Pyles of Clutter

Wednesday, July 19, Cartegna y San Antonio

We saw the ocean again today, but it was a very different ocean than at Vina del Mar.  Again, we rode the bus to Cartegna, which is just a little north of Vina.  When we went to Vina, it was obvious that it was a touristy type of place, beautiful sands, big beaches, little shops, calm waters.  When we went to the beach at Cartegna, there was lots of sand, but it is a black color, where the beach in Vina is lighter.  There was also lots of shells and rocks in it.  The waves were huge, crashing on the little cliffs that are where the buildings are built on.  So beautiful.  There are signs all along the plaza saying "Cartegna, the tourist spot for the older."  You could see how that was, it wasn't for the young people, not as "hip"!  Well, we went there to visit the familia de Mattus.  They are a family that Terry lived with as a missionary. The father was home, with one of his daughters and a granddaughter as well.  He walked us up and down the  beach looking at the water and how beautiful the ocean was, then back to his house for some lunch and conversation.  I don't have much to say about that, as I don't speak spanish, and I couldn't keep up in understanding it too well  here.  A little side note here: If you tell the people in Chile that you don't speak spanish, they will tell you neither do they.  They speak casteano.  Funny.  I have been reprimanded a few times here about calling it spanish;  no, it is casteano.  Okay.  After a while, we went over to San Antonio, which is still on the ocean, but it is the port town.  There is no beach there.  It reminds me of Tacoma, with all of the hustle and bustle of the boats, but none of the glitz and glamour of Seattle.  There are fishing boats everywhere, and then a few huge tankers there also.  Okay, so the fun thing that happened there-they have a little open air market for fish there, fish, crabs, octopus, clams, everything, and I mean everything.  They also have lots of sea lions, the big huge ones, sitting down on the rocks next to the open air market, waiting for a handout of food.  The vendors, after they cut off the heads of the fish to sell, then sell the heads to the customers to feed to the sea lions and pelicans. They just sit there looking all cute, waiting for someone to feed them.  The sea lions though were everywhere.  I would say about 20 of them in all.  And tons of pelicans, but I never got to see one with its bag under it's beak full.  It was cool.  We went to another house there, the house of the familia de Hunt.  That was a lively bunch.  Again, not much to say about the conversation.  While we were there, the missionaries came!!  One of them was with Tyson in the MTC and then in Venezuela, and now in Chile.  Elder Satterthwaite will go home in three weeks though, as that is when the missionaries in his mission are scheduled to go home.  Oh we laughed, and talked, and talked and laughed at the Hunt  home.  They are a lively bunch, with lots of character.  We didn't leave there until almost eight, then the bus ride back to Santiago, then the metro back to Avenue de Pedro de Valdivia, then the walk back to Plata de Mar to our hotel, then start to pack up for tomorrow we come home.  Tomorrow we go home.  I'm ready to go home.  I miss my other children, I miss my bed, my shower, my food.  I miss the quiet neighborhood.  I miss home.  But I will miss here too.  It is hard to say good bye to people, knowing that you will probably never see them again.  It is quite a feat to get here, and most of these people won't have the chance to come to the U.S.  Thanks goodness for internet and the mail.  Now we can at least stay in touch with them.   I will not post for Thursday, as we are packing everything up before we leave the hotel to go do our shopping, and there will be no place to get on the internet.  So Chau to all!  Thanks for reading!  Mucho gusto!

Tuesday, July 18, Vina Del Mar

Buenas Tardes!  We decided today to go to Vina Del Mar, which is a tourist town on the coast of Chile.  It was an hour and a half bus ride there.  Let me back up a little and tell you a little bit about the transportation here.  There are the micros, the metro, and the buses.  The micros are the buses that take you around the town.  Some are company owned and they are a nicer and drive a little slower.   They are green.  Some are owned by the driver and they are crazy!  They drive so fast and crazy, that it is just better to close your eyes and hope for the best.  The metro is the subway.  There is no walls in between the cars so that it resembles just a big snake.  When the metro is moving, you can look down the cars and see them bend and move with the track, slithering along.  So interesting.  The buses are the tour buses.  They are really nice, very comfortable, and very safe.  The micros are everywhere, in some places they are bumper to bumper with people jumping on, and jumping off.  I love it!  So anyway, on to Vina Del Mar.  We rode the bus there, and then walked for a ways to see the beach.  The ocean was beautiful, going on forever.  Tyson reminded us that it goes all the way to Austraila.  It was beautiful, with big waves crashing, and pelicans sitting on the rocks.  There was a building that looked like a castle out on the  rocks.   It was amazing.  The water just goes on forever.  There was a small ferria there where we bought a few souveniors and then went on our way.  We weren't there very long, but unless you are going to hang on the beach for some time, there isn't much to do.  It was worth the time to get there though; it is such a sight.  After we came back, we went out to Sergio's home again, where we met his other daughter, Monica.  I have so enjoyed meeting their family and getting to know them.  They are very special people.  Monica painted the box that was given to me on Friday.  I'm so excited to get it home!  Tomorrow, more visiting.  We will go to Cartegna and San Antonia on the bus again.  Until then, Chau!

Monday, July 17, Santiago, Chile

Hola!  We walked around today until I really thought my legs were going to drop off.  We decided to go to San Cristobal today. This is the place where the statue of Virgin Mary is at (I told you the Chileans love their statues).   It is so beautiful there!  So the statue is on a really high hill.  When we were buying our tickets to go on the tram up the hill, another man was asking the ticket seller how long of a walk it is up the hill and she told him that it is about six kilometers.  That is the long way up the hill, but going up the tram is not so long of a ride.  It was so fascinating.  Terry was not having any fun because he is afraid of heights.  Not so fascinating for him.  So we made it up the side of the hill in the tram and then on to the statue.  More fascination.  When you get to the top, there is a place where you can just look out over the city.  I have never really been to a city this big, only Seattle, which isn't as big as this.  The city goes all the way around the hill where the statue is.  There is also a chapel on the side of the statue that  is beautiful inside with pictures of the different stages of Christ's life carved into the stone.  We stayed there for about 45 minutes, then we'd seen enough of the city and the smog on top of it.  Down we went and I do believe that Terry was more  nervous going down then coming up.  After we finished there, we decided to go back over to the "Alameda".  Long walk, but lots of fun.  We stopped for a long time at the Santa Lucia ferria which is an arts and crafts fair.  It has anything you could ever want there.  We bought some souvenirs there, but still haven't bought everything yet.  Email and tell me what you want!  Well, not all of you, just my family please.  At any rate, we saw so many fun and beautiful things, jewelry, clothes, bags, toys, decorations, vases, sweaters, anything.  The ferria is where it's at.  You know what the best thing is, I don't speak the language.  What's fun about that is that then I always get to make Terry be in charge.  "Ask them how much this is."  "Ask them what that is."  "Ask them where this goes to."  That is the fun part of not speaking the language.  The not so fun part is the part where I can't go anywhere by myself because I don't speak the language.  Funny.  Soooo, finally, at six o'clock, we went to the mission office and picked Tyson up, officially ending his mission.  I think he is having a hard time with leaving.  He loves this people, but I don't know.  He isn't saying much.  We saw all the other missionaries that were leaving also, lots of good friends of Tyson's.  We met his new mission president, that he has only had for two weeks.  He was very formal.  Then we brought him home.  Well, to the hotel.  It is so weird.  So awesome.  Now we are on our way to another family that Tyson was very close to.  I love to visit families that Tyson was close to.  It is so fun to see.  I will update tomorrow morning. 

Update in the morning:

Last night we went and visited another one of Tyson's families, la familia de Urriola.  So much character  there.  When we go to visit families here, one of the first things they tell you is how many children they have and then they tell you how they are doing in the church.  "I grew up in the church but then went inactive, then I came back and now I go to church."  Or whatever.  Then they tell you how they came to be in Santiago, then they tell you about their extended family, the parents' hermanas and hermanos.  Some very interesting stories there.  This family has some great stories.  The mama has a lot of character and is very animated.  She is a sculpture teacher.  The interesting thing here: one of their daughters is going to come to Western Washington University!  Isn't that nuts!  She is beautiful, really beautiful.  We, of course, told her that she could come to our house at any time, three hours away.  Funny.  They were very good to Tyson and gave him a lot of things.  He was also good to their family and got them reactivated and when they were sealed in the temple, he was a witness for them.  So sweet.  It made me a little homesick, because we just sat around the table and talked and ate, just like we do at home. Until tonight, Chau. 

Sunday, July 16, Santiago, Chile

What an incredible day!  We went to church with Tyson today in the ward he has been working in for the last six weeks.  My thoughts about church in Chile: 

We are incredibly spoiled in the states.  The chapel was so beautiful here but we could fit the entire church in the gym in the Rose Street church.  It is that tiny.  It had recently been remodeled and it was truly beautiful.  The classrooms were very small, barely fitting maybe 6 or 7 people.  There was a piano, but no one really knows how to play so the chorister sings the first line for you and then we all sing it acapella.  There was about 70 people in the ward, which is a good turnout, so the active people, who have made the committment to come every week, have at least two callings, most times more.  There are about 10 of those.  The women come in their nicest clothes, even if that is just a pair of good slacks.  Most of the men wear suits.  The Relief Society and the Young Women do a fun thing, like secret sisters except they just write each other notes.  Then the notes are passed out at the end of the meeting.  If a person did something special for you, then you would write it down and put it in the box, or if you thought they looked beautiful that day, or whatever.  I thought it was a fun way to get some interaction going between the two organizations.  There were only 10 women in Relief Society.  An 18 year old taught the beehives, the missionaries answer all the questions, a return missionary is in charge of the sacrament every week, the same families do everything.  That one is not always so different.  We also got to enjoy a baptismal ceremony.  It was really nice.  She is a good woman.  The people here are so friendly.  Most everyone came and gave us a kiss and hug as is the custom among the women, and men to women.  Men don't have to kiss men, but they do give hugs.  So sweet.  In Relief Society, we were talking about Zion's camp in Missouri, and Wilford Woodruff, and pioneers, and what not, and I thought these people have no idea what that is like, having never been to the states, and not seeing the plains like we do, and not ever really having the opportunity to come to the states.  The Salt Lake Temple is like the Great Wall of China to them, something they will never see, something that isn't a tangible thing to them, and yet we take that for granted.  Sobering.  We met some great people.  Several of the families that Tyson has become very close too.  I'm sorry though, I can't remember their names!  I will have him tell me again, when we pick him up tomorrow.   One of them I remember is the Rojas family, who recently had a son killed.  The father was not a member at the time, but because of the testimony of his wife, and the promise of sealing covenants, he was baptized and is now very committed to the gospel.  He told us that the gospel is the only thing that saved him in that dark time, the gospel and the love of our Heavenly Father.  We didn't see a single site today, but I feel like we have seen Chile.  We saw the love of people for each other, we saw what life is about here, and we saw how much people can touch others.  Until tomorrow, chau. 

 

Saturday, July 15, Santiago, Chile

Today was a beautiful day!  It was actually pretty warm, about 70 degrees, and blue, blue skies.  Terry and I started our day off going to the temple.  We waited for Tyson to come there, as he had a tour for a family that he knew.  It was so great to see him again this time, because we were both more prepared for the shock and could talk to each other.  Just for all of you out there, his personality has not changed much.  He started talking to me about the fact that my camera is better than his.  What's up with that?  All I can say is, get a job, then you can get a better camera.  When he went back to work, Terry and I spent the rest of the day playing tourists, going back and seeing the sights that Sergio had shown us yesterday, but with a much less hurried pace.  It was great.  We went down the "Alameda" again.  Let me tell you what I noticed.  Things you see:  Women wear mostly dark colors, unless you are young, like teenagers.  They don't highlight their hair, but some have bleached hair.  Their are no low pants; of course, it is winter here, but still no butt cracks (yea!).  There are a lot of boots being worn, either with flat soles, or stilettos with pointy toes.  No huge earrings, no big necklaces.  Men have all kinds of hair, but mostly short.  They look the same as at home, except again, no bright colors.  A very sedate country, at least in Santiago.  Dogs everywhere!!  Kamikaze pigeons everywhere!  We bought some empanadas de queso, (cheese empanadas) but unfortunately, the amount of cheese in it was not enough to taste.  And when we bought water, we forgot to say "without gas" which gives you sparkling water, which I do not like the taste of.  After that our day consisted of just meandering down the streets with all the shops and street vendors.  Oh the street vendors!!  If you want it, they will sell it.  And as Terry said, "You have U. S. written across your forehead,"  they tried to sell me everything.  Belts, scarves, hats, pants, ties, toys, pictures, DVDs, CDs, playstation games, nuts, paintings, raffle tickets, lottery tickets, you name it, it was there.  And there were people selling their talents; guitar players, flute players, singers, comedians, dancers, mimes, clowns, and of course, the homeless begging for money.  So sad looking.  Another thing you see, street vendors that actually sell things between the cars.  When the light turns red, the vendor comes out between the cars and tries to get you to buy whatever they have.  Even as the cars start going again, they are still trying to sell.  What a way to make a living, because I can tell you that driving here, YIKES!!!We went to a huge square called "Plaza de Armas" which is like a war memorial type of place.  On one side is a huge Catholic cathedral, and on the other the Post Office, but it was impressive.  It was huge.  We saw there some dancers, that were doing the national dance.  It was so fascinating because each dancer would go around the circle of people and offer their hankerchief to someone, and that person would come out and do the dance with them.  Everyone knew this national dance.  Terry told me that it is learned while the children are very small, in all the schools.  The girls wear big poofy dresses, while the men wear the bolero jacket with these high leather shin guards with spurs on the back of them.  (Please don't think of soccer things though as they aren't even the same.)  We watched them dance several times, then moved on.  Later, we saw another set of these national dancers.  SO fascinating!  Now, let me tell you the one thing that I know for sure about the people of Chile.  They love their statues!  They have a statue on every corner of someone.  Right now, no statues of Pinochet, the dictator that ran their country into the ground, but after he is dead for awhile, who knows, it could happen!  It happened with every other President that they didn't like.  Remember that Santiago is the place with the big Christus is located on the hill.  I have seen it from the bottom of the hill, but we will go up and see it on another day, probably Monday.  Anyway, back to the statues, they have a million of them.  Everyone's got a statue.  Today, we went back by the Presidential Palace and this time we got to go in.  I was so sad though, because when we went by it yesterday, there was some guards sitting out front that were like the guards at the Tower of London that you see, where nothing you do can make them smile or look at you.  But they weren't there today, only yesterday because of the ceremony that was going on with the President.  Remember that the president here is a woman.  Very forward thinking.  She is very well liked.  At any rate, I was hoping to take a picture of the guards today, but no.  Bummer.  We got to go through it today, so beautiful on the inside. Very serene, and formal.   The Chilean seal is over the doors of the Ministry building.  The motto with the seal is "By reason or by force."  Hmmm.  Okay.  Later, I had a hot dog, which are very popular here, with tomatoes, onions, avocado, mayonaisse, "American" cheese (which isn't american), and a little tiny hot dog.  They called it the "American" hot dog.  I thought that was funny because no one I know eats their hot dogs that way but it was pretty good.  I also had something that reminded me of pink chocolate milk (that's for you, Tess), only I had mine with some kind of fruit that I had never heard of before and can't remember the name of now.  It was good though.  My attempt at eating what they have here.  There is also a sign on every food place advertising "helados" or ice cream.  They like their ice cream here.  Well, I bought me a beautiful watercolor painting today, that I will put in my dining room.  I think we probably fed the artist for a month, and it costs us about $17.00, american.  Isn't that fascinating?  Things here are fairly cheap, but then people aren't making that much money.  I had a grand time being tourist and standing out like a sore thumb.  I played it up quite a bit because, I mean, if you're going to stand out, you should take advantage of it and really stand out, right?  I hope I didn't give America a bad name though, but I did have some fun with it.  Tomorrow we will go to church with Tyson and meet some of the families that he spends time with.  Today, when we were visiting with him by the temple, which is beautiful, he told me about a woman who has become his second mother here.  I'm so glad for all those mothers out there, who take care of those missionaries who can't have their mothers with them.  I miss my second sons, Frei, Albright, Dommer, Holt, Morgan, Pierce, Williams, Taylor, Smith, and Manning.  Work hard Elders.  Time is short.  Until tomorrow, Chau. 

Friday, July 14, Santiago, Chile

Updated Saturday Morning

Friday, July 14

Dear Friends,

Okay, I have to admit, 9 hours in a plane is not all that fun.  The first few hours were good, reading my book, watching the world go by out the window, chillaxin' (shout out to the missionaries!), but after that all I wanted was to be horizontal in a bed.  I was soooooo tired and soooooo uncomfortable.  So needless to say, a bit grumpy when we landed.  Also remember that we are in the middle of winter down here.  Gloomy, foggy, drizzly.  At any rate, we are in Chile!!  So excited, can't hardly stand myself.  Well, when we got to Santiago Airport, we went through customs fairly quickly and then as we were leaving, we had a shuttle waiting for us, but then we saw one of Terry's converts waiting for us!  Sergio!!  Terry has been conversing with him through email for the last few months and here he was waiting for us.  We all went in the shuttle together to our hotel, which is in the middle of Santiago.  It is quite near to the mission home, and also to the Santiago, Chile Temple.  Well, Tyson had told us that he was going to the temple today with their new mission president, so we were telling all this information to Sergio.  As we were going by the mission home, he says, "I wonder if we will see your son.  There are some missionaries there."  I turn and look and what do you know!!  It's Tyson!!  He is just walking down the street with two other missionaries.  My Tyson!  It was so incredible!  We stop the taxi, in the middle of the street, and jump out and track him down.  I was slow to get out (all the bags are on top of me) so that by the time I finally get out, he is back up the street to our car.  He gave me a big hug and I gave him about 100 kisses.  He looks great!  He didn't really know what to say and neither did we.  Finally we let him get back to his work, going to the temple.  I couldn't believe it.  My son, my boy.  Monday can not come soon enough. Sorry though!  I was so overwhelmed with it all, no pictures!! AHHH!  What kind of mother am I?  Ah well, we'll fake some out for you later.  Till then, Chau. 

Update on the day

What a day!! Holy cow!  When we got to our hotel, we took a nap and a shower.  Wow did that feel good.  But problem number one: we hadn't got an adapter for the plugins, and we didn't have a transformer for the voltage change.  Well, the front desk had an adapter that I could use to blow dry my hair but no transformer.  I decided to try it out anyway.  Guess what?  I blew a fuse in the hotel.  No lights, no hair dryer, no nothing.  That is my disclaimer as to why my hair looks the way it does in the pictures. Just remember, no lights, no blow dryer. 

This is "Alameda."  It is the main street of shops in Downtown Santiago.  Santiago has six million people in it.  SO busy.  SO many people.  SO many street vendors.  SO much American things there.  Crazy.

This is the Presidential Palace.  This is Chile's equivalent of the White House.  We were going to go through it, but they were having a little ceremony at that time, so we couldn't.  We could still see bullet holes in the buildings next to this from when Pinochet started the coup.  This would be the front...

And this would be the back.  The statue is of one of their presidents, Allende.  He wasn't really well liked, but compared to the dictator Pinochet, he was a good guy.  The fountain is so beautiful.  The picture does not do it justice. 

The older man in the middle was our tour guide for the day, Sergio Velasquez.  He showed us all the downtown sites of Santiago before taking us to lunch at his home.  His family was so delightful and so welcoming.  So beautiful too.  His daughter, Cecilia, lives behind his house with her two children and the little one is his grandson from another daughter who couldn't be there. 

The Velasquez family gave me this beautiful (!!!!) box that their daughter Monica had painted for me.  I was so touched that they would do that for me a perfect stranger to them!  It is so beautiful and I feel like I don't need another thing from Chile as a souvenoir.  And then when I opened the lid...

Homemade chocolates!!  Que Bonita!!  Muchas Gracias!  So yummy!

Then I was so tired, I was falling asleep, so back to the hotel for us.  What a great day.  Started well, ended well.  Chau.

It's Chile Time!

Dear Friends,

        I’m on my way to Chile!!  We are now five hours into the trip, waiting for our connecting flight out of Atlanta.  The flight here was glorious, four hours all to myself.   It was great!  Now, this will not come as a surprise to most people, but the first thing I promptly did was fall asleep.  Yes it’s true!  I wasted some precious time with my eyes closed.  I couldn’t believe it myself, but in the mididle of my movie, out like a light.  Not surprising since I can barely make it down to the end of the block in our van before I'm out like a log when Terry is driving.  Now the good news is that it only last about a half hour, and then bright eyed and bushy tailed, I rewound that movie, rewatched it with my eyes open, and then read a book, ate some yummy snacks (I didn’t even have to share with the two year old sitting in front of us), and then we were there.  For some more fun news, we were early to the airport.  Our flight landed one hour early!  I am told that that is nothing short of amazing, so I am amazed!  I don’t know if I’m suppose to be or not, but I am!  So here I am, in Atlanta, waiting anxiously to get on our way, because when I land, I get to actually hear my son’s voice for the first time in the same country, in 22 months.  That is nothing short of amazing.  Until tomorrow, Chau. 

And as they say, "We're off like a herd of turtles!"  SeaTac Airport

A picture from out of the airplane window of the patchwork countryside.

This one's for all my scrapbooking buddies.  We are at the Atlanta airport.  It is 90 degrees outside and humid. And here I am in my sweatshirt.  I swear the air conditioner in the airport was set at 60 degrees.  FREEZING!!  I thought you'd appreciate this