memmories

so . . . it is now 6 months since i have been in beautiful valdivia and last night i had the craziest dream about returning to chile. so this morning i got up and decided to look through old pics and re-read some of my blogs. wow - i am certainly not a very censored or reserved lady. haha sorry for some of the explicit details.

right after i got back from my trip i was a mess. all i wanted to do was return. i had some serious reverse culture shock and post chile depression. i finally kicked that nasty mood and i'm super happy to be home, and anticipating my return to my second home - chile!

i still keep in touch with many of my chilean friends. and i am still planning on returning to south america. not necessairly valdivia, but somewhere in the amazing america del sur. ecuador and venezuela are peaking my attention quite a bit.

and in janurary chile elected their first woman president!! michelle bachalette. whoo hoo! she is awesome - you should read up on her.

homework, UGH!

homework, ugh!

thats right. i am knee deep in about a million assignments that i have due this week. who would of thought i would actually have to do work while i was down here? not me! :)

just kidding. i actually really like having homework and projects. doing them in spanish makes it much more entertaining, at times more stressful, but for the most part, a little more lively.

i am actually sitting in an internet cafe right now taking a little break from a 10 page paper i have to write over relations between the united states and guatemala . . . i know you are all probably rolling your eyes, but it is actually really interesting and i am learning a lot. and it feels pretty cool to be able to babble in spanish for 10+ pages. i also have a huge collection of great music to get me through it.

this weekend i went to frutillar and purto varas. wow. i went to a national park and saw some of the most crystal clear green blue water i have ever seen in my life, jumped in some lakes, swam a while, and saw incredible waterfalls. the following day we spent the whole day on a farm with a chilean family and rode horses, played a crazy 2 hour game of pick up soccer, and did a bunch of canopy and tree climbing. man, i forgot i used to use so many muscles when i played soccer. i am sore!

hmmm, well i would love to write more, but if i think too much more in english it is going to be hell trying to finish that paper!

i love you and miss you all!

katie (who is head over heels in love with chile) tompkins

wow. i am bad. it has been almost a month since my last blog. well the reason for not blogging is because i have been so busy and happy just living my life down here. when i think about leaving valdivia in december, i actually get pretty sad. i am going to miss this place so much. i have been toying with the idea of returning for the second semester in march, but i am not sure how realistic that is . . . regaurdless, i know that i will at least visit valdivia in the not to distant future!

so what have i been up to? well two weekends ago i went to argentina! i went to bariloche which is a beautiful city nesteled in the andes of the patagonia region in argentina. incredible. i honestly think it is one of the most beautiful places i have seen so far. but i cant make any judgements too soon, because there is so much more i have yet to discover! tomorrow i leave to go down south, but this time i am staying in chile. no crossing borders. i am going to puerta varallas and frutallar. i am excited about that! both of those cities are supposed to be beautiful as well!

i have made so many amazing friends here. i think that is going to be the hardest part about leaving. whenever i walk through the streets i always run into people i know and i love it! i need to leave extra time before i go anywhere, because i stand and chat in the middle of the sidewalk forever when i run into people. i also love taking with my collectivo drivers. collectivos are like taxis but you share them with random people who are going in the same general direction as you. i have met some quite interesting characters. always entertaining!

last sunday dos amigos took me out to niebla for almuerzo! (almuerzo = lunch, and it is the main meal of the day here). niebla is the first place i visited when i got to valdivia and it is on the coast just a little further south of valdivia. it was an incredibly beautiful day, and we ate lunch on the water. then had a huge sand fight on the beach. i think after 3 showers i finally got all the sand off. then they took me to their campus and showed me where they study. here in valdivia my university has two campuses. i got to the campus on the island (la isla teja) which is for liberal arts and sciences. the other campuis, miraflores, is the engineering campus. my buddies are studying electrical engineering. jose is actually graduating in december, so i am going to go to his graduation! i am excited about that.

as for my house, i LOVE it! they family is great. and we have a nanny who is the funniest woman ever. what a character! i really dont know how to describe her, or who i can compare her to. but her name is cecilia. she is a short jovial chilean woman who loves to gossip and tell me juicy stories of the craziness that goes on while she in at the supermarket, on the bus, washing clothes, or algo así. i love it. she always sings to me in spanish, and when it is only us in the house she turns the raido on really loud and belts out every song. when i eat breakfast with her in the morning i always sing simon and garfunkel´s ¨celia ¨. she loves it!

hmmm, well i have to say i have not had any more stories as exciting as my throwing my pee all over a waiting room (oh man, oh man. thats all i can say). i have had a few comical runs, which more often than not are something to the effect of me running, and little middle school boys running alongside me in their school uniforms as they jump off the bus, or trying to find a new route to run and end up getting lost for a little bit, or stopping to pet extremely cute stray dogs, and sometimes getting a running partner/dog for a block or two.

classes are great. i still think my history professor is the bees knees. i want to take him back to the states and have him be my professor at uw!

i miss you and love you all so so so so so so much.

rainydawg! i listened to you the other day, and chatted with jeckert! for those of you who dont know what rainywag is, it just so happens to be the best radio station IN THE WORLD. www.rainydawg.org!

(that was my little radio station plug! i miss you guys and cant wait to come back!)

ok time to go! love love love for everyone!
-katie, katty, margarita!

shower mishaps and urine samples

ok kids. are you in for a few katie stories or what. (scott punknews, brace yourself).

so i changed houses. for various reasons, but the program director as well as so doctors i had seen were concerned and decided that it was something that had to be done. it broke my heart, but i have to say i feel so much better. i wont go into detail about everything that was going on, but lets just say i feel as though 45646 pounds of stress has been lifted from my shoulders.

so onto the new family. i live with a married couple and the mother of the mom. they have 3 children that are all grown and out of the house. the mother is a painter and has a small art shop in the center of town. my father is a professor of electrical engineering at the university. they are so sweet and wonderful and remind me a lot of my family back home!

well i am getting myself settled in and i get to take a shower as well! i take a nice semi long hot shower, and when i am finished i just kinda stand in the shower soaking up the steam i have created. i slowly pull back the shower curtain and reach for my towel. all of a sudden SLAM!! the door swings wide open and a little three year old comes running in and pulls down his pants. apparently little max really had to go to the bathroom. so i scream and try to grab for the clost thing to cover myslef which ends up being my shower curtain. i look around the curtain and say ¨well hello there, how are you¨ max looked at me laughing hysterically as his little butt is shaking with laughter and says ¨ohhhh, fine thanks. just going pee!¨ that little bugger. then of course his other brother had to run in the bathroom as well and i am hiding behind the curtain until my mom came in screaming and shooed them out. hahahahaha. it was too funny.

now onto urine samples. (i am really sorry about the curdeness of this blog!) well i have been in and out of the doctors office trying to figure out my health and last friday i had to go to a lab to get some blood work done. they also needed a urine sample. however at the time i really just did not have to go so they said, not worries, but bring us back a sample in this container. so i spent the weekend relaxing and moving and taking suprise showers, and finally this morning i brought the sample in before class. i was running late so i thought i would just quickly drop it off at the nurse´s desk. so i have my little contianer and i put it in a plastic bag and then put it in my backpack. well i run down to the office and open my backpack in the waiting room. i walk up to the dest and begin to hand the nurse my sample, but i realize the bag is filled with urine and the top is not on the cup! startled she looks at me, and i am so embarassed that i drop the bag!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! all over the floor of the waiting room! chaos insued. oh man. screaming in spanish! ´oh no oh no what do i do???´ ´save the urine! pick up the bag!´ she yelled at me. so i pick up a dripping back and we RUN to the bathroom. with a new cup in hand the nurse takes control and is able to salvage just enough of the sample. i have never been so red in my life, and then i had to make that walk of shame back out into the waiting room. lets just say when i started smiling and laughing so did everyone else. my guess is tonight at dinner about 4 families were entertained by a story of a silly gringa girl who threw her pee all over the waiting room.

again sincere apologies for sharing that. especially if some of you had a tainted image of me as some sort or lady or something! ; )

but i am so much better. thursday more of my test results come back from santiago and we are going to find out what this craziness is!

i miss you and love you all so so so so so s much!

the people i´ve met

my week of vacation was incredible. highlights included one crazy hike to the top of mnt esmeralda in iquique, however, we were told it really was not a mountain, just a huge hill. but i dont know, to me it was one of the biggest mountains in the world, especially since the bottom half was all sand. it took in total about 4 hours to hike up. a great night´s sleep and super stong legs, and one of the most beautiful views in the world was what i got out of it. i think that was the closest i have ever felt to being on top of the world.

so where are the pictures? good question. my camera is lost, somewhere in the mail between the u.s. and chile. however my friends have pletny and i promise soon there will be a photo site!

on the way to iquique i was lucky enough to sit next to the cutest chilean 2 year old in the world who woke me up at 6 am screaming ¨chica! chica! mira!¨ he was patting my head and pointing out the windows. we were driving throught the andes, and he thought it was just the most amazing thing ever, and i have to agree with him. so we sat together, he in my lap, and stared out the window for the next hour just pointing and saying wow. he was so great.

after iquique we went to la serena, on the way to la serena we (me, and 4 gringa friends) were sitting in the bus station when we noticed someone taking pictures of us! two young chilean guys thought there were being all smooth, but little did they know their flast gave them away. when we noticed we called them over and asked them what the heck they thought they were doing! of course they had no reason, and we ended up chatting away for and hour before our bus came. their names were elvis, (yes, elivs) and miguel. after we boarded the bus on of the attendants came to our seats and told us to look out the window. elvis and miguel were chasing the bus and jumping at the window holding up a sign with hearts. haha.

in la serena i continued to meet amazing people. we stayed in a hostel named hostel santa maria. maria was and older woman and she was the owner of the house. her very hippie-esqe son ran the place, and spent the nights serenading the hostel with his african drum and rainstick skills. i loved it!

at the hostle i met 4 incredibly beatuiful, smart, funny, and nice german girls. across the board, wherever i have traveled, i have always found germans to be over the top beautiful and nice, guys and girls alike! me and these girls had the time of out lives sitting out one night in the back yard which was more like and exotic patio, and shared stories over glasses of wine. i got all their email addresses and cant wait to one day meet up with them again.

one afternoon we went to the beach. the water was a bit cold so we ended up just laying out in the sand. after a while i got a little restless and was by the shore looking for shells. two little boys asked to see what i was collecting and after a few minutes of conversation i was invited to help them build a sand castle. so the two seven year olds, ignacio and carlos, and i sat and played in the sand for quite some time. i also have pictures of this on the way too! these two little boys were so funny. they thought my american accent was hilarious and kept asking me to repeat words and say things in english as the erupted in laughter. after the castle we flew their kites for a bit until it was time for them to head home.

finally, the most interesting person i met. it was maria, the owner of the hostel. i woke up early one morning to go for a run and when i came back she made me a coffee and a huge glass of water. she and i sat and talked about various things, but she was really interested in talking about politics. politics can be a touchy subject here, both with the us and chile´s history with pinochet. but she was more than open to sit and tell me her life story and what it was like for her growing up under pinochet´s regime. she told me about how she could never see a doctore and get treatment for her cancer, and how she thinks that what bush has done with iraq has saved the iraqui people from their own pinochet. it was so interesting to hear this point of view, and very eye opening. that thought had never crossed my mind, but i did think about it for a while after. i love being able to talk and listen to people of all ages and hear their stories and tell them mine.

and finally we headed back to valdivia, and when i walked into my house here, i actually felt like i was coming back to my own home. during my vacation i was homesick for mama, papa, cristobal, y dani. the feeling of being welcomed was so great. valdivia is one incredible new home!

love love love and more love for all!
i miss you!

p.s. i have sooooo much more to write, about stray dogs, cows (which i am deathly afraid of), salsa, farms, music, santiago bus stations, oh man. more to come!

so much to write!

i have been bad! i have not updated this blog in far too long! lets see if i can remember what has happened since i last typed to all of you!

currently i am in very northern chile sitting at a hostel in a town called iquique. this city is muy hermosa! right on the beach, nice sunny weather, a great break from the more fridgide temperatures we have been expierencing in valdivia. just kidding, its not too cold in valdivia, but it is no where near as warm as it is here! but before i get into my week of traveling heres a bit of an update of what has been going on.

classes are great. i really like all of my teachers, especially the professor of my chilean history class. he is by far the most interesting and funny. class work has kept me busy. but the great part is we dont have any classes on friday so that gives us an extra long weekend every week!

i am continuing my salsa dances . . . as for progress, i think i have hit a dry spell. but it is still so much fun. i also am practicing with the university women basketball team! its been fun, but i have to say, the girls dont seem too stoked to have a gringa on their court. so as for now i am just a part of practices. well see where that goes.

last week a bunch of gringos and chileans went out to a karaoke bar! somehow, and i have no idea how, the word got out that i used to be a big backstreet boys fan. well, low and behold, who was the first one up on the stage to start off the night with ´i want it that way´ complete with dance moves? oh it was me- senorita margarita. thank god for my back up gringa vocalists!

hmmmm que mas, que mas? sticking out is still pretty uncomfortable. i am trying to deal with that, but it is quite a process. to tell you the truth, i really dont like to walk alone anywhere even in the middle of the day, because being such an oddball is not the most comforting feeling, espically alone!

my chilean family is still the best! little cristobal just did a big presentation at his school for the chilean independence day (which is tomorrow) and he recited a pablo neruda poem. it was priceless. he felt on top of the world delivering that poem to a crowd of parents and friends all by himself last wed night. and after, he had a lot of fun intrucing me, his new sister, to all his teachers and friends. what a cutie!

so i have a week of vacations so me and four girlfriends decided to road trip up the coast and back down again. so after 35 hours in a bus we are finally in iquique! two days here, and then we are going to have our own version of the motercycle diaries (minus the motorcycle, and minus visiting several countries). we are going to cruise down to coast and soak up as much chilean culture as possible. tomorrow we are hiking to and old incan monument on a hill here in iquique which used to be a ceremonial sacrifical site (sp?). and then we are going to spend the rest of the day celebrating chilean independence!

more updates to come as we travel down the coast. ¡i miss you all and love you¡

katie

cheek kisses, jets v. sharks, niebla, and one horrible soccer team

it has been a while since i have updated so here are a few more chilean tidbits to clue you in on. first of all the cheek kisses. i have to say, we need to make a change in the united states. i get so excited whenever i see any chilean on the street, or meet a new one because i know i get a kiss on the cheek! its the most endearing gesture ever. what better way to greet a person or meet a person than to give them a peck on the cheek! every morning i wake up to one from each of my family members, and each night i fall asleep to one! but i am a bit sneaky, i dont let little cristobol get away with out a big hug too, beacause we all know hugs are just as good.

as for cristobol- he is so damn adoreable! recently i have noticed that when he wants to play a card came, or playstation, or practice his english, he runs upstairs first and sprays about 50 pumps of cologne. granted i spend half our time together coughing . . . i think its cute!

jets v sharks? west side story? what is that all about. its a long long story, but lets just say that accepting drinks from chilean boys comes with a few expectations. thus, one night after leaving a club with my chilean and gringo friends, i ended up in the middle of two feuding groups trying to explain to that that i can be all of their friends, and we are all friends, and we really dont need to fight. that is the short, super sugared down version. email me if you want the long winded version!

on saturday my program took a trip to niebla which is an area on the coast just south of valdivia. oh. my. gosh. i can not even descirbe how incredible it was. the weather was not so great, but still, its hard to think of a time where i ever saw anything as beautiful as the landscape there. we went hiking up some rocky clifs right on the water. then saw an old spanish for and castle. the history here is so rick and amazing!

and finally one horrible soccer team. that team would be the chilean national team. sunday was a sad day for chile. we lost to brasil 5-0!! however i was so entertained by just watching my family and all their friends get so intense and so into a game that had just about no hope!

salsa lessons are going strong. i actaully have to finish this blog up and go to my next lesson!

besos para todos!
katie