Other things near Pichilemu

Aside from learning to surf, there were plenty of other things to keep us busy in Pichilemu and the surrounding area.

Upon arriving we used the bikes from the hostel to visit the town and surrounding area.  It was mainly a beach town, but a lot was empty since it was off-season.  Things in town seemed to slow down during the afternoon so we adopted a siesta  schedule, meaning we ended up taking a nap or resting nearly every afternoon.

 We decided that there could be an entire National Geographic episode about "The dogs of the streets of Pichilemu."  When we first arrived, and were greeted by gangs of wandering dogs, we were a bit wary and timid, but we soon realized that they were a special part of the town.  The street dogs were pretty amazing; They were everywhere.  Lots of them. and they were beautiful.  They appeared groomed, shiny, and well fed.  The dogs wandered wherever they wanted, including inside many of the stores and their manners were fairly tame.  When you had food they might approach, but they didn't beg.  If they proved bothersome you could shoo them away and they would actually yield to your command.  They almost seemed better trained than many domesticated pet dogs.  This is a picture of Shea with her favorite street dog.   

We also went to Santa Cruz, Chile to go to a wine tour.  The winery that we toured was called Viu Manent.  It is a family owned winery that was established in 1935.   We toured the winery's 627 acres in a horse drawn carriage and were able to taste one wine during the tour as well as five others after the tour.  It was a wonderful first wine tour visit.

 The wines that we tasted were a white, a Syrrah, a Carmenere, a Cabernet, and a Malbec.  It was a first tasting for both of us, so I can not share any written notes about the exact tastes of the wines because I lack the vocabulary.
 The weather during the trip to Pichilemu was not what we originally expected.  It was a cool and cold when the wind picked up.   We had lots of coffee, tea, and mate to keep us warm.

 Staying at the hostel worked very well.  We met lots of people and the owner was able to help us set up and coordinate everything that we wanted to do.  The hostel had a wood burning hot tub, which led to a fun and relaxing evening.

 This is the owner of Sunset Hostel, Eduardo.  He is a Chilean from Santiago.  He relocated to Pichilemu because its an awesome and relaxing place to be.

 

In Pichilemu we found even more seafood than in Santiago..... 

 I don't have many pictures, but one of the most fun parts of the trip for me was horseback riding.  While I had previously done tours when I was younger, this tour was unique in that they trusted you a little more with the horses.  We took a tour throughout the town and some country areas and at the end we went to a beach.  Although the horses knew some of the route, we were not traveling "head to tail" the whole time.  We were allowed to go as fast or slow as we wanted and were responsible for moving out of the way for cars or any other obstacles.  When we were on the beach, we had free reign to trot, cantor or galloped as we pleased.  I galloped on a horse for the first time and ran through a couple of puddles.  My horse was named Cholita, or "blackie," obviously she had a beautiful dark coat.

 This was from our last and semi-rushed meal before leaving Pichilemu.

Surfing for Beginners in Chile

There is a lot to write about from our trip to Pichilemu, Chile so I am going to start with the motive for the trip:  Learning to surf.

 I think I have had a vague dream to learn to surf in the back of my mind since I was very young.  The movie Blue Crush came out in 2002 and I think it really brought this dream to the front of most girls' minds.  Living in Wisconsin, I never thought it would become a reality until one day I was thinking:  People always go on ski trips during the winter to Vail or other destinations and it seems really great, but I love the sun and the beach and the water.  Why can't I go on surfing trips instead?

Shea and I decided to go on our first surfing trip to Pichilemu, Chile and we couldn't be more pleased with the results.  I don't know if I will continue the theme of surf trips, but we were happy to try it out and succeed.  Since we have returned, we have dabbled with the idea of jointing the surfers on Lake Michigan, but still think it is a little absurd.

Back to the story at hand, we stayed at a hostel called the Sunset Hostel (that was a shout out to Eduardo the hostel owner) and as you would expect, the hostel keeper helping the owner also happened to be a surfer and was able to give us our own private lessons.  The lessons were a blast.  Our instructor's name was Phil and he was from Australia.  I think he was a phy-ed teacher by nature, but decided to spend a few months in Phichilemu to surf during winter.  With a true blue, real life Australian surf instructor at our side we were ready to go ride the waves. 

Here is a picture of us combing and waxing the board before we go to surf.  You have to comb it to get the old wax off and wax it to make it grippy for your feet. 

If you can't tell by our clothes, summer was winding down in the Southern Hemisphere and winter was creeping in.  It was very sunny, but the water was cold and the evening temperatures dropped drastically.  When the wind was blowing, I had to wear two jackets.

We surfed in wet suits and booties the whole time.  It was surprising how warm they kept us. I am in the blue and Shea is in black and gray.

 Below we are warming up a little before we "get our hair wet." (That is a surfer expression, i think).

Although there is no actual photo-evidence that we surfed, we did.  These pictures were all taken from the second day when the water was a little bit rougher and we were able to stand up on the board less.  Shea, however, was able to stand up and surf on her very first try.  I followed and caught on quickly as well.

Here we are out in the water with Phil, getting ready to hang ten, whatever that means.

In the picture below we are hanging out in the water with all the other rookies, waiting for the waves to come in.  I think that this was one of my favorite parts.  It felt really good to stop and enjoy the moment, just hanging out on our boards under the sun and rocking in the mild waves of the ocean. 

 As luck had it, there happened to be a big surf competition on the Thursday that we were in town.  I think it was a Chilean competition to qualify for nationals and it took place at a world famous surf spot called "Punta de Lobos."

The two rocks you can see are the classic view of Punta de Lobos.

If you look very closely in the lower right corner of the above picture you can see a surfer in green.  In order to make it out to the waves they had to cross the channel and get onto the land behind the big rocks.  It was almost as exciting to watch as the competition.  Below you can see one surfer sitting on the rocks watching the others who are surfing behind the rocks.

I felt really bad even asking this guy for a picture.  He was toast after coming in from competing.

And one last important detail for anyone who has seen Blue Crush, yes they did have someone on a jet ski who went around to help the surfers.

Santiago Chile

I never finished the last segment about Estonia, but I am onto the next because it is more fun, interesting and recent.

I ran my first solo conference April 5-7 in Santiago, Chile.  Man was it tough! but boy do I love my job!  I am so lucky to have gotten the right job for me and very lucky for a certain special someone who helped me find my way to it.

After a horrible 9.5 hour flight from Dallas to Santiago, I looked out the window and was greeted with mountains, horses, field workers, sunshine and junkyards.  I knew that it was going to be a special trip.
 The first few days were filled with work, but this was my office.  Meetings, dinners, set ups, registration, classes, lunches, busses, patients, clean ups, presentations, transfers, paperwork, payments, etc.

This is my work all packed up and ready to go for one day.  Yes, I had 7 briefcases.  Now the truth is that I really make it sound like I'm important and the students do often think I'm a doctor, but I am not.  I suppose I am just trying to prove to the world that I was not playing during my whole trip and I DO work hard.

Anyways after 6 straight days of work, I was on vacation and Shea was down in Santiago, ready to go and planning our week long adventure.  Santiago was never on my radar previously, but I soon learned that it should have been.  I was only there for a short time, so I don't have too much to share about the actual city.  I am more left with a lot of curiosity and half answers.  I think that after nearly every trip I say "I wish I had known more about this place or done more research before I got here."  With google at my fingertips, I'll keep the same resolution in mind before my next trip.

However, not one trip will ever go by without important trivia. 

Hands down, one of the more important obvious facts about Santiago is that it is home to the tallest building in South America, yet at the same time it is also the cite of many strong earthquakes.  In 2010 a strong earthquake toppled an entire building.  

                                                                            

Aside from an obvious fact, everywhere has a shopping product.  Lapis and Copper are the important purchases in Chile.  I was on a quest to buy Lapis the entire trip, but I failed.  I was found running to the airport on the last day of the trip.  No Lapis in hand.    

                                                        

The next obvious cultural exposure is food.  Along with all sorts of food, Razor Clams are noteworthy in Santiago and we kicked out trip off with beer and a tray full of clams.

For the Santiago portion of the trip, we headed off to a famous hill/mountain in the city.  The hill has a cable car that goes up the side to a statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking the city.  Halfway up the hill there is a zoo.  We walked the first half of the trip up to the zoo.  They had all the usual animals, but it was very interesting because the whole zoo was on the side of a hill that went straight up.  

 Since the zoo is on a hill, you can see the Santiago skyline behind the animals.  I don't think that they appreciate the view very much, but it is pretty unique.  In addition to the uniqueness, it was 100% not handicap or stroller friendly.  Everyone was basically carrying their strollers up hills and stairs.

 After the zoo, we rode the cable cars to the top of the Mountain where there was a giant statue of Mary overlooking the city.  We hung out up there for a while and took in the view.  The city was huge!  Santiago has a population of 6,000,000.  Milwaukee has a population of 600,000. Whoa!

 After finding our bearings and learning the currency and dialect in Santiago, we headed off on a 3.5 hour bus ride to Pichilemu, a small surfing town on the coast of the Pacific.  There we would fulfill the great Blue Crush inspired childhood dream to learn to surf.

Estonia?

When I was telling people that I was going to Estonia for a course, the usual reaction was something along the lines of "that really exists", "What's Estonia?", "Where's Estonia?", and there was one person who actually knew about Estonia.  He was an ambassador to Estonia during a summer internship in Washington DC.  Thank you, Kevin for knowing what, where, and why Estonia is.

Let's start with the where:

It took me about 24 hours to get to the course site in Tartu, Estonia.  That's a bus from Milwaukee to Chicago, a flight from Chicago to Stockholm, a layover in Stockholm airport, a flight from Stockholm to Tallin, and another 2 hour bus ride to Tartu.

It interesting because the weather and landscape in Estonia almost reminded me of home.  It was snowy and open.  Instead of what I consider to be the typical European style houses that are masked by gates, there were yards and you could see the houses.  They were mostly made of stone and wood.  and people had dogs playing in their yards.  

My former supervisor, Kate taught me to travel by hotels.  You can really travel the world by anything.  Some people travel the world with a fascination for chocolate, or coffee, foods in general, or by magnets or T-shirts.  Anyways, Kate taught me to appreciate the different hotel rooms.  So you will probably see a theme of hotel rooms as I travel.  Above is my room in Tallin.  It was a really nice hotel.  To the left is the view outside of my skylight window.

Tartu is a city that was under various reigns and wars throughout history.  I found it interesting that typically everyone there speaks Estonian, English, and Russian.  They also typically learn one other language in school.  Being bilingual suddenly seems like a simple feat.  I would love to attempt another language, but am still apprehensive about ever returning to school.

Modern day Tartu is dominated by the university.  The city is very proud of it's University, which is the oldest in Estonia, and has a huge student population.  Above is a statue in the main square.  It is called the 'kissing students', as a tribute to the University students that dominate the city.

There are a few interesting other things about Estonia.  Randomly, EVERYWHERE we went there were free coat checks.  They really were over the top in that respect.  I think it is related to the cold temperatures and the fact that everyone walks to their destinations a lot more often so the coat check becomes essential as everyone arrives very bundled up.  Another interesting thing was that they had WIFI throughout all the cities and believed that the internet should be a free resource for everyone.  The below, was also their creative solution to sitting in the main square in cold weathers.  They have fur topped chairs and heaters!  I think Wisconsin could learn a thing from them.

This is a leaning house.  The higher side was built on the ancient wall that surrounded the city, hence it hasn't sunk along with the other side of the building.

After running the course.  We headed back to Tallinn, where we spent the night until our planes left the next morning.

Just a Lazy Saturday Afternoon.......

I know, I know, I will probably grow up eventually........

Boston!

After a quick trip to Newport we were onto the Boston portion of the trip and I use the term Boston loosely.  For me, Boston has always meant Canton.  As far back as I can remember we would head out to this "Boston" annually to visit my mother's stomping grounds, it meant that we would visit Canton, a town about 15 miles southwest of downtown Boston.

My fabulous Aunt Maggie is holding down the Cook Family fort out in Canton now and hosts a sort of unofficial family bed-and-breakfast only open to immediate family and absolutely free.  My adult experiences there are as though it is you are on a small retreat, where we sleep in late, take a break from life, drink lots of coffee, and visit Grammy only a few miles away.  I love it!

It was especially wonderful this visit because I met my sister from Philly there.  She took the guest room and I made my home in my cousin Joey's room.  It was a full house with Anne, her boys, and my cousins Joey and Anna.

The weekend went by too quickly, but it was great to see everyone, particularly to see everyone together.  Roman followed Joey (14) around wouldn't leave him.  Joey was trying to be a good, nice older cousin, but Roman just wouldn't leave his side.  Grammy met AJ.  Anne and I spent time with our now teenager cousin Anna.  We went to see her play volley ball and Greg gave her a  brief driving lesson. In retrospect he told me that he was a little nervous when Anna asked, "Which is the gas and which is the brake, again?" But, she drove wonderfully and is going to be a great driver.  Anna and I were both excited to see each other for other reasons:  Greg and I are honored that she will be able to say a reading at our wedding mass and I will be returning in May to be her confirmation sponsor.  It is wonderful how family can be so close and important, even if they are far away and you rarely see them.

And as usual, I wish I had taken more pictures.  Even though you can't see them in pictures, Grammy, my sister, and everyone else was present.

After a healthy dose of the Cook side of the family, Greg and I took a quick look at Boston on our way out.  It was extremely cold so the Harbor was empty and we did not do much outside.  In fact, Greg even begged me to stop in a small dress shop, just to get a break from walking in the cold.  We met a friend for lunch near the Public Gardens ... and then headed back home to sweet Milwaukee.

An engagement and three + holidays later......Here we are in 2013.

I skipped writing about Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and probably some other significant and noteworthy events, but I am going to pick up from my latest trip.

I went out to Boston to visit and introduce Greg to the infamous Aunt Maggie, Grammy and the rest of the gang out in Canton.  While we were out there we "multi-tripped", making a day trip down to Newport, Rhode Island to visit his Uncle and visiting a good buddy of his who lives out there.  If that wasn't enough, to top it all off, my sister came out from Philadelphia with Roman and little AJ.

An appropriate transition from my last post is to point out the fact that only a few hours into Boston, we recieved a parking ticket.  For those who might wonder, the parking fine in Boston seems to be $25 and I do not exactly plan to contest this one....

Once we touched down in Boston we soon headed down to Newport Rhode Island.  Greg's Uncle was happy to show us around and point out many of the major areas.  Newport seems to be rich in high society and a popular summer home for many famous.  Being winter, it was quiet;  However, it was our first time seeing Newport and going anywhere new can always hold excitement for a visitor.  We learned about the historic colonial homes, visited the naval complex, stopped for a nice lunch with clam chowder and took a scenic drive around the bay to see the magnificent mansions and homes of the Vanderbilts and Doris Duke.

This is the USS Saratoga.  It is a super carrier for the navy that was decommissioned in 1994.  Currently, it's docked in Newport awaiting it's final destiny.  Deep down, I really hope that it will eventually be turned into a museum, but it does not look very likely.  So there it sits.

We took a long drive around the bay and along the shore.  The East coast is beautiful.  One of the things that humored us was a house called "Cling Stone."  I wasn't able to capture a picture of it, but it sits in the middle of the bay, literally clinging to a giant boulder.  It has no yard and no connection to the land.  You must reach it by boat and we supposed electricity in the home is provided by generators. Somehow I imagine Gatsbyian parties taking place at the house until 4am during summers.  

The trip was very brief, but Uncle Charles' abridged version of 'The Best of Newport' took us to see the oldest library in the country.  It reminded me of the history and enchantment the east coast will always hold for me. 

We finished off the day trip with an order of Americanos and headed back to Boston for the next leg of our trip............

To Be Continued