Week ONE!
Hello hello!
Week one is complete! What an exciting one. This week was full of orientation activities at my university in Valparaiso, PUCV, meeting new people, and exploring my new home! I have made friends from other states in the US, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Belgium, France, and of course, Chile!
The first few days were quite exhausting, getting used to the culture shock here in Chile. I live in a small coastal city called Viña del Mar with my lovely host-abuela Gilda. Every day, I hop (quite literally they do not wait around) on the bus for a quick 15 min commute to Valpo (Valparaiso). The buses are stick-shift here, so quite a bumpy ride! The weather has been rainy the past few weeks, but we've had a few days of sun☀️. My new host-cat, Pepa, keeps me company (by sleeping on top of me every night), and reminds me of the kitties back home. There are plenty of stray dogs running around to remind me of the pooches back home too.
Viña and Valpo are full of small cafés, and this is where I spend most of my free time with friends, playing
cards or reading or working on my computer! I am a ~10 min walk to the ocean, and the sunsets here are
PHENOMENOL. Valpo is known for it's street art and let me tell you- its BEAUTIFUL! Despite the clouds
and rain, we took a full day to explore the city (25,000 steps🤭) and admired all of the art and a natural
history museum.
About 30 min north of Viña, there is a small surf town called Con Con. They have beautiful beaches
and HUUUGE sand dunes! We took an evening adventure out there and caught the sunset from the sand.
Absolutely gorgeous!
For my first weekend abroad, my new friends Alaina and Charlotte (two Charlotte’s from UVM?!) decided to go on an impromptu trip to a small town called Olmué, about 1.5 hours east of Viña. We hoped to hike, but quickly realized that most of them are closed during the winter season! We still had a blast with our friends Gar, Ezra, and Eli, exploring the towns, cooking dinner in a super epic Airbnb, and learning how to navigate Chile when the buses don’t come… (lot’s of walking…) We had a blast!
Hi, Charlotte. Sounds like you've had a fun-filled first week. Glad to read that you're making new friends and enjoying this great experience. It's probably a good idea to do some sight seeing before classes start. Now it's time to hit the books. Thanks for sharing your experiences so far. Be well.
ReplyDeleteWow-wee Charolette. What a read!
ReplyDeleteHad me on the edge of my seat! My first hiking experience was definitely one to right home about indeed! Still on a huge high from that weekend and don’t see it ending anytime soon… ha ha ha (laughing emoji).
This blog post was absolutely bleedin class. Top notch. Cannot wait for the next one. Need it to be soon. I definitely hope our next hiking trip will be as action packed as this one!!!
Anyways, appreciate the shoutout a lot, important for everyone to know we go way back. Thank you for the top 10 weekends of all time. Mind yourself, good luck goodbye godbless
*write
Delete