Sunday, March 22, 2009

One Great Weekend

Friday I read all morning and finished another of the many books I have to read for my classes. It feels good to see that little stack of books I have finished get bigger and bigger and I am really enjoying most of what I have to read. The spanish poetry has been great because it has really broadened my vocabulary which has been fun. The other day in our workshop I used the word exponentially in spanish and Sarah commented on how impressed she was. I thought that was pretty funny.

Friday afternoon was amazingly wonderful. My friend Gustavo, who is awesome and really thoughtful, and I went on a tour of the inside of La Moneda (the Chilean white house, kind of). We had gone out to lunch on Monday and I had mentioned to him that I had been there several times and never gotten to actually get inside so he worked it out so that we were able to take a tour. What a stud. It was really interesting, a lot more to do with the art and what not of the inside than the actual building, but it was still really cool to be inside and to imagine all of these presidents I have read about walking the halls. They have a replica room set up to be like the office of Salbador Allende, the president who died in the military take over in 1973. It was pretty sweet. (pictures will be posted tomorrow, don't you worry)

Then Sarah and I went salsa dancing with two of our friends who served in my mission but that I pretty much met here. One of them, Antonio, took our workshop a few weeks back. We went to this really nice salsa club and it was so much fun to watch all of these people dancing. I think Latin dancing is just amazing and so much fun to do. Alexis our other friend that was there with us was really good and was teaching us moves (and by teaching I mean I just kept the rythm and let him throw me around the dance floor and look good). Antonio wasn't as good but we had a lot of fun laughing the whole time because I kept messing up and stepping on him or hitting other people...Woops!

We got home...very late and then woke up a few hours later to head on a hiking trip we had planned with some of the YSA from our ward. The hike itself was so beautiful and it was about 8k one way up to this glacier. (pictures to come tomorrow) The glacier itself wasn't that impressive since I am from Alaska and all, but it was so fun to be with friends out doing something sporty. I realized while I was hiking that I had met another one of the goals I had set for myself while I was here. A year ago if we had gone hiking I would have been the girl in the back struggling to get up the hill without dying of exhaustion, but since I have been working so hard at getting in shape while I was here, I was in the front. I felt pretty good about this. We all got a little sunburned (okay a lot sunburned) but we had such a fun time. On the way home, I sat next two this american girl on the bus/van ride and we talked a lot about the south. She is heading down south around areas of my mission teaching english so we talked about the south and a little about mormonism. She studied spanish in college but was shocked she couldn't understand the chileans here...I told her it wasn't spanish and that was her problem. :) It was cool talking to her and we exchanged emails so she could write me because she really wants to get hooked up with the YSA programs down there so she can have friends and what not. I am excited for the missionary opportunity. I also think she needs to marry my brother...

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