Pianos, Strawberry Ice Cream, and Nostalgia.

Today I played the piano. I haven’t touched it since before Chile (and months before that), but I have been itching to do so all week. So today I finally did. It felt so wonderful and so right. I don’t know why I ever stopped. I guess I feel the same way about journaling and reading the Bible. I’ll go for a few days without doing so and it is always a chore to pick up my Bible or journal again, but once I do I realize how much I miss it. Things should change in that regard.
All worries faded away as I played Claude Debussy’s Moonlight Sonata. I flipped a few pages and flowed into Claire de Lune, one of my all time favorites. I could still play. What a wonderful feeling to be able to pick something back up that was such a passion and has been so neglected after all this time. I definitely struggled with parts, but I’ll work on it and get it back to where I was with that piece four years ago. The very last few measures are all giant chords that you roll into. Brilliant. They are a bit of a stretch when one is out of practice. As I hit those chords, memories of when I was first learning the piece flooded over me. Dianne-my piano teacher-taught me how to “properly” roll the chords. Visions of her long, skinny fingers with crazy long fingernails were so vivid. Those fingernails, longer than any pianist’s fingernails should be, were always painted bright red and would clack as she hit the keys. Those keys, from that old, beautiful piano, were cracked from where a little kid had gotten mad and slammed down his book, breaking and chipping every single one of the piano keys. It was quite sad, but for someone learning to play, the chips helped one to know which key was being hit without having to look. Ok, so maybe that was just handicapping them for playing on other pianos, but it seemed easier at the time. (;
It is interesting how many vivid memories can come back with just a strike of one chord. Puts a new light on the saying “that really struck a chord.” For me tonight, it literally did. Wonderful memories, mixed with a bit of nostalgia and some sadness for time past. So naturally, the only cure-all for a funky mood was luckily available to me in our freezer. Strawberry ice cream. “Pink-Stuff” as it has been called before by loved ones. To me, chocolate is not the go-to food; it’s strawberry ice cream. It has the ability to let me sit in my nostalgic moods for a time, but it is such a happy ice cream that it doesn’t allow me to wallow. I can’t help but leave the bowl with a smile.
So strike up the band, keep your chin up, and keep playing. Life continues through nostalgia and it is a beautiful thing.
[P.S. I plan to play the piano tomorrow too. I'm excited!]

Things I Forgot...And Things I Miss

I haven't forgotten about posting pictures from Chile, I just haven't taken the time to do it. I apologize. However, I'm going to do that now. I also realized that I left out many details from our time in Chile in my last post. I intend to fill some of those in at the moment, which is always easier with pictures anyway.  They're a little out of order, but that's ok. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have enjoyed taking them!

This is one of the central post offices. It used to be an old mansion, but the government now uses it. Gorgeous!

I think this is a Catholic church. I fell in love with the architecture of Chile!

First bus ride on the public transportation!

This was taken inside one of the cathedrals. Chile is very Catholic. 

I think this is one of my favorite pictures from the trip.

On the second day we were in Santiago, we got introduced to TranSantiago, the public transportation system: Buses and Subways. We toured around and got to explore Central Santiago. We went in about three or four cathedrals and a few markets.

Another Catholic church.

We got to hang out with lots of youth kids, and this was taken during a game for one of the youth meetings. We laughed so much that night!

The first weekend we were in Chile, we got to help out with a clinic down by the beach, in Vina. It ended up storming that day, so we took the clinic to the people, and my job was to keep these precious little kids entertained with face painting. It was a blast being able to be creative, but the day was spent in confusion trying to understand Spanish-well Chilean actually. It got better, but I'm sure all the Chileans were laughing at me. This little girl wanted a butterfly, but I couldn't ever make her happy because my "artwork" wasn't as good as the girl before her's. Kids are funny. (:

Brandon got to play lots of soccer! He loved it! I only made it to one game because they would play late at night and it was cold! But I enjoyed the one game I went to. (: The courts they would play on were about the size of a basketball court and they would play 7 on 7 or 5 on 5. Brandon said it was so much fun. (:

This was at Los Dominicos, a really expensive but awesome artesian shopping center. I found some really pretty leather journals that I would have loved. But they were about $40 and I wasn't about to spend that much on a journal...It was a fun day of shopping though.

Los Dominicos

The entrance of Los Dominicos

Ah, Santa Lucia! This is a hidden treasure of Santiago. It is a hill in the middle of downtown and just looks like trees, but as you get closer there is a castle in the hill. One of the founders of Chile built it and basically it was his fortress while he invaded the natives and made Chile European. There's about a dozen things named after Pedro de Valdivia in Santiago.

Graffiti was everywhere!

On Thursdays Brandon and I would go to a preschool with a lady from church and tell the kids Bible stories and sing songs with them. The kids were crazy but really adorable! The preschool songs get stuck in our heads all the time...only slightly annoying. We know how to sing "This Little Light of Mine" and a few others in Spanish really well. (:

View of Santiago from San Cristobal.

Aaron and I on our way to San Cristobal.

San Cristobal is a hill that you can climb (or drive up) and at the top is this giant statue of Santa Maria (Mary-mother of Jesus). Like I said, Chile is very Catholic. It was a beautiful monument. After we saw the statue, we got a glimpse of the view of Santiago. We also went Geo Cacheing. Super fun!

These boys. Sleeping with the dogs. (:
I'm so glad that these three guys were part of the trip! We laughed so much and had so much fun together.
(And I guess we'll accept Aaron even if he did graduate from Henderson..) (;

Our little San Cristobal group. The other girl is Michelle, one of the members of the church. She is a ninth grader, I think, and speaks really good English. She was fun to have around!

Sporting our school spirit! Aaron was out numbered on the OBUness.

(:

It looks like there's mist on the mountain, but really it's just smog..but it makes for a cool picture! (:

Sweet missionary friends, taken at our MK girls' slumber party.
Lauren, the blonde, is in Santiago for the summer doing journalism for the IMB. It was a blast to have her around!
Chloe is an MK and always good for some laughs! (:

We went skiing! This is the view from the slopes. The Andes Mountains are gorgeous!!

Oh, we're just waiting on the bus after a great day at Grace College.

This is the mountain we skied on. It was a blast, and I can now say I learned to ski in the Andes, but oh goodness was it hard! I was sore for days.

Bus ride from Grace College

They put my name on my skis. Cute (:

Lunch at Grace College. (: Yum!

Fun kids at Grace College. (I actually don't know these kids, but I was taking pictures and they wanted a picture, so here it is. They're cute, whoever they are.) (;

For all my library friends and Mom, this is the library. They're a little short on books.
 We would hang out here during class breaks because it was warm and quiet.

After a long day of skiing. (:

Franco! He was one of our favorite 3rd graders. Sort of a class clown, but real fun!

Again, at the ski slopes. Sorry they're so out of order...

The cheesy "let's take a picture of ourselves" picture taken from the Air and Space Museum.

Santa Lucia close up!

Santa Lucia. Love it!

Taken at the top of Santa Lucia.
Behind us is what we found to be the local adolescent hangout and make out spot. Talk about awkward!

Our group from the Air and Space Museum. (:

National Library
Biblioteca Naccional.

First graders before chapel.
We worked with this class many times, and I came to love them! They were a bit nuts, but I loved it. Maybe since I wasn't their regular teacher I could enjoy their craziness. (:

We got to color at the school. (:

Brandon's favorite 6th graders. They enjoyed getting beat by him in ping pong. (:

One Tuesday, a group from Brazil came in and held chapel. It was awesome to get to work with another missionary group from a different country. And it was really awesome to worship God in multiple languages and know that we were praising the same God. He is a God that is not bound by language like we are!

Trip to Vina del Mar with the 9th graders from Grace College to deliver blankets to a drug rehab center. Pictured with us is Mister Ariel, the chaplain of Grace. I cherished his friendship while we were there.

The group at the drug rehab center.

Yes, they have Starbucks in Chile. There were quite a few, actually.

And Pizza Huts, and Domino's and Papa Johns...and Applebees!

Coca-Cola!

You can't really see it in this picture, but this is a university "En Paro" or on strike. They students of many high schools and universities had taken over the schools, mainly the public ones, and were trying to get the government to reform education. There were many marches while we were there. The students were staying in the schools during all of this. We found it almost ridiculous and interesting.

Comida Tipica del Chile.
Typical Chilean food. You would never guess to put french fries, onions, fried eggs, and stew meat together, but it was actually pretty tasty. Really unhealthy, but tasty!

Pastor Ariel and "El Rector" (Principal) of Grace College.
Wonderful men with big hearts for the children of Grace.

Youth Meeting with Iglesia Bautista de Argomeda.
We were invited to come to their youth meeting and had a blast! We danced (yes, in a Baptist church) and sang and played games and laughed a lot!

This is what most streets look like in Santiago. The mountains so prevalent in the background and the buses everywhere. This is actually clearer than usual. Usually there's people everywhere!

Back to the Argomedo Church. Brandon got labeled as Justin Bieber and the kids found it hilarious! (Not going to lie, I did to.) He actually sang part of "Baby" for them. It was awesome! I think I cried from laughing so much.

They guys like to stop and smell the roses. Aren't they sweet?
(:

At the Argomedo Church, we were served these hot dogs. Yum...
Chileans are almost obsessed with hot dogs. It's interesting. But they're not just normal hot dogs. They put lots of mayo and tomatoes and sometimes guacamole and tons of other stuff on it. I'll pass. I seem to always go to the countries with interesting hot dog habits...

Believe it or not, this picture was taken in a Home Depot! It looked exactly like ours do, except everything was in Spanish. And they were selling candies and jams. Bizarre!

Back at the first youth meeting pictured. (:

Well, this is totally out of order, but I'm not going to change it. This was right before we went through security in DFW to leave for Chile. The excitement is brimming over on our faces! (:

I can't put up all the photos, so I think the easiest way to see them all is from Facebook. Here's the link to my albums from: Photo Album 1 Photo Album 2 Photo Album 3 Photo Album 4.  Let me know if they don't work and I'll try to figure something out. I also uploaded pictures to the Picassa Web Album, but I think the majority are on Facebook. I put the favorites on Picassa.

Well, I think that about sums up the Chile trip. It was a long time to be away, so it's hard to sum everything up, but I think those were the highlights. (: