Easter Weekend

This past weekend obviously was Easter weekend. Surprisingly, for a predominantly Catholic country, things were relatively calm. Here they celebrate "Semana Santa" more than just the day of Easter. This "Holy Week" is the whole process of J.C. being judged, condemned, crucified, and resurrected. I actually found that Friday was more of a holiday than Sunday.

Friday night, myself and two friends made "gringo tacos" for some of our Chilean friends. All in all it was a pretty good time with lots of food and lots of Pisco - the chilean drink of choice. After dinner we went to the beach and chilled. In the picture is Ulises (the host brother of a friend), Iris (my host cousin), me, and Sarah. The beaches here are pretty nice and relatively safe for South American standards. So we ran into no problems.


Saturday, I went with my host parents to my sister and her husband's house for lunch. Also my host brother and his wife came was well. Lunch here is the big meal of the day so we had a huge meal of empanadas, salad, rice, and chicken. After that we hung out, talked, and took siestas. In the picture is my host mom, named María Esther. She is a professor of Spanish and helps me out in speaking correctly and editing my written papers...its a pretty good deal.




This last picture is of my host father. He is currently renovating the first floor into a separate appartment. He is a Mr. Fix-It and can pretty much do anything in terms of hands on stuff. His family all calls him MacGuyver. In this picture he's doing the plumbing for the new place. I asked him how he learned to do it, he replied that he had a friend who was a plumber and he learned by watching his friend. Why not?





Hope all is well in the North and everyone had a happy easter. I love emails, so keep in touch!