Last Weekend...

We went on a little trip to a seaside city called Caldera. (This is Anna by the way). We were inveited by this darling retired teacher, Myrna. She met Jason at his school. She used to teach there and retired a while ago. She comes back periodically to say hi to the teachers. She has stayed involved in the school even though she is retired. Anyways, her husband is a local artist and a professor at the University of Atacama here in Copiapo. He actually went to Columbia University in NYC and so they know exactly how it feels to live abroad far from home. They have some funny stories about living in NY. Anyways, they invited us to go to their home in Caldera for the weekend. It´s about an hour from Copiapo. So, we had a great and fun weekend...free of charge! So, this is Nelson and Myrna. Jason and I were talking about how they were the type of people were you feel completely comfortable with right away...even though you don´t know them at all. They are the super sweet "granparent" type. The best part about the weekend was that it was all spanish, all the time! We don´t get as much as that as we would like. I understood almost everything too. Haha! Nelson and Myrna are very educated and speak with an "older tongue". In other words, they don´t have the slang, they don´t drop the end of words off, and they talk a little more slow. Very nice for us gringos!! hehe.

So the picture above are some boats. Caldera is a little fishing town and has a nice big natural port. The water is so calm it´s amazing. It was a little overcast at first but cleared up later on. Two volunteers are placed in Caldera and one of their host-dad´s owns a big fishing boat. Jason is hoping to go with him sometime!

The two pictures above are a little museum that we went to. There is a fossil museum located inside an old train station. It´s the first train station is Chile. It was actually built by an American...though I can´t remember his name. There were HUGE shark teeth at the museum. They are from that huge pre-historic shark...I can´t remeber the name of it though.

This little statue guy was brought over from Easter Island. He is pointing straight out to the island. Easter Island is directly across from Caldera. We thought it was cool so we took a picture in front of it!!!

So, the whole weekend consisted of food...to our delight...and to our demise. The picture above is Anita and her daughter. They were our "food makers". It´s a strange story but basically Anita was long time friends with Myrna. Anita´s husband died of a sudden heart attack at 35. Anita didn´t have any skills to get a real job and so someone asked Myrna to hire her as her house keeper/cook. Myrna said "no" becuase they were friends and it would put them in a weird position. Apparently though Anita wouldn´t have the money for even food if she didn´t get hired so Myrna did it. They are still the best of buds though. Anita has been working for them for years. Her cooking was....AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! They are preparing the BEST empanadas EVER above and the one below is them frying and then the one below THAT is Jason and Nelson enjoying the fruit of the labor!

So, the picture below is this little chapel built completely by hand by "Padre Negro". Yes, he was black and that´s what they call him. You can tell there were zero tools involved in the construction but it´s cool none the less. The picture below the chapel is me in front of it!

The picture below this is the plaza of Caldera and the cathedral. We went inside but don´t have any pictures of that.

More food!!!! Every lunch (lunch is the big meal here) consisited of appetizers, a main meal, salad, and then an INCREDIBLE desert. I just can´t tell you how good it all was. The is the spread of appetizers alone.

So, the food was great but boy did I pay for it. We ate so much that I am just now feeling like my body is back to normal. Ugh. It was so yummy but I will never eat that much food again. My stomach pooched like nothing I´ve ever seen. haha. There´s not much room for it to go anywhere so I guess it went out. haha.

And finally....WE GOT OUR VISAS!!!! YAY! We´re legal now. Well, we were legal but our travel visa was about to run out. It took 3 tries to get the Visa but we were finally successful. This is the group of us volunteers (minus Jason who is taking the picture) at lunch after we successfully obtained that most valuable litttle piece of paper. It´s crazy to realize but we have been here for almost 2 months. We only have 6 1/2 more months left. That probably sounds like a long time but man will it fly by! Ok, well I´m off. Gotta go check my email! Hope you enjoyed all the pics! -Anna