LOLLAPALOOZIN!!!!!

I love music. Ever type. I have gone through my middle school metal phase, Broadway show tunes in 4th grade, and can even find it in my self to absolutely love country. When I heard about Lollapalooza, an international music festival that has played in Santiago, Chile for the past few years, I knew I had to go. And, I must say that the outrageous bracelet price was worth every penny.


The weekend of March 19th and 20th, 15 exchange students rented two apartments in downtown Santiago to have the weekends of our lives. We all rolled into town Friday afternoon to prep for the days ahead. The first stop was the Constanera Center to pick up our bracelets for the festival and grocery shop for the weekend because food was going to be outrageously priced inside of the festival. Of course, my Chilean cell phone had to be stolen on the subway ride back home but what happens, happens. Now my biggest concern was not to get lost that weekend because no one would be able to reach me.  After claiming beds and chowing down on some mac and cheese because none of us could really cook, we headed out to a disco to dance the night away.

The next morning, morning after a healthy breakfast of scrambled eggs, jam, and bread, us girls dolled up with metallic tattoos and sunscreen headed out for the first day at the festival without the boys who were to lazy to get up early. We entered the festival with relative ease by passing through the empty families only line by 'accident' and "oops, we don't speak spanish". It was roughly 1 in the afternoon and already boiling hot. The first major band we were all dying to see was Walk The Moon, who went on stage later in the afternoon. As we walked through the festival, I, for the first time, took in the size and scale of the show going on around me. With 4 different massive stages, multiple interactive art and game areas, there was no way to get bored. We went over to the Samsung Stage where Walk the Moon would be playing and waited for the next two hours and managed to get front row for the other performances from Candlebox and The Formidable Joy that played before them. The crowd by that time had grown considerably and I was being slammed into the fence so hard that the next day I had bruises along my ribcage. Then Walk the Moon came out and everyone went wild. The set was amazing and so full of energy and happiness. I can say that I touched Nicholas Petricca. One thing that made me love Walk the Moon even more after the weekend was over, is that he was one of the only artists that I saw address the crowd in Spanish. Most of the artists and bands at Lollapalooza were from the US and almost all of them only addressed the crowd in English, but I greatly admired Walk the Moon for reaching out and trying their best to speak in Spanish to their fans.

After Walk the Moon's set finished, we all forced our way out of the mosh pit and over to the fence line, where I spotted a security guard who I had waved at during the performance leaning on the railing. He turned out to be from the US and went on tours with his company and the bands during all of Lollapalooza's international tour. We begged him to see if there was any way that we could meet the band, but all he had was bad news for us saying that they had just left to for the VIP area. However, he was kind enough to let us write them a note that he would pass along and hand out greatly appreciated free water. The next performer to come on stage was Halsey, who killed it, but we were all to tired to stand and jump around, so we enjoyed her vocals from sitting in the grass under the trees.

The sun had set and the big names were coming out. We left Halsey a bit early to catch, what I would now say the best act of all of Lollapalooza, Jack U. Jack U is a DJ set combined of Diplo and Skrillex some of the best artists in the electronic music industry. They had us all jumping and screaming along. While us girls were pushing through the crowd, we ran into Alex, Lennart, Peik, and Mathilde. Joining up with them, we climbed shoulders and threw our hand in the sky to Jack U's madness.
Before Jack U wrapped up, we made out way out of the crowd and over to Itau stage where the legend Eminem would be closing down the night. Having a few minutes to spare before he came on, we all sat down on the pavement and rested out tired feet.

When he finally came out, we went crazy. He opened with the classics and from there moved into his more recent songs off his latest album. I must also say, I don't every think I have heard more f-words said in such a short period of time. Another funny occurrence that I began to notice more is that, while we are all gringos in Chile and used to being stared at, at the festival staring at us for the first time proved to be helpful. Because the artists, for the most part, only speak in English, when they would say "put your hands in the air" or "I want to hear you scream" there would be a couple second of lag time between when the artist would yell and the crowd would react. Of course, me and my friends would get it from the first seconds because we speak English, so the Chileans seemed to play a little looking game. First look at stage, look at the gringos, look back at stage, and then do exactly what we do. We called it the "Gringo Gawk". Once Eminem finished with "I'm Not Afraid" and a resounding firework show, we made our way home and ate for the first time in 12 hours a healthy meal of mac and cheese and bread. We then all then collapsed into bed and crashed.

Day two commenced similar to day one with breakfast and heading to the festival at around 1. We started off the day by screaming along to lyrics to "Stressed Out" with Twenty One Pilots, who killed their performance. When they wrapped up, the girl group headed over to the merch stand to see if there was anything of over priced value to pick up, but they had sold out of literally every the first day. From there we head over to the Samsung Stage again to see ODEZSA, another awesome DJ. I had known a few of their songs prior, but afterward I was a much bigger fan. Next Marina and the Diamonds came on and sang like an angel. I was surprised by how well known she is here in Chile because her crowd was packed. When Marina finished, I caught another glace of the security guard from yesterday, so we made our way over to say hello. After the free water was dolled out, he told us he had a surprise for us. Walk the Moon had got out note and had given him the set list to give to us!!!  We thanked him profusely and chatted for a bit longer and that is when the hunger hit. It had already been a long day and from how exhausted I was from yesterday, I caved, along side Amanda, and we bought ridiculously over priced sandwiches, which I must say, were rather delicious.

We then left the Samsung section and headed over to the VTR Stage to take a seat in the grass and chill for a bit before Mumford and Sons came out. During this time, the group of all 15 exchange students managed to reform and move as a cohesive unit for the rest of the night. After resting our poor tired legs for as long as possible, we grudgingly got up and made out way into the crowd. While pushing though people I ran into to couple from school which was super cool. Mumford and Sons was spectacular and had a completely different energy than any other performances that I had seen in the past two days. From there, we moved stages over to Itau to watch the final act of weekend, Florence and the Machine. Florence came out on to the stage like the real free spirit she is makeup free, hair flowing, and shoeless. She danced around belting out her big hits and closed down the night with an amazing fire works show.

The weekend came to a close and we all headed home and packed up on Monday morning. That was the last big summer shebang for me as school had started and the free days to travel had come to a close. Spending time with friends, listening to great music, and making memories definitely put the Lolla Weekend as one of the most memorable times here in Chile. Now, the only goal is to see Lollapalooza in the 5 other countries it tours!

San Pedro de Atacama

In late February, I traveled with three friends to San Pedro de Atacama for a week long stint in the driest desert in the world.
The plans started off long before for the trip, with the debate of who should go, how big the group should be, and so on an so forth. When it came down to it, Alex Odermatt from Switzerland, Peik Rastenberg from Finland, and Johannas Urbez from Germany and I jumped on a bus at 10 in the morning to start the 27 hour trek to San Pedro. Saying that I regret not paying for a plane ticket is a huge understatement. 27 hours in anything is too long, but 27 hours in a bus with the only complementary food being a juice box and two wafers really puts a damper on the beautiful ocean views that were rolling past my window. When we finally stepped of the bus the next afternoon in San Pedro the most important things on the list were food, shower, and sleep. Coincidentally, Ellie Thomas, another exchange student, and one from Oregon no less, was in San Pedro with her mom showing here around Chile. I was able to snag a few hours with them over a completo before they boarded the bus back to Santiago. After the basic needs of hunger, cleanliness, and exhaustion were met, the crew of Switzerland, Germany, Finland, and the USA ventured back out in the sweltering heat of San Pedro.

Now, San Pedro, the town is built for tourism. Every other shop is a trinket store, a tourism agency or a restaurant trying to pull you in to eat their special. As a collective, we were roped into over 10 tour agencies until finally settling of on one owned by a guy from Brooklyn, New York and Ecuador. He gave us a stellar deal after I played the poor Exchange student card for our four days four tours schedule. The four tours we decided on were Laguna Cejar, Piedras Rojas, Valle de la Luna, and Geysers del Tatio. After shelling out the cash that definitely put a dent in all of our wallets, we wandered over to a restaurant to grab some grub and then fell dead asleep ready for the adventure the next day.

By 1 o clock in the afternoon, I had managed to pester the boys out of bed at our hostel and corralled them into doing some shopping with me. We all picked up a few touristy items before heading to lunch then back to our hostel to grab a swim suit and a towel for our Laguna Cejar tour. We met in font of the agency at 4 and then waited another half an hour for the guide to show up, because you know, this is Chile. The tour had roughly 14 people in it and we were the only gringos surprisingly seeing that most of the population we had seen in San Pedro had been white tourists. The guide first tried speaking in his broken english, but once he realized that we were all fluent, that went by the way side and only spanish was spoken. The bus ride out was around 30 minutes, and when we arrived at the lakes, I couldn't have been happier because the bus had no air-conditioning. We pushed out the bus and made out way over to one of the two lakes that made up Laguna Cejar Park. The first lake that we headed to was the salt lake. This was one of the those super cool and really rare places where the salt to water ratio was so high that it was only possible to float on your back or stomach, and hopefully not get it in your eyes, which of course I did. It burned for a solid 15 minutes. When we finally left the water with salt incrusted skin and lazed around in sun was one one of the most relaxing experiences I have ever had. We walked over to the other lakes to snap some photos. We all hopped back in the van and then headed over to a sink hole where the boys did impressive swan dives while I took a video. From there, we progressed on to a salt flat named Salar de Carmen. By this time the sun was setting and I got to witness a beautiful sun set over the salt flat. Our tour then returned back to San Pedro at roughly 10 o clock. We all grabbed some food then hopped into bed for the night.

The next day was our longest tour called Peidras Rojas. We were picked up from our hostel at 7 am and headed out for a 2 hour drive into the desert to reach out first destination. It was suprising cold with  the temperature bing in the mid 40's and on the way there we passed Volcán Lascar and saw many vicuñas, lama like animals. Our first stop was at Salar de Tara for breakfast and pictures. The boys and I hiked up a small hill to get the best view. It was really rather amazing with dry mountains and green grasses boarding the salt flat. Next was another salt flat, there seemed to be a lot of those in San Pedro. From there we moved on to the Atiplano Lakes and saw Lake Miscanti, Lake Tuyaito, Lake Chaxa and Lake Miñiques. The lakes were stunning with a rich blue hue in contrast to the brown and reds of the desert. from there we moved on to the famous Peidras Rojas, the namesake of the tour. The bright red rocks surrounded the plane lake that reflected the rocks and mountains on its surface. On the drive back into town, the guide pulled off to the side an took us on a quick hike that turned up to be longer than any of us expected due to getting lost and stuck in multiple bramble bushes. That is when the all out war broke loose when Alex threw a dead bramble flower head at me that was full of spines that stuck on my clothes, hair, and shoes. Piek, Johannas, Alex and I all got into the war, much to the humor of  our companions. The final stop on the tour was at the Salar de Tara where we saw flamingos catching shrimp in their natural habitat. We arrived back in San Pedro around 7 o clock dead tired. We ate, played cards and fell into bed.

The third day we went to Valle de la Luna in the afternoon. Valle de la Luna is one of the most famous sights in the Atacama. The dramatic sand dunes and craggy rocks gives off the illusion of another planet. We left with our tour and arrived at the first sight, the Great Dune and a looming rock structure called the Amphitheater because of it shape at around 4 in the afternoon. While walking on the ridge line of the Great Dune, the most amazing thing happened in the driest desert in the world, it started to rain, and then pour. Our tour guide, equally amazed as all of us, called it the Bolivian Winter and said it is an extremely rare phenomenon that only happens with the right conditions and air depression. After the dune, we moved on to Los Tres Marias or The Three Mary's. Los Tres Marias were rock formation that maybe when first discovered looked like the Virgin Mary with Jesus in various poses, but now the use of imagination is necessary. The next stop we made vast to an underground cave system in the valle. This was super cool. Partially crawling on hands and knees and hunched over though the cave, I was thankful my height topped out at 5 feet 2 inches while my poor European friends, minus one, were well over 6 foot. For the final shebang we headed over to the ridgeline of the entire valley and watch the sunset over the red rocks and dry desert. The tour ended and we headed back into town with some of the best photos from the trip so far and straight to bed for an early night because the next day would be an early one.

Our final tour in San Pedro would be one of our most memorable. We all roused with sleep filled eyes at 4 am in the morning to head out to see the Geysers of Tatio that were best viewed at dawn. The boys and I stumbled onto the bus and promptly fell asleep. As we climbed in altitude, the guide warned us of altitude sickness because at the height at which we were at, our bodies would not be used to the surroundings. The geysers sat at roughly 4,500 meters above sea level. After a 2 hour drive, we hopped out the van and froze. It was extremely cold at the geysers and in this moment Peik and I noticed that the Alex and Johannes didn't have pants or a coat on. They had worn their swimsuits in the van for the hot springs and had not brought a change of clothes. It was currently below freezing and they were in shorts. But being the boys that they are they refused to admit they felt the chill. We ran over the first geyser right as it exploded. From then on, we were moved around like atoms, bouncing back and forth between the other geysers. When we completed the small walk between the geysers, the tour guide was waiting for us with a breakfast of avocado, bread, jam, and tea. The first hot spring pool was along side of the parked tour vans and so the boys and I hopped in. Sadly, it was not as hot as I would wish it had been and quickly got out before I froze to death. We then piled back into the van and that when the guide let us in on the secret hot spring he was taking us to. There was a natural running creek that had the hottest water while being surrounded by the most beautiful green foliage. After the final dip in the spring we headed back down to town and that concluded the final outing in San Pedro. We all collapsed back into bed and fell asleep till dinner.













San Pedro will always hold a special place in my heart. I spent a week with some of my best friends and found a new sense of independence. We were by far the youngest travelers in San Pedro without parents and were often of the receiving side of the crazy side glances screaming "what are these kids doing here by themselves?". From the early mornings and late nights and every second in-between, I loved it and my love and appreciation for my friends and new country, Chile, grew and grew. I hope someday I will return to San Pedro de Atacama and experience its beauty once more.