Dunes of Concon

This weekend I got to live out some science fiction fantasies and scale the Dunes of Concon. (The sci-fi fantasies are a niche reference to the Dune books written by Frank Herbert and the new Dune movie that came out a year or two ago, sorry, really nerdy I know. Moving on) 

On Saturday night I went with Gonzalo (my host brother), his girlfriend Sofi, Isaac (another one of my host brothers), and his girlfriend Sara to watch the sunsets over the dunes of Concon and eat empanadas. 

Concon is about 30 minutes from Quillota, so around 6pm we all piled in the car and headed out. We made a pitstop at "Mono Empanadas", which translates to "Monkey Empanadas" and I tried for the first time a manjar (pronounced mahn-har) and cheese empanada.

I may have explained manjar in a different blog post, but it's delicious so I'm going to explain it again. Basically, it is a thick, sweet, golden brown spread that is used for any kind of treat in Latin America. I loveeee it, and throw in some bread and some cheese? Anna is in heaven. 

I quickly returned to earth though when a big dollop of warm manjar flopped into my lap out of the far side of my empanada, getting all over my sweatshirt. 

Shoot, I just remembered I still need to try and get that stain out. Thanks for the reminder guys. 

Anyway, the sunset was so beautiful and it was incredible to be sitting so high up, surrounded by sand and the Pacific ocean. If I squinted, I could almost see New York on the horizon, just out of reach but always there. 

Sitting there that night made me feel a little closer to you guys. Miss you always. 

I'm going to post some pictures because it was actually so beautiful. 

Apart from that, I did a lot of resting and homework this weekend. Some of the homework was actually from school and some of it was just odds and ends of things I've been meaning to work on. I also got to talk with some of my friends back home too. 

Because my one month of separation from the U.S. is over, I took some time on Sunday to reconnect with people at home a little bit. Don't worry, I was very intentional and did not let it take away from my experience. I plan to set some clear boundaries so that I can maintain the best of both worlds, please wish me luck. And if you were someone who I chatted with today, thanks for making time for me :)

I'm heading back to school in the morning, and may be starting track this week. I'm actually so nervous because I don't want to make a fool of myself, but hey, no one really expects too much from me as a foreign exchange student so at the very least I'll just try to have a good time. 

Short blog post to sum up this weekend, but I wanted to share because the dunes were so lovely. 

Until we meet again,

Anna