The USA??, Brazil, and finally back to Chile

The last few months have been kind of a whirlwind for me with getting back to my project after summer vacation only to turn around and make my first trip home since September in the middle of April, come back to Chile and the same day fly to Brazil for a Fulbright seminar, and then come back to Santiago to try to finish everything up before my parents get here on June 15!! (A big congrats to the first Doctor Ladewski, who is able to come visit because she finished her dissertation! Yay!)

One of the first things I got to do when I got back to the States was go visit New York where I met my future co-workers at the Fed and got to hang out with my cousin Megan... who I hopefully
will get to see a lot next year when we're both living in the big city!






And then a few days later I was off to visit my grandparents in Florida. Of course the highlight of the trip was spending time with them, but we also did some cool things - including the Tiffany glass museum in Winter Park and some gourmet food!









Grandpa waiting patiently for the ladies (we were dawdling as usual, taking in the sights of beautiful Winter Park!).











And then it was time for the highlight of the trip (and the great excuse that made the whole visit possible!)... my cousin Sarah's wedding! Congratulations to the newlyweds whose beauty is complemented here by the blossoming Ladewski orchards!








...plus it gave us an excuse to get all dressed up, too! :)













And then the day after Sarah's wedding, I was off to Santiago and then Sao Paulo, Brazil! It wasn't all fun and games (we had to sit through 35 presentations - half an hour each...) but we did get in a little bit of time to relax. This is the group of Chile Fulbrighters at our hotel near the beach outside of Sao Paulo. Everyone thought we were so cool we even had a few "honorary Chileans."






The Chileans again, this time at the beach. The guys joke around that they are the "Fulbright Chile basketball team" and comparing their height to mine, you can see why!










The girls on the beach...










We also went on a hike in the nearby Atlantic Coastal Rainforest, which (according to our resident Fulbright expert Jason, as well as according to our Brazilian guide) is a biodiversity hotspot, with the highest number of species per square meter of anywhere in the world.




In addition to big trees, the rainforest has some pretty huge rocks!












Here are those big trees - you were probably thinking they were never going to show up! We actually went swimming in this pool which is above a waterfall....










...and this is the waterfall on the other side!


















And now it's back to Santiago and finishing up the project and saying my first good-byes, including to my pastor and his wife who just took off for a couple of months in the US. These are the "kids" from my church, who have been like a second family to me here. It's going to be sad to go!