border crossing in the andes mountains

i added some stamps to my passport this weekend. four to be exact. two more from chile and two from argentina (you get a stamp from the country you leave and that you enter here). we had a long weekend, with today being a national holiday in chile, so me and two other girls got on a bus and crossed the andes into mendoza, argentina. i normally don’t enjoy long bus rides that much, this ride was really incredible. it’s about 6 hours in the bus, plus border crossing, but about 3.5 of those hours are spent literally in the andes mountains. beautiful doesn’t begin to describe. i think the pass we went on reaches a peak of 12,000 feet, with snow covered mountains still towering all around even at the highest part of the pass. the border crossing it actually pretty close to the top of the pass, which is quite interesting. sadly i have no pictures for you at this time b/c i forgot my camera, so i just had to soak it up with the mind’s eye, but i probably was able to enjoy it more that way anyway. but all is not lost for you my friends b/c my friend katie did have her camera and she took tons of pictures, so hopefully i’ll get those from her and share them with you.

well we arrived to mendoza friday night after an exceptionally long ride b/c we took 3 hours crossing the border. but we were all safe and sound, so that’s all that really matters. we checked into our hostel, found a restaurant, experienced a mendozan “tenedor libre” (which translate to free fork, but it’s a buffet) complete with a mariachi band and lots of fresh meat, and then crashed for the night. saturday we got up and took a micro out of town to an area where there’re tons of vineyards (mendoza’s the 8^th most important wine producing area in the world) for a wine and bike tour with the intentions of learning about the wine industry that’s so important to mendoza and madding doing a tasting or two. we kinda got a late start and after lunch which was our first stop i managed to get a flat tire. so we made friends with some locals, one being a very talkative, but hard to understand, old man who called the bike place to get a new wheel and by the time we got done we had no time to see even one bodega (where they produce the wine), so no worries, no drunken rachel on a bike in south america. there was actually no alcohol involved. that night we made dinner in the hostel for $2 a person (dinner of ravioli, yummy sauce and bread, pretty great price i think) and went to bed cuz we were all pooped and had sore butts. sunday katie and i got up early and headed toward the mountain to go on a horseback ride in the mountains. the view of the andes is quite incredible from the argentina side b/c there aren’t as many hills to obstruct the view of the actual mountain as there are in chile. we ended up getting a private tour b/c no one else had signed up for the day. our guide was this wonderful argentinean man of probably 40 something who has spent all of his life working in the mountains and was really nice and helpful and knowledgeable. i was so cool to just talk to him as we rode along and took in the sights of all the beauty around us. it was also really exciting b/c we were all talking in spanish and i understood 99%. understanding is such a great feeling. so we went on about a 4 hour horseback ride and then headed back to town for a little souvenir shopping, dinner and another kinda early night b/c we had to catch a bus this morning at 8:45. the ride back across the mountains was pretty uneventful but still breathtakingly beautiful. parts of the mountains had more snow than they had just 3 days before and it was snowing a bit as we came out of chilean customs. i also watched the guardian on the bus in spanish, which i was also able to understand, much to my surprise and delight!

most of the trip can be summed up in accounts of places and sites and silly interactions, but there was one experience that struck in a whole different way. i was on the micro on the way to the vineyards when one of many passengers boarded the bus. as he got on and told the driver where he was headed, i remember thinking for the millionth time how many attractive men there are in argentina, when all of the sudden, i caught a good look at his face, and i could hardly believe what i had seen. he headed back to about the middle of the micro (i was pretty close to the front) but i could still see him in the rearview mirror, and as i looked back, i was again struck by his appearance. he looked like josh. i think i had prepared myself to see people that had some resemblance to josh in the states, especially in places and situations i was used to seeing him in, but this was completely unexpected. when i first saw him, i thought it was some trick my mind was playing on me, but as i continued to glance at him, his features kept popping out at me. the shape of his face, his light hair (not quite as light at josh’s but similar by south american standards), his height, and his eyes. i could hardly take my eyes off of him. it was like, by looking at him, i was seeing josh again. i couldn’t process it all in the moment, b/c i was trying my hardest not to freak out and stop crying, but i had this almost uncontrollable urge to talk to him, ask him his name. as if somehow he would be josh. that talking to him would somehow be liking talking to josh. i’m sure i just imagined it, but i felt like he kept looking at me (maybe because i looked distraught), and i imagined some weird connection between us… as if he were josh and not just a random argentinian man that bore his resemblance. right when i was about to break down, we reached our stop and quickly got off. i saw him watching us as the bus pulled away, and i broke down. i was overwhelmed with grief. i was struck with how much a missed him and the fact that i can’t see him now, and that all the look alikes in the world will never be him, no matter what my mind tries to make me believe. i composed myself after a couple of minutes and we got on our bikes and headed off, but i couldn’t get him off my mind all day. as we rode our bikes at the foot of the beautiful andes mountains i couldn’t help but think how much josh would have loved that. bikes, mountains, what more could he has wanted.

i’m continually surprised and confused by this process that they call grieving. xuan said it well in her blog when she said it comes in waves. but it doesn’t seem to make much sense sometimes, but i guess that is life. who are we to understand it. we just have to live it. and as i remember josh with tears or laughs or smiles or heart aches, i remember who he was and how he lived and what he lived for. and i miss him like mad. but i can’t help but be ok b/c he’s with our father, and the idea of him worshiping up there is even more beautiful than all the memories and it makes him not being here easier. i makes it ok. i even makes it good. i also am continually encouraged by him. encouraged to live as he lived, love as he loved, and accept my faults and screw ups as he did and live unashamed in the Lord’s grace. Lord to be unashamed! to live in that freedom. live in that love. that’s my desire.

as a closing note, i left the states three months from today. three months. it seems like no time at all but then again it almost seems like years sometimes. it still amazes me that worlds apart from home, life still continues. you all have gone on living your lives while i’m here figuring out how to live mine, apart from yours. and while we’re thousands of miles and a continent away, we keep living, keep learning, keep struggling, keep rejoicing, keep smiling and laughing and crying, and while our worlds are soo far apart right now, soon we’ll again share the same land mass and we’ll get to share all these unique experiences with each other. how glorious that day will be! for some that day will be longer coming than for others, but know i look forward to it! so keep living, keep making discoveries and having adventures and learning and drawing nearer to the heart of our Father, and i’ll do the same

lobo marinos y manos congelados

i am yet again dumb struck that another week has gone by. they go so fast! but it was a really good week. some highlights:

• discovering a spot really close to the university where i can go and watch a whole bunch of lobo marinos (sea lions) just off shore. there's this big concrete structure just off the coast where there's aways about 6-12 sea lions and they're terribly fascinating to watch, watching them get up onto the structure (quite the feat), fight with each other, and all kinds of other sea liony things. maybe pictures to come soon.
  
• made a new friend who's from argentina, so she talks way different from the chileans, the argentinians pronounce their "ll" really different. it's quite amusing.
• playing random games with seba in an attempt to warm up my cold hands (my hands were cold b/c our house is cold b/c none of the houses here have central heating, and we don't use our little space heater thing much), including the hand slapping game (where you put your hands about the other person's a the person who's hands are on bottom try to slap the ones on top) and also the chilean version of rock, paper, scissors, which includes some pretty intense punishment when you lose (involving licking fingers and slapping the other person's hands really hard). so pretty much seba was beating me up b/c i'm terrible at both games (i don't know how you can be terrible at rock, paper, scissors, but i am...). classic brother sister time. especially considering it was really late and i was laughing uncontrollably but trying not to wake the whole house. you probably had to be there...
• getting two 7s on some of my essays (which are like A+s)
• seeing spider man 3, even though it wasn't that great
• getting mail from friends at home
• discovering a REALLY funny chilean show called "casado con hijos" the idea's taken off of the american show "married with children" which i really have never liked, but the chilean version is hilarious. it's really really chilean, with all the slang and everything, i'm gonna try and find a way to record an episode or something, just to show a bit of chilean culture

in other big news, i found out my dad's going to come visit me which i'm REALLY excited about. he's coming in june for the week of my b-day. so now i'm trying to come up with fun stuff for us to do while he's here, which i think will be pretty easy. it's gonna be an adventure for the both of us, but i think it'll be really cool!

so the books i've been reading while i'm here have really been great (not the spanish ones sadly... but still...). i've been reading the normal christian life by watchman nee for a while now. i think the title's a little misleading for this book, but it's mostly a book about romans 6-8 and all that Christ's death and resurrection does for us. it's a really incredible book. it presents alot of the foundational truths of our faith in a really incredible way i think. so here's a couple excerpt from things i read this week that i really really liked, and really talked about alot of the exact same things i've been thinking about and learning about alot lately.

"a brother who was trying to struggle into victory remarked to me one day, "i don't know why i am so weak." "the trouble with you," i said, "is that you are weak enough not to do the will of God, but you are not weak enough to keep out of things altogether. you are still not weak enough. when you are reduced to utter weakness and are persuaded that you can do nothing whatever, then God will do everything.." we all need to come to the point where we say: "Lord, i am unable to do anything for thee, but i trust thee to do everything for me.""

"have you despaired of yourself, or do you hope hat if you read and pray more you will be a better christian? bible-reading ad prayer are not wrong, and God forbid that we should suggest that they are, but it is wrong to trust even in them for victory. our help is in him who is the object of that reading and prayer. our trust must be in Christ alone."

"...the old habit of "doing" reasserts itself and we begin our old self-efforts again. then God's word comes afresh to us: ït is finished" (john 19:30). He has done everything on the cross for our forgiveness and he will do everything in usf or our deliverance. in both cases He is the doer. "it is God that worketh in you.""

food for thought. how wonderful is it that all that Christ asks of us, He himself accomplishes. He does it all... that's just a pretty incredible thought. learning to live in that prevision is sometimes so against my nature though, but i've been learning alot about that and it's been really great.

well, i'm super tired, so that all for now folks. i love and miss you all!!

riding in a sardine can

picture of mi kissing a rapa knui, the trademark guys from the isla de pascua (easter island, where i'll be going in june!!) seba took this of me in a restaurant on his phone and i think he messed with the background a little bit on photoshop. pretty fun though :)oh how the weeks continue to fly by. i only have classes monday through thursday (with only one class mondays and tuesdays) which means three day weekends every weekend (rough life i know), so the time has seemed to be passing at an almost alarmingly fast rate. it's amazing how even three day weekends can feel short! next semester will definitely be a shock for me as i jump back into the insanity that is my life at the uofa: into marching season, my new job as an RA, and a full load of upper level classes (but they're all either communication disorders classes or spanish, so they should be pretty good!). but all the craziness of next year aside and plans for when i come home, i still have almost two-and-a-half months left here, and i don't want to waste away the time i have here thinking about things for when i get home.

so the last few weeks have been really good. i feel like the Lord's really been showing me and teaching me alot as i've kinda come to peace about alot of things. i'd gotten really frustrated with myself for a while because i felt like i wasn't doing much here, and in the years past i think i've picked up the twisted way of thinking that if i wasn't doing stuff, that i was wasting my time and something was wrong. while i generally go out with my family or friends on the weekends and occasionally do stuff during the week, alot of times if i'm not in class i'm just hanging out in the house working on homework or reading the endless amounts of spanish literature i have to read (or more accurately-thinking about how i should be reading spanish literature and how i don't want to be...). but i've realized that while sometimes i may be a bit lazier than what's called for here (sleeping in has become a bad habit), i really think the Lord's calling me to a time of rest here, which is a concept pretty foreign to me, but it's been really great, especially since i've allowed myself to be ok with it. i've been reading rob bell's book velvet elvis (incredible book-if you haven't read it, DO) and in one part of it he talks about how he learned that he had to take a sabbath, b/c if he didn't he would lose his soul in all the doing. i feel like this time is kinda like an extended sabbath for me. not to use that as an excuse to not do anything, but just in the sense that the Lord's calling me to learn to rest in Him and learn to just be, instead of always feeling like i have to be doing. plus i'll have plenty of doing to do when i get home.

and now, i think i'll leave you with a story/description of something that has become a very big part of my life here in chile-las micros. so every morning/afternoon when i go to valparaíso for my classes, i take the micro. i flag one down three blocks from our apartment and then ride it to my university. the micros are a huge part of life in chile. they're everywhere and almost everyone uses them at least sometimes, even if they have cars, just because they're super economical, especially if you're just going around town (because parking at times can be a hassle and gas is even more expensive here than at home). supposedly there are bus stops, but really you can pretty much flag one down anywhere and they'll stop to let you off about everywhere, which is great except that it makes for some pretty interesting traffic situations and a longer ride. luckily there's a part of the ride to the university that goes right along the beach, so it's a pretty ride. when i come home i take the micro as well and it drops me off just a block from our apartment, which is pretty nice. ok, so today i got on the micro coming home from my class in viña (so it was a much shorter ride than when i come from valparíaso) and i happened to get on a micro that was jammed with people. i could barely get inside the front door, let alone make it the two feet to where you normally pay the driver. but no big deal. the crowds like that are relatively common and usually the number of people on the bus equalizes people fast. well... this time that didn't work out so well. more and more people just kept getting on. i have no idea why the driver kept stopping to let people on. at one point, i was holding on to a rail by the front door when the driver opened the door and i managed to get my arm caught between a lever for the door and the rail... so here i am trying to move out of the way so people can get on with my arm wedged betweens these two bars, looking very much like a gringa... gotta love situations like that. luckily the door closed after a minute or so and i was "free" again. or as free as you can be when you're wedged in between so many people, so close that i'm continually bumping into 3 random people i've never met. so when it comes time to get off, i've managed to make it to about the middle of the bus, which means i have to try to squeeze my way out without killing 5 people on the way with my backpack... it's a hard task. i definitely took a huge sigh of relief when i stepped off the bus and no longer felt like a sardine. so welcome to chile, where the micro drivers are crazy and at times the concept of personal space gets through out the window of the micros!

this is a great picture. i've probably ridden this exact same bus. i tend to favor the "2 viña buses" as they always come close to my house and are easy to spot. there's a ton of different micros that go all over the place, so you have to be careful to get on the right one (once i got on the wrong one and had to ride it for about an hour before i could get off and get on the right bus, and that was after going about 1/4 of the way to santiago...).

well, now you understand just a little bit better my life in chile (cuz the micros really are a big part of it!). until next time, i love you all and wish all of you that have finals the best of luck!