Livin` it up! Patagonia Style

So I made it on to my first summer adventure, FINALLY!!! Right now I´m chillen in Raul Marin Balmeceda in the Aisen region of Patagonia. About a month ago I got in contact with the family who lives and runs a ranch out here in Chilean Patagonia and they agreed to let me come stay with them for a month helping out with whatever needs to be done. They also have 4 tourist cabanas for recieving guests. This place is amazing, I absolutely love it. After the 10 hour boat ride, 5 hour drive down the (dirt highway) carretera austral, 5 min ferry, and 10 min drive to the front gate of the ranch we made it here! (And mind you this was all after i took a 12 hour bus from Santiago) The entrance is really long to the ranch, about 2 miles. First thing you see is lots of trees, greenery and open fields with foresty mountains and hills in the background. The as you continue driving you start to see some of the 100 or so sheep they have grazing. Keep driving and you get to another gate, get out of the car to be welcomed by the dogs barking and wagging their tails. Enter through the garden (biggest garden i´ve ever seen) with carrots, all types of lettuce, spinach, green onions, lavender, other spices, just to name a few of the things I can think of off the top of my head. As you walk through and out the garden gate to the path to the house you see on the left rows of blueberry plants, as well as potatoes growing. And the country style 2 story, 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house in front of you. Walking around the house to the right you get to a sort of backyard where they´ve just built and enclose BBQ area with a table and seats. Keep walking straight and you see 2 of the 4 cabanas. Walk past that and there it is, a strip of ocean (no waves, looks like a lake in that way) and sandy beach. I´ve walked up and down the beach with the dogs now everyday and seen groups of dolphins swimming twice. I have yet to go kayaking but they have a bunch of kayaks that can be taken out too. The first couple days the weather was nice, i did a lot of weeding on the paths and some help with cooking in the kitchen. Then a couple days ago the family i´m with left to go back to the city where I met them to turn in their winter rental house and pick up their sons to come back here for the summer, so I´m left here alone for almost a week!! I´ve spent 2 nights here alone so far. It is nice that the sun rises before I wake up and goes down about 11:00pm when i go to sleep, cause usually I´m most scared when its dark outside. In the house, the electricity runs on a generator that we only turn on for a couple hours in the morning and a couple hours at night so needless to say, its been pretty quiet. Probably the most silence I´ve experienced in my life, ever. But I´m taking advantage of it and actually getting pretty used to this life. Ive been doing lots of reading, baking, and long walks on the beach which can probably all three qualify in my top 10 favorite things to do. At night the stars are absolutely incredible, so bright and so many!! I have yet to go star gazing though, not that comfortable outside in the dark quite yet ;). But needless to say, its been a great kick off to my summer, as well as the fact that I improved my grades on all my finals from my midterm grades, which makes me excited to do even better next semester. I´m going to miss my family lots over Christmas, but I´m so glad I found a great family to spend the holidays with and a beautiful place to live the next month. Living on this ranch I am living my dream and am so happy to be here having this experience. I wouldn´t have it any other way and everyday I just feel so blessed to be able to do all the things I´m doing. I wish I could upload some pictures but i haven´t really figured that out yet on this desktop. So for now, Chao and Feliz Navidad :)

Teleton

So I said goodbye to my host family last week and have now moved into the apartment where Favi lived. Its nice, and still in the same neighborhood where I used to live which I like because I've become comfortable here. My room is extremely small and everything barely fits, but it works. I won't be here much during the summer so that doesn't matter anyways. It was strange packing up my old room though. I had lived there for 5 months, which is a pretty long time, I got comfortable there in my room with my little routine. It was also nice always having my host mom and brother around. Also my host mom did EVERYTHING for me, which I got very used to... but it is nice now to have responsibilities again. I had somewhat forgotten what that was like, but I like it. When I was packing up my room and putting all my stuff in the living room as I waited for the taxi to come get me, I was a lot sadder then I thought I would be. I don't think I've ever been so sad moving out except maybe from my family's "old house" on 6030 E. Heaton. When I moved to college I was so excited and ready to go and then when I moved out of the dorms, I was like "alright, get me outta here!" and then when I moved out of my apartment sophomore year I was sad, but excited for the summer and all that was in store for me moving to South America. But from my home with my host family, I was just plain sad. The location was so perfect right by a cute string of restaurants and the municipal building and main plaza, also with the new gym that just opened, I had a great little room, bed, closet, and my own bathroom, when I was bored I watched movies with my host brother or went upstairs to bother Mia, and every day around 2:30pm there was a hot lunch on the table for me. But I guess in life things are always changing, and you can't just hold onto the past but you've got to keep moving forward with your head up ready for the next exciting adventure. So thats what I'm doing.

SO, in about a week, or less then a week, when I'm all done with school and the paper that I am delaying writing right now as I am updating my blog instead, I will be heading down to Patagonia for about a month. For those of you who don't know, Patagonia is the name for the whole most southern part of Chile where it is known for many beautiful landscapes and not a lot of people. There are glaciers, penguins, whales, fishing, horseback riding, hiking, greenery (because it rains the majority of the year), really nice, slow moving, mountain people and much more. I can't wait to see it for myself. Next week I will be meeting up with a family I got in contact with to go to their EcoLodge in the Aysen region to help them out on their property and with guests. I'm not exactly sure what's in store for me, but I'm going to go and find out!!

Yesterday Dec. 3 was the Teleton here in Chile. The past few weeks I had  been seeing signs about it, but was never really sure what it was all about, who they were raising money for, and how many people actually participate. Turns out it is a nationwide thing and people get really involved. I got an email about a 10k for the teleton because of the 10k I had ran before and I decided at the last minute to go and do it. I think the extra push was the fact that we got a free shirt for participating... so I went there and they had a total of about 7,500 participate. It was so cool! We ran down the main street in the town in our red shirts while traffic was blocked off. People all up and down the street honking, waving and smiling at us. Then when I got home and turned on the tv, every channel was synced covering the teleton where they told different stories and had entertainment and encouraged people to go down to the bank or online to donate money to reach their goal of 18,000,000 pesos. Which i believe is just shy of 40 million dollars. (i think...) The goal of the teleton is to raise money for people, children in particular with disabilites. The stories shown on the tv were of some of these kids and their lives. Then starting at 10:00pm everyone headed to the "Estadio Nacional" which is their biggest soccer stadium for a free concert which a bunch of different artists. The tv channels were still synced and they would update about every 20 min to see how close to the goal they were. I watched the whole concert which went to about 1:30am and ended with them making their goal. It was just really cool to watch because they kept empasizing "solidarity" and they would sing their song over and over "Vamossss, Vamos Chilenos...." It was amazing to see a country so dedicated and together on reaching this goal and the national pride that they had. It seemed like everyone was so united on this goal and it was really cool to be a part of it during the 10k. I think after experiencing the teleton, I came to like Chile a little bit more then I already do, it was just a really special thing. Well that's about it for now, I better get back to my essay...:/ but here's some pictures in the mean time.

P.S. I forgot to mention also that since I've moved I have a new address!

Lauren Grazier

Jose Manuel Infante 2520 Depto #203

7750000 Nunoa,

Region Metropolitana, Chile

South America

Me and my host brother at Chinese food

Me and my host mom at Chinese food (she took us out for lunch the day I moved out)

The start of the race in front of the presidential palace. Everyone with their red shirts.