Day 17 - En Chile, el aire es libre

This morning I was up early for my bike ride around Santaigo with Patricia, one of the teachers from the school. She met me at the gate of the house at 8:30. Patricia is a serious rider with all the gear. I honestly don't know what made me mention the fact that I liked to bike ride in her class. I just figured to add that to my introduction to make me sound a little more interesting (plus I know all the words in Spanish). Today I found out that she rides every single weekend.

Ignacia and Camilla (two of the senior girls in Patrica's class) met us there with their bicycles and brought an extra one for me. Ignacia, a smoker, made it about 15 minutes and then decided to go home. Camillia continued on the ride with us.

Our first stop was a gas station to put air in one of my tires. I asked how much it costs. Patricia and Camilla looked at me like I had 3 heads. I said, "Cuanto cuesta" and explained in the US we have to pay. Camilla said, "en serio?" (seriously) and Patricia said, "En Chile, el aire es libre."

We rode up into the hills where all the nice houses are. It was a BEAUTIFUL ride. The houses were amazing, and then the view of the city was really special.



We rode until around 10:30 and then headed back to the house. We made plans to go again tomorrow morning. Camillia loaned me the bike to use. I am not 100% clear if she is going to join us again…I’ll find out tomorrow.










After the ride, I joined Sr. Justin in the kitchen to help her prepare the meal for the day. She made baked chicken in orange juice, carrots, zucchini and onions with with sausage, baked potatoes and tutti fruiti (fruit salad) for dessert. I volunteered to make apple pie for tomorrow’s dessert.




















Sr. Justin and I walked to Jumbo to get the ingredients for my dessert tomorrow. I think I am either going to make an apple pie or apple turnover. We ran into a bit of a problem translating Nutmeg and Cinnamon in Spanish, but finally were able to find it. When we got back to the house we found the sisters from Macul, Sr. Annucia, Sr, Romilda, Sr. Carmen and Sr. Bernadetta there to visit.

















I was planning to go to San Cristobol so I could visit the other areas of the park tomorrow. Sr. John Marie and Sr. Justin said that Sisters discussed my plans this morning over breakfast and decided that it wasn’t safe for me to go alone. Its a big park, kind of like Central Park and I guess it can be dangerous for tourists, especially a female traveling alone. I think Sr. Soyla and Sr. Anni are going to take me, but I don’t know if it will happen tomorrow. I know they are very busy. We’ll have to see how it goes.

In the meantime, I’ve started on the book that Sr. Lois gave me La Cabana. Its all in Spanish, so it is a slow read for me. I plan to trade notes on it with Sr. John Marie when I am done to make sure I got it right!