Day 149- UPDATE FOR WEEK 21
NOTABLE EVENTS:
· Going bowling, playing pool and billiards and other games in one of Santiago's "smaller" mall's arcade and gaming area, and then going to a movie
· Heading back out to the beach house cabin and taking my "vacation..."
· It was my lil' sister's 14th birthday on Friday the 9th!! (...just thought I would add that in here)
WEATHER:
Santiago this week was hot- typical summer weather. I headed out here to the beach on Saturday, where it has been typically cooler weather, being out by the water. It is normally overcast in the mornings, gets clear and warm (if not hot down on the beach's sand and in town), and then clouds over at night. It ranges from about 21-28ºC during the day (temperatures in the 70s Fahrenheit), which is a comfy temp, but in the mornings and at evenings-nights, I have to pile on the layers, haha.
MISSIONS PROJECTS, EVENTS DURING THE WEEK, and AROUND THE HOUSE:
During the weekdays, I worked on transferring about 70 more tapes, cooked meals, kept the house tidy in Jim and Lina's absence, and just did normal, routine things like reading and writing and watching my favorite TV shows while I waited to change tapes in between transfers. I did a lot of running this week too, exploring a bit further on the east side of Ñuñoa, into the next "comuna" over in the big city of Santiago. I found this park that goes on for about 7 city blocks, and then branches out into a huge, open area. It is very nice to run through, and in a complete loop, or "de vuelta" back to the casa, it is a good hour and a half jog. I love to run exercise loops up and down the sets of 30 stairs in this one amphitheater in a section of the park.
On Wednesday, with Elías, his younger brother, and Marcos 
(who also works in the ministry part time), I went out to play some games and have some fun like a normal teenager! We bowled at an alley inside a mall's arcade-and-gaming complex. This was one of the "smaller" malls in the city- ONLY three stories tall with a couple department stores among the other stores. It is the "upper end" mall of that section of town (there is another mall nearby). This was about 45-minutes away from the Thurstons' house. We traveled by bus and metro to get there and back. After bowling (which was really fun since it was my first time that I had ever 
really bowled, you know, aside from a birthday party I went to when I was about 10 or 
whatever. I even got a few strikes! It was super-fun), we played billiards, pool, and slot cars. Then we bought tickets to see Blood Diamonds, the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. After walking around the mall while waiting for our showing, we went into the multi-room theater section of the mall. Everything is just so huge! The movie was really sad and intense, but good to see and learn of other hypothetical conflicts that are going on in our world. It really stirred our conversation on the trip back home. Pictures: on the top left- I am shooting pool as Marcos looks on; pictured at bottom left- me, Elías' younger brother, Elías; pictures on the right are of me bowling.
Also during this last week in Santiago, the new transportation system that people in Santiago have been talking about since December, "Tran Santiago," is being implemented. It started on Feb. 10 (Saturday), and things have been complete chaos and a mess since then. Things are vague, unclear to the general public (let alone those who are not from the city and are passing through on their summer travels), and just a mess! I am so glad that we are out of the city now, because all we hear on the daily news is about the transportational confusion of Santiago! You see, the buses and metro systems have transferred all payment of fares to this "tarjeta de BIP," a "beep card." It is really pretty comical, because the name "BIP" actually stands for the sound the card makes when you swipe it to get on a bus or go through the metro pay booth. In English, "Beep!" and in Spanish phonetics, "bip!" Anyway, the bus routes have changed and there is confusion in figuring out which buses go where, at what times, etc. Then in addition, bus fare has been free for the last three days (for people to be encouraged to use the system, no matter the cause of disruption to one's schedule because there has been so much confusion, etc.). Naturally, more people have come out than what is the normal flow of traffic, trying to figure out the new system and get places for free. Although there are less people in the city during the summer (because most people filter out and take time during the month of February to travel out to the beaches, down south, or wherever... getting out), there still is an adequate level of general confusion. The state of public places is messy, and people have to wait two hours to catch a bus. "Colectivos," flat-rate taxis, are really raking in the dough this week since people would rather take a taxi than deal with confusing, unreliable bus routes or crowded metro stations. What an experience though! haha. It is actually sort of comical how unorganized the whole ordeal is.
On Saturday evening, Mary Jane and I took a bus out to Quisco to stay in the cabin with Jim and Lina. I opted to take a taxi to a metro station, and then ride it 12 stops up the line to the Terminal de Autobuses (with my little roller suitcase). It was hot out. Mary Jane and I met up there at the bus terminal and bought our pasajes (tickets, passages) from Santiago to El Quisco. It is around $5 for the normally 1.5-hour trip out here. However, there are a TON of people out at the beach at this time! Especially during the weekend, the traffic-flow is high with people catching buses leaving the city to go out to the beaches. Coming into Quisco, our bus got stopped in stand-still traffic (attributed to all the people leaving the beach and heading back to their cabins in various nearby, neighboring summer-cities). After covering possibly a whopping total of around 30 meters, our bus driver wisely turned around and took a detour (that normally would have taken longer than going the regular route to the Quisco bus station, but due to all the traffic, this roundabout route was actually more time-efficient). Plus, on our detour, we witnessed a little more excitement!
Coming around the backside of Quisco (near la Isla Negra, where I visited when I first arrived in Chile in September), our bus became surrounded by thick smoke that we had seen earlier off in the distance. Rounding a corner, everyone on the bus gasped, "oooo!" as orange flames came into view on the side of the road. Bordering a forest on the opposite side of the beach's direction, there was a flaming forest fire! Earlier, we had seen a few fire engines on their way in that direction. For kilometers, there was thick smoke and charred ground on the roadside, as well as ground-level flames amongst all the trees. It was the first forest-fire I recollect actually seeing close-up, in person! No houses we could see were in danger, and it is very common during this dry, hot time of year for pieces of broken glass to ignite fires, among other causes. All firefighters in the country of Chile are volunteers, and there are a lot of them readily available during the months of December to February.
So, we arrived here in Quisco around 9:30 (it took about 2.5 hours to actually get here, though we were in no real rush) and then after dropping off our stuff at the beach cabin, Jim, Lina,
Mary Jane, and I went downtown to get a bite to eat and walk around downtown. Especially during February, the town lives at night. So many of the towns along the beach are summer-sustained. The families that actually live here 
make all their income during the summer in order to live during the rest of the year. The summer months of January and February bring thousands of people to the beaches, cabins, etc. It is very common for people of even lower classes to have a yearly retreat to the beach. Arcades, restaurants, artesania "malls" and booths, musical and dance events, and even the yearly carnival rides border the beach and the main stretch of the towns are all crowded until 1 or 2 at night. People sleep and stay in their houses until around noon, and beaches fill up after the lunch hour around 14:00. People leave the beaches with the sunset around 20:00 to get "once," and the town is filled with people eating, having fun, and playing loud music all night long. There is a lot one may do and just relax and have fun. When we come back up to the beach house (which is around a five-minute drive from the main stretch, or a 15-20 minute brisk walk), things are much quieter. It is nice to sit outside in a lounge chair to read, get work done on the computer, or enjoy the paths and wooded areas nearby for hikes and jogs. Pictures: on the left- downtown Quisco at night (on a weekend), watching Chilean national dancers put on a show by the beach; on the right- part of the carnival.
Ahh, so relaxing! This is my "vacation time." Though working here as a missionary in Chile has been by no means strenuous (as compared to my prior personal vida loca in high school), it is nice to do absolutely nothing but relax and take care of myself right now. I enjoy reading, listening to music, exercising, the beach, and spending time with the rest of the family. We are taking time off from the transferring of videos, the constant stream of phone calls and visitors in coming and going in the house in the city, and other work. As I think about it, this is really the first time in a long time that I haven't been "working!" After school let out, I would always work during the summer, especially last summer as I was fundraising for my mission trip, doing a million little jobs and being all over the place. Then I came here and though I have been traveling and touring, I have also been working a lot in the ministries with the Thurstons. It has been a different sort of "work." Now I just get to relax and do essentially nothing! (Except for opting to read, jog, swim, tan, haha.)
Well, that is about it for now. I will be out here at the beach until probably Thursday, when we will all come back into town. Paulo César, Mary Jane's husband, will join us at the beach later in the week; he is still working in Santiago, and Paul Thurston (Jim and Lina's oldest son) remains at the house in Santiago working as well. Steve, the Thurston's middle child, will be flying in on Friday the 17th for a week-long visit, during which the Integridad Ministry will have its annual retreat and training out here in Quisco at the beach house with as many Integrity workers as can make the dates, Feb. 23-25. Looking ahead, on February 23, I will be flying out to Buenos Aires, Argentina to visit a friend who is studying abroad there until February 28. (Unfortunately, the retreat dates for the ministry were scheduled AFTER I had booked my flight, but I will still be in-tune with what is going on and it is not imperative that I attend the retreat. Still, I am sorry to be missing it. B.A. will be fun nevertheless!)
Take a look at new pictures I have added from this past week in the following bins:
Day 144 Bowling and etc
Days 148-152 vacation time at Quisco (...to be continued)
(all my pictures are in labeled bins at: http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j96/Chile_girl/CHILE%20PHOTOS/)
During the weekdays, I worked on transferring about 70 more tapes, cooked meals, kept the house tidy in Jim and Lina's absence, and just did normal, routine things like reading and writing and watching my favorite TV shows while I waited to change tapes in between transfers. I did a lot of running this week too, exploring a bit further on the east side of Ñuñoa, into the next "comuna" over in the big city of Santiago. I found this park that goes on for about 7 city blocks, and then branches out into a huge, open area. It is very nice to run through, and in a complete loop, or "de vuelta" back to the casa, it is a good hour and a half jog. I love to run exercise loops up and down the sets of 30 stairs in this one amphitheater in a section of the park.
On Wednesday, with Elías, his younger brother, and Marcos (who also works in the ministry part time), I went out to play some games and have some fun like a normal teenager! We bowled at an alley inside a mall's arcade-and-gaming complex. This was one of the "smaller" malls in the city- ONLY three stories tall with a couple department stores among the other stores. It is the "upper end" mall of that section of town (there is another mall nearby). This was about 45-minutes away from the Thurstons' house. We traveled by bus and metro to get there and back. After bowling (which was really fun since it was my first time that I had ever really bowled, you know, aside from a birthday party I went to when I was about 10 or whatever. I even got a few strikes! It was super-fun), we played billiards, pool, and slot cars. Then we bought tickets to see Blood Diamonds, the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. After walking around the mall while waiting for our showing, we went into the multi-room theater section of the mall. Everything is just so huge! The movie was really sad and intense, but good to see and learn of other hypothetical conflicts that are going on in our world. It really stirred our conversation on the trip back home. Pictures: on the top left- I am shooting pool as Marcos looks on; pictured at bottom left- me, Elías' younger brother, Elías; pictures on the right are of me bowling.Also during this last week in Santiago, the new transportation system that people in Santiago have been talking about since December, "Tran Santiago," is being implemented. It started on Feb. 10 (Saturday), and things have been complete chaos and a mess since then. Things are vague, unclear to the general public (let alone those who are not from the city and are passing through on their summer travels), and just a mess! I am so glad that we are out of the city now, because all we hear on the daily news is about the transportational confusion of Santiago! You see, the buses and metro systems have transferred all payment of fares to this "tarjeta de BIP," a "beep card." It is really pretty comical, because the name "BIP" actually stands for the sound the card makes when you swipe it to get on a bus or go through the metro pay booth. In English, "Beep!" and in Spanish phonetics, "bip!" Anyway, the bus routes have changed and there is confusion in figuring out which buses go where, at what times, etc. Then in addition, bus fare has been free for the last three days (for people to be encouraged to use the system, no matter the cause of disruption to one's schedule because there has been so much confusion, etc.). Naturally, more people have come out than what is the normal flow of traffic, trying to figure out the new system and get places for free. Although there are less people in the city during the summer (because most people filter out and take time during the month of February to travel out to the beaches, down south, or wherever... getting out), there still is an adequate level of general confusion. The state of public places is messy, and people have to wait two hours to catch a bus. "Colectivos," flat-rate taxis, are really raking in the dough this week since people would rather take a taxi than deal with confusing, unreliable bus routes or crowded metro stations. What an experience though! haha. It is actually sort of comical how unorganized the whole ordeal is.
On Saturday evening, Mary Jane and I took a bus out to Quisco to stay in the cabin with Jim and Lina. I opted to take a taxi to a metro station, and then ride it 12 stops up the line to the Terminal de Autobuses (with my little roller suitcase). It was hot out. Mary Jane and I met up there at the bus terminal and bought our pasajes (tickets, passages) from Santiago to El Quisco. It is around $5 for the normally 1.5-hour trip out here. However, there are a TON of people out at the beach at this time! Especially during the weekend, the traffic-flow is high with people catching buses leaving the city to go out to the beaches. Coming into Quisco, our bus got stopped in stand-still traffic (attributed to all the people leaving the beach and heading back to their cabins in various nearby, neighboring summer-cities). After covering possibly a whopping total of around 30 meters, our bus driver wisely turned around and took a detour (that normally would have taken longer than going the regular route to the Quisco bus station, but due to all the traffic, this roundabout route was actually more time-efficient). Plus, on our detour, we witnessed a little more excitement!
Coming around the backside of Quisco (near la Isla Negra, where I visited when I first arrived in Chile in September), our bus became surrounded by thick smoke that we had seen earlier off in the distance. Rounding a corner, everyone on the bus gasped, "oooo!" as orange flames came into view on the side of the road. Bordering a forest on the opposite side of the beach's direction, there was a flaming forest fire! Earlier, we had seen a few fire engines on their way in that direction. For kilometers, there was thick smoke and charred ground on the roadside, as well as ground-level flames amongst all the trees. It was the first forest-fire I recollect actually seeing close-up, in person! No houses we could see were in danger, and it is very common during this dry, hot time of year for pieces of broken glass to ignite fires, among other causes. All firefighters in the country of Chile are volunteers, and there are a lot of them readily available during the months of December to February.
So, we arrived here in Quisco around 9:30 (it took about 2.5 hours to actually get here, though we were in no real rush) and then after dropping off our stuff at the beach cabin, Jim, Lina,
Mary Jane, and I went downtown to get a bite to eat and walk around downtown. Especially during February, the town lives at night. So many of the towns along the beach are summer-sustained. The families that actually live here make all their income during the summer in order to live during the rest of the year. The summer months of January and February bring thousands of people to the beaches, cabins, etc. It is very common for people of even lower classes to have a yearly retreat to the beach. Arcades, restaurants, artesania "malls" and booths, musical and dance events, and even the yearly carnival rides border the beach and the main stretch of the towns are all crowded until 1 or 2 at night. People sleep and stay in their houses until around noon, and beaches fill up after the lunch hour around 14:00. People leave the beaches with the sunset around 20:00 to get "once," and the town is filled with people eating, having fun, and playing loud music all night long. There is a lot one may do and just relax and have fun. When we come back up to the beach house (which is around a five-minute drive from the main stretch, or a 15-20 minute brisk walk), things are much quieter. It is nice to sit outside in a lounge chair to read, get work done on the computer, or enjoy the paths and wooded areas nearby for hikes and jogs. Pictures: on the left- downtown Quisco at night (on a weekend), watching Chilean national dancers put on a show by the beach; on the right- part of the carnival.Ahh, so relaxing! This is my "vacation time." Though working here as a missionary in Chile has been by no means strenuous (as compared to my prior personal vida loca in high school), it is nice to do absolutely nothing but relax and take care of myself right now. I enjoy reading, listening to music, exercising, the beach, and spending time with the rest of the family. We are taking time off from the transferring of videos, the constant stream of phone calls and visitors in coming and going in the house in the city, and other work. As I think about it, this is really the first time in a long time that I haven't been "working!" After school let out, I would always work during the summer, especially last summer as I was fundraising for my mission trip, doing a million little jobs and being all over the place. Then I came here and though I have been traveling and touring, I have also been working a lot in the ministries with the Thurstons. It has been a different sort of "work." Now I just get to relax and do essentially nothing! (Except for opting to read, jog, swim, tan, haha.)
Well, that is about it for now. I will be out here at the beach until probably Thursday, when we will all come back into town. Paulo César, Mary Jane's husband, will join us at the beach later in the week; he is still working in Santiago, and Paul Thurston (Jim and Lina's oldest son) remains at the house in Santiago working as well. Steve, the Thurston's middle child, will be flying in on Friday the 17th for a week-long visit, during which the Integridad Ministry will have its annual retreat and training out here in Quisco at the beach house with as many Integrity workers as can make the dates, Feb. 23-25. Looking ahead, on February 23, I will be flying out to Buenos Aires, Argentina to visit a friend who is studying abroad there until February 28. (Unfortunately, the retreat dates for the ministry were scheduled AFTER I had booked my flight, but I will still be in-tune with what is going on and it is not imperative that I attend the retreat. Still, I am sorry to be missing it. B.A. will be fun nevertheless!)
Take a look at new pictures I have added from this past week in the following bins:
Day 144 Bowling and etc
Days 148-152 vacation time at Quisco (...to be continued)
(all my pictures are in labeled bins at: http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j96/Chile_girl/CHILE%20PHOTOS/)
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