FUTBOL!

This past week was excitingly busy. I busied myself with all different types of fun, none of which included doing homework and now I find a million things piled up before me.

Most excitingly, i went to a soccer game between CHILE and BOLIVIA. This was such an awesome experience because Chile is actually doing really well this year. They are currently in third place in all of south america, and slowly creeping into second place. We left on wednesday afternoon around 4 to go into Santiago to the national stadium. We dressed in our newly purchased chilean soccer jerseys and hats and flags, etc. On the bus there we met a really awesome group of chileans who taught us a lot of the cheers and about the traditions of chilean soccer games. At the stadium, I learned more swear words than I new possible and just about lost my voice screaming one of the many cheers. Chile ended up winning 4 to 0, so needless to say it was a game full of excitement. There was a war between Chile and bolivia many many years ago over land in the north of chile. Bolivia was fighting for the territory that touched the ocean, because they wanted parted of the shoreline. Chile also wanted this land and ended up winning. For that reason, many of the cheers at the soccer game were about this war. For example, one cheer says..

" Ole ole ole, ole ole ole ola
los que no saltan no tienen mar'

or "those who aren't jumping don't have an ocean" and then all of the chileans start jumping up and down. When the cheer is over, the WAVE begins, starting at one end of the stadium all the way around. Just re-emphasizing that we have the ocean and they do not.

It was a great cultural experience and a ton of fun.



Another fun adventure of this week was yesterday when a few friends and I went into the Casablanca region to go wine tasting. Casablanca is about 45 minutes from here and has a lot of beauty in this small town. We went to a vineyard called Casa de la bosque. We learned a lot about the different types of wine, and how to tell what different scents each wine has. We tasted five different wines and then afterwards bought a bottle of one we hadn't tried yet. After the tour, we spent the afternoon drinking wine and eating cheese and crackers and chatting. All in all it was a fantastic day overlooking beautiful mountains and other scenery.





It is Sunday night now and I am exhausted so I am off to bed.

HOPE YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEK!!!!

*Vanessa*