5/7

hi all
so on 5/7 we left Quillota. so sad, i cried a little. this is a picture of me and maggie with our Papi at the bus station.







so on to La Serena. It was a cute town. a beach town, one that is really quiet in the winter and then really busy with tourists in the summer. Here are some pictures. Dana and i shared a host family. Which wasnt a family, it was a thrice divorced rotarian man who wasnt really all that enthusiastic about us being there. but it was pretty funny watching him tell Dana that in CHile "women belong to the men". Hilarious!

service in Chile

random blog:
so service here in CHile is slow. Like ridiculously slow. like get up and leave slow. seriously slow.
marina

5/6

hi all
its me! So, here we are on 5/6 in Quillota. This is a long day, so there are a lot of photos.

First we went to local government. Quillota is the capital of the "province" or State. So we met with the governer of the state of Quillota, as well as the mayor of the city of Quillota. The government in Chile is different than ours, there are no real individual states rights as i understand it, all laws are federal laws. The governer is not elected but is appointed by the President and their job is to see that the federal laws are carried out in their state. The mayor however is elected. (you can click on the pictures to make them bigger)



this is us with the governer

this is the governer and his wife


this is me smiling at the camera in my really attractive uniform




this is us with the mayor
this is me and Dora giving the governer a book about LA and OC. its in spanish dont worry.


so after local government we changed and went and had lunch at the house where the palta plantation was.

an artsy photo

the courtyard of the house

me and dana. im drinking a mango sour, shes drinking ginger ale

all of us in the courtyard

the guys

the inside of the house, it was so beautiful, it was absolutely amazing.
maggie and i being serenaded by the man of the house



so, next we went to the cavalry school. it was so beautiful. and remember how i said the cute guys were in quillota?


we were driven around the school in this horse drawn carriage. it was so cool.

and our guide. what a cutie. short with freckles, the way i like them.

me, dora and maggie. Dora takes really good "long arm photos"

the hottie guide, the plantation owner, and my papi. doesnt my papi look cute in his tie?

hottie guide, with a permanent smirk

fountain

this building is the officers mess. Anyone other than Tera just start singing Evita? Kari?


the inside of the officers mess. Beautiful. our guide said that they have weddings there on the campus, really it was gorgeous.


this is a replica of the highest horse jump on record, it was done here back in the 50s or something

military boys



another building on the campus

us in front of the officers mess

snow whites house. not really.



ok. after the cavalry school we went to the most interesting place. it is the house of a Chilean author that they call the "sheriff of Quillota". He loves Texas and MExico and this is the dudes house. totally not a joke, the guy actually lives like this. its awesome!


this is the outside of his house

this is maggie standing by the side of the guys barn

this is a room in his house

this is the sheriff with Maggie. he loved Maggie. He loves Mexico. i dont count as a Mexican here in Chile. Maggie's not mexican either but her parents are and she speaks spanish. my parents are from Norwalk. almost the same thing.


the sheriff, notice the star?

artwork and pictures of the sheriff


this is the plantation owners daughter, she came with us. notice i said daughter and not granddaughter, scroll back up to the picture of him playing the piano if you need a refresh.

this is the sheriff autographing one of his books for maggie. notice he has no thumb on his right hand. that is because his horse bit it off. i couldnt make this stuff up if i tried.

dana and i at the bar in the sheriffs house

the bar, seriously

and jesus. in the middle of the street. these people love them some jesus.

5/5

hi all
so on cinco de mayo, which i totally missed in my head such a bummer, we went to a Palta farm. Paltas=avocado. so more of that in a minute.
First there are tons of churches here. Chile is a very catholic country. the churches are beautiful. however, they also have these really large "dolls" instead of statues of Mary, Jesus...
they look like those dolls you had when you were a girl where when you put them down their eyes closed. super creepy.



in the back of this picture is one of those "dolls" they totally creeped me out.


alright, Palta Plantation! So lets just say how much we love Quillota. Girls, Quillota is where the hotties are! We love Quillota boys. Sorry, but i had to get that out. Chile has not a huge selection of hotties, so the ones that we get we really like to savor. and my 2 favorite have been in Quillota.
so back to the Palta plantation. this was such a cool day. we went to the family plantation of a Rotarian. check out these photos.

this is the house on the plantation, it was beautiful




this was the tractor train that we took through the palta fields. it was the bins that they usually transport the paltas in. this was me in the bin making a face at my camera and dora looking cute.


these are paltas

all that green is the family plantation


hello hottie! alright, this was the son of the rotarian. he is the one who drove the tractor. i dont think the tractor drivers in California look like this

tarantula!

the back of the hottie. Dora took tons of pictures of his back hoping he would turn around.



this was the group for the day. notice the halo of light around the hottie. yup, hot.
alright, the man on the left was Maggie & my Papi. We miss you papi.

me, maggie & dora in a palta bin. Muy grande paltas :)

this was the rotarian who owns the plantation. way to go mister on your palta growing skills as well as your son growing skills :)

mmm, hottie

the girls

so, sorry about the whole hottie thing, but seriously most guys here arent that cute. and its starting to get to be a few weeks. so anyways, whatever, i love hotties.