Thankful.

This year I am thankful for.....

good friends


good food


my familia near and far





and vidaaaaa



Wishing the best for all this time of year and I'm thinking of you!
Besos!!

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seize the day

wine tasting









Recently we had the opportunity to go wine tasting through a school organized trip (14 dollars including transportation woot!) at Cousino Macul. Located just outside Santiago this vina was constructed by French architects in 1870 and has a special ventilation system that year round is the perfect temperature. Not only is it beautiful it's extremely profitable! We learned alot like Chilean wines are actually profiting off of global warming--all the wines they have made since 2001 have been good (while French wine is struggling with the global warming ! :( le sad). Our tour guide was really nice and informative. And the wines were delicioussss. We got to try two wines--one was a pink cabernet and the other a regular cabernet. So delicious! I cant wait to try more! Mmmm. Wine is so cheap here its ridiculous..living in Bordeaux part 2 for me. Haha. Maybe I can claim some sort of expertise by the time I leave!
Besos a todos!

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besty birthday

happy birthday Vanessa Ducher!

I love you soo sooo soooo much. You are not only bff but perhaps one of the funniest, charming, caring, smart and beautiful people I have the pleasure of knowing! I know you are going to have the best birthday ever but I wish I was there with you to eat some carrot cake and reflect upon the many many manyyy memories that make our friendship so special and fun.

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inspiration

aqui es Fabi...
This is our housemate Fabienne. She is from Switzerland. She's 22. She has lived in Santiago for 3 months. Starting tonight she is going to travel all around South America by herself!


She's super funny super silly and very brave.




Isn't she a rockstar? I just LOVE it when I meet people who are so free-spirited and admirable. She does what she feels---and that's something I really like. I'm going to miss her alot but I know we will meet again..if not in some other part of South America in Switzerland or America.
We sent her off in true Chilean style--getting fresh mango juice at a cafe nearby and eating palta (avocado) on toasted bread..the most delicious tasting thing ever. I wish her luck and safety in her travels and I can't wait to hear crazy stories all about it.

Buen Viaje Fabi!! <3

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pues, what?

Sunset in Santiago

So, last weekend Cortney and I had the opportunity to have an amazing almuerzo with a Chilean family (a friend of Cort's grandpa). Rodrigo is a longtime friend and business partner with Cortney's grandfather. Cort's g-pa emailed Rodrigo suggesting that we meet up because it would be nice to get some Chilean advice from Chileans! He wrote a couple of emails back and forth confirming then he forwarded them to Cortney and her mom. The last email said: Rodrigo would love to meet you. Here is his contact information so you two can meet up. He loves meeting young girls! ........um. wait. what? Cortney and I were laughing at that part because huh!? Cort's mom actually ended up emailing her G-pa being like WHAT>! turns out he was just being funny but he teased Cortney to death when we met up! hahahaha. He has four kids (and one grandchild!) and his longterm girlfriend also has four kids!! Luckily they are all around our age! So when they invited us over for lunch we were really excited to meet some our age Chileans! They live in Los Condes an area off the end of one of the metro lines. He has a really beautiful apartment on the top of a building that overlooks all of Santiago. Really Baller. We ate delicious paella and met allll of the children (including two really hot 21 year old twin guys!). They were so sweet and helpful. Providing us with advice on everything from where to go out clubbing to what food is good. All of them were studying different things and were all interesting people. It was a really lovely family and it felt nice to get some homemade food and family time.

They asked us about America and we asked them tons about Chile. I've been particularly interested in their politics here because it seems crazy that 1. Chile became a democracy in 1990! (CHUB your BIRTH YEAR!) 2. They have a women president 3. Pinochet--the dictator who ruled for 16 years! was voted out of office but got 40% of the vote! (more than what he was elected for)...the United States also has an interesting relationship with Pinochet.. anyway I decided to take a gamble and bring up politics to see what typical Chileans think of Michelle Bachelet. I asked them about Obama of course first. They said that they like him..they just don't know what he has done yet (cue Nobel Peace Prize jokes). Overall, they seemed to have a positive opinion of him. I asked if they liked Michelle and Rodrigo (who is def in the upper class) talked about how she is contradictory because she claims to be leftist yet many policies remain rightist and that they are ready for a change. Their election is this December..should be interesting to see how it plays out..He went on to say that he thought life was better when Pinochet was in office because he built the economy to what it is today..Chile has the best economy throughout South America currently. His nostalgia for Pinochet's term was met with silence from the rest of the family...Afterwards one of the daughters drove us home..she said that she didn't agree with her father but she didn't say anything to keep the peace (something I can definitely understand) but that thousands of people disappeared during Pinochet's reign and that she believed him to be a dictator.

Anyway, it was pretty interesting talking to them. I really liked them. So helpful, cute and generous! Hopefully we will see them again. :) Other than that we passed TEFL yayyy! and We got jobs! Our FIRST! Exciting!! We start in two weeks or so after our intensive spanish classes. It's beautiful here now and we have been enjoying our freedom by exploring and partying mucho!
Besos!

ps. good article to read!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/world/americas/29bachelet.html?scp=3&sq=chile&st=cse

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did you know?

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vino tinto

a picture post...

view from las condes the "modern" neighbs of Santiago that we were lucky enough to experience from the apartment of a lovely Chilean family


shrimp, pico de gallo, and guacamole mmmm.


wine wine wine..cheaper than water basically.


halloweenie!

sandra y yo


peacock and flapper (does not exist here apparently)

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