be the remains of one of their friends, lying in the street a few meters back.

We left the photos for a more inspirational (positive) exhibit…and because we had stared at each one for more time than was necessary to let them sink in, but not long enough to every be comfortable with the sights being depicted…but we meandered our way over to the other exhibits where “REHECHO in CHILE” showed how a group of artists took garbage (computer parts, the tops to soda bottles, SHOPPING BAGS) and turned them into swingsets, shoes, jewelry and more…(Look them up on Facebook!)

And we left the musuem…to do God knows what…because I don’t think we went straight home, I can check the photos later…but the important thing is that we eventually made it home, where Morgan’s parents (who were visiting Chile at the time) were packing up the last of their gifts and we sat down for our final despidida (farewell and also lunch in this case).

With tears in our eyes and love in our hearts, we unofficially planned our reunion in California during Morgan’s spring break, where we would all get together for more good times, song-singing, sock knitting, non-black tea drinking, judgement-free, family-esque fun. 

So my blog that was supposed to cover a full week, to about 40 minutes to capture 2 days of farewell….so what comes next in Part 2?  Well after a bathroom break, a cup of Mate and whatever I can put down on e-paper before running out to enjoy my final full day in this country….

Chao for now!

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So, since my first trip since I got lost-ish at El Colorado, I have returned to El Colorado, and visited Valley Nevado twice.  The snow dumped and poured for the first two trips, and I had the opportunity to shred through some awesome powpow ("Nieve Virgen", or fresh snow) as we were among the only people on the mountain for these two, low visibility, high-awesomeness days.

The reason there wasn't anyone on the mountains is that the one windy road that takes us from Santiago to the slopes is pretty much worthless when the weather is sub par. People (busses) don’t put on their chains, and then they spin out and block traffic, and the one hour trip suddenly becomes a 5 hour trip as we navigate the 40+ hairpin turns to take us to the mountain.  But luckily, every time that I have been stuck on a long car ride to the snow, I have been able to catch up on some much needed sleep!  Two days ago, on my most recent trip to Valle Nevado, all the powder from the weekend before was gone, but despite only having groomers and hardpack snow, the sunshine and lack of clouds offered me the Bluebird day at Valle Nevado that I needed so that in one day I could hit EVERY lift (and pretty much every run) on the mountain!

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By Jonathon L., guest blogger studying Spanish and skiing in Santiago, Chile

Sample Day of class, and despite not sleeping much the night before, and the mild 'terremoto' in my head, it was a pretty awesome lesson overall.

First Hour: 9ish-10:30ish:  Class starts with the profesor (profe for short) asking us what we did last night, (Que cuentas?) and yesterday afternoon?  Who went out, who is tired now, did you go anywhere special, do anything touristy and so on…but all in Spanish.  We then went over our homework in pairs; reading through each other’s plans for the upcoming year and then sharing what we learned about our partner with the class.

The second half of the first block involved another partner activity, where the professor handed out 3 pictures; one of nixon, one of a woman with her head against a wall (the Berlin wall to be specific), and one of the Beatles practicing.  He also gave us about 20 strips on paper with words on them.  We had to sort through the strips and organize them, so that we would have the 3 paragraphs that go with the 3 pictures.  This gave us a chance to interact with the spanish, learn new vocabulary, and also refresh the present continuous.  After this is was pretty much time for recess.

Recess involves hanging out in the central room, drinking tea or coffee and snacking on sandwhiches (bread with butter or when we are lucky bread with dulce de leche).

After enough time to relax and socialize with our friends, we returned to our class (which has about 7 people and one teacher (profé)

2nd Hour: 11ish-11:50ish: This is always the hardest hour, the newness of the day is over, the excitement of the start of class has dwelled, and that sandwhich just wasn’t enough food to hold you over for the next two hours, so I sit staring at my tea (in part for nurture in part for warmth) as the prof starts to go over the next activity…which was just what I needed to get out of the second hour funk: Charades.  We were each given a strip of paper that had a sentence along the lines of “I was doing X until Y happened.  As each person acted out their sentence, we had to guess what they had, while conjugating our verbage appropriately in the preterite and imperfect continous tenses.  My sentences was “I was shopping in the supermarket, until I ran into my Spanish Teacher.”  —Not to hard to act out.

Then we separated into to groups, the police and the suspects, and we did an activity where the suspects had about 10 minutes to collaborate on a their alibi for the previous night, and then the police interview them one by one to see if everyone has the same story.  As the police collaborated, the suspects realized they had won, in that all of us were able to remember our alibi (of going to the park, then taking the metro to school, then doing homework at school, then going for Pizza in the town, followed by a movie ‘Superman’) and as a result EVERYBODY WINS!!!! 

Time for recess number 2…only 10 minutes or so, but just enough to stretch and ask Philipe (the social events coordinator) what the event was for tonight (terrimotos so I passed…because I had gone out for them the previous night and had big plans for the next day), and where I would be going snowboarding the next day.

12ish-1ish marks the 3rd hour where we practiced vocabulary regarding the home and the things we find in there.  We then had to use this vocabulary to describe our own home (in Chile) and rank it on categories of Location, Facilities, Decoration, Price, and Hospitality and use the accurate vocabulary to defend our rankings as we shared in pairs.  This, mixed with some worksheets to help us learn the vocabulary took up the entire third hour (which always goes by faster than the second…even though I am pretty sure the second is shorter) and we were left with our tarea – to write one paragraph describing our homes.

Then the prof dismissed us and we dispersed into the streets of Santiago and I went back home early to spend some time with my Chilean family (we went to the market and watched movies, and I napped A LOT) and had an excellent dinner before packing up for snowboarding the next day!

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By Jonathon L., guest blogger studying Spanish and skiing in Santiago, Chile

WHAT A TRIP IT WAS!!! 

So the day started with me waking up at about 6:40 in the morning to my Chilean Mama with my breakfast ready to go, and tea!!! I dragged my bag (with wheels) the 30 minutes to my school to meet the drivers who would drive me and one other student (Tim, from Texas) to the mountain, El Colorado.

However, in the vicinity of El Colorado, there are 3 other mountains, and there was a bit of confusion about which one we were going to (I still want to go to Valle Nevada, but that is for another day, and a little bit today, read more and find out!!!). But while Tim was renting his skis, I sorted out the destination business, by standing around and waiting for the people in charge (which were the drivers, no one from the school comes except the students, and there were only 2 of us this time).  But after Tim rented his skis, they loaded tons of people into the vans to take us to our various destinations.

We spent the morning exploring el Colorado, and it was fun.  We kept away from the park because it was early in my season (DAY 1), and the park wasn’t for Tim.  But after a while, we were running out of runs.  So we stopped for a quick lunch, (a snickers bar and an oatmeal raisin cookie) and then I said I wanted to go check out the park. 

As we looked longingly at the small terrain park on the left side of the mountain, Tim noticed some runs (another backside?) just a few meters past the park.  So, we decided to check these out before tearing up some terrain.

In true "Go big or go home" sprit, we put the pedal to the metal as we traversed left along the mountain.  A little too far left, and as we sidewinded away from El Colorado. We eventually arrived at the next closest lift, Which was a completely different resort- “LA PARVA”.

It took some time to negotiate our way into getting back up the mountain, but eventually the manager gave in and let us PURCHASE some lift tickets (because our El Colorado lift tickets were no good here).  But this sarcasm (and about $60 total) aside, Tim and I were on our way back up the hill.  The alternative was to walk about 40 minutes through the streets back to the parking lot of El Colorado.  Oops!

The important thing is that we made it back to the van, ready for a nap, 1 minute before it was time to leave!

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