To The End Of The World

The day after we saw the penguins, we set off in a rickety rented van for Puerto Natales--the closest town to the Torre del Paine national park. It was a beautiful (and surprisingly flat) ride that lasted about two hours.  When we finally got to Puerto Natales we settled into our really cool hotel and went to dinner. Puerto Natales is a very cute town and the surroundings blow you away. When we arrived it was super cloudy so we didn't realize we were surrounded by mountains until one came out while we were at dinner (photo evidence below). I'll let the pictures do most of the talking today... And stay tuned because I'm going to put up some pictures of the park soon!

The drive.

The drive again... seriously it was so flat and empty. 

Rain! The weather down there changes every five minutes.

This is a terrible picture... but the road we were on was literally called Ruta del Fin del Mundo (Route of the End of the World).

Our hotel room... It was so nice and comfortable and it had a loft!

Any dinner with free ceviche is good in my book.

The evidence! The mountains came out from behind the clouds and we were totally shocked! 

The hotel was three stories. It had an elevator but it also had this really long staircase that went along the length of the hotel. It had a waterfall running along it (on the left). It was really cool.

Little sister hanging on the bed (taken from the loft).

The view from the hotel the next morning.

The hotel pool was basically a gigantic hot tub... it was so relaxing (plus the view was the same as the picture above--not bad!)

A boat in the "port"

That's all for now, folks! As I said, pictures of Torre del Paine are coming soon!

XX

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Penguins!!

I have SO many things to share with you, lovely reader. First and foremost, I hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas and New Year. I know mine was pretty great. My family and our family friends (who might as well be family) came down to Chile for the holidays and it was the best gift I could've asked for! We spent Christmas in Santiago (not exactly cozy, but fine) before heading south to Patagonia where we rang in the new year. After a week down south we headed to Valpo for a few days in the sun before everyone headed off to various locations (except for my little sister who is staying here for a while--I'd be inconsolably sad if she had left too). Between two families of four (so 8 people) we are spread across the U.S. in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, Boston, Ohio, and Philadelphia... so it's pretty great we were all able to be in Chile together.

While down South we stayed in Punta Arrenas for two days so we could go to Isla Magdalena to see the PENGUINS! It was so cool! It's a relatively small island with an estimated 200,000 penguins nesting on it. We took a ferry to the island where we walked around in the cold (don't let the pictures fool you... it may have been sunny but it was possibly one of the windiest places I've ever been) for an hour to look at Penguins. It was definitely worth it... probably a highlight of the trip for me!

So without further ado, I present the penguins:

The first sighting from the boat!

Dapper fellow.

Hanging in the nest.

Mama and baby (the babies are furry!)

Me and my new best friend (he's not looking at the camera... he was itchy).

The unibomber in a field of penguins! Just kidding... that's my dad.

Cheeky.

This guys was making crazy squawking sounds... I'm not sure why but you can tell he's sort of screaming at the sky.

"I'm important."

Parent + 2 children... awww.

"We are late for the opening night of the opera!"

Grooming.

Seagull chick!

"Whatchu lookin at?"

Clearly he had important things going on...

So those are the penguins... they were seriously awesome! They aren't afraid of humans and you can get really close. They also walk across the paths that us humans are supposed to stay on so you can get some pretty up close pics. 

Don't go away... tomorrow I'll show you Puerto Natales!

XX

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Mini Update... December is here!

Hi World,

I have been so swamped with work and life and, to be totally honest, I haven't been to any picture-worthy events. I would, however, like to leave you with a list of things I'm excited about...

• I successfully made AVOCADO cookies. I know it sounds very weird and gross, but they were so gooey and chocolate-y, you forget there are avocados in the recipe!
• My family and our family friends are coming in 2 WEEKS! I am so excited!!
• I will be going to Patagonia in 2 weeks and 2 days! Woop!
• My work Xmas party... complete with white elephant, secret santa, AND cookie exchanges (overkill, right? but it will be fun)
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Yes, I've seen it twice already.

OK so that's all for now. I'm afraid this is a less-than-exciting post, but it's been so long, and I wanted to say hi!  Have a happy time getting ready for the holidays!

XX

A

I Love Buenos Aires

Helloooooooooo!

So this weekend I went to Buenos Aires. It was AMAZING. It's so metropolitan and fun. The food was awesome and the general feel of the city was great. I certainly like elements of Santaigo, but the overall aesthetic of Buenos Aires blows Santiago out of the water. It sort of reminds me of a crazy mixture between New York, Paris, Italy (yes, the whole country), and Madrid. It was great and I'm not pleased to be back in Chile. I took a bunch of pictures, but not many of them turned out that well. I have tons more I can say, but perhaps I'll talk about that another day. Today I'll let the pictures do the talking...

The view from our chicken-wire covered deck.

My room... amazing view and cool furniture. 

The view sans chicken wire.

One of many amazing meals. 

Recoleta cemetery... parts of it made me feel like I was walking around in a Harry Potter book.

Creepy cobwebs on a mausoleum. 

Eva Peron's tomb... Evita!

This tomb was particularly creepy and dilapidated.  

...and this one...

...and this one too.

The tops of the mausoleums. 

This will be on Molli's grave... in case anyone was wondering.

Ghost cat.

So much good produce in normal stores!!! In Chile if you want good produce you have to go to a market. Just look at how amazing the produce is!!

More!

Beautiful French-y apartments... with purple tress (all over the place in LA during the spring as well... and Santiago for that matter).

Big boulevard.

Old lady tango dancers... they were really cool.

Weird figurines I saw at a flea market.. U-S-A ha.

I ate a lot of ice cream... it was SO HOT and humid so it was warranted (sort of).

El Ateneo... an old theater that has been restored into an awesome book store. [Picture out of focus for artistic effect... I guess].

Better picture of the book store.

Basically it was an amazing trip and I REALLY want to go back. Being here in Santiago is just not quite the same (although the dry weather is pretty great).

I'm off to get ready for work. Happy Tuesday!

XX
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