Okay, we're moving. Try checking out our website at sorensen.cl

See ya there.

Tinkering with the Web

So I've started tinkering a bit with the web. One of these days I'll figure it out a little bit more.

However, if you want to see some more pictures, check out

gallery.me.com/ricksorensen

or email me and I'll give you the name and password for web.me.com/ricksorensen

Enjoy.

Visitors

Wow. We have been blessed with visitors.

My parents were able to come down for two weeks at the beginning of May. We had a great time.

Now we are in the middle of a great visit from Zak, our next-door neighbor from Texas. The kids are out of school for the month of July (winter break) and are having a great time. We are headed to a cabin in the mountains tomorrow for a couple of days. We hope that Luke and Hyrum will, for the first time in their lives, be able to play in the snow.

Driving Me Crazy.

People drive differently in Chile (and, I would argue, much of South America) than they do in the United States (except maybe getting on and off the access roads in Texas). It's a little bit dicey at times. When we first arrived here, we borrowed a vehicle and there seemed to be some hesitation about whether or not we would be able to "get around" okay with the drivers here. I assured them that I would be alright. After a couple of days, Tiffany accused me of "being one of them; and enjoying it!" Strong words. I simply smiled, thanked her, and considered it a compliment.

I've been observing the driving now for a couple of months, trying to discover whether there is any rhyme or reason to many of the driving practices seen. I have discovered much. I have come up with a decision tree that, I believe, is used by everyone here that may demonstrate how the lanes work. Here's the deal.

The main question posed is this: Should I occupy the space in the road next to the car in front of me?

To come up with the correct answer, ask yourself the following series of questions, if the answer is ever 'Yes', then occupy the space; if 'No', then proceed to the next question.

1. Is there another lane clearly marked in the space you wish to occupy?

If yes, occupy the space.

If no, proceed to question 2.

2. Is there room for two vehicles, despite the lack of appropriate lane markings?

If yes, occupy the space.

If no, proceed to question 3.

3. Is there more than the room required for only one vehicle?

If yes, occupy the space.

If no, proceed to question 4.

4. Is there any space void of hard objects, such as walls, trees, or poles next to the vehicle in question?

If yes, occupy the space.

If no, proceed to question 5.

5. Are you in a hurry?

If yes, occupy the space.

If no, proceed to question 6.

6. Do you just want to feel like you're getting somewhere faster?

If yes, occupy the space.

If no, proceed to question 7.

7. Are you driving a car behind someone else?

If yes, occupy the space.

If no, speed up until the answer to this question is 'Yes', then begin at question 1 again.

Aw, Nuts!

With autumn approaching, some of the leaves on the trees are beginning to fall; I suspect there will be a lot more of that in the days to come. This is a picture of another thing that has begun to fall in our front yard: Walnuts.
We have a very large walnut tree right in the middle of the driveway. It's probably just a little bigger than the cherry tree we used to climb at my Nanny's house when I was very young, much too young to be climbing cherry trees. (Although, many years later that gigantic cherry tree seems to have gotten a little smaller than the Jack-and-the-Beanstalk sized tree I remember as a child. It was as if we were determined to get that cherry tree to send us to heaven one way or another; either by reaching the highest branches to which no other child would dare climb, or by failing to reach the highest branches and bypassing the rest of our lives altogether.) Regardless, it's a large walnut tree. The walnuts grow in oval-shaped green fruit that dries out on the branch, splits open and then drops the nut. We have started collecting them, as the frequency with which they fall seems to be increasing.

Got Stuff?

It's here!

We finally got our stuff . . . sort of. The movers showed up this morning with about half of our shipment and unloaded it. Once again we are living in a house filled with boxes after boxes after boxes. I believe it won't be long before the suspicions I had as the packers in San Antonio disassembled things which I had absolutely no idea could be taken apart will be confirmed. I'm almost certain that all the parts of all the furniture won't ever fit back together quite the same way again.
But we have stuff.
The house is already exhibiting much less of an echo.
The house is already exhibiting much less of an echo.
Tomorrow they will be back again, to stuff the last half of things into our previously-vacant abode.

Home Again.

Okay, so a funny thing happened to me on Sunday morning. I had spent the week in Tucson, and an extra day in the Dallas airport, so I arrived in Santiago on Sunday. I remember a couple of years ago when I first returned to South America after my mission twenty-ish years prior I stepped off the plane and the smell of the air brought back so many memories. It was an exciting time, and felt very foreign indeed. Then, when I came back a couple of months ago it was another exciting time, yet totally different because I had the entire family and we were embarking on this adventure. Again, very foreign and new feeling.
So I landed on Sunday and got off the plane. And as I breathed in the first breaths of the Southern air, it felt, for the first time here, like home. It was not foreign anymore. I think it may have to do with the fact the this is where my family is. So, the moral of the story, at least for me, is: Home is Where the Family is.

Delayed

So I have just spent this week in Tucson, away from my family. I have been so excited to get home and see them and get settled in the new house. I'm still excited to see them. Good news is that, due to high winds in Dallas, flights are getting cancelled. So I get to enjoy my excitement for another whole day as I sit in the airport waiting for news. If all goes well from this point on, I just might make it home in time to shower before church on Sunday.

Blogophobia!

Okay, so a one month haiatus may not be the best thing when entering the blogging world. I just flew to Dallas and am sitting in the airport waiting for a connecting flight to Tucson. I'll be here for meetings for a few days. Lucky Tiffany didn't get to move into our house last week as planned, so she gets to pack up and move out of the hotel tomorrow. Weird that she wasn't absolutely excited about that prospect. :-)
The kids are enjoying school. Gotta go . . . more later, like less than a month.

"Foreign" Things

No paper products - unless you're having a party..... in which case they come in colored packs of six and are pricey.....you won't find a single paper plate, utensil, or cup on the napkin/paper towel isle......they just don't sell them! My horrible paper habit of 10 years has come to an abrupt halt and my dishwashing skills have instantaneously improved! :-)

No Cheddar Cheese - instead there is white cheese broken down into weird circular or worm-like shapes.....tastes like goat cheese or something you'd find on an exotic salad at a restaurant

Bland Food - Chilean cuisine is bland - no spice whatsoever - a friend of mine said......."Have you ever seen a Chilean restaurant in the States? I answered....."No". She then said....."There's a reason for that". You'd think this would help me trim down a bit - so far.....NOT A CHANCE! :/

Loaded Vehicle = air conditioning and front air bags if you're lucky...

MLS - What's that?.......instead we have 5 realtors working for us

Strays Everwhere - stray dogs......even stray HORSES! How bizarre is that? Have you ever read Dr. Seuss' Go Dogs, Go!? They are everywhere. Huge ones, small ones, cute ones, ugly ones,....dogs, dogs, dogs. Haven't seen any with hats though (Dr. Seuss humor). I used to be afraid of dogs......not so much anymore. These dogs are, for the most part, so docile. Very Foreign! The horses that we keep seeing (2 in particular) roam the streets and hillside near the kids' school, NIDO de Aguilas. They're gorgeous!

Jugglers/Cheerleaders - It's not uncommon to pull up to a stoplight to see a 6 yr. old child in front of the cars juggling tennis balls or whatever they can get their hands on. When the light is about to change, the juggler walks through the cars hoping for a few pesos before heading to the other side of cars who have a red light. Groups of cheerleaders being tossed in the air are often seen as well.

Street Grocers - Who needs a grocery store? You can pick up breads, crackers, fresh fruit, water bottles, ice cream, flowers, etc. - all while waiting for a stoplight to turn green. It's the BEST!

Car Watchers - It's common to see a gentleman standing in a parking lot pointing to where you should park and supposedly "watching" your car while you are away from it. When you return, he's still there and will help you back out (even if there's not a thing behind you). All for a few pesos.

Gas Station Etiquette 101 - This is a course I'm still learning.....I haven't figured this all out just yet, but who would ever choose "Self Serve"? Gas attendants pump your gas, wash your windows, check/change your oil if you choose, put air in your tires, etc. Again.....all for a few extra pesos. The dollar may not always be strong here.....but your pesos go a long way!

School

Well, my first week of the school was better than i thought it would be :) The weirdest thing is that there are so many different nationalities ! You can so many different languages in the hallway. Like, turkish, hebrew, german, italian, hindi, chinese, japenese, korean, portugese, spanish. Well, most people speak at least english and spanish! My spanish class is so hard though. ! First, there are on unit 5 and i am still on unit one and my teacher just expects me to know everyhting and second, spanish 3 in the united states is compared to spanish 1 here. it is so hard. Ihave surpassed all of my friends in texas ! We only have 4 classes a day and they are each a hour and a half! That was a hard adjustment. But, the great thing is that the passing periods are each 20 minutes. it's so nice ! One of the bad things is that most of the curriculum that i am learning in some of my classes i have already learned! Like in english, i have already read the book that we are studying, and in science i have done the labs they are doing. :/ oh well. Seminary starts tomorrow :/ yikes! at least it is in english. They have a seminary class for all of the gringos in my ward haha. I started basketball also ! I made varsity! actually you don't have to try out you are already on the team but still. We had to run the mile yesterday in under 7 minutes and 45 seconds. Only 4 people made it. Two seniors and two freshman. The one thing you do have to try out for is the sac tournament. It is a tounament where you go to a different country in south america. This year basketball is going to Uruguay. I want to go so bad. I can't wait for it. Well, i will post another time !

Lindsay

Correct Words

Luke, getting ready for church: Oops. I tooted . . . it's good I didn't say the F-word.

I must agree. F-words are F-requently F-rowned upon in our F-amily.

Languages

Conversation during dinner in the hotel, after the second day of school. . .

The kids were talking about how many different cultures are represented at their new school. Carley had complained yesterday that she's the only one at her small-group table in Spanish class that isn't Korean or Chinese, so not only does she not understand the teacher, who refuses to speak any English, but she doesn't understand the small-group chatter in Chinese. Lindsay and Peter mentioned the many polyglot students with whom they have classes. Carley mentioned there are a couple of girls in one of her classes that speak Hindi.

Tonight, the conversation was somewhat similar. Then this . . .

Lindsay chimed in: There's this kid in one of my classes from Turkey. He was speaking Turkish to me.

Luke: Like this, "Bock, bock bock, bock, bock bock."

I'm still looking for my Turkish dictionary for the translation. Bock, bock.

Uneventfullness

You know what? Imma just put it all on here. What's the difference? lol Here ya go.

Well.....the past few days have been rather uneventful. Sort of. Mostly just looking at more and more houses. We're narrowing it down though. I usually stay home, though. Well, if you can call this my home. The hotel, I mean. We had a school orientation on Wednesday. We played some games and got a tour around the school. I met some people in my grade. They seem pretty nice. I can't wait to start school. This morning, I had another orientation for school, but today it was outside. We played some field games in six different groups, then we joined all together and played capture the flag. I made the winning (and only) point. lol It was a lot of fun. I got invited to go a couple of places, but I just didn't feel like it. Idk. I'm really tired. I came home and fell asleep. Another day, though, I'll have to take up one of those offers.
One of my favorite things here is the yogurt. It's SO good! Here's a list of stuff I miss:
Milk that tastes like, well, milk! lol Having people close to hang out with. School. Being situated in a house. Having a stable, organized life. Not having to worry about going out because someone might try to talk to you in a language you don't know. Not being stared at. Not having friends that are there to help me out. And Milky Ways. haha

Casando

So the hunt continues. One of the more difficult things about finding a house is . . . finding people with keys so you can see it. For example, there's one we really, really, really want to see, but the owners are on vacation until the end of the month. They real estate people don't have a key. So we were told we were out of luck, at least until the end of the month. There also seem to be several of the real estate type of people on extended vacations. February doesn't seem to be, perhaps, the best time to move here.
On another note, you can click on that little slide show thingy on the right hand side of the blog and it's supposed to open the slide show so you can see a large version of all the pictures. I keep adding a few more occasionally. I just got emailed some of the luggage trains from our departure from San Antonio and put them up. People laughed and seemed to mock us a bit, but deep down I know they were just jealous of our genius.
Another day's coming . . . I can just see the sky beginning to show hints of light over the Andes.

Umm......

The following is an excerpt from last week from my own blog, which you can access at www.beyondtheequator.blogspot.com if your interested. I will continue to post excerpts on this blog, but the "full version" is located on said website.

They took us straight to our hotel. It's pretty nice. We have 3 rooms. Lindsay and Carley share a bed in one room, same with los padres, then Hyrum and Luke share a bed in my room. i'm the only one who gets their own bed. But the boys are loud. Whatever. So much stuff is different, but it doesn't feel like I'm in a foreign country. Well, it does when someone tries to talk to me, but it doesn't when i'm alone. The outlets are all different. You have to have a power adapter for everything. My mom's hairdryer blew up this morning because of the different outlets. The light switches are different, and the toilet paper holder things are different too. It's weird.
So the first thing we did was go to the US Embassy to rent a car. The girls and I sat outside with Pepper and Sadie, the cat and dog, while dad went in. It's just a gated building. hmm...well, we got a minivan and went and dropped the pets off at this lady's house because the hotel doesn't allow pets. The house was very small. There are tons of stray dogs everywhere. Drivers are crazy. Motorcyclists will weave in and out of traffic and occasionally onto the sidewalks. Everybody honksand flips each other off. The roads are insanely crowded. There's this one street, where for the first half of the day, it's a one way one way, then the other half, it's a one way the other way. What happens at the moment it changes? Weird. lol Anyway, we drove around for a bit. We went to the grocery store. Money is so confusing. We had a bunch of empanadas for dinner. We went swimming too. The pool is on the top floor, the 17th. There's a beautiful view. I'm going to put pictures up on my myspace sooner or later. Today we went house hunting. Some of the houses we looked at were pretty nice. All of them have pools. Oh yeah, it's summer here. I'm on summer vacation. I don't start school for a couple weeks. haha I had to kiss my realtor on the cheek. It was weird. Evidently people in Chile talk Spanish the fastest and hardest to understand of any other Spanish speaking peoples. Great. It's so different from the Spanish you learn in school though. We went to a mall and ate at a resturaunt called Pasta Basta. I had raviolli. All the food is so different. I already miss American food. It's not gross, but it's so, foreign? idk It's just weird. I've been trying so many different things. After lunch we went back to the hotel. I slept. I do that a lot. lol We're three hours ahead of Texas. The speed limit signs are in kilometers, not miles. It's just a bunch of little things like that that make this place so confusing.
For dinner we went to an Argentine resturaunt called Don Carlos. My meal was about $10,000. In Chilean pesos, that is. lol My dad gave Linds, Carley and I some weird looking meat stuff to try. He wouldn't tell us what it was until we ate it. It was alright. Then he told us. Blood Sausages. No meat at all. Pretty much cooked blood. Nasty. We went to a park after dinner. There were a bunch of strays, including a big ol German Shepard. Then we came home. Tomorow is church. In Spanish. Great. Well, it's midnight, and church is early so imma go. Peace out.

Favorite Things

Rick
the weather, dulce de leche, driving like a maniac, big trees, great parks

Tiffany
NO TEXTING! - Ahhhhh. chilean soda, grocery store escalators, yogurt, fresh fruit, street jugglers, mountains, ward members, maid service at the Plaza el Bosque Hotel

Peter
yogurt, yogurt, crazy drivers, fruit

Lindsay
ward members, fruit, dulce de leche, 3-story mall

Carley
drinkable yogurt, church friends, breakfast at the hotel, funky art sculptures

Hyrum
yogurt, hotel pool and jacuzzi, hotel eggs, corner convenience store

Luke
playing mouse trap, playing with Hyrum, yogurt, swimming on the 17th floor, my marbles

Lindsay's Experience

well, when as you know we have moved to Santiago, Chile :) haa, it's actually better than i thought it would be. When I first arrived i absolutely hated it!!! My dad took us down to a park with the dog and the cat and he left us there while he walked to the embassy to take care some stuff. Imagine your first day in another country and your dad leaves you in the middle of it with two of your siblings and your tiny dog, who cannot defend you if you wanted her to, and your cat. This is probably one of the most scariest experiences I heve ever been through. The driving here is pretty crazy too and everyone honks!!! I really like the ward here , it's great. The youth is bigger than our old ward, and i have already made friends with most of them, and one of them is very persistant that peter, carley, and I go to Fantasilandia with them! I don't really understand anyone yet, i am learning more and more words everyday though. This week we are probably going to go house hunting and on wednesday i might go horseback riding with the young women! Friday, we might have a movie/swim day also! Well i miss each one of you!
Love,
Lindsay

Bad Dreams?

So Tiffany woke up this morning after a restless night filled with strange, bad dreams. Luckily she quickly realized that it was all a bad dream . . . and she's back in reality, having left the comfort of her home and friends, living in a hotel with five children in a foreign country with bizarre customs where she neither speaks or understands the language, trying to find a house to accommodate the family without the assistance of a centralized MLS system, and concerned about the cost of everything with the added stress of a brand new monetary system with which she is unfamiliar.

Whew! Lucky those dreams last night were just dreams. :-)

The Eagle's Nest

Monday morning we began by reporting to the International School Nido de Aguilas. It's the school where, if all goes as planned, all five of the children will attend. We turned in a bunch of paperwork and had a tour of the campus. There are several seperate buildings, including an elementary, middle and high schools. The kids all seemed to like it.
We then spent a couple of hours looking at a few more houses. A couple were rather nice; and a couple were not so appealing. I spent a good part of the afternoon at the Embassy doing inprocessing, after I had dropped the older kids off at the May's house. Sara May is Lindsay's age and they go to church with us.
The rest of us joined them a bit later for a little swim in the pool, grilled steaks and burgers, and a wonderful family night. We all had a really good time.
Tuesday we didn't venture out too much, at least for houses. In the early afternoon, I took Peter, Lindsay, Carley and Hyrum on the subway and then walked to the May's again. The older three kids spent the afternoon hanging out at a mall and saw a movie. They seemed to have a good time. After dropping them off, Hyrum and I returned to the hotel via subway. It was pretty warm out.
I spent another lovely afternoon at the Embassy while Tiffany put her courage to the test and ventured out to a little park with Hyrum and Luke. They only got lost once.
We all had dinner in our hotel room . . . leftovers and some corn we bought from a guy on the street.

First Weekend

So we spent Saturday, or at least a good portion of it, looking at some houses. It gave us an introductory view of the market. We hope to see more of the comprehensive view in the days to come. The kids actually enjoyed the trip, despite a few somewhat-less-than-intended detours.
We went out to eat at an Argentine restaurant for dinner with a couple and their baby who were on the plane down here with us. They are also in the Air Force and moving here for a couple of years as well. Dinner was okay; certainly not as "Argentine" as I expected.
On Sunday we got up and, being fast Sunday, skipped breakfast. We attended church at the ward where we will most likely end up. I think much to their surprise, everyone really enjoyed it. There were several of the youth who had already been communicating with Lindsay and Carley over Facebook who were extremely excited to meet them in person. I think everyone enjoyed the loving nature and feelings there were there.
We had dinner at the Jones' house. It was absolutely delicious . . . and reminiscent enough of "regular" food that we were all full of smiles for the evening.
Tomorrow the real work begins.

A Numbers Game

Well, here I go. I have started a blog. Perhaps now I can sit at home in my pajamas and both influence national politics and infuriate those with whom I tend to to agree so much. See, already a slightly inside joke and I'm only a few sentences into this.
We have officially started our adventures in Chile.
Actually, the past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activity during which, many things have happened that made this move both possible and real. As I sit here and type, we are in Santiago.

I thought I would start with a few numbers that tell our story for the past couple of days.
7+2+21. We arrived, with much help from dear friends, at the San Antonio International Airport (that makes it sound much bigger than it actually is) with the seven of us, one cat and one dog, and twenty-one pieces of luggage. We were authorized one extra bag each and nothing could weigh more than 50 pounds. With some expert packing and a borrowed scale, I'm pretty sure at least 19 of the 21 bags weighed in at somewhere between 46 and 49 pounds. It was quite a spectacle as can be seen in the pictures (as soon as I figure out how to add them.)
21:48:58. The time, Dallas local, that we left United States soil (that's when the airplane took off.)
07:05:04. The time, Dallas local, (10:05:04) the next morning that we touched down at the Santiago International Airport.
6. This was an interesting number. It represents the number of at-least-partial meltdowns we have had since arriving. Carley was extremely tearful on the phone (thanks Skype!) with Nanny. However, 6 also represents the approximate number of glasses full of drinkable vanilla yogurt that seemed to make everything quite bearable for a while.
4. The number of hours we spent getting a place arranged for the cat and dog. Sadie, the little maltese-shitzu mix who just had her first birthday a few days ago, did quite well on the flight. Pepper, the Bombay cat, was rather apprehensive about everything after our arrival. They still have a few weeks of living in transient housing, but a wonderful lady from church has them in her home. We hope they adjust well.
600. The number of Pesos that one dollar will buy today. It sounds like so much until you realize you just spent about 77 dollars at the little convenience store getting some snacks and easy meal-type stuff to last a few days.
Okay, that's it for numbers. Our flight was long. Here are a couple of quotes.

Peter, upon landing in Santiago and preparing to disembark the aircraft, "Well . . . that was painful."

Luke, on the other hand, fell asleep in Dallas waiting on the taxiway. We tried to awaken him to have dinner on the plane about an hour later, but he wasn't interested. He awoke shortly thereafter complaining of feeling a bit sick, so I gave him half of a Dramamine. He flipped around a bit throughout the night, but slept rather well. We tried to get him to eat breakfast about an hour before landing, but he took a couple of forced bites and said, "Dad, I don't think I got enough sleep." He then proceeded to curl back up and sleep until after we had landed. Best thing about it was that meant extra yogurt for me! If only the rest of us in coach were small enough to curl up on the seat and sleep the entire time. If only.