Earthquake Update!

Well the title of my blog says it all. This trip has been one crazy adventure after another and last night was no different. A little after 3:30 this morning there was a huge earthquake, as you may have heard. I was half awake at the time and figured it was just like any other little earthquake that we've been having. I stayed in bed because I figured it'd be over in a few seconds. When it didn't stop and in fact got worse, I got up and went to the doorway. My family (mom, dad, sister, and cousin) were very close all holding on to each other. I could hear plates and cups crashing and breaking while they fell from the cupboards. My dad said it lasted around 90 seconds, but added that it felt like a year. Once it stopped, you could tell that the house was still swaying. I'm really thankful that I'm only on the 4th floor! We got on shoes and walked downstairs outside. We only stayed down there for a few minutes and then cautiously returned to the 4th floor. The power, gas, internet, and phone lines were down, so we got some candles and quickly surveyed the damage. The earthquake was strong enough to knock down some of the TVs even though I didn't hear them fall. My family kept trying their cells to get a hold of family members. I didn't really know what to do so eventually, around 6 something, I just tried to get some sleep. My mom and dad recommended that I move my bed away from the window (the window of death) and that I sleep with the door slightly ajar. Almost as soon as I got into bed, I heard my Chilean cell phone ring. Taylor called! He wanted to check in and make sure I was ok. I think we're the only two students with Chilean cell phones and the landlines weren't working so we couldn't really get a hold of anyone else last night. (Thanks, bro!) Needless to say, I didn't sleep too well last night. There have been a bunch of aftershocks that vary on the Richter scale, but I know that some were even around a 6. In the morning the power still wasn't working, but at least the sun was up and gave us some light. I could see the cracks in the walls and some more of the damage that the earthquake did. The railing on the porch doesn't seem very sturdy anymore, so I will be even more careful when I go out there. Even now (more than 12 hours after "the big one") there are still some pretty strong aftershocks. My mom and sister are both pretty freaked out. When I see the pictures from the epicenter and hear the death toll and how it's still rising, it's shocking. I still can't really believe that all this has happened. It's really weird to think that (1) we're the first group from our school to go, (2) this is the biggest earthquake they've had in 10+ years, and (3) we've only been here for a little over a month! I'm very thankful that it happened when it did though because I think it could have been a lot worse if it happened during the day time, or if any of our group had been home alone. I'm thankful God has kept us safe! Please continue to pray for us, for Chile, and for the potential for tsunamis!

I'll try to keep you guys updated! Thanks for your support!

PS: Ron, our professor, has contacted all of the students and we're all safe!!!

PPS: Oh just wanted to say to those who are potential Santiago study abroad students: Contact me with any questions or concerns! ;)

Outside sources: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010tfan.php

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/lt_chile_earthquake

Apparently this quake is tied for the 7th strongest in the world...goodie.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100227/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_chile_earthquake
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100227/ts_nm/us_quake_chile

Week 4 (and 5 as it turns out)-Harder than I thought

Man keeping up with weekly blogs is a lot harder than I thought. This week had it's ups and downs as does any week I suppose. The first thing worth mentioning happened on Tuesday. Palmer, our professor, told us we would be going somewhere to talk to university students who wanted to practice their English. Wrong. "El Oasis" is actually was a youth group type place with a lot of students from Georgia Tech who were studying abroad. There were also a number of Chileans too. There was singing, a Nooma video, followed by small group discussions (in Spanish). For me I could understand the main points of the discussion, but I felt limited by my Spanish and when I wanted to say something and contribute, I was just silent and nodded my head.

Friday was quite the adventure. First a little after 9am there was another earthquake. I've already felt more earthquakes here in a month, than I have at home my whole life. Then while I was waiting for the group at the lighthouse that morning, I saw a fight. There was a larger man that punched a woman in the face. It was horrible. She kept throwing rocks/dirt at him while a bunch of Chileans just stood around (from what I could tell.) There was also a skinner man involved, though I'm not quite sure how.

On Friday we went to the Chilean equivilent of our White House except there president doesn't live there anymore. The place is called La Moneda because they used to mint money there. It was pretty cool though I wish we could have seen a bit more. After that we went underneath La Moneda for an ancient China exhibit with the terracotta warriors.

----- (week of school)--------

So a week later we went to Fantasilandia. I did some crazy roller coasters (I normally wimp out) because I figured (a) you're only in a Chilean theme park once and (b) you only live once! This trip has made me more adventurous and grateful/appreciative I think. This weekend was pretty boring... I did go to a new church though. That was fun.

I also recently made contact with a nearby Chilean Montessori school! I'll be volunteering there once their school starts up on the first of March. Hopefully I'll also have some other opportunities to visit other schools and maybe even an orphanage.

On a side note, the Vina del Mar 2010 festival starts tonight woo!

I wonder if many people read this...I trust no one worried about me still being alive or wondered why I wasn't posting/writing any blogs.

Any questions? Please ask! (It'll let me know people are reading giving me a reason to write and something to write about!)

Week 3- A beach, a birthday, a bad guy, and a broken water pipe? (But not in that order)

I don't know if I'll be able to match the length of my last posts, and perhaps I shouldn't have set the bar quite so high, but we'll see how this goes. (Sorry for the delay.)

My sister left for Peru and Ecuador 2am last Saturday morning. She's going with a group of friends who all came over before they left for the airport. As is the Chilean custom, when they entered and saw me they made a B-line for me to greet me with a kiss on the right cheek. I still have to hold in the laughs because kissing strangers is still so strange for me.

This past week we went to the beach in the city of El Quisco, which means "the cactus" in the Quechua language. Ron Palmer, our professor, has an old missionary friend who lives down here and let us stay at his beach house there with him and his family. We left right after classes on Monday and took the subway to the bus station and the bus to El Quisco. The trip probably took 1-2 hours.

After putting our luggage away we all walked around the town a bit. We were looking in stores, restaurants, little shops, etc when suddenly all the lights went out...in the whole city. It was quite a sight. They said it doesn't happen very often, so I guess it was their way of welcoming us. Maybe 10 or 20 minutes later, after the stores had tried to close their shops, the lights went back on and we got some ice cream. Later that night, 3 members of the group wanted to hang around and explore a bit while the rest of us went back to the house. (Just so you know this is not an eye-witness account, so I can't really attest to any details.) They stopped in at a restaurant for some food and drinks and Alyssa set her camera down on the table next to her. I guess a guy came in and stole the camera and before any of them knew what happened he was already long gone. We had all been told to be super careful, but I guess it didn't really hit any of us until this happened.

On Isla Negra we got to visit the house-turned-museum of Pablo Neruda, one of only 2 Chilean authors to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. It was overlooking the ocean and quite amazing. I can see why he was inspired there. He had his house kind of like a boat and collected a lot of sea shells, boats in bottles, colored glass, those things that are on the front and back of ships that look like heads, and a lot of other random stuff from all over the world. It was actually pretty cool. They might be able to make a lot more money by renting the house out.

We came back Thursday evening just in time to find out that something was wrong with the pipes downstairs so my bathroom didn't work, the kitchen sink, and the washing machine. It was fixed sometime Friday, whew! =)

Friday morning at 6:16 I felt a shake while laying in my bed--another earthquake! I guess they get them here all the time. I wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy or imagining it so here's my proof: See? Speaking of Friday, that was my 20th bday! Last year it was my first out of the state and this year it's my first out of the country...I wonder what next year will be: out of the Western Hemisphere? World? As a group we went out for dinner at a nearby Chilean restaurant. It was pretty good. Thank you Palmer!

Now the plans for the rest of the weekend? Homework sadly.

PS: Want to try making some Chilean dishes? This is Jim Thurston's website (the missionary who let us stay at his house) http://www.studio-jtv.com/newsite/food.htm
While we were there they made us Cazuela a stew more or less and here's a recipe for that if you'd like to give that a try: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Cazuela