Chau chilenos :(

Alright, this is officially going to be the last one. I leave the day after tomorrow, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, I'm really excited to go home and see everyone again, and be back to hot showers and normal food and my normal life. But on the other hand, I really don't want to leave behind my chilean family and my COPA friends and the beach and the life I've finally grown accustomed to down here. Last night, my host mom came in to say goodnight to me, and she left and came back in a minute later and gave me a huge hug and said, "It makes me so sad that you're leaving us. I would be so proud to be your mother, and she is so lucky to be getting you back." And then she walked out of the room really fast because she was crying, and I could hear her crying really hard in the kitchen from my bedroom. Wow, Saturday is going to be really hard for me. I remember how terrified I was before I left to come here, and now I'm a little terrified to leave. I mean, I will probably NEVER see any of these people ever again. I'm going to miss having Raimundo and Felipe around all the time. They cried when I went to Easter Island for a week, what are they going to do when I leave? I want to take them with me!!! But, I am happy to be going home. Our group bus leaves Viña at 4 pm on Saturday, and my flight from Satiago to Dallas is at 9 pm. I get to Dallas at 6:30 am on Sunday, and then I have a 2 hour layover before heading to Minneapolis, and I get home at like 10 or 11 on Sunday. I can't believe it's over. There were really really fun times here, and there were really really frustrating and scary times here, but overall I'm incredibly glad I did it. Would I do it again? No...not for 5 months. Maybe one or two, but 5 was a bit much. But if I had to go back in time, I wouldn't change a thing about the trip, because it taught me a lot that I needed to learn, and I'll never forget it. So, on that note, I'm going to end this, and I'll see most of you in a couple days! Chau!

Easter Island...yeah, it's ok to be jealous of me :)

So, last week Heather and I went to Easter Island, which is still part of Chile, but it's a 5 hour plane ride into the Pacific and is really close to the Polynesian islands. On our plane ride there, there were only like 40 or 50 people on our huge plane. During the flight, this guy from Holland, Maarten, came up to us and we all started talking and he turned out to be a really cool guy. We ended up all staying at the same hostel with connecting rooms, and Maarten therefore became our tour guide for the week since Heather and I have clearly no sense of direction whatsoever. Our first day there, we just walked around the island and took pictures of the famous statue things called Moai. There's a huge history on the island, and I even studied it in biology last semester, so it was really cool to see it all up close. The second day we decided to rent mountain bikes and ride around the island. Maarten was like Superman on bikes, and I was a little rusty since I don't think I've ridden a bike since I was like 12. And it didn't really help that there were no real roads on the island. It was mostly just dirt paths that consisted of rocks and hills and other things that could kill me. Flying down a steep, rocky hill on a mountain bike....not as fun as it sounds. After about 5 hours, I was so exhausted and my butt was killing me from the stupid bike seat. Sadly enough, we all went to a music concert that night and ended up leaving early because we were tired...at 8:30 pm :( The next day, at least I think it was the next day I don't really remember the order of things, we walked up to this volcano on the island. I know what you're thinking, but it wasn't as bad as the last volcano I climbed. It still took us forever to reach the top, but the sun was shining and we didn't have to use ice picks to climb this time. On our way back down, we were followed by this adorable little dog named Tequila, and he followed us for like 2 hours down this volcano, and then he disappeared into the woods and Heather and I were very sad to see him go. But, the next day we were in the hostel and we went by Maarten's room and he was like, "You guys, Tequila was by my door this morning!" and we were like, "Haha, very funny Maarten," and we didn't believe him. But, 2 nights later we were all sitting in our room talking, and guess who came strolling in? TEQUILA!!! It was the weirdest thing. Seriously, when this dog left us, we were about 2 miles from the hostel...that dog was amazing.
On the remaining days on the island, we went on a Jeep tour and on a horseback riding tour. And after all of that I was in paaaaain. Our flight home was delayed 3 hours (they only have 2 flights a day, how can it be delayed???), but we finally made it back at midnight on Tuesday. Now I am officially all packed up and ready to head out on Saturday :) :(

I'M DONE WITH SCHOOL!!!!!

I finally finished with my classes today! I had two speaking exams, and both of them went really well, so now I'm done!!! I can't believe that it's almost over :( Tonight is our goodbye dinner with our group and all of our host moms--probably the last time we're all going to see each other. Most of the group leaves tomorrow, and they're all going to travel around various parts of South America. Next Wednesday I get to go to Easter Island...my flight leaves at 7 am and I have to catch a bus to Santiago at 4 in the morning. But, I get to go to Easter Island so who am I to complain? It's supposed to be almost like Hawaii, except for it has a lot of ancient statues called Moai from like hundreds of years ago. I can't believe I have to go home in like 2 and a half weeks! I'm not ready yet! It's going to be so sad saying goodbye to everyone I've met down here. I hate saying goodbye to people! Especially since I know I'll probably never see most of them ever again. Luckily, I think Felipe, my little brother, is going to study in Minneapolis in three years, so I hope I'll get to see him again. Well, I have to go get ready for the saddest dinner of my life that I'm going to have tonight, and then our last night out as a group, but I'll try and report back later! Chau!

No te preocupes, I'm still here

Alright, so I FINALLY got to go back to school last Thursday, after three weeks of them saying that we MIGHT have class. And now all of my professors are trying to cram three weeks of missed classes into one week of finals. Next week I have to give three oral exams and one presentation, and one debate--all in Spanish, I'm pretty excited :( And for my DANCE class, once again this is confusing, I have to play a drum and some other instrument that I don't know what it's called, while the other people in my group dance to my beat. Good luck guys, cuz I have no rhythm whatsoever. But my friend Daní from that class asked if I would rather play an instrument or dance to this really confusing dance that I never get, so I told him I would rather play the instrument. Then he asked if I was good at playing the drums. I guess we'll see, won't we? Ha. Anyways, today I get to go to the travel agent and buy my tickets for Easter Island--whooo hoo!! I'm sooooo excited for that!!! I'm going sometime in July--we keep changing our minds on the date. But I'm officially done with school next Thursday, so I'll have plenty of free time left to travel. The goodbyes have already started--Taylor was the first to leave today. It's pretty sad to think that I'll have to say goodbye to EVERYBODY in just three weeks. On one hand, I'm really excited to go back home and have everything back to normal again, but on the other hand I'm really going to miss it here. I'm going to miss not being able to look out the window and see the ocean everyday, and not being able to see all of the people that I've met since I've been here. Plus saying goodbye to my host family is going to be pure torture. But I'm really excited to going back to eating normal food that does not contain mayonaise, tomatoes, avocado, or any type of fruit. I miss my junkfood and restaurants! Plus I just realized the other day that I haven't chewed gum in like four months---I miss it! I officially got rehired at Cub, so I'm going back there about a week after I get home--sad, but I actually miss that place too. But I know I'm going to be a mess on the 15th and 16th. I have to fly to Dallas and I get there at 6 in the morning on the 16th. From there, I have to go through customs, by myself I might add, and then fly to Minneapolis and arrive there at like 10 or 11 am on the 16th. And I'll be all emotional with the sad/excited/tired/happy feelings that I'll more than likely cry over every little thing. But anyways, I'm definitely enjoying my last few weeks here and doing every possible thing that I can before I have to go home. But the countdown is in the 20's now--scary!!! Chau!

...and now we're en toma...

Alright, so yesterday a bunch of chilean students were saying that the paro was going to end because Bachelet (the president) had made some sort of deal with the students and such. Well, I got a message this morning saying that the students had taken over our two main buildings at the university, so now we're in toma. I'm not exactly sure what that means for us since I've been staying away from the school lately, but at other universities when they went into toma, the students would riot and rush the school, and they'd go into all of the classrooms and throw the desks and chairs up against all the doors and windows and block the whole building so no one can get in. And I heard from some people that the students are trapping themselves inside of the building and not letting anyone past them. So, for all of the exchange students that are here, we still have to have some of our classes, so now they have us basically sneaking in to the back of one of the main buildings and we have to fit our whole class into a classroom that's the size of a closet. It kinda reminds me of Nazi Germany, and I sort of feel like a Jewish student trying to get an education...But anyways, last night I was sitting in my room talking on the phone, and all of a sudden there was a huge explosion outside of my apartment building and all of the power went out. Turns out that a tree branch had some how struck the power box that was on the power lines, and so it short circuited and it basically blew up. So my host family and I sat in the living room and told the stories of our lives while it was pouring rain outside. Finally after about 2 hours, the power came back on for about ten minutes, and then another huge explosion happened, this time even bigger than before, and we lost power again. Then some dudes came and clipped a bunch of tree branches off and everything was ok again. And THEN at about 3 or 4 this morning, there was a huge fire in the building across the street from me, and the flames were shooting up and there was smoke everywhere and sirens blaring and all these people were on the street freaking out. And I know it may sound like I'm being dramatic, but I prefer the term descriptive...just telling you what I saw. So anyways, that's all the excitement that's happened today. I'll let you know more later...and I HOPE I'll be back in school soon--we'll see :) Chau!

Chile está en paro

Well, at least I can say that Chile is never boring. Right now we're in paro, which means that all of the students in Chile right now are on strike and refuse to go to school. Sounds pretty good, but it's screwing everything up for me and it's a little scary at the same time. All of the students are having violent riots all over the country--mainly in Santiago--and they're going around breaking into stores and stealing all of the merchandise--and by the way, I have no idea how any of this is going to solve the problem. Meanwhile, the carabineros (the beloved Chilean police again) are going around beating the students and bystanders with clubs and shields. And there are these trucks that always travel in twos--one of them sprays people with a fire hose while the other one gasses them--and they're going around trying to calm the crowd. So far, more than a thousand people have been detained, and they've shipped some of them off to Uruguay for some reason. It reminds me of a warzone right now, especially watching the news. Last night they showed a bunch of people that had been stabbed with knives and then people threw huge rocks at them and they were all bloody and gross. And a lot of the schools now are in toma, which means that the students basically took over the school and won't let anybody in, and they blocked all the doors and gates with chairs and desks and hung protest banners all around the outside. So yeah, I think I'm about ready to come back home now... So, I haven't been in school for the past two weeks, which has been nice but at the same time it's frustrating because I wanted to travel all during July when we were supposed to be out of school, but now we have to use that time to make up all the classtime we're missing, and I may not get to go now. But if all goes well, I'll be in Easter Island either next weekend or the first week in July. Anyways, just thought I'd keep you all informed on the latest news from Chile. If you want to know more, I'm sure you can probably see us on TV somewhere :) Chau!

Ok, can't think of anything creative for this one...

Alright, so Ruby Tuesday's in Chile pretty much rocks my world. It didn't taste exactly the same, but I got chicken strips--what else--and real french fries with SEASONING!!! For those of you living down here, you know how important and rare that occasion is. The dessert didn't have any sugar in it and was pretty plain, but seriously it was almost like a holiday back into the US. Alright, getting past that...On Saturday we went to the largest copper mine in the world or something like that, and it was a loooong trip. I thought we were going to be like dropped down into the mine or something cool like that, but no, it was just a regular cave looking thing, and we DROVE into it and took an elevator down like 15 km or something. Overall it was pretty uneventful, but the little (heavy) suits we had to wear were pretty cool. The downside--after we went through the mines we had to listen to a guy talk about the history of this deserted town for like 3 hours...and we were all clearly bored out of our minds. On the way back down from the mines (which were way up in the Andes Mountains at like the highest possible altitude) I got altitude sickness, which consisted of the worst headache I've ever had in my life, and I felt like I was going to die. But other than all that---great trip :) Hahaha. I went to Mission Impossible III on Sunday, and surprisingly I actually liked it. I didn't think I was going to at first, but it was one of the few selections that we have in movies here right now, so I gave it a chance, and I really liked it. So now maybe I should see the first two...My birthday is in 5 days!!! And my mom and my sister get here on Saturday!!! It's been a great week for me...no homework, no tests, and it's been sunny and warm all week. OH, and I'm not sure I'm going to the desert anymore, I might go to Easter Island instead, but I'm still trying to chose between the two. Someone help me pick! Well, I have to go get some sleep since I have class at 8 tomorrow. Chau!

Chile and the Chocolate Factory

Ok, wow, so I didn't exactly keep the promise of keeping this updated...sorry! Anyways, last weekend our group went to Isla Negra, near Santiago. Our first stop was a chocolate factory owned by this cute old man named Félix, and all of the chocolate they sell is made from pure, natural ingredients, with no artificial anything. It sounded really weird at first, because some of the chocolates had cheese inside of them, which sounds incredibly gross but tasted really good. We got to sample all of the different kinds, which ended up being like twelve pieces of chocolate, and I felt like I was going to throw up, but it was really good. Then we got to try these brand new chocolates that contained Omega 3, which is found in fish and is really healthy for you...I think it reduces cholesteral or something...and it was the very first time EVER anywhere in the world that you can find chocolate that has that stuff in it. So that was pretty sweet. After the chocolate factory, we all went to a Chicharía, where they make Chicha, a popular liquor in Chile. We got to see some nasty little barrels of fermenting grapes, and of course we got to sample the chicha. After that, we went and visited another one of Pablo Neruda's houses--he has three--and it was GORGEOUS! It was right along the shoreline, and the waves in the ocean were a really gorgeous blue color. The house was really nice, too, and it was huge and had amazing views of the ocean. And this house is where Pablo Neruda was actually buried, so we got to see the tombstone and everything.
Last weekend was Mother's Day here, too, and so we all bought our host moms chocolate from the factory. My little brothers made breakfast that morning, too, and it was....not good at all. I had watery cold oatmeal, semi-warm chocolate milk, a bunch of fruit, a bunch of bread, and random cereals mixed together. Mmmmmm...
This weekend, we're taking another trip to some sort of copper mines, and we get to go down way deep inside of them, and we have to wear all this gear and masks and stuff...should be interesting. A couple days ago there was another huge bus accident down here again, this time a little closer to home. It was with the bus company I always travel with, Turbus, and it was travelling at night to some place down south, and it drove off the road and flew head first down a steep hill and hit something, I'm not sure what, but it decapitated all of the passengers that were inside of it. On the news, they showed a fireman holding the legs of a baby, but the baby wasn't attached. It was a little harsh. So that was really sad.
Well, that's all I've got for now. Today I'm going to Ruby Tuesday's for lunch, hoping that it tastes semi-normal. Chau!