"A fruit never tasted so sweet than as the one you walked furthest to pick."

Where to begin!! So much as happened since I last posted about thanksgiving... it is like we are trying to squeeze the very last drops of excitement from this lemon called South America. And I would have to say that we are succeeding...After moving out of our "difficult to cook in" yet "all-too-memorable" cabana in Argentina, we took a very large bus to Santiago, Chile. The most notable things about this bus are 1.) we BARELY go on it, and 2.) it was a double-decker!!!!! (you have to understand that all my life I have wanted to go on one of these! [I was ecstatic along side Chris and Elli... still a child at heart:)]

all these pics are of the double-decker...Now about the first detail... we were very lucky because just at the time when we most needed a bus out of Argentina and into Chile (due to an extreme lackage of big enough rental cars...) there so happened to be a bus-driver strike on the verge of occurring. That would mean essentially NO buses going for a week or more. We fortunately got on our double-decker (forever to be referred to as such;) a half-hour before they closed down the buses. Well the first thing we did was... sleep. Sleep, sleep, and sleep. (It was midnight after all..) I cannot tell you how strange it was to go to sleep in the dark of a double-decker (we got to be on the top. Score!) and then wake up in the morning... something about sleeping the night through is so much stranger in a car! (Or a double-decker driving in the middle of no-where for that matter!)Anyway... so we proceed to cross the border of Chile after an extraordinarily scenic yet intense drive through the mountains.

~first sight of the mountains~

~The border!~
After the official crossing of the border, we were filed out of the bus for immigration processing. We made it out without being arrested and even without having our pancake mix taken away! So we are back at the road and arrive at our destination where we rent a big enough car for us all plus luggage. This is the car that we have been driving ever since... our faithful steed to carry us all through the beautiful Chile. (Chile is by far more beautiful than Uruguay and even our beloved Argentina.) an I will tell you some of the most remarkable occurrences now... ~ "Now that we got ourselves here...let's decide where we are headed!" Brilliant idea.~

~Dad's foreign-exchange service~

~my "birthday pic"~

Well, the first thing we did, was spend a day in a city called Vina Del Mar... by the sea.
This was because it was my birthday. Hehe, and if there was anything I didn't want to do on my birthday, it was drive some more. So we walked around town, went to lunch... and then embarrassingly epitomized our role as tourists by going on a horse and buggy ride. It wasn't me who suggested such a thing! Elli had been dying to go on one and when the buggy driver looked pleadingly into our eyes, my mom just couldn't resist. I would say it was embarrassing (which it was)... but I still feel a secret pleasure about giving this buggy driver the time of his life. I think there is a little competition between him and his buddies for who can get the "most interesting clients" in their buggy. I have to admit that a family of 7 all piled in, with two little kids sitting at the helm would qualify as the "most interesting clients." Yes. So... all that to say, I really didn't mind that embarrassing episode as much as I might have, had the driver not been so terribly pleased with himself and his 'catch' and had I not been in such a good mood... due to it being my 17th birthday I suppose;) The other happy thing I did that day was go shopping at the "artesenal" (hand-crafted) booths. Everything is so inexpensive and interesting.

~ By far the sweetest thing my family did for me...
first tortilla chips I have had in months! (they are what I lived off of at home...)~

~ "hopping" out of our hotel in Vina Del Mar~

Following this relaxing time in Vina Del Mar, our family drove several hours... still leisurely touring the country and stopping anywhere we felt inspired to do so. (Usually determined by the degree that cool pictures could be taken;)...


~fiddling with my close-up photography again~

~California Poppies!!!~

~ whoever said that gas prices were going up was totally right... ~


~ you gotta read the words: "Game Board" Hehe...she can entertain us for hours!~

~Elli enviously pretending my adorable hat is hers:P ~

~pulled over for driving the wrong way on a one-way street...
Yay! I had wanted that to happen... So exciting!:) ~

We finally made it to a hostel. This was quite a surprise because everyone was GERMAN! It was a genuine German-run getaway surrounded by a beautiful paradise of flowers and German architecture... (something that I especially appreciate. And I'm sorry there are no pictures...)
We stayed here just for the night but are planning to return there once before leaving Chile.

After this cool hostel experience (the most memorable aspect of which was the wireless internet password... you don't even want to know. So funny. "n0aLzBWe3CqF3k,Vglsrat1xH75p" is pretty close... :D) So after this... we drove straight to where we have been staying for about a week.. doing such things as hiking to waterfalls, going to hotsprings, having lice-picking parties (don't worry...we will all be harmless when we get back:)) canoeing, and eating chile peppers!
~Really, it was just Morielle who had it... but she had it BAD~

~St. Nicholas Day!!!~
~a view from our porch~

It is a tourist/backpackers town called Pucon. This is also a town which is surrounded by centered near an active volcano. Little did I know what this would soon mean.
It meant... 6 hours of pain + the rest of the day of glory!!!

Dad walked into our room a few days ago and stated that if we were up to it, he would take Morielle and I on a full-long, guided expedition to the top of the volcano. Who could resist such a challenge. Definitely not me. I have ALWAYS wanted to climb a volcano. We woke up at the wee hours of 5:30 (6 hours earlier than our regular wake-up time...) and excitedly prepared a lunch for mid-mountain (little knowing just how much we were going to need every ounce of that energy) made primarily out of chocolate of course:) We then went to the place where we geared up in very adorable orange gear with stylish sunglasses combined with nerdy helmets and snazy backpacks.. and were shuttled through the hills to the base of the volcano.
~we are so cool is all I have to say;)~

The very first few steps can be best epitomized by the quote, "we all felt young once!" Step after step we went... following after our rigorous leader. And it turns out... the ski-lifts that were supposed to take us 1/4 way up the mountain were closed down. Haha, just our luck! It was agony, I tell you... the whole way. The first stretch we went for 40 minutes without stopping. Up up up. It was only after the fact that our leader told us that he usually checks on how his people are doing to see if they need an extra break. "Usually it takes an hour... we did it in 40 minutes!" he says. The rest of the way up, I couldn't help thinking to myself how ironic it was that we could've requested an extra break... OH well... I am a tougher person because of it:)
Nevertheless, it was shear will-power that got me to the top. "Hey foot down there.. lift yourself up again. So what you've done it 9, 587 times already! Do it again!" Such was the climb...
until... until!!! We reach the top. At the one moment you feel like all your life's ambitions have been fulfilled. You feel the glory. (And I will have you know that our group [there were two other very fit Germans with us].. made this hike in record time. We met a group 3/4 of the way up that had been going at it for two hours more than we had!)

~ can't you just see the pride oozing out of us?:)~

~the very very top... and the very very deep hole~

~a view from the top~

And then... even that wonderful feeling is quickly taken away as you get your first whiff of the volcanic fumes. They seriously pierce your nose and your throat and your lungs.... at least it did for me. (In Morielle's words, it was no more than "It smells kind of like burning Vitamin C and D!") Oh well.. we can tell who had a more EXCITING experience!:P

Now as if the ecstasy of relief could not be any more perfect... our trip was topped off with getting to slide on our butts most of the way down! Yup!.. with a pick-axe for a break and a very happy heart for the keeping. That was so much fun... so smooooooth the whole way down:) I am still smiling over it.

And now... I am sore and sick, but very content. We are coming home in 5 days!
I cannot wait to see you all sometime in the near future...if not VERY soon. God Bless!
=)

Thanksgiving: against all odds... We Did It!

Thanksgiving and other happenings...

Hello people,

I am writing this after having recuperated from an exciting party last night. But I will not suck out the suspense that rightfully belongs to that particular climax. So... here I will explain the last 2 weeks. The Sunday before last we once again went to the river after church with even more people this time. Having gotten rather used to it by now... we are not as overwhelmed, despite there being twice as many spanish-speakers this time as our first adventure weeks before. This hang-out consisted of riding in the back of a truck down the freeway with people who sing on the top of their lungs....we had a type of food called "churrie-pan" which is exactly like a hot dog in a bun except with real ingredients :P and of course wine... later my sisters were nominated to be thrown in the river (credit to being foreigners, they said) Fortunately we were obstinate enough so we avoided actually being thrown in. But we did peacable walk in a few minutes later with all our clothes! It was very fun to have a seaweed fight with these people. After that, we frigidly came back to the fire for more music and matte. Way back home... more hangin' on in the back of the truck, hair flying everywhere...

The following week was rather uneventful... perhaps with the exception of Thursday's dinner. Though it was uneventful in it's very nature... in this case it was of the utmost eventfulness because of it's complete deviation from the norm of eventful Thanksgiving dinners :P
In translation... let's just say that we had a very humorous night. We had steak, salad, and cookies. Well... these weren't just ANY steak salad and cookies. These were slightly raw steak that we couldn't cook anymore because it was already like jerky... salad with crackers instead of croutons because our stove didn't work... and cookies what were still doughy because our oven didn't work! (Yes, we found out that we could make our gas work by turning it on. But though that fixed our stove [after we had eaten all the crackers!]... not the oven.) Just our luck:) Sitting down to thanksgiving dinner with just the five of us kids (mom was out nobly trying to find a car that fits us a little better to take us to Bariloche and Gen was gone) ... sitting down to such a thanksgiving dinner as was before us... there came a unanimous giggle that rippled through our humble little corner of the room. You can see why in this lovely sideways picture:



It was wonderful... because it really did cause us to appreciate our real thanksgiving celebration (yes, we did have one in the end!) This was the fiesta of last night. We decided that we wanted to give back to all the people from the "church of the many nice people" as I like to call it... who really have made us feel welcome for our stay in Alta Gracia (where we stayed for a grand total of 3 weeks) by dragging us along to all their river excursions, giving us a tour of the big city Cordoba, by watching Christopher and Elli for us while we were away trying to learn Spanish, and many other things. So yes... we wanted to give back. We decided to show them the thanksgiving tradition. We invited about 20 of those people over for a true customary dinner with turkey and mash potatoes and everything. They loved it. Most of them had scarcely tasted turkey.... so it was a wonderful feeling that while they could barbeque incredible Asados and we couldn't... WE could provide something for them that we knew how to do because of our North American tradition. In addition, we taught them the Virginia Real and they showed us (though we failed to learn) their national dance. (I will post pictures of last night soon...) In stereotypical words... it was the final climax to our exchange of cultures.

Now, at long last, we are leaving this city which was like a temporary home to us despite both houses we stayed in while there being non-functional... tomorrow. Gen has split up with us and gone her own way and is helping in an orphanage close to Alta Gracia. Here is a picture of the three of us in front of the tourist center (of course) in Alta Gracia before it became our 3-week-long hometown:

moving out of the first cabana...

Playing "EL PRESIDENTE" with newly returned Dad:


















Chilling in front of our new non-functional cabana...

We are coming home in 21 days. See you soon!

The follow-up post:

Pictures of various things...

Fiona's attempt at easing the intensity of dust from the road.

These are only a few of our Spanish-speaking friends.

Ok, THIS is the ditch we were soon to brave!

Scenic ice cream side-trip in San Carlos.

She clearly takes after me.
:)

Yes, and this "three seats for five people" deal went on for some time...
I will describe the experience in the words of our mother attempting to commend us: "I want to really commemorate you guys!"


that's it for now! :)

A story or two..

I guess it is legit to say that a lot of things have happened recently to our unassuming yet wide-eyed family over the past week or so. Firstly, we are stationed in a town called Alta Gracia not far from where we're studying spanish at a school, again... alas we will forever feel needy for something we think will hurry the process of our being able to capture that elusive language. This school is a bit more helpful, since we have a teacher to ourselves who knows our individual levels. But anyway, you don't want to hear about the tedium of school and all that. You want to hear about the various events that some Pudewa family members have been the unexpecting recipients of.
Close by to where we are staying is a church... not only is the Mass here beautiful beyond belief (due to a latin music choir among other things) the people are also almost (but not quite) as nice. So on sunday, what do you expect but that they all come up to kiss, meet, and talk to (in that order.) At this point in time, my spanish is tolerable except that it's much harder for me to understand than to speak spanish. So with such a plethora of hubub... with so many voices asking me things in rapid-fire spanish, expecting an answer... voices that come within inches of your face (it's a very cultural thing here), I gradually began to feel trapped against the familiarity of a wall. Familiar it was... for there are walls at home too:) yet trapped I was... no more subconscious retreating, Fiona. The funny thing is that I loved it; exhilarating to say the least. Kind of like a job interview to be a salesperson in German (or so it felt after about 30 minutes.) So that was the initial inauguration. But would it suffice? No! Now they had to go and invite us to have dessert at one of their houses. Of course we agreed. After stopping at home for a few breaths and a change of clothes, we went to the house. From the moment of walking in the door onward, there was more of the previously described avalanche... about 40 people were there. After the ice cream and various discussions and discussion-wanna-be's they invited us to go to the river with them. Feeling rather like we were at an all-you-can-eat buffet of healthy food, we agree to go once more. Piled in the car (i'm sure illegally,) we went to a lovely river site. We unloaded the bread, coke, cookies, matte, and guitar. (The guitar, matte, and sweet bread being three Argentinian necessities for hanging out.) It once again rather chaotic, yet amusingly fun. Especially to watch a few couples trying dancing the cultural dance to the music of a loud baritone and the guitar. In addition, at one point they made us play and sing also (just Julia, me, Morielle, and Genevieve went.) "Made" in the friendly sense. ...So that was last sunday.
The rest of the week was just kind of blah... with school every other day for 4 hours. On tuesday, we went to lunch at the house of yet more newly-made friends, who were just 3 people. Relaxing in comparison:) And then on friday is when something else exciting happened. We were driving to school, and having started out late as usual... my mom wanted to try a short-cut. She had taken a road parallel to the one we wanted to go on... cept it didn't get where we wanted to go as fast. Dramatically not so. We definitely needed to turn around. Or so we thought?... there seemed to be a side-road. Being extremely late and adventurous as we were, we stretched the boundaries of logic and concluded that this side-road was bound to go directly to the route that we did want. So, we try it. It is a dirt road that looks paved ahead. "Oh good!" we say. But lo and behold, after that there was more gravel and potholes. Finally we start to see cars driving ahead. "Oh good!" we say again. The closer we get to the main freeway the happier we become. However, after a certain point... the closer we get to the main freeway the more pensive we become. "The certain point" being the point in time when we saw a ditch between us, our RENTAL car, and the freeway we need :D Ok, so now we have to make a choice. Some of us have the crazy insight that it might be possible to drive through the ditch (me being one of them.) This ditch was 6 feet deep to be precise and in length.... there was no end to the length. To put it in Genevieve's clever words, "we are 10 feet away, yet 10 miles away!" [referring to going back the same direction we came]
So mom decides to go for it. We all stand back as she makes the giant leap, diagonally across the ditch. Literally, she caught air on two tires. Who knows how much we trashed our RENTAL car, but we made it!!!
Whew! Quite the day... we had a lot to explain to our spanish teacher... in spanish, hehe, of course.
anyway.... I will be able to post more pictures soon. (Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of mom actually making the jump... silly people we are!)
I hope you are all doing well... have some extra fun for me on thanksgiving seeing as they don't celebrate thanksgiving here ;)

some pictures...

Here are just a few pictures of some various happenings in Argentina that for the most part relate to last blog post.... hope you like em!

The sunsets here are truly unparalleled. And no, I'm not photo-shopped in! :)

beautiful is all I have to say...

This is actually right next to a freeway. After about an hour of begging from the kids (me included)... dad agreed to pull over and we climbed the gorgeous rocks.
hot-air balloon... part of the Lujan anniversary party
next to the cathedral

comfortably sprawled out in our room at the "free breakfast" cabanas


lol... you guessed it, our dessert breakfast
the mountains we climbed!

Update

Hi people! How´s it going? Sorry it´s been so outrageously long since I last posted! Well as you can imagine, alot has happened. For the past 13 days (approximately) we have been driving around Argentina touring a wide variety of cities, mountains, cities in the mountains, restaurants, and Cabañas. After quite literally barely making it onto both the bus the ferry which would take us out of Uruguay and into the port of Buenos Aires, we began our escapades.
The first thing we did, was go to a town called Lujan, the center of the Catholic Faith in Argentina. There was a beautiful cathedral here and it just so happened the city was celebrating it´s hundredth-something anniversary of it´s existence, so there was a party with a hot air balloon and music (which we all fell in love with, bought CDs of, and listened to for the remainder of the trip, lol.) That was fun, however it was to be followed by hours upon hours of driving. Fortunately we rented a car, so as to be spared the fate of 8 people on the public buses.
Nextly, (is that even a word!:p) we went to a town called San Luis. Unfortunatly, it was anything but like home. It was dry and semi-abandoned in my opinion. So we decided that on the road it would be again... I have decided not to spend time explaining the inter-happenings of our ¨car time.¨ It is pretty much the way it would be traveling in a car at home: chaotic and crunched. Moving on... :)
We then arrived at a nicer town, where we decided to eat dinner (we were not going to attempt dinner in the car again.) Now this is the cool part... as we were talking to the waiters in stringy Spanish, asking about a hotel to stay at for the night, in walked a man who spoke more english than the rest. Obviously he was recruited to help the communication process. By the end of the conversation, he had told us about a cabaña business that he had literally started a week before. (Cabañas are little cabins where people can stay and get all the basic necessities that a hotel-room would provide, except with the privacy of your own home. It is an extremely common business here.) So... as you can imagine we organized to have our family stay at his cabaña, seeing as it was right at the foot of the mountains. It was a beautiful place, and it was soon decided to stay there for three days more. It was a great time... they served us a breakfast of practically dessert everyday for free, and my dad and some sisters went on a hike one of the days and watched movies and relaxed the rest of the time, lol. (such is the desparation people with car-overload.) No, really, the hike was uber fun. We climbed up almost the whole mountain by way of the river. So it was really a lot like rock climbing for beginners. And on top of that, we dunked in the icy-cold river. Very fun.
We were sad to leave... but one must do what one must do. And leaving from a place which pumped you with sugar and white bread every morning, was something that our family had to do. The next place was very nice too, albeit a very touristy town. So much so that it looked like something out of Germany or Austria. We celebrated Julia´s birthday here at an outdoor adventures¨ place were we went on hundred foot-long zip-lines!.. to be followed by a fondue restaurant.
And now were are happily situated in yet another cabaña in a very nice, less touristy town where there is more mountains and a river/creek a few blocks away. My parents left... dad to go back home and mom to drive him to the airport. So it is just the 6 of us kids... hehe...and we are already determined to break any past ïce-cream-eating records.
Well that is the update. I will send pictures hopefully in a week or so.
I have to go. I hope you are all very well! God Bless!
:)