First Blog Post!

Greetings Family and Friends!

I see you have found my blog.  As you may have heard, I will be spending the next 11 months in Chile and South America, studying at La Universidad Austral de Chile (from here on referred to as UACH) in Valdivia, Chile.  The purpose of this blog is to keep anyone interested relatively informed of my activities, adventures and travels.  In order to write this blog, I have forced myself to accept that there is a certain level of interest in what I'll be doing (certainly the point of what is essentially a huge mass email is that someone reads it?), but feel free to read only what you want, just look at the pictures, or never look at this blog again and forget all about it.  I will not be offended in any way and we can still be friends, promise.  But if you are interested in my take on  life in South America and my experiences in it, I will be here to inform you and occasionally post a stunning photograph.

That being said, let's start with some geography!  This is La República de Chile (pronnounced chee-lay):



I'll be living in Valdivia, which is on that map there, it's sort of near Puerto Montt, about 500 miles south (or about 800 km) of Santiago.  It is a town of about 140,000 people, capital of Region X or the Lakes Region.  I'll be living there with a host family and attending UACH for two semesters with a summer break between December and March.  By the way, this is an open invitation to anyone I know to meet me anywhere in South America during that time, so far I have no plans.  Definitely want to hit Patagonia and Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Antarctica, Buenos Aires, Cusco, Machu Picchu, Quito, maybe the Amazon, maybe Rio?  Who knows but I have three months.  Let me know if you'll be in the area! 

If you are interested in more information about the great nation of Chile you should check out it's wiki page, it's pretty good.  Or here are some books I've been reading this summer about it, all very good:  My Invented Country: A Memoir by Isabel Allende, In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin, Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile by Sara Wheeler, The Penguin History of Latin America by Edwin Williamson and also a documentary called 180 Degrees South that is excellent and will make you quit your job. 

I fly out of Portland on Thursday the 19th and I would love to see you before I go so feel free to email me or call or facebook or whatever.  Also, I'm not exactly okay with having both a facebook and a blog so let's not talk about it.

Next time I will also post a mailing address and I love getting mail.  My promise to you is that if you send me a letter I will at the very least send you a postcard. 

Thanks for your interest in me! 


Much Love,
erin