Wine Tasting and Apartment Hunting!

Plan for tonight: SLEEP EARLY! I felt like I wasn't really going out and hanging out and exploring enough last week so I stepped it up this week which has resulted in a lot of really great times and experiences but I am pooped! Sleep is going to have to move up on the priority list this weekend!

Yesterday after class and a run, we went with our cultural monitors to a viña (vineyard) called Concha y Toro just outside of Santiago in a place called Pirque. It was gorgeous and so very very nice to escape the craziness of this city, even if just for 4 hours. There were mountain views, grapevines as far as the eye could see, beautiful houses and wine-cellars, and gorgeous landscaping. I took lots of pictures that I'll link to at the end of this entry. It was such a cool experience! My cultural monitor actually works at this winery, so he led us on a tour where we got to walk around the grounds, eat grapes of the vines (during which I managed to fall and now have a lovely bruise, my klutziness has followed me down here), and then enter the cellars and see the barrels of wine including where they age their highest quality wine. Then we got to actually taste the wine! They gave us two small glasses, on white and one red, and taught us how your supposed to go about tasting it (smelling, swishing, smelling, toasting, etc.). If I remembered the names of the wines I would say them, but I believe one was a Chardonnay and the other a Cabernet. I'm not a huge wine fan, but I could definitely tell it was really good wine! It was very very good! After returning to the city, I went over to Gina's for a little bit with some friends and we just hung out and talked. It was over all a really fun day!

Today has thus far consisted of me dragging myself out of bed to walk to school (Gina, Lauren, and I have been walking in the mornings recently rather than taking the bus), forcing myself to stay awake in class, and then visiting potential apartments with an ice cream stop in the middle.

I visited two apartments today and honestly have no idea what I'm planning to do. Both that I visited today were more like international houses, but neither had too many people. The first apartment was very nice and in Providencia. Four people live in the house including a male student from Texas, a female Chilean student, a male Chilean student, and the owner who is a Chilean man. I only met the man, and he was incredibly nice but I really wish I had been able to meet some of the other people closer to my age. The apartment itself was very very nice with a great living room and the bedroom I'd be in was very large and would be just my own. However, the kicker is location. It's in a nice part of town, but a 30 minute walk from the metro. There is a bus that goes directly between the two, but I'm not quite sure. I'm very torn.

The other apartment was in the perfect location. In Providencia right next to a very central metro station. The guys who currently live there right now were really nice and said usually a total of 7 people, both guys and girls, live there with several often being exchange students. This apartment was also nice and in a GREAT location with a park near to run and near everything. However, there are 4 empty rooms, soon to be 5 and the two people that will be left working there are both working men. They're young and super nice and friendly, but I'd like to have at least another girl living there, which will quite likely happen I just have no way of knowing.

Since apartment hunting has just ended up with me being torn, I have thought again about just staying with Claudia but am still very uncertain. If I moved into either of the above apartments (especially the second) it is already clear I would be speaking WAY more spanish and interacting WAY more with the people than I do here with Claudia. They give me a lot of space, which is sometimes almost too much.

Bottom line, I have no idea what I'm doing living situation wise. If I haven't come to a conclusion by midway through next week, I'm going to ask Claudia to extend for 2 or 3 weeks so I can just go on vacation to Patagonia and figure it out when I get back. The other thing is I believe most host families charge $20 US per day to extend, which ends up being about $600 US per month. Seeing as rent at either of the above places is about $300 US, the cost of staying is kind of a negative.

So that's that as far as the apartment hunting situation! I'll keep looking and hopefully something will click!

Tomorrow, I'm going to Isla Negra for a project for my Spanish class with a group of 5 friends. I'm really excited! Isla Negra is where Pablo Neruda's house/museum is and is RIGHT on the coast. We are going to tour the house, go to lunch, explore the beach and the town, and observe a lot for our project. If you don't know, Pablo Neruda is a very famous Chilean poet who won the Nobel Prize and was Poet Laureate also. I have read some of his works in Spanish Literature classes back at UCLA. He and his wife are also buried at this museum. Our bus leaves super early tomorrow, but I'm sure it'll be great!

pictures!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2047781&id=1043790015&l=6fccd0fe36