Day 121- UPDATE FOR WEEK 17

NOTABLE EVENTS:
· Toured the largest underground copper mines in the world
· On Sunday afternoon- saw 007 Casino Royale (the first movie I've seen internationally in a theater)
· Saw the former dictator Allende's "hideaway" house that he used over 25 years ago when training his "G.A.P." men
· Heading out to the beach house today :) Yay!

WEATHER:
In Santiago, it has been very hot, typical summer weather. People try to stay inside from the hours of 11 to 5ish during the day, as it is quite hot! Too bad for the construction workers who must be outside in it. At least the heat drains their energy and they do not expend it on making noises directed at me when I go by on my jogs or walks. It mostly stayed in the high-80s to low-90s this week. The evenings cool down a bit to the high 70s, which is very comfortable and nice for my long walks with the dog each night. There are warm breezes during the evenings which are enjoyable as well, though the still, dry heat of the day is quite torturous. So I jog in the mornings before it is too hot, and walk the dog during the nights when it begins to cool off. Nighttimes are cooler than they were a couple weeks ago, when it was stifling in my room and would not cool off even with the windows open and a draft going through the house. It was over 80ºF in my room for a good four days straight! The temperature cools down to around 75 at night now, which feels oh so refreshingly cool!
Out here at the beach, it is a good 10ºF cooler, but still sunny with warm breezes. This should be nice, since I arrived today and will be staying out here for this week.

MISSIONS PROJECTS, EVENTS DURING THE WEEK, and AROUND THE HOUSE:
Last Tuesday, Lina and Jim and Señora Mercedes (the housekeeper) left for the beach house out in Quisco, about an hour and a half away from the house in Santiago. (See the map of Santiago on the left? (You can click on it for a more clear view, and it will open it a bit larger.) Find Santiago, in the "central area," and Quisco is out on the coast about where the airplane is on the drawing, but on the coast.) For a couple months each summer, they just come out here and work, since the majority of the work is done by computer, and we have laptops and equipment out here to keep on working. So, they opened up house and did some yearly maintainance, repairs, and cleaned the place up a bit. I stayed in Santiago to continue transferring videos from VHS to DVD, as well as keep up the house in Santiago for the week- cooking for Paul and Elías (who works at the house during the weekdays), watering the yard, putting out trash, doing laundry, taking care of the animals (oh- their old, old bird (who had no name for all the nine years they owned the pet) has been dying, and finally died on Friday- SO sad), keeping the house clean after the boys, etc. I copied a lot of tapes and had fun cooking and experiementing, basically playing house. I did some baking and got a lot of work done too! In my down time, I did a lot of reading and writing.

On that Tuesday when Jim and Lina left for the beach house though, I took the day to head up to the copper mines a bit south of Santiago and up in the Andes Mountains. Ricky and his host sister Keren and I took a train to Rancagua, the town at the base of the mountains. From there, the mining company's private tour bus shuttled us up into the Andes (yes, it was enough altitude to make my ears hurt... about 3000 feet above sea level). We got equipped with gear- a belt with an airmask and a lamp attached to it, eye protection, a construction worker's helmet, and bright-orange jackets (See pictures of me and Ricky and Keren on the bottom right of the paragraph). Then we took a tour of the mines in the morning. Our guide was very good. He had worked in the mines doing one thing or another for 30 years, as his father had before him, and his grandfather as well. Therefore, he was very knowledgeable. We also had a member of our tour group who was a former worker in various parts of the mines, so it was interesting to hear his experiences and insights for various places we visited. The copper mines are the largest underground copper mines in the world (the largest copper mines in the world that are above ground also are found in Chile- it the north). The mines are 8 levels deep into the ground, each level being 60 meters thick. That is pretty deep down there! We went all the way to the bottom in the elevator (ouchy on my ears!), but toured only the first and sixth levels. The sixth level is where the crystals and other gems were found in the mines. We ate lunch with the actual miners, the workers on the grounds/facility (of which there are 1500 who are bused up and down the mountains every day in very well-maintained buses). Our tour group was small, 14 people, but diverse; we had a couple people from London, Germany (one lady was from Russia, and spoke Russian, German, and English, but a few words in Spanish), and various parts of Latin America. After eating, we got to tour the now-deserted old mining town of Sewell. The old buildings and all that history was just fascinating. Ricky, Keren, and I had fun taking pictures (See the picture on the right of Keren (she's in the yellow shirt) "holding" me?). The first bowling alley in Latin America is there in Sewell (see picture on the right of me and Ricky "bowling," below is the first man to actually bowl in the alley in 1907, 100 years ago!, and below that is an old photo of them making the alley in 1907) All in all, the tour of the mines and surrounding Sewell was just amazing. The little museum there was pretty sweet too. Keren insisted on taking my picture with every mannequin of each miner in there! (See all the pictures!? hehe!) I took in so much and was very pleased with the day's experiences. The weather was nice above ground, though it was cold, dusty, and of course pitch-black in the mines. OH! And how could I forget?! I took my first train ride ever (see picture of the train on the top right), going from Santiago to Rancagua, and then back again returning to the city around 7:30 in the evening. Many wonderful memories were made that day! :)

Jim came home Saturday night to prepare for his Sunday class that he teaches. We went to the mall after dinner that evening to buy a new machine for transferring videos. We also just walked around and he tagged along as I perused shoe and dress stores, just for fun. Jim seriously cracks me up so much! haha!

Sunday after church, Jim, Paul and I ordered Dominoes pizza and then went to a 4:30 matinee at the Cine Hoyts movie theater (it is a big chain that dominates Chile, and is Australian-run). Movies here generally play 3-4 months after they show in the U.S. So we saw 007 James Bond, of course in Casino Royale! It was pretty good, but the old Bond movies were better, we all concurred at the movie's end. The theater was huge (four floors with mezzanines and comfy chairs and lots of junk food of course. On each floor, there are ice cream shoppes, hot dog/nacho/snacky foods, and candy stores as well. All foods are over-priced, naturally. It cost $2700 pesos for the movie ticket, or about $5 USD. (In the picture on the left of the theater, the movie poster for 007 that we saw is right above the Cine Hoyts name!)

After the movie, Jim wanted to show me more of Santiago, so we drove around for a couple hours. First, we drove up out of Santiago a ways up to see Allende's hideaway, which was the secret hideout and training spot for dictator Allende's G.A.P. troops during the 1970s and the era of the Chilean ku. The road is loopy and winding and in order to take a picture of the house, as it is portrayed in an old history book of Jim's, we had to stop in the middle of a road, just around a corner. Jim felt it was completely safe, but he was loco haha! A bunch of cars, mostly pickups with many people riding in the beds, came around that corner as Paul and I walked around on the cliff trying to find the best angle to snap a few shots of the house (See my picture on the top right of the house). After the 70s, it was donated to an organization that made it a children's home, and now, as history has progressed and no one remembers the place, foliage has overgrown the surrounding area, and it looked pretty deserted, aside from the black Mercedes Benz that was parked on the side, far below us. That was exciting. Then Jim wanted to show me former Chilean President Pinochet's old house (on the left), a building that the government at one time wanted to make the "White House," since it is located in the outskirts of a more secluded, high-class part of town. We then drove around more of the outer parts of Santiago, seeing the sights at sunset. It was quite fun! Jim got a bit lost, and we ended up heading either way far north out of the city, or was it south? I'm not sure we ever came to an agreement, but we ended up going into Las Colinas, or "the hills," another little town, before we turned around and headed back into town (see pictures on the left of heading into the hills, and then back into Santiago). It was relaxing and fun, and we listened to music and talked about random stuff during our drive. When we returned home around 9:30, Jim and I made Sunday Pancakes, of course! Mary Jane had been sick all day that day (Sunday) with some type of food poisoning, so they had to take her to la Urgencia sector (ER) of a Clinica Privada (hospital) to be checked out. Though she is still feeling crummy today, she got some medications and is fine.

This afternoon (Monday), after packing and getting a lot of things done around the house, Jim, Paulo César, Mary Jane and I crammed ourselves into the car with some more supplies and our luggage to be out here at the beach house in Quisco for a week or so. I might go back to Santiago over the weekend, but we're just playing it by ear. We got a new two-in-one DVD and VHS machine on which I can transfer tapes to disc without all the other equipment, so we brought it along with us here. I can continue to transfer tapes while I go down and relax at the beach! When I return to Santiago, I'll be able to transfer two tapes at once, and hopefully finish all 700 before I come home, which is a little more than two months away now. These summer months should pass quickly though!

The weather is nice here, and I will be traveling (probably down south again at the start of February, and then to Buenos Aires, Argentina at the end of February), so time will most likely just fly by! I'm just thinking about all the terrible weather and partial school days and all the excitement at home, and am a bit sad to be away from my family and missing all my friends as well, but I am keeping in touch by way of the Internet of course, so it makes things easier. It has been exciting to be away for so long and doing my own thing, learning so much, seeing all that God has to teach me, but it will be nice to return home as well.

LANGUAGE UPDATE: I played translator on our tour of the mines for both Ricky and the British mother and her son since the guide only spoke Spanish, and quite quickly. That was fun and a good experience. Oh and plus, I have been doing all the shopping this week, which means communicating for directions and getting things that I want, and prices, etc. at all the stores I had to run errands at.

Well, this week at the beach should be fun! More pics and adventures to come, I'm sure!

Take a look at pictures I have recently uploaded:
Day 116 trip to the copper mines
Day 120 events

(all my pictures are in labeled bins at: http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j96/Chile_girl/CHILE%20PHOTOS/)