Say among the nations, "The LORD reigns."

So, I'm going wayy back for this update, but it was a fun trip and there are some neat pictures so it's worth writing about.

Central has two different study abroad programs here in Chile. My program here in Valdivia and then a shorter 6-week summer program up north in Valparaíso. I knew one of the girls who was coming down for this program so we decided to try and meet up for a weekend. It was a little difficult finding a weekend that worked, and a place to go since we're about 13 hours away and she had classes on Friday. So we tried to do some research and settled on Curicó. Needless to say it wasn't quite what we expected when we got there. It's supposed to be a really cute town but was strong affected by the earthquake because it's located pretty close to the epicenter, and also because most of the buildings are (were) over 100 years old and made of adobe. On top of that, it was winter so low season for any touristy things. However, we made the most of it and had fun exploring the city, riding micros, visiting a winery and eating delicious food, climbing a random hill, and getting to know our hostal owner (and locking her out of her house when we left... oops!).

Then on Sunday we decided it was time for a change so we headed about an hour south down to Talca. Talca was also pretty affected by the earthquake but it was a larger town so we got do a little more exploring. Plus, it was sunny which was a nice treat for Greg, Rachel and I who by that point had already experienced enough rain here in Valdivia. We found some ice cream (yum!) and eventually were directed by some friendly people to another nice hill where we could walk around and there was a good place to eat. Fabulous, except we needed to take a collectivo to get there. We found where the collectivos were passing, but every time our number passed us it was full. Problem. So we flagged down a random collectivo and the driver said even though it wasn't his route he would take us there. He showed us where to go and also gave us his phone number and said he'd come back to pick us up if we needed to.

The park/hill ended up being beautiful and the lunch was also absolutely delicious. We walked around for a while and even got to take a nice boat ride on a small river. For lunch we had a huge pot of chicken cooked with mariscos and ponche - which is like sangria but made with white wine. We were all satisfied and decided if anything that lunch had made our trip worth it! Plus it was cheap :). We called the collectivo driver and had the best taxi ride back to the bus terminal - dancing laughing and singing the whole way - and we saw Ashley off and then the rest of us waited for a few more hours playing cards until our bus left to go back to Valdivia.