Hellooo!
It rained last night and today for the first time since we've been here. Apparently, it's the beginning of the rainy season which runs from June to July. I{m not sure how I feel about this, but what can you do?
Today in class we learned how to use the past, present coninuous, and future tense. This is very exciting because now we'll be able to make sentences that are more advanced than the first grade level. Steve and I have decided that we'll give Kareem one week, and then we will speak only in Spanish starting next Friday.
Dinner was an adventure today. We bought what appeared to be a chicken sausage. Unfortunately, things are not always what they seem. We did our best to cook it and then we ate it. I'm still not sure what it was, but it definately wasn't a sausage. We might go vegan from here on out.
Tomorrow we're catching a bus to the Santiago airport at 5:20am to pick up our traveling companion. This means that we're supposed to get up at 4am (AM!!) and then taking a taxi to the terminal. This is not a problem for Steve because he is a Lark (for all you med school or psych folks out there) and he is asleep already and has been for the past hour (Darned larks. He wakes up singing every morining too. I'm serious). I should be asleep too, except I'm an Owl and I can't sleep this early.
Nevermind. Steve is awake now because the upstairs neighbors have decided that now is a good time to start drilling things. Maybe they're owls too.
I'm sure you've heard this all before and you probably won't believe me, but pictures should be up soon now that Kareem is bringing us a cable. Really, truly this time!
Anyway that's today. More tomorrow.
Good night!
Janet and Steve
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
May 30
Hola!
Kareem, our love, we hope you read this before you leave. We hope you've finished packing by now. Have a safe journey to Atlanta and Santiago, CHILE!! Don't get too bored/lonely in Atlanta. We'll meet you at the airport on Friday. If you don't see me and Steve in that crowd of people when you are leaving customs, just wait for us; we'll be there soon. Whatever you do, DO NOT get into anyone's 'taxi' because then we may not ever see you again and then what will we do with the rest of our lives? Can't wait to see you!
Anyway, the rat did not bother us last night, thank goodness. It's lucky we didn't get our hands on it.
Today was a regular day. We went to school and learned stuff. Then we had lunch and looked up information about wine tours. We think we found a good one not too far from Valparaiso and Santiago, so we made a reservation. I'm excited. I'm thinking we might make a weekend trip out of it, but that's for Kareem and Steve and I to discuss when our precious cargo arrives Friday.
For dinner, Steve made hash browns and it was delicious. He's going to make a lucky girl deliriously happy someday.
So that was our day. Nothing too exciting except of course that we are in Chile and Kareem isn't. The rat is just excited to still be alive.
Kisses,
Janet and Steve
Kareem, our love, we hope you read this before you leave. We hope you've finished packing by now. Have a safe journey to Atlanta and Santiago, CHILE!! Don't get too bored/lonely in Atlanta. We'll meet you at the airport on Friday. If you don't see me and Steve in that crowd of people when you are leaving customs, just wait for us; we'll be there soon. Whatever you do, DO NOT get into anyone's 'taxi' because then we may not ever see you again and then what will we do with the rest of our lives? Can't wait to see you!
Anyway, the rat did not bother us last night, thank goodness. It's lucky we didn't get our hands on it.
Today was a regular day. We went to school and learned stuff. Then we had lunch and looked up information about wine tours. We think we found a good one not too far from Valparaiso and Santiago, so we made a reservation. I'm excited. I'm thinking we might make a weekend trip out of it, but that's for Kareem and Steve and I to discuss when our precious cargo arrives Friday.
For dinner, Steve made hash browns and it was delicious. He's going to make a lucky girl deliriously happy someday.
So that was our day. Nothing too exciting except of course that we are in Chile and Kareem isn't. The rat is just excited to still be alive.
Kisses,
Janet and Steve
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Continue..
Well....Today was not that exciting, except for the fact that we have to get to school by 9am, and we dont have an alarm clock, so we woke up´around 8:30. Janet and I have been waking up with the sun, but for some reason the sun had no effect today.
So we went to school a little late, and that was okay because our teacher was getting on the elevator when we were getting on it.
Oh something kind of funny from last night, (maybe this is why we didnt get up until 8:30); we were studying in our bedroom, and we heard something crawling around... it sounded like a large varmit, something along the size of a New York City Sewer Rat or a Small Perror (dog) (lucy). Anyways, I was prepared to kill it with my bare hands, but Janet reassured me she was a highly trained rat-professional, who spent the last year before medical school dissecting rats' intestines. Well as time went on we didnt hear the varmit anymore, so I am assuming the Rat knew who he was up against and left us alone. But I am sure he is thinking there is always tonight. So we will see.
Anyways, not much else happened today. Please feel free to comment, so that we dont feel like we are writing to outerspace. I will try to get a picture of the rat and post it if I can.
Thanks for reading this junk,
Steve and Janet
So we went to school a little late, and that was okay because our teacher was getting on the elevator when we were getting on it.
Oh something kind of funny from last night, (maybe this is why we didnt get up until 8:30); we were studying in our bedroom, and we heard something crawling around... it sounded like a large varmit, something along the size of a New York City Sewer Rat or a Small Perror (dog) (lucy). Anyways, I was prepared to kill it with my bare hands, but Janet reassured me she was a highly trained rat-professional, who spent the last year before medical school dissecting rats' intestines. Well as time went on we didnt hear the varmit anymore, so I am assuming the Rat knew who he was up against and left us alone. But I am sure he is thinking there is always tonight. So we will see.
Anyways, not much else happened today. Please feel free to comment, so that we dont feel like we are writing to outerspace. I will try to get a picture of the rat and post it if I can.
Thanks for reading this junk,
Steve and Janet
DAY 11
Sorry about not getting the pictures posted lastnight. We could not find a cable that would fit our digital cameras. So we will have to wait until Kareem gets here on Friday to attempt to post the pictures. Sorry.
Anyways, please keep on reading.... and leave comments.
Steve and Janet.
Anyways, please keep on reading.... and leave comments.
Steve and Janet.
Monday, May 28, 2007
DAY 10
Wow, we cant believe it is day 10 already.. anyways....
LOOK HERE TONIGHT FOR SOME PICTURES WE HAVE BEEN TAKING! WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO POST THEM TONIGHT. ALSO LOOK HERE TONIGHT FOR THE NEXT POST FROM TODAY!
Steve and Janet
By the way, we cant wait to eat American Food again.
Hamburgers, doritos, Olive Garden, CheeseCake Factory... It is amazing what you miss when you cant have it.
LOOK HERE TONIGHT FOR SOME PICTURES WE HAVE BEEN TAKING! WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO POST THEM TONIGHT. ALSO LOOK HERE TONIGHT FOR THE NEXT POST FROM TODAY!
Steve and Janet
By the way, we cant wait to eat American Food again.
Hamburgers, doritos, Olive Garden, CheeseCake Factory... It is amazing what you miss when you cant have it.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
DAY 9
Hello everyone,
Well today was very interesting. Janet and I got up kind of late, somewhere around 10:00, (which is the same time as the East Coast in the US). We had some breakfast, then went about our day. We were planning to study Spanish all day, however the library was not open, and the school is closed on the weekends. There are not that many places to study, so we decided to take the train to the town next to ValParaiso. The town is called Vina Del Mar, and appartnely it is a tourist hot spot during the warmer months. (It is winter here.)
The train was actually pretty nice, however you had to purchase a train card for like 1000.00 pesos, (which sounds like alot, but it is only two dollars.), Then you had to purchase your ticket, which for Janet and I, was a combined price of 740 pesos, which is slightly over a dollar. So it is extremely Cheap.
After about a 20 minute train ride, we arrived in Vina Del Mar. This town is gorgeous. It is similar to Val Paraiso, but about 40 times more clean. The rich chileans have their vacation homes here, and it appears to be well kept because alot of toursist come here. We decided when we got there to go directly to the beach, (La Playa), because it was a very nice day out. After walking through countless street vendors we arrived at the famous beach of Vina Del Mar, which as pretty nice. Janet and I took a short little nap on the beach, or atleast I did, and then we walked around downtown Vina Del Mar.
By this time it was gettin a little late, so we got back on the train and arrived back in dirty Val Paraiso. And that was that. Now Janet has dinner prepared...so I gotta go.
Kareem: The house we are living at gave us a group deal. For 4 weeks (4 semanas), it is 80,000.00 Pesos. or Ochenta Mil Pesos. This is equivalent to 160.00 US dollars. So you really cant beat that. Plus the lady here, really has helped with the spanish, and she also does out laundry. So it is really a great deal. You cant find much cheaper then that. 160.00 for 4 weeks is really good. Its actually less than 160.00 because 1 us dollar is 520 pesos.
Anyways gotta run,
Steve and Janet
Well today was very interesting. Janet and I got up kind of late, somewhere around 10:00, (which is the same time as the East Coast in the US). We had some breakfast, then went about our day. We were planning to study Spanish all day, however the library was not open, and the school is closed on the weekends. There are not that many places to study, so we decided to take the train to the town next to ValParaiso. The town is called Vina Del Mar, and appartnely it is a tourist hot spot during the warmer months. (It is winter here.)
The train was actually pretty nice, however you had to purchase a train card for like 1000.00 pesos, (which sounds like alot, but it is only two dollars.), Then you had to purchase your ticket, which for Janet and I, was a combined price of 740 pesos, which is slightly over a dollar. So it is extremely Cheap.
After about a 20 minute train ride, we arrived in Vina Del Mar. This town is gorgeous. It is similar to Val Paraiso, but about 40 times more clean. The rich chileans have their vacation homes here, and it appears to be well kept because alot of toursist come here. We decided when we got there to go directly to the beach, (La Playa), because it was a very nice day out. After walking through countless street vendors we arrived at the famous beach of Vina Del Mar, which as pretty nice. Janet and I took a short little nap on the beach, or atleast I did, and then we walked around downtown Vina Del Mar.
By this time it was gettin a little late, so we got back on the train and arrived back in dirty Val Paraiso. And that was that. Now Janet has dinner prepared...so I gotta go.
Kareem: The house we are living at gave us a group deal. For 4 weeks (4 semanas), it is 80,000.00 Pesos. or Ochenta Mil Pesos. This is equivalent to 160.00 US dollars. So you really cant beat that. Plus the lady here, really has helped with the spanish, and she also does out laundry. So it is really a great deal. You cant find much cheaper then that. 160.00 for 4 weeks is really good. Its actually less than 160.00 because 1 us dollar is 520 pesos.
Anyways gotta run,
Steve and Janet
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Day 8
Hello,
Today is our one week anniversary of arriving in Valparaiso! Happy Anniversary Steve and Janet! Thank you, you too!
Sorry for the delay. The thing is we'd been staying in a hostel for a few days for like $10 a day which is not bad for a hostel, but then we found out from our Spanish teacher that a lot of people rent out rooms in their houses to university students for super cheap, so we spend all Thursday afternoon looking for a new place. It was pretty intense and stressful. At one point, we went into a hostel call Casa Liesel to ask about a room and the manager was German. Since I spoke German better than we spoke Spanish, I had to talk to him in German. It was pretty funny that the first time I've ever used my German was in Chile. Finally after about 5 hours running around the hills we found a place in a University professor and her son's house. I think we're going to like it a lot better because it's really close to the school and it's in a much cooler neighborhood called Cerro Allegre which is one of the more famous hills of Valparaiso. It's also close to our new favorite restaraunt called Empanadas Delicio (which serves delicious empanadas of course). Kareem, we hope you like it here. We don't have a computer availale at all times so our posts might be a little more sparse from now on. The professor keeps trying to speak Spanish to us, but we don't really understand everything. For example when we first got here, she was telling us about her hamsters. All we were able to pick out was that one is named Romeo and the other is Poroto. Another one was called Juliet, but we think she told us that Juliet is dead.
Other than that, school has been going... ok. We've learned how to roll our R's very well. We're trying to learn as fast as we can, but it's hard. Hopefully we'll start picking it up a little faster next week. We've decided on a good name for Kareem when he gets here though. He'll probably hate it, but it suits him.
Today, we decided to just take it easy. We studied a bit at the library we worked so hard to find and poke around Cerro Alegre a little. We had dinner at another cool little cafe we found where there were literally only two people running the whole place (mom and pop I presume). Tomorrow we're probably going to study a bit more or may go to Vina del Mar. We'll post again as soon as we can.
Oh, and Steve bought a hat. He thinks it makes him look even more Chilean than he already does.
Love, Janet and Steve
Today is our one week anniversary of arriving in Valparaiso! Happy Anniversary Steve and Janet! Thank you, you too!
Sorry for the delay. The thing is we'd been staying in a hostel for a few days for like $10 a day which is not bad for a hostel, but then we found out from our Spanish teacher that a lot of people rent out rooms in their houses to university students for super cheap, so we spend all Thursday afternoon looking for a new place. It was pretty intense and stressful. At one point, we went into a hostel call Casa Liesel to ask about a room and the manager was German. Since I spoke German better than we spoke Spanish, I had to talk to him in German. It was pretty funny that the first time I've ever used my German was in Chile. Finally after about 5 hours running around the hills we found a place in a University professor and her son's house. I think we're going to like it a lot better because it's really close to the school and it's in a much cooler neighborhood called Cerro Allegre which is one of the more famous hills of Valparaiso. It's also close to our new favorite restaraunt called Empanadas Delicio (which serves delicious empanadas of course). Kareem, we hope you like it here. We don't have a computer availale at all times so our posts might be a little more sparse from now on. The professor keeps trying to speak Spanish to us, but we don't really understand everything. For example when we first got here, she was telling us about her hamsters. All we were able to pick out was that one is named Romeo and the other is Poroto. Another one was called Juliet, but we think she told us that Juliet is dead.
Other than that, school has been going... ok. We've learned how to roll our R's very well. We're trying to learn as fast as we can, but it's hard. Hopefully we'll start picking it up a little faster next week. We've decided on a good name for Kareem when he gets here though. He'll probably hate it, but it suits him.
Today, we decided to just take it easy. We studied a bit at the library we worked so hard to find and poke around Cerro Alegre a little. We had dinner at another cool little cafe we found where there were literally only two people running the whole place (mom and pop I presume). Tomorrow we're probably going to study a bit more or may go to Vina del Mar. We'll post again as soon as we can.
Oh, and Steve bought a hat. He thinks it makes him look even more Chilean than he already does.
Love, Janet and Steve
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Moving Day
Hello everyone,
Sorry today is not going to be a long post. We are moving to another house because the living situation is better as well as cheaper. So look for a new post sometime tomorrow. Our new house does not have a computer, but our school does and we are going to try to use that one.
Anyways, Thanks for reading,
Steve and Janet
Sorry today is not going to be a long post. We are moving to another house because the living situation is better as well as cheaper. So look for a new post sometime tomorrow. Our new house does not have a computer, but our school does and we are going to try to use that one.
Anyways, Thanks for reading,
Steve and Janet
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Day 5
Hello!
We woke up bright and early today again to get ready for the first day of school take two! Steve always gets the first shower in the morning and says that the water is barely lukewarm. That´s too bad for him, because he warms up the water for me so that by the time I get in the shower, it´s so hot I can almost swim through the steam. Haha. Steve is a good friend.
Ok, so we woke up, Steve had a cold shower, I had a hot shower, we had coffee and breakfast. Then we had to find a bank with a good exchange rate so we could pay the teacher. That went fairly well except we couldn´t understand the guy behind the desk and just signed and put our fingerprints on papers whatever he pointed at us. So we may have promised away our first children and/or unwittingly enlisted in the Chilean army.
Back at school, Steve as you may know has already had six years of Spanish and I´ve had about 3 hours. As you can imagine, I was lost a lot. So Steve got a gold star for today and I sat in the corner with a dunce cap. Poor me. We learned some basics like how to conjugate "to be" etc. We also learned the names of body parts which should come in handy later. Steve also learned some naughty words. I told him they were inappropriate, but to no avail.
Afterwards we went out to find lunch. We´d heard a dish called chupe de locos (abolone bread pudding according to the internet) was quite good so we walked to the ocean to find a place that served it. I thought it was great, but Steve thought it was.... okay. Actually I´m pretty sure he despised it and now he despises me. I know I´m going to be punished for this for a while. I guess I´ll have to make it up to him by starting tomorrow morning with a cold shower. Anyway, time for a little studying before bed. I want a gold star too.
Love, Janet and Steve
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Day 4
Family, Friends, and Lovers and Steve´s Family, Friends, and Lovers:
It´s just Janet today. Steve has sustained a mild injury to his knee which he rates as a 4 on a scale of 0-10. After extensive testing and a thorough history, we suspect it may be his Osgood-Schlatter Disease acting up again after many years of quiescence. Steve´s family, friends, and lovers will be proud to know that he is taking it like a man and I had no idea he was in almost constant pain today until he told me. Anyway, he´s resting in bed a bit. I so admire Steve´s stoicism that I´ve decided to stop complaining about walking an average of 7 hours a day unless something starts hurting more than a 5.
Ok, so it wasn´t really our first day of school today. We were up and at 'em at 7:30 today to get ready for school. (Oh by the way, we have a nice little ritual in which we start and end each day with a cup of tea which we drink on a little road over-looking the city and ocean a block away from the hostel. How awesome is that?) We talked to one of the teachers and worked out a loose schedule for classes in which we start tomorrow. The school is called Natalis and it´s based in Santiago. The Valparaiso branch is new, so there´s very few students (right now it´s just us) and only about 2 teachers, so it looks like it´s going to be very flexible and pretty much one-on-one. So we´re pretty excited about learning Spanish. Oh, one of the teachers told Steve that he looks very Chilean and Steve thinks this is pretty cool and tells me that he would be able to blend in except for the fact that he´s with me.
After that, we decided we were feeling ambitious enough to re-tackle our failed mission of finding the library which it turns out is way the heck all the way over by the Bus station at the other end of the city. It was kind of a cool little building but still pretty small. Still, it should be a nice little place to study Spanish later. We then walked to the ocean and found the pier where the cruise ships dock during Chilean summer (our winter).
By this time, it was about lunchtime, so we decided we were going to look for a cool little cafe and splurge a bit. Steve told me that I had to pick the place. Well, I´ve been told that I´m a wee-bit indecisive and that may be a wee-bit true, because I didn´t decide on a place for lunch until about 2pm. It was a really cool, hole-in-the-wall restaurant. For about $5 we got bread, soup, salad, a main course (fried fish or beef with potatoes), ice cream, coffee, a drink called pino sour (or something), and a shot of some sort of rum. Well, as you know I´m Asian and Asians typically have less alcohol dehydrogenase than other people. Plus I´m a girl (less fluid, more fat content) and I´m 5'1". Anyway, by the end of lunch, Steve swears that I was absolutely el drunko, but actually I was fine. We looked around a little bit more (I don´t really remember much) and then we went home for tea at our little lookout and rest. I think we may try going out to see what the city is like at night. More about that later if it happens.
Ok, I swear that tomorrow will be our first day of Spanish class. Really. I promise.
I wasn´t drunk.
Chiao!
Janet
It´s just Janet today. Steve has sustained a mild injury to his knee which he rates as a 4 on a scale of 0-10. After extensive testing and a thorough history, we suspect it may be his Osgood-Schlatter Disease acting up again after many years of quiescence. Steve´s family, friends, and lovers will be proud to know that he is taking it like a man and I had no idea he was in almost constant pain today until he told me. Anyway, he´s resting in bed a bit. I so admire Steve´s stoicism that I´ve decided to stop complaining about walking an average of 7 hours a day unless something starts hurting more than a 5.
Ok, so it wasn´t really our first day of school today. We were up and at 'em at 7:30 today to get ready for school. (Oh by the way, we have a nice little ritual in which we start and end each day with a cup of tea which we drink on a little road over-looking the city and ocean a block away from the hostel. How awesome is that?) We talked to one of the teachers and worked out a loose schedule for classes in which we start tomorrow. The school is called Natalis and it´s based in Santiago. The Valparaiso branch is new, so there´s very few students (right now it´s just us) and only about 2 teachers, so it looks like it´s going to be very flexible and pretty much one-on-one. So we´re pretty excited about learning Spanish. Oh, one of the teachers told Steve that he looks very Chilean and Steve thinks this is pretty cool and tells me that he would be able to blend in except for the fact that he´s with me.
After that, we decided we were feeling ambitious enough to re-tackle our failed mission of finding the library which it turns out is way the heck all the way over by the Bus station at the other end of the city. It was kind of a cool little building but still pretty small. Still, it should be a nice little place to study Spanish later. We then walked to the ocean and found the pier where the cruise ships dock during Chilean summer (our winter).
By this time, it was about lunchtime, so we decided we were going to look for a cool little cafe and splurge a bit. Steve told me that I had to pick the place. Well, I´ve been told that I´m a wee-bit indecisive and that may be a wee-bit true, because I didn´t decide on a place for lunch until about 2pm. It was a really cool, hole-in-the-wall restaurant. For about $5 we got bread, soup, salad, a main course (fried fish or beef with potatoes), ice cream, coffee, a drink called pino sour (or something), and a shot of some sort of rum. Well, as you know I´m Asian and Asians typically have less alcohol dehydrogenase than other people. Plus I´m a girl (less fluid, more fat content) and I´m 5'1". Anyway, by the end of lunch, Steve swears that I was absolutely el drunko, but actually I was fine. We looked around a little bit more (I don´t really remember much) and then we went home for tea at our little lookout and rest. I think we may try going out to see what the city is like at night. More about that later if it happens.
Ok, I swear that tomorrow will be our first day of Spanish class. Really. I promise.
I wasn´t drunk.
Chiao!
Janet
Monday, May 21, 2007
Day 3
Buenos Dias!
Well... Today was a very productive day. We started out around 10am, and only set one goal for the day, and that was to find our school. For the first few hours we were unable to locate the school, but that was due to the fact that it was a Chilean national holiday. Apparently they celebrate every 21st of May, a historic battle called: Combate Naval de Iquique (21 de Mayo de 1879). The population of ValParaiso is around 270k, and we think that the entire population was where we wanted to be today.
The celebration takes place in a plaza (or a courtyard), called SotoMayor. This is an area where they still have an active naval base and is located near the port. This also happens to be exactly where our school is located. So for the first few hours of the celebration we couldnt get within 300 feet of where our school is located.
We also decided to find the bus station, so we will be able to pick up Kareem when he comes to Santiago on June 1st. Since we had no idea where the bus station was, we decided we would ask a shop owner. We asked him, however we only understood about 10% of what he said, although we pretended to understand everything. After a few more blocks of walking we finally arrived at the bus station (La Terminal). We celebrated by purchasing Empanadas!
So, overall today was a great success. Tomorrow brings new adventure, we have our first day of class in ValParaiso. Wish us luck.
Hasta Luego,
Janet and Steve
Well... Today was a very productive day. We started out around 10am, and only set one goal for the day, and that was to find our school. For the first few hours we were unable to locate the school, but that was due to the fact that it was a Chilean national holiday. Apparently they celebrate every 21st of May, a historic battle called: Combate Naval de Iquique (21 de Mayo de 1879). The population of ValParaiso is around 270k, and we think that the entire population was where we wanted to be today.
The celebration takes place in a plaza (or a courtyard), called SotoMayor. This is an area where they still have an active naval base and is located near the port. This also happens to be exactly where our school is located. So for the first few hours of the celebration we couldnt get within 300 feet of where our school is located.
We also decided to find the bus station, so we will be able to pick up Kareem when he comes to Santiago on June 1st. Since we had no idea where the bus station was, we decided we would ask a shop owner. We asked him, however we only understood about 10% of what he said, although we pretended to understand everything. After a few more blocks of walking we finally arrived at the bus station (La Terminal). We celebrated by purchasing Empanadas!
So, overall today was a great success. Tomorrow brings new adventure, we have our first day of class in ValParaiso. Wish us luck.
Hasta Luego,
Janet and Steve
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Day 1 and 2
Hello everyone, it´s Janet and Steve!
So we left RDU on Friday at noon. The guy checking us in may have been Chilean because he was really nice to us and gave us 5000 frequent flier miles and winked at us. Or maybe just Steve. Then one of the security guards thought Steve was Elijah Wood for a minute. We got to Atlanta around 2 pm and walked around a bit except we didn´t know where to go except the CNN center where we stood in the same building and breathed the same air as Anderson Cooper. But we did not see him, so we were sad. So sad that we gave up on Atlanta and went back to the airport. Atlanta underground was not very impressive but the Marta was pretty neat.
So we got to Santiago airport at like 8 am yesterday after a 9 hour plane ride during which we didn´t sleep very much. Customs and security was ok, but trying to leave the airport was a bit of a problem. I think we almost were kidnapped by a shady guy in a suit. He kept telling us to go with him in his ´taxi.´ Luckily, a Chilean police officer told us not to trust anyone and to look for a blue bus to the bus station. So we took this blue bus to the station and then took another bus to Valparaiso. Yay!
After arriving in Valparaiso, we took another bus and then a taxi to the hostel. By this time, we´d been up for about two days and we were very tired. We unpacked our things, got settled, and began to explore the mysterious hills of Valparaiso. The house we are staying in is actually pretty nice. It appears to be one of the larger houses in the area, however, it does not have any heat or air conditioning, infact no house in Valparaiso, from what we can tell, has heat or air conditioning. This is not that big of a problem, except for the fact that it gets down to 30 to 40 degrees at night. So, Janet and I woke up this morning freezing.
As for today.... well we set out to explore Valparaiso. When we left the house today, we had three major goals: 1. To find the school where we will be taking spanish classes, 2. to find the library, and 3. To go to the grocery store. Guess how many goals we got acomplished after hiking/walking up and down hills for about 7 hours? Well, sadly, only one, and that was that we found the grocery store, which in fact we knew where that was from yesterday. So, really we didnt accomplish any of our goals... but that is how it goes living in a country thousands of miles away and not knowing a lick of espanol.
Well... I think that is enough... there are many more stories to come, so stay tuned!
As for tomorrow: we are not setting three goals, apparently that is too ambitious, so we are going to only set one goal: That is to find the school again.
Buenos Noche!
Steve and Janet
So we left RDU on Friday at noon. The guy checking us in may have been Chilean because he was really nice to us and gave us 5000 frequent flier miles and winked at us. Or maybe just Steve. Then one of the security guards thought Steve was Elijah Wood for a minute. We got to Atlanta around 2 pm and walked around a bit except we didn´t know where to go except the CNN center where we stood in the same building and breathed the same air as Anderson Cooper. But we did not see him, so we were sad. So sad that we gave up on Atlanta and went back to the airport. Atlanta underground was not very impressive but the Marta was pretty neat.
So we got to Santiago airport at like 8 am yesterday after a 9 hour plane ride during which we didn´t sleep very much. Customs and security was ok, but trying to leave the airport was a bit of a problem. I think we almost were kidnapped by a shady guy in a suit. He kept telling us to go with him in his ´taxi.´ Luckily, a Chilean police officer told us not to trust anyone and to look for a blue bus to the bus station. So we took this blue bus to the station and then took another bus to Valparaiso. Yay!
After arriving in Valparaiso, we took another bus and then a taxi to the hostel. By this time, we´d been up for about two days and we were very tired. We unpacked our things, got settled, and began to explore the mysterious hills of Valparaiso. The house we are staying in is actually pretty nice. It appears to be one of the larger houses in the area, however, it does not have any heat or air conditioning, infact no house in Valparaiso, from what we can tell, has heat or air conditioning. This is not that big of a problem, except for the fact that it gets down to 30 to 40 degrees at night. So, Janet and I woke up this morning freezing.
As for today.... well we set out to explore Valparaiso. When we left the house today, we had three major goals: 1. To find the school where we will be taking spanish classes, 2. to find the library, and 3. To go to the grocery store. Guess how many goals we got acomplished after hiking/walking up and down hills for about 7 hours? Well, sadly, only one, and that was that we found the grocery store, which in fact we knew where that was from yesterday. So, really we didnt accomplish any of our goals... but that is how it goes living in a country thousands of miles away and not knowing a lick of espanol.
Well... I think that is enough... there are many more stories to come, so stay tuned!
As for tomorrow: we are not setting three goals, apparently that is too ambitious, so we are going to only set one goal: That is to find the school again.
Buenos Noche!
Steve and Janet
Valparaiso, Chile
Hey eveyone. Steve and Janet have arrived in Valparaiso. They are safe and will begin their first day of school tomorrow - so cute. I will be joining them in 11 days when they pick me up from the airport in Santiago. Hopefully, Steve and Janet will post some stuff soon.
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