Weekend in Algarrobo

Hello my dear gringos. I really do miss you in the USA. I love hearing about Lighthouse's happenings and seeing pictures of you guys. And I love my family (Shoutout to P.P. up in here! Whooooo! Heyyyy boyyyy!)

I spent the weekend on a retreat with the EAP gringos in a beach town outside of Santiago called Algarrobo. Because it's winter, all the beach houses were closed and the town as a whole was very relaxed and quiet. There were families playing on the beach for a weekend trip while us gringos took over the town...quite literally. We took over the beach, the hotel, the little stores on the streets-- everything.

Here is me and Christy seesawing in front of our hotel. It sported my favorite colors-- blue and orange! Yay represent!

We went for a walk around the beach and saw this pier.

Lonely fisherman around sunset.

This was where the pier went down to get on the boat. Not knowing how to swim, it was a bit scary to be so close to the water, but nice photo nonetheless!

Grace, me, Andrew, and Christy.

This is a revival of this old foto:
Hehe. Only the difference is WuWu and S.Lim aren't with me, it's in winter time so I'm wearing my obnoxious orange parka, and it's in Chile. But hello anyway!

I had to take a picture of this sign so I could remember how to spell the name of this town.

Clams or something stuck to a rock.

Lots and lots of rocks that I had to cross over walking through the beach. Looks practically like La Jolla, no?

So what is that behind me? At the end of the beach this is where we arrived. First of all, it's a hotel resort. Secondly, it's the largest pool in the world! When I say large...I estimate it's about a mile across and half a mile long. I wish I could get a video of it. I wanted to explore it more but the other gringos who took over town yesterday snuck in, swam in their underwear, and caused a security guard who didn't do his job to get in trouble and also caused a stir with the diners in the restaurants nearby. Thus, the gringos of today got shortchanged. : ( But thank the nice security man today to even let us in to take fotos.

I walked in the backyard of one of these closed, boarded up resort houses and saw this little altar to Virgen Maria in their backyard. It was a pretty little shrine that faced the ocean.

Side note: There's this weird cereal I bought at the supermarket. I think it's whole wheat but it's filled with manjar, which is dulce de leche. It's pretty nasty but I needed something to snack on during the day because dinner is so late. I'm not digging it too much though, but I guess I'll suck it up.

And these zipper top plastic bags were so hard to find! I asked the workers at the supermarket where I could find them and they didn't know! I had to find them myself, tucked away in an obscure corner of the plastic goods aisle. I guess Ziploc hasn't made an impact here yet...

Coming up next: Later, I will document my experience eating Chilean Chinese food. So far, it has not been too great...

P.S. Praise God again because He always provides! I got a $500 scholarship this year for outstanding academic performance and (not outstanding) financial need. Haha, P.P. (Inside joke with my bro-bro.)