How do you say "there's a giant tarantula" in spanish?

Caroline and I have been trying to stick to a running schedule, since we are training for the Tel Aviv Half Marathon in March. It will be my first half marathon, and obviously Caroline has run that distance plenty of times, both while training for the Boston Marathon and in a couple half-marathon events.

We have found a few good running routes around our apartment, mostly through the parks that form a chain through the city center. This is nice for our typical runs, around 3-4 miles. However, once a week we are supposed to do a longer run that slowly builds up in distance until we get to the 13.1 required for a half marathon.

For the longer runs, we try to run somewhere more interesting. A great run nearby is up Cerro San Cristóbal, a hill that is central in Santiago and overlooks the city. It is topped with a statue of the Virgin Mary, of course. It's part of a very large park; in fact I've been told that it is the largest urban park by area anywhere in the world! Quite a claim! (though not quite as grand as being the third largest city in California by land area)

It's a tough run uphill, but earns you a great view and some macho pride for doing something tough. Part way up, we saw a troupe of girl scouts coming down the road, and some of them seemed to be freaking out a bit. Well, as we got closer, we saw there was a real-life giant tarantula crossing the road. The thing was about the size of my palm. I'm sure many of you know how I feel about spiders, but it was a cool thing to see so long as I kept my distance :)

One of the girl scout troupe leaders was very brave, and tried to shoo the tarantula off the road so it wouldn't get run over. She sort of nudged the thing with her foot...I was impressed. We stopped long enough to take a picture, and then continued our run.

What's the weirdest thing you've ever encountered while running?

Cultural differences

Sometimes the cultural differences here are very stark.  I think I've mentioned before how much less diversity  there is here, including racial, religious, nationality, languages spoken, etc.  There are also way fewer people in Chile than in the US.

Anyway, today at lunch I found myself surrounded by (all female) coworkers talking about whether they liked (I think just the men of) a certain race.  I was extremely uncomfortable!  They asked me if I liked that race and if I had ever had a boyfriend of that race.  I was flabbergasted and tried to explain how that sort of conversation is not appropriate in the US, and how I think people should think of people as individuals who have their own personalities and you shouldn't say you like or dislike a certain race.  I definitely didn't explain myself as well as I would have liked to, partly because it was in Spanish and partly because I was just too flabbergasted.  I told them it was racist to say things like that, but I just don't know how much the idea of racism exists here, because of the relative lack of diversity.  It certainly isn't the same concept as it is in the US.

And then there was an anatomy discussion and I learned some new terms.  So there's that.

I'm sure I didn't handle this as well as I could have.  Any suggestions for if it comes up again?

Museo de Bellas Artes (Museum of Fine Arts)

2 weekends ago we went to the Museo de Bellas Artes.  It's free entrance on Sundays, or contribute what you wish.  So for a handful of coins we saw this museum we've been meaning to see.  When we first walked in, there was this weird exhibit which apparently is made out of tea leaves:

I think I don't know how to appreciate art museums.  So I made Sam do this:

Here it is without Sam:

This is a view from the balcony area of the second floor in the main room of the museum:

That gray thing under the arch is made of styrofoam.  Here's another view of the balcony:

And another view, looking up:

Like I said, I am bad at appreciating art museums.  When I was doing this, two guys were coming by behind Sam taking this picture, and they were laughing at me, which is why I am making that face:

One of my favorite things in Chile is these trees, which are SO BEAUTIFUL.  The flowers on them are this weird mix between blue and purple, and they are gorgeous.  Look how pretty this one looks in front of the museum:

That's artsy of me, right?

Lady Gaga Concert

We went to the Lady Gaga concert on November 20, and it was absolutely amazing.  We misunderstood the timing of the concert and so we arrived when she had already started, which was a huge bummer, but I think we only missed a couple of songs.  I'd wanted to go to a Lady Gaga concert for a while, but they are so expensive in the US and I could never justify it to myself to spend that much money on a concert.  But it was slightly cheaper here (about $75 per person instead of $100), and it somehow seems easier to justify expensive things when we're here because it's "part of our travel experience."  Don't get me wrong, we're still being just as frugal as we always are in day-to-day things, but we have had a few more expensive splurges than we normally would (e.g. Machu Picchu).

So the Lady Gaga concert.  It was worth every penny.  We paid for the cheapest seats, but since we got there late it took no effort to just walk right in to the middle open area, rather than going to the back where our seats actually were.  So we were closer than we expected, which was awesome!  If you know anything about her, you would know that Lady Gaga had to change her outfit multiple times during the concert, and she did not let us down.  You can sort of see her first costume in the screen in this picture:

The set for the concert was this awesome moving castle thing with all different styles of lighting and moving parts.  Unfortunately it's really hard to take good pictures at concerts, so they're pretty blurry.  But hopefully this gives you the idea:

For the song Electric Chapel, the castle was lit with multicolored lights:

Here's us with the Electric Chapel stage in the background.  You can tell by how weird my neck looks that it was a self-taken picture :)

For a couple of songs there was this weird glowing face that had some parts of it (mouth and eyes) moving and some parts fixed (the rest of the face).  I think it was not actually Lady Gaga behind the face.  It's the thing on the right of this picture that looks like it could be the moon:

No great pictures, but definitely a great concert.  I would definitely do it again!

Pictures from Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, we were invited to the apartment of another American who was having a potluck for a bunch of Americans (and some of their Chilean boyfriends).  Sam made chili and rice (haha chili in Chile!).  Other people made all sorts of things, because Thanksgiving is different in different parts of the US, I guess.  So we had the traditional pumpkin pie which I didn't eat, apple pie, turkey and stuffing (not for me), fruit salad, macaroni and cheese, regular salad with homemade salad dressing, homemade bread, and a bunch more stuff:

At one point something in the kitchen started leaking.  It might have been the sink, or it could have been the dishwasher (but I'm not sure because I don't know if they had a dishwasher).  So our host, Chris, had to spend some significant time mopping.  I offered to help and he said no, so I took a picture of him instead:

There were a lot of people packed into a pretty small space (but compared to our current apartment, this apartment was palatial!):

I wore my green dress (probably the only time ever I will get to wear my green dress for Thanksgiving):

And that was it!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Caroline's Machu Picchu Pictures

Sam already posted the story about our trip to Machu Picchu, so this will mostly just be my pictures.  I feel like such a traveler when I take pictures like this, which is probably why I take them:

A view of Cusco, Peru (elevation 3,400 m), from the plane:

The train we took leaving from Ollantaytambo to go to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu (it's still dark because this was about 5am):

A wonderful picture!  This might be the best one we have, and it really captures the magical feeling of being up there in the cloud forest.  That hat is the one I won at the Neuroscience Fair:

Once the sun had come out:

A cool flower, which I always like to take a picture of:

Alpacas contributing to the lawn maintenance:

We were really high up in the mountains when we were at the ruins:

Check out that stonework!  There is no mortar or anything, they just cut the rocks like that:

A cool little nook.  Note all the jackets that we decided we didn't want to wear after we started the hike (too late not to bring them with us) strapped to the back of the backpack:

This one is the opposite of the one Sam posted.  Can you see Sam 3 rooms away?  (P.S. Mine turned out better, I think.)

Another cool view.  Check out the clouds above:

You can see the Sun Gate here, which we think is where you come in from the Inca Trail, which we didn't do.  It's at the crook of the elbow made by where the two mountains meet. 

Here Sam is sitting in a window:

These were the coolest of the zillions of steps we had to take to get up to (and then down from) Machu Picchu:

At the entrance at the bottom, after quite a long day:

The bridge across the river back to Aguas Calientes:

The river was really cool:

This picture kind of blows my mind.  That's the moon up in the middle of the sky:

A view of Aguas Calientes as we hiked back in:

A cool flower:

Another cool flower:

These rocks in the river look like they are made of clay that someone pushed their thumb into a bunch of times.  Not the one in the foreground in this picture, but the ones behind:

Last one.  Look at that weird ball in the top of this tree:

We ran 6 miles today!

One of my favorite things about the weekends (at least the ones where we don't go to Machu Picchu) is sleeping in.  I really love sleeping!  To me, a perfect Saturday can be sleeping in, a yummy breakfast or brunch, going for a run, and then relaxing and reading around the apartment.  Also I obviously enjoy packing weekends full with lots of exciting activities, but between those weekends it's really nice to have a chance to recharge with more relaxing ones, like we're doing this weekend.

Update: We had extremely delicious chocolate chip pancakes for brunch, which is all the more impressive because they don't sell chocolate chips here (as far as we can find, though we've heard rumors that they do exist).  Sam had to crunch up an actual bar of chocolate!