Weekend Snippets

Things I have jumped dramatically at: micro horns and my noise-making stuffed cat keychain. Yes, I’m a legal adult. Things I recognize: The route to town, my bus stop, and graffiti on micros. Hey old friend! Things I found: A thrift store!!!! That’s enough for an entire category. Friday I cooked lunch for my family: meatloaf, baked potatoes, deviled eggs, broccoli, and apples with cheese. I was planning on making Split Seconds for dessert, but it turns out that I bought two enormous sticks of shortening instead of butter. Only in Argentina does ‘manteca’ mean ‘mantequilla’. So instead I made peach cobbler, which turned out fine despite my lack of baking powder. Just a bit gooier than usual. I was also happy that everything I made was exotic for them – apples and cheese really fascinated them. Apples and fruit is more for dessert, I guess. Gabriela and Fernanda ate everything up though, and insisted that it was good. Friday night we went out to eat with Gonzalo, to Concon. We drove along the coast just as the sun was setting – the clouds turned pink and the cliffs glowed. We went to a place known for its fried empanadas (very typical Chilean dish, baked or fried – it’s kinda like a much better hotpocket). The empanadas were quite tasty, and I discovered that each empanada filling has a different shaped shell so that they can be told apart. Pretty nifty.

Saturday I met up with the other half of my program, Emily, to wander around Viña. We checked out Quinta Vergara, a beautiful big garden near the center of town. It was rather chilly and gray, but we had fun looking at various blooms and trees. A Mr. Vergara founded Viña and fought in the Pacific War, and his palace is now a museum. It’s under renovation at the moment, but we took a good look at the outside of the place.

Saturday night I watched tv with Fernanda. It seems like a lot of programs here are dubbed from English. It must be so frustrating to never have the natural cadence of the language match the acting. I think it makes it a little harder to understand too, but it’s worth working at. So far I have seen a couple crime shows, Princess Diaries, ads for Despicable Me 2, and a film about Baltimore Firefighters that was sad. Fernanda is quite sweet, and we exclaim together over some things, and if I miss an important piece of the plot she doesn't mind filling me in. Sunday I went to church, which was again very much like Newcomm. They had a kids’ skit, which was pretty good and definitely cute. The youth in the church are very welcoming, and this week I’m planning on going to youth group – I think this church is going to be my social salvation. At night I went with Mollie and a couple friends from church to check out the port in Valpo. The sunset was beautiful, and I love all the colors of the boats and buildings. We went up an acensor too, to look down on the city. Afterwards we went back to Viña and went to a fancy little café for something to drink. It reminded me of Vho – spendy with mediocre food. But it was warm and pretty and the waiter was fun. I tried Leche con Plàtano, basically a thin smoothie with milk and banana. It was quite good. Today I’m off to classes. Let’s go talk about the earth and learn to write some Spanish!