More Updates and Schedule

I forgot to mention in the previous post that me, Brian and Molly went with a friend of ours to see Fernando Gonzalez, the chilean tennis player ranked in the top ten in the world, play an exhibition tennis match at the stadium here. it was an exhibition to raise money for a local school here that he supports.



The day after christmas, we had all of our families over for a BBQ. I was orignially dreading it as it seemed like just one more thing on our list of things to do. I know, you dont feel bad for me at all as i seem to be just on one long vacation, but we are all rather tired and finding days where there is nothin to do are hard to come by. However, the BBQ was great, no chilean men kicked me or brian off the grill, all our families showed up and seemed to have a good time, and my family gave me a birthday gift and a nice set of olive oil stuff for our house. Jose, my brother, made up stories about me the whole night that he told molly and katy, and i played with my little sister Josefina.



For my brithday, we all went to a restaurant that has these sandwiches which are about as close as you can come to a philly cheese steak down here. they are actually really good. then we went out to an irish bar for beers and saw a U2 cover band play there.



Oh, and we had to go to work the day after christmas. really sucked. Christmas is not as big a deal as it is in the states.



Now to make you jealous...my schedule for January and February:

January 2 - 14 - Chiloé - it is an island 15 hours by bus south of us. We are all going there on what is called misiones. we go there with about 40 students to basically do mission work there. the island is extremely isolated and is apparently amazing. the culture is completely unique to all of chile, and it is in the beautiful lakes region.



January 15 - 21 - Philadelphia for Luke´s wedding.



January 22 - 26 - Buenos Aires



January 27 - 30 - Montevideo



January 31 - February 6 - Rio de Janiero for Carnaval. It is rediculously expensive for us because it is during carnaval, but who can resist the largest party in the world?



February 7 - 10 - Foz de Iguazu - one of the 7 natural wonders of the world

February 11 - Buenos Aires again to fly back to santiago

February 12 - 13 - Santiago to regroup and prepare for the next leg of the trip

February 14 - 26 - Hiking and Camping in Patagonia. We are going to hike the W at Torres del Paine and then head up to these glacier parks on teh argentina side.

Tomorrow we leave for Valparaiso for new years to see what is supposed to be the largest fireworks display in south america. the entire city is already booked in all the hotels and hostels, so we are just planning on winging it and maybe just not sleeping that night...