Videos y fotos de junio y julio :)

Title Translation: videos and photos from June and July :)

Holaaaaa desde Chile! (Hellooooo from Chile!)

First of all, I am going to officially promise you all that I am going to start writing more in this little blog of mine. Hopefully, you have been able to keep up with the trip a little bit, either through stories from mom & dad, looking at Facebook pictures, or chatting with me. Here are some videos and photos that I haven't gotten a chance to share otherwise:

Night view from on top of the Morro

In this video, you will experience the beautiful lights of Arica from on top of the Morro, a crazy looking guy that didn't realize the video camera was on a.k.a Jack (guy from Wales that was teaching English here in Arica), and a fit of giggles :)

The amazing view of Arica at night.

Some crazy gringa on top of the morro ;)

The Jesus statue on top of the morro keeping peace between Peru and Chile. Note: Look at the arrow that is created by the shadows on the stairs!! Crazy!

Chilean flag with my dear Arica <3

My food for the next few days after the morro, when I was sick...

Thanks to my great host mom for taking care of me and making me a special soup for when I was sick!

The 4th of July...in Chile

Yep! That is me in the local Arica newspaper representin' the U.S. on the 4th of July :)

Putre & Lago Chungara in Chile

My crazy group and I at the highest non-navigable lake in the WORLD!

A little hello greeting to all the family from Lago Chungara.

 We thought there was someone laughing near the lake...turns out that the birds that live there sound like their laughing when they make their bird call. I decided that if I was any bird...it would be this kind! :)

 The group at Lago Chungara!

 It doesn't get much better than this.

This one is for you, mom, a photo of me with the nice background :)

 A sweet panaromic photo of where we were.

 Lolly-the llama, and Evan, Kelsey, Kristin, me, Heather, and Dawn on our way to Lago Chungara.

"You were going a bit fast back there, don´t you think? I will need to see your I.D., please."

 Lolly and me reunited!

 The morning view from my hostel in Putre, Chile.

Trying to show a little UNI spirit...if you look close you can see it!

 Well, I almost made it to Bolivia. That is it...right over there!

Llama crossing!!!

The UNI group officially left July 30th. It was so difficult to see them all go with tears coming down their faces. Arica is definitely not the same without all of their smiling faces. The next day, July 31st, Erin and I took a flight from Arica to Santiago, Chile!!! However, I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave that adventure until next time (it should be within the next few days!).

Hope you all have a lovely night, day, afternoon, etc.! Miss you! Good luck to everyone starting classes this week. You will do wonderful :)

Con amor,

Katie Lea

Finalmente, escribo de nuevo :)

Title translation: Finally, I write again :)

Hola!!!

I'm going to start by apologizing a bit for not keeping up with my blog. It has been extremely busy here, and it's difficult to find time to write a bit, but I will try to be better at it from here on out! Okay? You have my promise!

Well, I guess I will try to recap my month of June and beginning of July a little bit...

June was a pretty crazy month of people getting sick and students getting used to their classes. We have had five students get sick this time around, which I really can't figure out why there has been so many this year. I was actually one of the ones to get sick during my third week here. And let me tell you, it was not fun at all! I had my family pretty worried, and I was pretty worried myself. After hiking the morro at night to see the city, Jack (guy from Wales), and I headed down to the centro to grab a bite to eat, and I think I must have eaten something bad because I got sick the next day, and continued being sick for the following four days. I became extremely dehydrated and was only lying in bed for all of the days. At times I felt like I was getting a bit better and could eat a little bit, but the next moment it would be another story. Eventually, I went to the hospital and my host mom's ex-husband who is a stomach doctor gave me a prescription for anti-biotics, but I couldn't get them until the next day because it was too late in the day. We went to the pharmacy and got them the next day, and I took one, but later in the night, I had just gotten too bad. I had no food or water in me, and I could hardly move. It was time to go to urgent care at the clinic. We waited for quite some time at the clinic, and I was completely misserable. I finally got a bed in the ER, and I had a really friendly doctor who was making jokes with his patients left and right. I finally ended up getting an IV, and as soon as I had that I started feeling a tiny better and started to get some energy. By the next day, I was even smiling and laughing...I was back to myself :) My host mom took such great care of me throughout the whole week. She used to be a nurse, so I have to admit, I was pretty darn lucky to have her! Sooo no worries now. I am healthy as ever now, and I'm eating and eating :)

I have had a few experiences that have been a little different this time around. Besides going to the clinic, I also went to my VERY FIRST soccer match, and Arica won!!! It was a really incredible experience to see the Chilean passion for soccer. I got goosebumps each time they scored (it ended being 3-0). There was one section at the game that just kept jumping and yelling the entire time! No joke! It was the entire time! I don't know how they do it. It was an important game too. Because they won, there will be teams that are more popular in Chile playing here in the future. Woohoo! I hope I will be able to see some of those games later on this year.

The crowd going wild after the win!

I also returned to the caves that are near Arica with Kristin (a friend from the group) and two other girls who are volunteers for English Open Doors-a program that takes volunteers in all of Chile who teach English at schools.

Kristin and I exploring near the beautiful cost

What more? I went to a play that was all in Spanish, I went out on a boat ride in the ocean with the group, ate some amazing "torta" a.ka. cake for my host sisters birthday that my host mom made, celebrated the fourth of July with a little dance party. Oh! yeah! For the 4th of July I was interviewed in the local newspaper here and for the televesion, and just the other day I spoke on the radio! I tell you, it is busy busy busy here! Which takes me to...I gotta go! I'm heading to the beach to soak up some sun. I will be writing you all more soon with hopefully more photos as well...ok a few more photos will follow this post, haha! Take care everyone!!!!

Besitos y abrazos desde Chile!

Katie

Oldest mummies in the world...found right here in the north of Chile!

Wilson (My friend from Arica that studies at UNI too)´s nephew who danced in the parade for the Aymara New Year...With a little bit of effort, he finally smiled :)

These are the type of bushes I get to walk by on a regular basis here...beautiful, right?

 My awesome group and I on our little boat!

 At the play that was all in Spanish, and feeling pretty classy with our glass of wine :)

Kristin, me, Gricelda (helper of one of the professors) and Shelby

That's all for now folks, Take care! 

Much love,

Katie

El resto del fin de semana, y el primer día de clases

Hola!!

Title translation: The rest of the weekend, and the first day of classes.

Well, I might as well begin where I left off...Saturday. By the way...I'm loving every moment of being here!!! I keep telling everyone how I can't stop smiling :)

As Shelby, Dawn, and I walked back from the centro, the Chilean pride came alive after the fútbol game. Everyone was honking their horns in their cars, flags waving out the windows, and people yelling with happiness and pride. I'm already getting excited for the game on Saturday against Venezuela! After walking back from the centro, we headed to one of the host families homes for the family gathering. All of the students host-moms, a couple host dads, a couple siblings, a sibling that teaching English here from Wales, and all of the students joined in for the little party. They sure do feed us good here! We enjoyed pizza, "birthday" cake-we celebrated the 8 years that the program has been going, and everyone even got to enjoy a maracuya sour-super rico!

A video of us singing Happy Birthday (in Spanish) to our program, CISP for the 8 years it has been around (since there weren't any birthdays to celebrate). Sorry, it didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted it, but hey, oh well :)

A few pictures of the students having a good ol' time...

 The wonderful parents and helpers of the program at the family gathering.

 My AWESOME group!

 My Chilean mom (Ligia) and me :)

 The helpers of the program. They are great!!!! From the left: Hellen, me, Tiare, and Carolina

 Heather, me, and Colton enjoying our time at the family gathering.

 The pizza is really different here, but it's amazing!

Evan...and Erin attempting to sneak attack him with frosting.

After the family gathering, we all went to the Monesterio, a pub in the centro where there is live music, for the good-bye party of Javier, a good friend of mine from Arica that is going to go to study at University of Northern Iowa for 3 years!! It was so good to see him again and give him a big hug. Each time I see someone I know, I just can't help feel that this whole thing feels like a dream that I'm going to wake up from really soon. It's just so surreal! Javier leaves on Wednesday, and I wish him the best on his amazing journey to come. Can't wait to see him when I return!!! Some photos from the party:

 Ignacio, Javier (going to UNI), and me.

 Me and Carolinaaa :)

 Love this girl! Miss Kristin and me.

 Colton and me. Colton will be staying the semester with me here!

 Tiare, Shelby, Jack (Kristin's "sibling" who is teaching English here from Wales), and me.

 Me and Romina

 We have been talking about our trip to Chile for a loooong time every day in class at UNI...finally, we're here together! (Shebly and me)

Kelsey, Erin, me, Tiare, and Shelby enjoying our night at the Monesterio.

A few of us ended up heading to Drake, the dancing club, here after the Monesterio, and the rest went either home or to another club with their primos. We danced the night away-let me tell ya! It was a great time, and we even made it til 4:30 am dancing!! After we went to the beach for a little bit to see the ocean at night. Sooo beautiful! By the time I got to bed, it was 6 am...I sure didn't think I would do that my first weekend back here. I was prepared to return when the students wanted to...but they all wanted to stay out late! I'm proud of them! They are already practically Chileans ;)

The majority of us headed to the beach on Sunday and enjoyed the amazing winter weather Arica has. The sun was shining, and the water wasn't even that bad. We walked on over, so the students could become a little bit more familiar with the city. I then got to talk with Dad and Mom for our Sunday Skype chat :) A couple pictures from our day if you haven't seen them on Facebook...

 Megan, Joe, me, Evan, Dawn, Justine, Riley, Coral, Kelsey, Heather, Erin, David, & Shelby...The majority of my AMAZING group.

I LOVE these guys!

As for today, the students began their first day of classes. I helped Pochy with getting some of the materials ready for the upcoming classes, so I didn't get to go to two of their classes, but I was able to see my old professors! I have missed them a lot! After lunch, they had their last class which was Hispanic Literature. I warned them all ahead that this class is pretty difficult, and sometimes it's difficult to understand the professor because she only speaks Spanish. They all seemed to have a great time though, although at times it was difficult for them to understand. As for me, I was pretty excited to be able to understand the majority of everything! It's SO crazy how different this time is from last year with being able to understand people. I love it :) For part of the literature class, two of the students, Joe (theater major) and Coral acted out a little scene of an old married couple. Coral wanted a divorce and Joe was an old stubborn angry man. It was...hilarious! I'm pretty sure all of us had tears in our eyes from laughing so hard. It was a great way to start literature! 

And now...here I am, writing this lovely blog. Hope you enjoy the pictures and hearing a little about our adventures. 

Besos y abrazos,

Katie

Finalmente, estamos en CHILE! :)

Hola desde Arica! (hello from Arica)

Title translation: Finally, we're in Chile! :)

Sometimes plans just don't work out how you want them to, but maybe this happens for a reason...let me just say that's what happened during our trip to Chile. We met everyone at Des Moines around 11:30 am Wednesday, and we began our big adventure. It was great meeting the majority of the parents and loved ones of all of the students before leaving. I could sense the excitement, nerves, and the tiny bit of heartbreak of a son or daughter leaving. I can't believe that it has only been a year since I was in the students' same place. We got an awesome group picture, and then we said our tearful goodbyes with that one last look at our parents with a little wave. For me, this was a lot easier this year to say bye to mom and dad. Being in Arica is like a second home for me, and knowing that I had my family, friends, and my old bedroom was extra comforting :)

 My good lookin' group ;)

Front row from the left: Coral, me, Shelby, Megan.

Second row from the left: Kelsey, Riley, Kristin, Erin.

Third row from the left: Nehemiah, Colton, Dawn, Justine, David, heather, Joseph, Evan.

 Two of the most amazing people in the world...my parents :) They have been so amazing these past few weeks helping getting me prepared for this trip. Thank you, mom and dad, for everything! :)

So we said our goodbyes and headed on our way to Chile. The majority of the trip went really well...that being said, we could have had a couple more things go well for us...Our plane from Chicago to Miami decided to have some troubles-something with the AC, and so we were delayed a little while for this flight. Then, while flying into Miami there were some thunderstorms (I think from the current tropical storms in the area), so this took us a little while to; however, it was beautiful flying into Miami! We got to our gate, or at least what we thought was our gate. See, there are 2 flights from Miami to Lima, both at 11:55, and one is operated by LAN and the other is operated by American Airlines for LAN, last but not least the flight numbers were extremely close 2111 and 2115 (ours didn't have either of these main ones, but a different one because we were flying with LAN-but the plane was American Airlines. This was extremely confusing, and when we asked if we could get our tickets for this leg of our trip the man told me that we were at the wrong gate. WHAT? I couldn't believe it. I thought for sure we were at the correct one because the screen with everything said the other number that we had with the other flight number. The man even told me that if it is at the other one, that we would never make it. That was just exactly what I wanted to hear :( Anyway, the man then asked another worker if we were at the correct gate, and the man said yes. Oofta! That was a close call, and my adrenaline started pumping. Lastly, no one was coming to help with the flight. I don't know if the worker forgot our what, but many of us needed to get our tickets printed out. Finally, we all got our tickets printed out, and Evan and I were the last ones on the flight. With all of this, we once again had a delay-this didn't make me feel any better knowing that we originally only had 1 hour and 25 minutes in the Lima airport to go through customs, get our bags, print our tickets etc. I was thinking of all the scenarios possible, which I'm glad I did because once we got to Lima and got off the plan...we RAN! I was sweating up a storm by the time we finally did all of the things we needed to do, and we finally made it to the ticket line to be told that the flight was closed, as I'm hearing my name on the loudspeaker (Kathleen, one of the students was already in Lima and was trying to hold the flight for us). I was so disappointed to be told we didn't make it after my group had been so awesome and had hurried as fast as possible with me to get through Lima.

Anyway, we ended up spending a good 12 hours in the Lima airport, and with this, I got some good photos of the group ;) During our long time at the airport, I was at Starbucks checking in with my Chilean coordinator, Pochy, and all of a sudden I heard this siren. I thought it was the police or something, but I wasn't too concerned. All of a sudden one of my students that was at our "camp" in the cafeteria was telling me that they were evacuating everyone. Oh goodness, so we all had to go outside while some of our items were still in the cafeteria. I ran frantically in there to see if I could get my bags, and luckily I did, but there was a man telling me to leave. I told him that our groups stuff was there, and he told me hesitantly that one person could stay in to watch it. However, I just had a feeling that we should all get out of there. Turns out, there was actually an earthquake and this was the reason why they evacuated everyone.  None of us felt it, but we definitely knew something weird was going on, although the man originally told me it was just a simulation (I found out later he tried telling the other students it was an earthquake, however, they didn't know this word yet. We finally made it to Tacna airport after all the craziness. Some pictures from the flights and in Lima...

Colton, Evan, and David enjoying their time at the Lima airport (this was only within the first or second hour of being there... there faces looked a little different after 12 hours)

 Kristin discovering how comfortable the chairs are in the Lima airport are.

 Colton...with his sleeping blindfold...made from the outside part of his pillow he got on the plane. :)

Pochy and our bus driver Nelson picked us up from the Tacna airport, and we headed on our way to ARICA :) We luckily had a van to carry all of our suitcases this time instead of packing them into our mini bus. That helped a lot, and the students got to experience what it's like to cross the border from Peru to Chile. As we got closer to Arica, I just couldn't stop smiling. I was (and still am) SO happy to be in Chile again. We drove in at night (11 pm our time back home), and the lights from the city were just fantastic! It was a great way to see Arica for the first time for the students. The students were super excited and nervous to meet their host families, and we were all a little sleep deprived...so we were a little bit goofy too ;) 

The students in the mini bus...on their way to meet their families!

Finally, after 36 hours of traveling, we made it to Arica!!!!

Once we got into Arica, we pulled up to where the host families were waiting. Right away I saw my host mom's car :) Then, I saw Carolina and Tiare (two friends and helpers of the program), and started waving like crazy. As soon as the bus stopped, I was out of my seat running out the door to give them big hugs! It was amazing :) Then, there was Ligia who came around the bus to greet me with all kinds of big hugs and a kiss on the cheek :) The students were all so happy to meet their host families, and we all were ready to hit the hay! It was so cool to get in the car with my mom and to be speaking Spanish and understanding everything! This time is definitely a little different than my first time here ;) It's amazing how much my Spanish improved last summer. She made some tea for me and a pancake with manjar (the pancakes here are very different from home), and it was delicious! I got a quick shower, and then drifted off to sleep...

We have been super busy the past few days. Friday, we met at the centro (downtown) in order to exchange money, buy any items we still needed, and to get to know the city a little bit better. That night we met up with the primos (conversation partners, students learning English at the university), and we all went our separate ways for a few hours. I head to jalapeños-the only Mexican restaurant in town. Thank goodness there is some kind of Mexican food here! Speaking all of this Spanish make me super hungry for it :) We then met up with everyone at McDonalds in order to get taxis and go to my favorite place...DRAKE in order to dance the night away :) I was impressed that the majority of the students stayed until 3:30ish or 4:30ish. 

Saturday, I headed to the centro with Dawn and Shelby after sleeping in, and I got a few items I still needed. As we were walking in the centro there was a little television outside one of the stores that two men were sitting and watching the fútbol (soccer) game-Chile vs Bolivia. It was down to the last 10 minutes, and it was 1-0, Chile winning! :) I was getting super into it with all of the Chileans, and all of a sudden we scored a...goaaaaaal! You could hear everyone yelling with excitement with the chant Chi-chi-chi le-le-le-VIVA CHILE!

I'm afraid I will have to finish my Saturday and the rest of the weekend tomorrow. The traveling and Chilean lifestyle has made me real tired, and the students start classes tomorrow, so I have to get rested up to help show them around. Hope all is well...wherever you may be :)

Besos y abrazos (kisses and hugs),

Katie :)

9 days until Chile...AND baby Bentley :)

Hola!

I can hardly believe that we are in the single digits for the countdown! Only 9 days until the group and I take off. Lately, I have been busy packing. Many of you have asked me "How in the world do you pack for 7 months?" Truth is, I had no idea when you asked me, and I still have no idea...It's extremely difficult, but I'm as ready as I ever will be :)

I have also been busy spending time with my friends and family, going to graduations, soaking up the sun, and cooking and eating as much American food as possible before leaving.

Sam, my roommate from college, and I took a little shopping trip to the Mall of America earlier in May.

Like usual, I got pretty excited when I saw Spanish :) The translation: Blue's Adventure

Perhaps the favorite person I have seen so far, would probably have to be my cousin Cale and Kate's new little baby boy, Bentley. I feel so blessed that he was born, and I was able to meet him before I leave. Photos of Bentley are below.

ALSO, check out my vlog. For all of those of you who aren't too tech savvy, a vlog is the mix between a video and a blog :) I will be writing this blog (what you are reading right now), and I will also have a vlog which you can click on below. With a blog and vlog, you should be able to get the full experience of going and being in Chile :)

My first vlog post includes footage of the new little addition to our family. Enjoy!

You can also click here to check out my vlog on youtube: My vlog: Katie's South American Adventure...the 2nd Time Around :)

Bentley Gerald Vaith and me.

Laurie (my mom) and Bentley.

The new happy little family :)

Isn't he just the cutest little thing you have ever seen?

Hasta pronto,

Katie :)