Posted by Lisa on December 19th, 2005 — Posted in Activities
This weekend was beautiful. Since I’ve started hiking again, I decided to take Steve and Leyna with me. We had already O.K.’d it with the vet. We hiked only for about an hour, and found that an hour was Leyna’s stopping point. At the bottom of the mountain, she found a little shade and laid down for a rest (as did Steve 🙂 ) Overall Leyna did very well, for part of the time she didn’t have a leash and she followed basically right next to me. We encountered runners, bikers and dirt bikers. She barked a little but that was it. I’m happy that I now have a hiking buddy. If only we could get her over her car sickness…
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Posted by Lisa on December 13th, 2005 — Posted in Activities
Today, I had my west african dance class, taught by my friend Jaime. Today we danced, 2 dances my favorite “Cu-Cu” and we learned a new one “Sofa” which is a hunting dance (I may have spelled these wrong). I decided, it’s finally time to share some pics with you. So the below pics are of the dance studio, us dancing, Jaime, and the new 2 week old puppies. As some of you may remember, when we were first talking about getting a dog, we were going to get one of these. They are so cute, but I think we got the best dog of all, Leyna leyna bo beyna!!
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Posted by Lisa on December 11th, 2005 — Posted in Activities
Today (Sunday) Steve and I made christmas cookies. Unfortunately, you can’t really buy good decorating stuff here, and we thought we had xmas cookie cutters, but can’t find them. Today is election day here in Chile, so everything is closed, so I guess you just have to make do. We made 2 types of cookies today, Lemon Spritz and Sugar Cookies. We had a great time making them and decorating them.
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Posted by Lisa on December 11th, 2005 — Posted in Activities
Steve didn’t have to work on Thursday as it was a national holiday here in Chile, the Immaculate Conception. A friend of mine Liz Anne, invited a group of us to her house/abalone farm. They live about 15 min south of us on a beautiful 26 acre ocean front property. Her husband Mike is a marine biologist, and they started the first abalone farm here in Chile 9 years ago. They have a second abalone farm in the south of Chile, in Chiloe. We had a wonderful time learning about abalone (which is a vegetarian sea snail). They started their stock of abalone from some brought over from California. They now raise millions of baby abalone until they’re about an inch and a half, and sell them to buyers in the Lake District (which is the South of Chile). There, a law was passed allowing the abalone farmers to grow their abalone directly in the ocean. On Mike’s farm, as you can see in the pictures, they have big houses where they grow their abalone, and pump water in from the ocean and filter out any bad stuff, and use that for the abalone. Here in La Serena they sell loco, which is similar to abalone, except that it’s carnivorous. There are many abalone farms in Chile now, but the abalone are all exported mainly to Asia. Afterwards the bunch of us went to Guanaqueros to El Pequeño for lunch. Steve was happy to finally go on an outing with us.
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Posted by Lisa on November 27th, 2005 — Posted in Activities
Okay, so I went to Chapilca forever ago, but I realized I forgot to share it with you guys. As you may remember, I have started weaving. I went to a class that was taught by a woman from Chapilca, who made her own yarn. She invited us to come and watch her dye yarn. Chapilca is a town that is centered around weaving. They raise the sheep, then shear them, and then hand spin the wool into yarn, wash it in a big tub, then dye it with natural ingredients. On this day, she used two different types of leaves to dye the yarn yellow and green. To make red yarn, the use the blood of some type of cactus beetle. We met her family, and learned about their different roles in the weaving process. Her grandmother doesn’t get around as well as she use to, so she mainly spins the yarn. The loom they use to make their goods is mammoth. We plan on going back sometime soon. The woven products are beautiful.
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Posted by Lisa on November 26th, 2005 — Posted in Activities
Steve and I had some friends over for Thanksgiving. Steve made his awesome Alton Brown turkey for us and some great mashed potatoes, and I made carrot casserole, sweet potato casserole, stuffing and 2 pies ( 1 with homemade crust, my first time!) a zapillo (which is a type of pumpkin) and an apple. Del brought asparagus and broccoli ,and Stella and Jenny brought appetizers.I think I drove Steve crazy with my worrying about the food. It’s just that it’s hard trying to use recipes from the states here in Chile, since you can’t find a lot of the ingredients in the supermarkets or what is here is completely different. For instance, the sweet potatoes here have a purple skin, are irregularly shaped, and the inside is kind of off white in color. In the end though, everything turned out perfect and we all had a blast. The funny thing was the we were the only americans, Stella is from Greece, Del and her family are from Australia, as is Jenny and her family. Apparently in Australia turkey costs around $80, so they never get to eat it. We also had great Chilean wine of course. Missed all of you!!!!
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Posted by Lisa on November 2nd, 2005 — Posted in Activities
Tuesday, was a lazy day here in La Serena. It was a holiday here in Chile, All Saints Day, so Steve didn’t have to go in to work. We made the best of our lazy day and slept in and then went to La Feria, which is the open air market downtown. It’s a short walk, and they sell the most amazing things there, from seaweed, clothes, nuts, fruits, veggies and plants. It’s all very cheap, so we just bring our change. I got a ton of fresh walnuts for 500 pesos, which is around a dollar. I’m on a walnut craze currently, and love putting them in my salads.
Let’s see, what else do I have to share? On Sunday, before Steve came down the mountain, I went to the beach with my friend Stella, who graduated with Steve form IU. It was nice to finally get to see her. I was in the States when she got here, and then she was in the States, and we were never able to get in touch. I’m happy to say we finally did, went to the beach, went for a walk, hung out with some of the other gringos, and went out to lunch. I didn’t bring the camera though. Upcoming events include a trip on Friday to Chipilca to buy some homemade yarn, and to watch a dying presentation. My weaving project is coming along, slowly though. Hopefully I will finish it soon and figure out what to do with it!
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Posted by Lisa on October 18th, 2005 — Posted in Activities
Yesterday, I went to the beach with my friend Joanna and with a new woman Anne Marie who has just moved down here from New Hampshire. Her husband is on sabbatical, and is a professor of marine biology. He is currently studying some type of seaweed found here in Chile. Last weekend they were up in the northern part of Chile and said that the desert is blooming. This happens every couple of years, when there has been a large amount of rainfall. Steve and I are thinking about driving up north this weekend to see the flowers. Anyways I digress, about my bad day. So after laying out on the beach for a while, it was a beautiful, and sunny day with a small breeze, we decided to go to Coquimbo for fish sandwiches. We walked around the market in Coquimbo where everybody peddles their goods, and then went to the fish market. After a terrific sandwich, I wanted to go see the sea-lions. So picture this, we are walking down a dirt road along the ocean. On the left hand side of us is the ocean, but you couldn’t really see it do to the construction going on, on the right hand side are a bunch of beautifully colored boats. On our way to the pier, a small kitten popped out from under a boat. It was the cutest thing. I decided to take a picture of the tiny kitten. I got out my camera and was bent down and taking a picture when out of no where my camera is ripped from my hand. I stand up and see a guy running away with my camera. What nerve!!! So of course, I start yelling like an idiot, my camera, he stole my camera, stop, arrete!!! And give chase. Not really sure what I was thinking of as I started to run after him, I mean really. Even if I was able to catch up to him, and then miracle of miracles knock him down, then what would I do? “Uh, hey man, that’s my camera??” He ran too fast and got away. There was a group of guys out by their truck (definitely smelling like they had been smoking), that said that he had got away. Luckily Joanna was with me and was able to communicate with them. We think that wanted us to go for a ride in their truck and go looking, but we declined. We think they also said that this guy was from Santiago, and was robbing lots of tourists, his nickname being, ironically enough “the robber”. I’m so sad. I was so excited to get a bunch of pictures this weekend of the desert to share with you guys, though lucky for me I have my friend Joanna down here that will let me borrow her camera. But still. In the end, nothing horrible happened to me, but I still feel violated, and slightly like a dork. I mean, come on, he stole my camera out of my hand as I was taking a picture. I did download all my pics from my trip home the night before so those were saved. I would really have been upset if I had lost my pics from Karin’s wedding. So that in all, was my very sad day 🙁
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Posted by Lisa on October 15th, 2005 — Posted in Activities
So, I hear that I have been lax in my blog duties, I apologize. Now that I’m back in Chile, let the blog postings begin! I relaxed my first couple of days back, kinda hibernated. On Friday, I ventured out. I went to a traditional weaving class hosted at my friend Joanna’s house. There, a woman came form a neighboring town (Chipelca?) to teach us how to weave. Apparently this weaving process has been passed down from generation to generation in her family with no modernized updates. They use all natural products, and make everything themselves. She is involved in the entire process from shearing the sheep, to creating the yarn, to dying it with natural elements-, like cactus juice, bugs, flowers, herbs, etc. It was a wonderful class, and I look forward to more. In November I get to travel to this town, and watch the dying process. I can’t wait. Here are a couple of pics from the class, and of my beginning weaving project. I think it will be a wall hanging, though apparently I will be able to make purses, placemats, and more. Hmmm, maybe i’ll make some christmas presents!!
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Posted by Lisa on September 1st, 2005 — Posted in Activities
Today, I had a great day with some of my friends. It started off with african dance with my friend Jaime who’s the instructor, and Rikki, who kicks my ass at dance. Jaime and I then went to Coquimbo to meet our frineds Joanna and Jeanel for lunch. We had planned to go to the mexican restaurant, but it doesn’t seem that we’re meant to go. This was our second attempt at eating at this restaurant, and it was closed again. We decieded to go to Fusion, which is a wonderful restaurant owned by a canadian/chilean. We sat on the third floor surronded by windows. It was a beautiful day. Clear and sunny, and the Andes in the distance were covered in snow. Absolutely breathtaking.
After lunch, we went to the tip of Coqiumbo, and had drinks on the rocks overlooking the ocean. We watched the birds flying around, saw a sealion sunning himself, and another one playing in the water. I think the coffee shop is my new favorite place. It’s peaceful, not crowded, and beautiful. I think i’m going to try to go there more often. They had this amazing amaretto tea that I loved.
We then proceeded to a friend of a friend of Jaime’s art show. She had some amazing pictures that she had painted. I’m not much of an artist type, but they were layered and wonderful. I bought my first artwork today. I got my sister a painting as well, but now I think I may keep it for myself, sorry Karin. It’s the thought that counts!
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