Day 6: South Dakota

Ohmygoodness, I just loved this day.

Mitchell South Dakota boasts the title of being the home to the world's only Corn Palace. Ta da!



And we just happened to arrive during the annual Corn Palace festival.



We marveled at the palace, which is redecorated every year with new murals made out of various varieties of corn and other grains.



We sampled the local delicacies. Meredith went for a hot dog.



And I gave deep fried pickles a try. They were alright, but I won't be having them again. It seems like the local philosophy on food is to do as much to it as humanly possible before putting it in your mouth. When faced with a cucumber: pickle, batter, fry, dip in ranch dressing. Yes.



Then we stumbled upon a MASSIVE antique store. I staggered around, overwhelmed beyond words, for about an hour. I wanted to buy EVERYTHING. I just couldn't decide. It was so good that it became torturous... does that make any sense? Probably not. Anyway, I picked up some kitchen gadgets and a book that none of you would even believe. Ask to see it when (yes, WHEN) you come visit.



Then we hit the Badlands.



Pretty!



We ended the day in Rapid City at the home of Alfred, our couch surfing host. We hit it off right away and soon found ourselves chatting into the night about our own respective Long Island Italian American families and Jewish grandmothers. (Yes, we both have those!) Stay tuned for more about Alfred and his culinary genius in day 7's wrap up!

Besitos,
Allie

Days 4 and 5 in pictures

DAY 4: INDIANA, ILLINOIS, IOWA


Corn!!


Food made from corn!!


Iowa!!



Meredith lost 5 baht trying to get her country singles fix. According to the maintenance guy at the truck stop, the machines are a scam and don't work, so there was no way that Meredith could have scammed them by using Thai money in place of a quarter anyway. Direct quote: "How could this be happening to me? It's really sad..."


Ames, Iowa! We visited the lovey Carla and Todd there. Carla was our Spanish teacher and Todd was our co-worker in Chile. They were also fabulous friends. I missed them a ton after they moved to the US. It was really great to see them!

Downtown Ames....

More downtown Ames...


DAY 5: IOWA, SOUTH DAKOTA

Saying goodbye to Carla... :(
The open road...


Colors!!!


Antique shop!! Yes!!!

Hello.


Aaaaaaaand, on day 5 we stayed with some really great Couchsurfing hosts in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Matt and Pam were very generously willing to take us into their home with only a few hours notice. Before Pam even got home from work, Matt took us around town and gave us a great tour of the city. We had no idea what an interesting place this is and we are really glad we came. Did you know that Sioux Falls actually has a waterfall in the middle of the city??? It has 77 parks and is the 6th most bike friendly city in the country. Sculptures cover the downtown area and each year they are auctioned off and replaced with new works of art from artists from around the world. Without Matt and Pam we would have never learned so much about this gem of a city. Thanks, Matt and Pam!!!

Besitos,
Allie

Road trip: Days 2 and 3

DAY 2: PAUSE IN PITTSBURGH

We were planning on spending this day in Pittsburgh with some of Meredith's friends from college. Of course, we were planning on doing all sorts of fun stuff with them, like visiting museums, checking out the budding artist communities just outside of town, exploring downtown, and eating ethnic food. Well, as stated yesterday, Meredith drank some bad gas station milk on DAY 1. Instead of being tourists, we took her to the hospital. Luckily, Pittsburgh is full of them! I'm very happy to say that she received a very favorable prognosis and will be back to 100% very soon. Still, DAY 2 was spent nursing this lovely lady back to health. You know, iconic 80s movie, chicken broth, the works. To be honest, I needed a day to relax too. I wandered around the hood and took some pictures....

Urban blight is so photogenic!! Swoon...

Ms. M.'s friends live in the loveliest little post-industrial working class neighborhood....

...and they only pay $900/month for an ENTIRE HOUSE. I'm about to pay that for a shoe box in Seattle. The house from the backyard with Kate, one of Meredith's friends.

The house was so cozy and filled with all sorts of vintage furniture and fun randomness.


Berry making dinner for those of us that could hold down solid food... fresh basil from their garden!

Oh, and they live on Gangwish Street....



DAY 3: PITTSBURGH, OHIO, INDIANA, OH MY!

This morning we got off to a slow start. The lovely Ms. M. was feeling decidedly more chipper so we got some Ethiopian food and checked out the Andy Warhol museum before hitting the road.

(Aaaaand, now the internet is failing me so I can't upload more pictures.... Soon there will be more!!)

We drove through the entire state of Ohio and it was pretty uneventful. I didn't even take one picture.

Then we hit Indiana and realized that we are totally not on the east coast anymore. People talk funny and they sell Jesus license plate holders at the gas stations.

We stopped to spend the night in South Bend, home of Notre Dame University, really wide streets, and apparently not much else. There were about a million hotels right off the highway and we stopped into the first off-brand one we saw to check out the price. Even with a discount, the place was still out of our price range. I asked the receptionist if there was anything more economical nearby. He winced, sucking a hissing breath of air through his teeth. Then, fear entered his eyes...

"Not one that I can recommend" he said.

"Urhhmmm, okeyyy." I replied. "Well, this is a little more than I can afford, so..."

"Most of the hotels around here aren't safe. Definitely not the Howard Johnson.... The only one that isn't completely completely dangerous is the Motel 6."

We thanked the guy and left a little confused, wondering what completely completely dangerous actually meant and wondering if we should go back and ask him exactly what kind of danger we're talking about...

We found the Motel 6 and checked in through the bullet proof glass of the "night counter." There were a few people in the parking lot, and we were looked at very suspiciously by all of them. I think there was one guy with a prostitute in his car, a harmless looking guy walking his dogs, and a few college aged looking kids seemingly on a road trip. We got to our room and I wondered why I was so afraid of everyone. Surely we've both been in much more dangerous environments. We met in Valparaiso, for goodness sake. Ask most Chileans what they think of that and they will likely express their surprise that we weren't robbed in the process of having our first cafecito.

Meredith had a good insight when she said that her street smarts don't work here. I know that we are still in our own country, just a few hundred miles from where we grew up, but it is very different here, in both tangible and squishy, uncertain sort of ways.

Anyway, we're still kicking. Here's to hoping that we make it through the night!

Besitos,
Allie

On the road again. (And Day One of Allie's Newest Adventure!)

Sooooooooooo, I kind of disappeared from the blog after I left Chile. (You've all heard this story before...)

I kept feeling like I had to write some sort of conclusion of my experience in Chile. I just couldn't. I needed more time to process. Time to figure out what I felt, where I was going, where I even was and why...

And, yeah. I still don't know anything. I was a little concerned about reverse culture shock, but I experienced next to nothing. The closest near traumatic cultural disaster was my first trip to the grocery store. I just wanted everything, but I couldn't decide what I should actually purchase. All the options were overwhelming. Even more so was that I knew I'd be able to find all these interesting and diverse items again. If the store sold out of coconut milk, they would restock. In Chile I had been known to buy 10 cans of coconut milk at a time because I knew that once they ran out, it would most likely been gone forever. Sooooo, I ended up going home with canned chickpeas, feta, and plain yogurt. Nothing that you could really make a meal from, and I don't even like yogurt.... Hmmph. Anyway....

I spent the summer in the US working as a Youth Specialist at the Broome Country Urban League's Summer Enrichment program. It had its ups and downs, to put it lightly, but it turned out be a very valuable experience. If I could live through that and still want to be a teacher, I feel confident that this desire is not just a whim. This reassurance is exactly what I wanted to get out of a summer job. So, yay!!

Some of the little angels:



The building:



The logo is actually an equal sign in a circle. As you can see, the building is in pretty bad shape. The organization is actually in such financial distress that they are in danger of having to close down.

More pictures of my summer with the little snuggle-muffins can be found here.

Well, now I'm on my way back to Seattle. I started the cross country drive yesterday with the lovely Ms. Meredith, former Chile roommate, by my side. We had a turbulent first day, as Meredith managed to consume some questionable chocolate milk from a roadside gas station. She's almost better now, after a quick spin by the hospital this morning, and we'll be ready to hit the road again tomorrow afternoon.

I'd like to document this trip on the blog. I hope to post pictures, and maybe even a little commentary, every day or so. Aaaaaand, I'll start with that right NOW.

Day one: Binghamton, NY to Pittsburgh, PA

The weather sucked...



Anyone who knows me will not be surprised that I found a produce store while stopping for gas. TURKS TURKS TURKS! No Turks in sight. Meredith was perplexed.


Pretty dill fireworks...


Pumpkins?!?! It's Fall?!? Already????


Ugh, I can't stop taking pictures of produce. Please forgive me.

More to come....

Besitos,
Allie

Despedida... Chau, Chile!!

My goodbye party!


Okay, I generally hate goodbye parties, at least goodbye parties for myself. In the days leading up to the party, all I can think of is that I will have to say goodbye to.... everyone, urgghhh. For someone who moves a lot, I'm pretty crap at saying goodbye.

But, a goodbye party is still a party, and parties are fun. We had fun.

Matt and Matt... I've yet to see what was captured by this camera...


Matt and I....


Hanging out with my darling little Bella...


Cesar, one of my favorite students, and Andrea, a friend from Santa Cruz....

Sophie, Olivier, Ed, and Mike came up from Valpo to say goodbye! And here they are sitting around A LOT of wine bottles. Carl, Grant, Veronica, and Brendan came too! Thanks guys!


Eventually everyone broke into song. And that was fun.


So, tomorrow I leave Santa Cruz for Santiago. I fly out on Friday.

Must finish packing...

To my family and friends in the US, this is my plan for the next few months:

On Saturday I arrive in NYC and head straight up to Binghamton. I'll be spending the summer living with my parents and (hopefully!!) working in a summer school program. I'm planning to take lots and lots of weekend trips to visit all the people I love and miss on the east coast. If you are one of those people, get in touch and let's make plans to see each other!

At the end of August I am going to take a cross country road trip with Ms. Meredith, great friend and wonderful former roommate from Chile! We're going to start on the east coast and work our way over to Colorado for lovely Catie and Derek's wedding. Then we will work our way north, up through the Pacific Northwest, until we reach Seattle! So, if you want a visit and are someplace between the east coast, Colorado, and Seattle, let me know. I'll do my best to show up at your door!

I should be settled back into Seattle by mid September. So, see you soon, Seattle people!!

Besitos,
Allie

Journey complete.

Argentina is pretty, huh?



Since I last posted I've traveled all around the north of Argentina, returned to Chile, and took a five day trip to the south of Chile with Matt and dogs. Today is my goodbye party and I just spent all morning making stew and macaroni and cheese for the estimated 30 people that should be arriving in... less than an hour?

Wow, I'm exhausted. I spent nearly six weeks traveling, and they were some of the most amazing six weeks of my life. Strangely, I'm not sure why. Did I see some of the most amazing things I've ever seen? Well, probably. But mostly I'm just proud of myself. I'm not very good at new things, and for six weeks straight I did different stuff every day. I woke up in different beds, ate different foods, learned new words, and talked to new people with new and exciting accents.... After awhile, it started to feel alright. Still, I'm looking forward to having a job again, a routine... living normal life. It was good for me to press my boundaries, to remind myself that I am capable of more than I give myself credit for.

And now I have to say goodbye to... everyone? Oh my.

Anyway, Argentina.

Good friend Diego met up with me in the north of Argentina for a little jaunt around. It was amazing to see him. By that point in my trip I was really ready to see a familiar face. And who wouldn't be excited to see a face like this?


We started in Salta:



We chased goats.


GOATS!!




We went on an amazing hike through a rain forest.... and discovered the "OH MY GOD THAT'S SUCH A BIG SPIDER" spider. These spiders were everywhere. EVERYWHERE. (photo stolen from someplace on the internet)



SO BIG. Like 10 centimeters in diameter big. Like haunt your dreams for weeks at the very least (probably years) big. BIG. (this photo stolen too)



So, yeah. The spiders have been plaguing my dreams ever since.... which is pretty much normal for me anyway. It didn't help that yesterday I spent about an hour trying to identify my new little friend. This just gave me more images of scary spiders to fill my dreams, and they all managed to make some sort of appearance last night.... Why do I do this to myself?

Anyway, we took some pretty pictures of the forest with Diego's fancy pants camera...

oooooo.... mushrooms....



ahhh.... lichen...



Must buy fancy pants camera on return to the US...

We had to escape from the woods, but we couldn't find a way out. I was starting to lose it. So, we broke into a hotel...

Hardcore, huh?

Needless to say, we survived to tell the tale... And then we found this funky cemetery in the middle of the desert.


And strange little houses in the middle of nowhere...



Okay okay okay, time for me to shower off the stew residue and get ready for my despedita.... sigh.


Besitos,
Allie