In the mine! In the mine!

I knew my program had a trip to El Teniente, the world's largest underground copper mine, planned for the weekend my mom & nana would be here, so, being the thoughtful/mischievous daughter that I am, I secretly signed them up to join us.I knew they would be scared to visit a mine, in light of recent events,but I couldn't let that stop me... How could they visit the country responsible for producing the majority of the world's copper without visiting a mine?? 




As it turns out, they were pretty excited. 

 
 Apparently, my great grandfather (Nana's dad) was a miner, so she was captivated throughout the entire day. To be quite honest, I am pretty sureshe was the only person in my group that was listening to the tour guide hahaha.

 (this woman is one of our amazing program directors. She doesn't speak Englishand didn't realize that her shirt, which read HAMME(RED), was a pun)



Are you interested in being a tour guide one day? Let me give you a few tips...
1. Be knowledgeable in your subject matter2. Be knowledgeable in when to shut your pie-hole!
Our tour guide literally talked all of our ears off. While visiting the mine truly was fascinating, what could have easily been a 4-hour tour ended up being a 12-hour tour. Talk about a long day...










And that, my friends, concludes the pictures I took during my mom & nana's visit. I wish I brought my camera out on their last day here, but I didn't realize we were goingto have so much fun! Oh well, not everything in life needs to be photographically documented!We went to mass at La Catedral, where we stumbled upon an anti-Obama, anti-Americanprotest. That was probably the most unsafe I have ever felt in Santiago.  We then found awonderful Italian restaurant and had a long, luxurious lunch. Slightly tipsy,we wandered back to their hotel, where my friend Rachel came over and hung outwith my mom & I at the rooftop pool. A few pisco sours later, the night was over. 
♥ ♥ ♥ 
I don't think I have ever explained why I came to Chile. In addition to being irrevocably in love with Chilean literature (Isabel Allende, Pablo Naruda... actually let's make that Latin American literature so I can throw in Gabriel García Marquez),I really wanted to become fluent in Spanish so that I could communicate with my nana. She doesn't speak English and I could never speak Spanish, so the week that they visited was literally the first time I have held a full conversation with her. While being awayfrom family and friends for 6 months is hard, that short week showed me how muchI am accomplishing here and really motivated me to make the most of this experience,not only for my own benefit, but also for all of my Spanish-speaking relatives. 
Life is getting exciting around here! I found out that I got an A in the Spanish courseI took the first month I was here, I just scored an AMAZING internship at Wedding Planner Chile, and  a few dance classes I signed up for start this week!:)Sorry for the super long post! Ciao!
P.S. If you get the movie reference from my blog title I love you!

La Playa

Before my mom & nana came to visit me, I had not yet been to Valparaíso or Viña del Mar,
two hot spots on the coast of Chile. We ate a hearty breakfast at their hotel (amazing breakfast
buffet, btw) before our two-hour bus ride because we knew it was going to be a longggg day.
I am so glad we made that little trip, because Valparaíso is seriously one of the top ten
coolest places I have EVER been! I loved the aesthetic of the little houses stacked on top
of each other on the hillside and I could not get over how beautiful all of the graffiti was. We were also able to check out one of Pablo Neruda's amazing houses, La Sebastiana. I apologize in advance for the picture overload. 
























After Valparaíso, we got into a "collectivo" (kind of like a taxi cab... but not...)and our driver took us over to the beaches Viña del mar & Reñaca. 
This man may or may not have swindled us, but let's not talk about that or I will start getting angry all over again haha. 
Viña del Mar & Reñaca were very beautiful but they were completely deserted! Since it is Fall, all of the beach-goers are back in the city (Santiago) working and going to school. We had a delicious dinner at a (totally empty) seafood restaurant in Reñacaand then strolled along the beach before we had to take our bus back to Santiago. 

















Sighhhh ♥