and we're back to monday.

Man time is flying by! Sorry I haven't written in a while. It's been busy around here. Also, I just had to write a proposal for my research project and now I'm sleepy so this is going to be mostly pictures.

Thursday evening after class: We headed to Top Top which is a second story bar with a patio that we have been hitting up quite a lot lately. Ordered a few drinks and un churrasco gigante which is a typical Chilean dish consisting of french fries covered in onions, eggs and meat. My pirate face was because I was sick of taking pictures...

On Friday we had a field trip in the afternoon so in the morning cruised over to Cerro Alegre (one of my favorite neighborhoods in Valparaíso). We had brunch at El Desayunador (The Breakfast-ery?) which may be the only breakfast joint around. The back wall of the restaurant has a giant print by the artist Loro Coirón. He's from the area and makes awesome wood prints which is pretty rare anywhere these days.

Saturday we decided to venture into the world of Chilean wine at Viña Emiliana. It was my first ever wine tasting and I was quite surprised that I could taste the difference between the different wines as my usual reaction is just: "Ick. Wine." I had a lot a lot of fun and feel like I learned quite a bit too about both wine in general and organic farming. For fertilizer, they use alpaca poo and for insecticide they just let hens run around the vineyard and eat the little bugs.

The second vineyard we went to, we just drove up, ate some grapes off the vine and left :) It turned out to be ok though because later that night, we met the man who is their wine maker and became friends.

Today (being Sunday) we went to Reñaca Alta which is a community up a ways in the hills and spent the day with an urban Mapuche community. We helped them built an outdoor grill for community gatherings and add a roof the the existing area. In return, they fed us a feast for both breakfast and lunch, taught us the traditional Chilean dance la cueca and taught us the traditional Mapuche game palín. It is essentially field hockey but much more dangerous because you are allowed to pick people up with your field hockey stick and throw them out of the way. I asked the man teaching us not to hurt me and he agreed. I kind of felt bad because we went to do community service but we mostly just ate and played games. I think they enjoyed showing us different aspects of their culture though. 

I also became buddies with baby Matias and played let's scoop dirt onto the soccer ball and into Jill's hands for a while.

Happy weekend!