Certainly not expecting a white Christmas in Chile

Well, after a cold beginning in Chile, I can say for sure now that we've entered the heat of the summer. Lately I just try to stay out of the sun and walk around barefoot in our house since the floor is much cooler than any other place. The Christmas tree is up and decorated, but right now it's hard to believe that Christmas is just a few days away. Instead it feels like we should be celebrating the 4th of July or a summer birthday party.

Last week we had a few goodbye parties for Bridget. . .here's a picture from the first one with a lot of the core women from the house (it was really hard to get everyone in the picture).

Here's Bridget with two of my most favorite old ladies. . .they certainly keep us on our toes.

On Monday of this week Caryn, Bridget's host family, and I went to the airport in Santiago to say goodbye to Bridget. After weeks (maybe months) of crying, Sandra, Bridget's host mom, handled the experience pretty well. Caryn and I are especially sad to see Bridget go. . .our peer group has dwindled from three to two. It's tough sometimes to live in a town where most people our age are either married and having children or still live at home with their parents, waiting to get married. The idea of being a somewhat independent twenty-something year old just isn't quite the norm here.

After dropping Bridget off in the airport, Caryn and I stayed with Sandra and Valentina and some of their family in Santiago for a few days. We visited Vina del Mar and Valparaiso for a day, and we'll both be heading back to visit there in a few weeks with our families. The two places are sort of like twin cities (or joined cities?) on the coast of Chile, north of Santiago, and they're built up into a hill right up from the water's edge. Caryn and I basically checked out the area, found a hotel, and located what looked like some good restaurants so that we have an idea of what to do when our families arrive. On Thursday we hung out in Santiago, doing some Christmas shopping and wandering around in the heat downtown.

For Christmas it sounds like we're going to Mass on Christmas Eve and will then come back to the house and eat snacks, drink champagne, and exchange gifts between the gringos. For Christmas day we're planning to meet up with the Maryknollers in the country at a beach a few hours from here. It sounds like it should be a good time--but definitely not the Christmas that we're used to in the States.

This picture somehow didn't make it in my last post, but this is us dressed up with Bridget's English class to sing "Old McDonald" for the end of the year party. . .what lovely costumes we had!

From Thanksgiving to the end of the year party

Thanksgiving dinner ended up being quite fun, even though it was a decent amount of work, especially for a group of us who had never prepared a full Thanksgiving before. Mimi, Ruth, Bridget, Caryn, and I invited some of the Chileans that we're closest with over for the event. The funniest part of the whole meal was probably the horrified looks on the faces of our guests when we explained that this meal would be self-served in a buffet style. Completely unheard of in their parties, we really had to convince them that it was okay to take as much or as little as they wanted. Below is a picture of the whole group:

The Friday following Thanksgiving Mimi, Ruth, Caryn, and I attended a retreat in El Quisco, a beach town about seven hours north of Chillan. We travelled by bus to Santiago (and man, I must say, we watched some really lovely movies on the bus ride there. . .all containing extreme amounts of violence), ate lunch, and then got on another bus to El Quisco. It's a beautiful town, and the retreat center that we stayed at was less than a fifteen minute walk from the beach. The retreat was hosted by the Chile Maryknollers, and was definitely the most, um, interesting retreat I've ever been on, with very alternative ideas of spirituality. In any case, it was nice to get out of Chillan for a week and hang out at the beach a little, even though it was waaaaaaaaaaaay too cold to even consider going in the water. Meanwhile, back in Chillan, summer has truly arrived.

Here's a picture from the beach at El Quisco:

And here are the really large, creepy looking spiders that I called tarantulas (but really are not at all harmful) that were hanging out around the retreat center:

This is Caryn, Sarah (a Maryknoller), and I hanging out at Isla Negra, the home of famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. It was easily one of the strangest places I've ever been based on the odd things this man collected, but the view was gorgeous.

This week we had our end of the year party at the house, which of course involved lots of eating and then each class performed a skit. It really was a lot of fun, especially after all the hard work that went into it.

Today we put up a Christmas tree, which just feels super strange considering it's quite hot outside. We're trying though--we watched Love Actually last night and keep listening to Christmas music whenever we can.