All right, lets get you guys up to date!

The first few days in Santiago were pretty relaxing...the biggest news from those days were that I got a cell phone, so Ralf wouldn't have to start a search action again ;), and I found a language school. I will be doing a "Super Intensive" course for four weeks and probably add another month depending on how good my spanish is after my first month. I talked to a lot of students, who started with no spanish knowledge like me, and they said a second month would do me good...so it's quite sure that I will be doing a second month.

The weekend I got here Ralf, Marie, Luna and I went to friends who live in Los Andes, right next to a plot of land Marie and Ralf owe. We talked,ate, played "Kniffel" and went for a walk. After having three Kniffels in one game, my second name is "Kniffel-queen" from now on :-P

I uploaded some pictures of the landscape around their house...it's amazingly beautiful!

Monday was the first day of school. It took me about one hour to get there by bus and metro (Ralf's and Marie's house is on the edge of Santiago). The public transportation is surprisingly pretty good. The metro is very clean but also really crowded in the morning. I always have to wait a few metros until I get in. So, snuggel time every morning! Don't have a problem with that, but they are all starring like I'm from a different planet!! And every one who knows me, knows I don't like getting all the attention or be the center of interest...I guess I will (have to) get used to that.

In school I met my classmates, James and Nevena, and my teacher Pia. They are all really nice. James is from London and Nevena from Switzerland/Bosnia/Serbia...I still don't get how this works, being from three diferent countries...but whatever ;)

Lunch time was from 1pm till 2.30pm. As a welcome all new students got Empanadas and wine. We introduced ourselves and the headmaster of the school told us everything important about the school and Santiago. There is a lot pickpocketing going on around here and if you look like a foreigner the taxi drivers normally try to mess with you and charge more than usual. But I will try to stick with the metro...

Afternoon classes went until 4pm and I got home at about 5.30pm, did my homework and relaxed ;)

Second day of school was "Tandem Lunch", which takes place at a restaurant near the school. I met students from all over the world...from Brasil, America, Australia, Netherlands, Switzerland etc. It was pretty interersting to hear all their stories...like what their plan is for the next month, how long they will stay in Santiago and so on.

The next two days went fast. I came home in the late afternoon, did my homework, ate, read, skyped with my family and went to bed. 

That was my first week of school^^

Here are some pictures from Los Andes: 

View from their plot of land (Grundstück)

Their friends house

Nina pic

surrounded by mountains

!Hasta luego!

Chile/ Santiago: First impression

It's colder than I thought...

When I got here tuesday morning, the first thing I did was getting all my "winter clothes" (if you can call them that) out of the depth of my suitcase. As soon as the sun rose it became clear that I wouldn't need them that bad. It's the beginning of spring and that means the temperature can reach between 20°C and 27°C. The summer is gonna be really hot though...40°C is common! I hope its not too bad and I get used to it fast.

All right, first day in Santiago and I already have a funny/embarrassing (whatever you want to call it!) story to tell. Ralf and I went to the Mall to get some groceries. I looked around the mall and he got the groceries. We were supposed to meet one hour later, at 17:30 o'clock, in front of a store. Since I didn't have a clock with me and my cell phone just died, I checked the time on a clock in some store. I got to the meeting place at 17:30 pm and waited for 20 minutes, but Ralf didn't show up. So, I went to an apple store next to it and checked the time on one of the iPads...there it was only 16:30 pm. Well now I thought I had one more hour to look around, so I did;) When I checked a different iPad one hour later it was already 18:30 pm!! I kinda freaked out after that, cause Ralf and me were supposed to meet one hour earlier, I didn't have his phone number AND I was surrounded by spanish speaking people. I hurried down to the parking lot and -thank god- found the car with Luna (Ralf's dog) in it. After waiting there a few minutes, a security guy came by and tried to tell me that they were looking for me and I should stay by the car. He got Ralf then and everything was fine again ;) Ralf told me they started a search action and even paged me (ausrufen) two times! Hihi, obviously didn't hear that! Pretty embarrassing but another good story to put in my travel diary...

After all this stress again I just fell into my bed and slept about 12 hours!! I have never slept that long...there was probably a little too much going on the last four days.

At the end, a picture of Chile

Hasta luego amigos :)

Eure Nina

Flashback: last week in LA

Rewind, rewind, rewind...

It's Friday and as Steve and I were running some errands he gets a phone call from Tamara. One hour later Tamara and  I were already sitting in the car on our way to the Sierra Nevada Mountains...
We had planned to see the Sequoia National Park and its giant trees and drive back the next day, so I would have enough time to pack my stuff (since I was leaving Monday morning)and it was already dark when we got there and we didn't have a place to sleep yet. While drinking wine and some fruit juice at the bar of a lodge, we decided to find a camping site and just sleep in the car. Did I say "sleep"? Well, wrong word...I would rather say "being freaking cold and awake the whole night"!! We didn't plan on sleeping in the car and therefore didn't bring any blankets or other camping equipment ;) So that was a pretty terrible night...
Oh, forgot one good thing: we were able to see the sky pretty clear while laying in the car. I saw three shooting stars and the Milky Way :)
After this awesome night we had a very yummy breakfast -with HOT coffee- in the lodge we had our drinks the night before. After a couple cups of coffee I slowly woke up and we hit the road again to see "Mr. Sherman" and his pans "the general grant trees". The Sherman tree is by its volume the largest living tree on earth, is about 2,300-2,700 years old and  has a circumference (Umfang) of 31 meters! It's unbelievable when you stand right next to it.
Here is a picture:

May I introduce: "General Sherman"

The following hours I saw deers standing right next to me, chipmunks and a baby bear. The bear was sooo close to all of us and ran right over the walking path. I was really glad that I didn't see his mom ;)

little baby bear right in the middle

Definitely not very shy...deer right next to the car

 

Because Tamara and I are very spontaneous and always down for another adventure, we decided to drive up to Lake Tahoe and stay another night in the Mountains. The drive took us longer then we thought, so we got there at night and didn't have a place to sleep again. Since it was a Holiday weekend (Labour day), the lake was crowded and we finally gave up trying to find a place to sleep after we saw a lot of cars already pulling over and sleep in their car. We found a hotel, which had guests, who didn't show up. But we had to wait until two in the morning and still pay $160. The hotel was really nice though...
This is the hotel we stayed...      

Well, at least we stayed by the hotel in its parking lot :D

The second night in the car wasn't too bad. This time I slept on the back seats instead of the trunk and put more clothes on^^ We even had coffee in the morning when we went to the hotels restrooms to change and brush our teeth. We just pretended to be hotel guests and helped ourselves at the breakfast buffet. Haha! Tamara did better than me...she also got an apple at the hotel reception ;)

New awesome advice--> If you are on the road and can't find a place to sleep: The best place to sleep in a car is the parking lot of nice hotel. Quote of Tamara: " The people there are just too polite to say anything!" :D

Okay, back to Lake Tahoe: It's the third deepest alpine lake in the US. It's really beautiful...the water is very clear and the little town around it is very cute. Unfortunatly we couldn't stay that long and spent just a few hours driving around it and take some nice pictures.

 

 

 

this is how clear the water was

 

Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe again

Our way home was about 8 hours long but we took the road on the Nevada side of the Mountains, so one more state of the US I can cross off ;) We drove through lots of indian reservations and cute little towns. We saw a wildfire in the Mountains, which had been going since three days...the whole sky was full of smoke and when the sun set it looked really awesome. I didn't take a picture though. Sorry!
We arrived home at 10pm. The first thing I did was taking a shower...I never felt so gross after three days without a real bad or bathroom. After that I packed all my stuff and went to bed.
My flight to Santiago the next morning was at 1pm. After a 4 hour flight to Mexico city, I had three hours waiting time until my next flight to Santiago. At least I thought I had three hours;) In reality I only had two and ended up being paged (ausgerufen) by the flight crew and almost missing my flight :D After all that stress the 7 hour flight to Santiago was relaxing and not bad at all.
Everything went surprisingly good...my suitcase was there and Ralf, with whom I'm staying with, picked me up right in time.

That's all for now...

Bye bye :)

Working on it...

Sorry guys, I am still working on my post about my weekend with the big trees...I can not figure out how to upload the pictures. But I hopefully will soon. I am in school right know. My class starts like now...so gotta go.
Bis bald

I'm off on the road...

...to see the big trees ;) You guys hear from me later. Tschüssi

As I promised...pictures

the "dead place"- Monterey

The new cathedrale of Los Angeles

Union Station

Chinatown

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Me, walking down the stairs...

Venice and its Skateboarders

walking down the beach...

...letting the water float through my feet :)

Oh, what a wonderful world...