I can't breathe

So this has been the most frustrating last week or so...I HATE the post office and customs here in Chile. Thank you for holding on to my package for 3 weeks...then scanning it in to say it had arrived only when we started to search for it. As I am taking one summer class right now, the items in that package are very important to my class. The package has my textbooks for the class I am in right now and one that I start next week. Great so I have to reorder my books if they do not come this week. I have no option. Also to reorder and ship books here the fastest way possible...books that cost about $30...will cost me over $150 to get it here, if they don't get stuck in customs again.

This is the most frustrating thing ever. I can call and get told that my tracking number doesn't exist and that it is probably in customs and they can hold it however long they want. Oh and I think I have to pay if it ever arrives b/c it has been there so long. Seriously this is stressing me out and makes me miss just being home when I never had to worry about this nonsense. I hope it gets here soon but I am not going to hold my breath. With this it has ruined my mood and I do not feel like doing anything...studying or anything. Whats the point?

The title for this post comes from the air outside. This is a HUGE place and pollution is everywhere. This is the worst time of the year if someone wants to go running. Let me tell you it is so  hard to breathe with all this smog and just bad stuf for the environment. And the other reason for the name is SMOKING! Wow back home I can pick where I want to go to avoid smoking, but here it is everywhere. KIDS...kids who are in school...like maybe 12 if that...smoke all the time. Outside of the school during the day and in front of so many people. But I don't think that it is a big situation here, but to me its disgusting that kids start so early, that I cannot go out at night without running into it or coming home smelling like it. Wow just wow.

Well if there was anything good that came out of this week or so was skydiving. I did this on Saturday and it was a blast. I still don't really know how to explain it, because it just takes time understanding what it was. I would highly recommend it to anyone...don't worry about screaming I did it quite loud and no one heard it.

But with classes going on a role now and these annoyances still here I am still passing the time here in Chile. I don't have much time left, and I hope that this HORRIBLE experience with my mail doesn't ruin my whole memory of my trip. Ahh so I am going to go and cook dinner and possible go to Yoga class to work off some anger.

Ciao

Ooops...My bad

Oops is all I can say. With trying to stay busy, the website not working, and forgetting its been a while since my last post. It is almost the middle of May...what is that!! Wow time does fly when you are having fun...or when you want it to stop. I am actually not sure that a lot has gone on in the last two weeks besides normal school stuff. I did end up going to a festival that I mentioned in my last post and it was quite fun.

May day here was full of festivals of religion or the national dance. As I was at the fruit market that day I actually ran into the parade of the Cuasimodo festival in Santiago. This was the religious festival of the weekend. Also later that day I travelled on the metro tren to San Bernardo. At the San Bernardo plaza, community known for folklore, there was a large festival going on. There was no way that I could have gotten lost on the way from the metro tren to the plaza, but of course I made sure to ask someone to be certain, and the lady chatted with me to the plaza and was so sweet. There were probably thousands of people there and they were all participating, had participated, watching or getting ready to jump in. This was the festival of the Cueca Mil. Starting at midday on Saturday and continuing on Sunday until the goal was reached of 1000 Cuecas danced.

This dance is the national Chilean dance therefore pretty much everyone in Chile knows how to dance it. No I did not participate in the dance, because I do not know how to do it, but for my Culture class we had to interview people and investigate certain festivals and this is the one that I chose to do. I took many pictures, videos of people dancing. Now these people did not just dance in one area...too many people for that...but rather people danced anywhere and everywhere they could. The people that I actually interviewed began dancing right next to an ambulance...no pun...and did it because they love this dance. I learned a lot from the people I interviewed...and even received a little souvenior that I will have forever reminding me of this time.

Since this event nothing too amazing has happened...well i guess I did just buy myself a ticket for something that is going to be amazing...SKYDIVING. I am going next saturday at about 1:00 here (noon at home). I am super excited b/c it didn't work out in Argentina and I got it for a good price here!! So I have to go buy a ticket to take a bus there and then off I go!! I am super pumped and I am sure it is going to be a good time. Also this sunday I decided to have a good portion of my friends over to have breakfast for dinner. It is funny for those people who have never done that and think it is a strange idea. :) 20 people with french toast...eggs...and bacon..yummy and to have it followed with a movie.

I turned in my paper today about the Cueca mil....we are now playing instruments in class and it is fun to play trumpet again. I was supposed to have a debate two weeks ago...then this week and now I have to wait until next week. I just started one online class that I will be taking throughout the rest of my stay here in Chile. It is just the amount of time that I have left here so should go fast when I have something to do. I am starting my second online class at the end of this month.

So other than that...not much here..homework...trying to keep a schedule of running regularily...skipped this week...getting ready to feed 20 people and take my online classes. I have 7 weeks lefts and they are going fast. I would like to go visit a few places yet that I have not fully seen and to revist some of the other ones. But with that I am going to head and talk soon...hopefully it won't be so much time in between.

Ciau!!

¿Como Manejo?

My friends and I left for Mendoza Argentina last Thursday for the Easter holiday weekend. We left during the night to avoid the cost of staying in a hostel and we were planning on arriving in the early morning, but that is not what happened. We left Santiago at about 10:30 pm and we did not get to Mendoza unitl 10 the next morning. A 200km trip throught the mountains was a lot longer than anyone could have expected and the reason wasn't even bad...too many buses. We arrived at the border crossing at about 1AM, and we were told that we might as well get comfortable because we would not be getting through until at least 8AM!! What!?!! 

This long, boring, cold wait was due to the Easter weekend. The amount of people that were crossing the border was very large. When we arrived there were 12 buses in front and 15 behind us. We waited for 5 hours at the border and finally got through and got to Mendoza at 10AM. When we got there we decided to walk around and get breakfast, but the town seemed like a ghost town...no one there. At this time of the morning there was almost no one on the streets and the stores were not open. We figured that it was due to it being Good Friday and that the shops would open on Saturday.We walked around Mendoza, had coffee, ice cream, chocolate, smoothies and finished the day off with an Argentinian steak. Lets just say the meat is great. 

On Saturday we decided to do a wine and bike tour excursion and only had one small problem before we got to the vineyard....the vehicle broke down on the off ramp. I was so happy when I found the 'How am I driving' sticker on the van, priceless. 'Como Manejo' Of course this would happen to us and when we were actually close to the place, but we were not the only ones with problems. There were two other vehicles that broke down just down the ramp or on the side of the highway. Wow..it was quite an experience and just made the day more interesting. The vineyards were quite interesting the for the most part the wine tasted great. 

Easter Sunday I sat in the hostal waiting for the skydiving company to pick me up...I had talked to them numerous times before and even the night before, but waited all day and they didn't come...Shitty. I had McDonalds for Easter dinner and we just hung out in the hostal. We were going to try to go out at night, but with the amount of food we ate and the fact that the people in Argentina don't go out until 3AM at the earliest there was no way. The trip was a success and on the way back the border only took about an hour. We went during the day and we able to see the Andes Mountains from the inside. The views were magnificent. 

Spring semesters are over back home, graduations are approaching and I would like to wish all of them congratulations and good luck with the next step. Also have a great summer, I will be able to get in on the end of summer right after the 4th of July. I will be ready to see some familiar faces and it will be great. Today I am hopefully off to go see some festivals today, but we have to see how homework is going. I will be starting my summer classes in a week so here we go. 

Ciao from Chile!