Leaving Chile

Today was a very very sad day for my fellow students and I.  Today we are leaving Chile.  I woke up early in attempts to have hot water in the shower, but Hotel America disappointed me once again.  The only reason why I’m happy to be going home is to have hot showers again!  After my cold shower I packed up all my things.  I had to check a second bag in the airport due to my excess amount of souvenirs. After we packed all our bags, we went for our last family meal together at Tiki Taco.  We began our trip at this restaurant and we ended it there.  We were all a bit sad at lunch because nobody wanted to leave!  Molly and I shared a plate of fajitas and before we knew it, we were on our way to the airport in Santiago.  When we got to the airport, a few of my friends and I had some Chilean Subway and prepared to board our plane for the ten-hour flight to Dallas, Texas. 

My flight to Dallas was a rough one due to the fact that I sat between the two most inconsiderate passengers on the flight.  The man sitting behind me never stopped talking and every time he laughed he would punch the back of my seat.  The man sitting in front of me had his chair reclined all the way back the whole flight.  This wouldn’t be a problem for a normal sized human being, but this was very uncomfortable for my tall self.  I had to put my feet out in the aisle and they kept getting run over by the food and drink carts.  After that flight, I’m glad to be back in the states!  Now I’m just waiting to board my last flight to Pittsburgh!  I am happy to be heading home, but I am very sad to be leaving Chile. 

I can honestly say these past two weeks may have been the best ones of my life.  I had an amazing time on my Plus3 trip to Chile.  I did not expect the trip to be as wonderful as it was and I didn’t expect to get so much out of it!  I enjoyed learning about the Chilean economy and culture in the lectures along with learning how to dance cueca, salsa, and reggaton.  The company visits were always interesting and informative which added to the curriculum of the trip.  I thought that everything we did was a cultural learning experience while we were there.  I am so so so happy I chose to go on this trip!  I made so many new friends and learned so much about a different culture at the same time.  This trip was definitely the best one of my whole entire life. I plan to go on more study abroad programs in the future as a result of this trip.  Learning all about a different culture and how to do business in a different country was an amazing experience and I’d love to do it again. I’d like to say thank you again to my two wonderful trip advisors Jorge and Sarah.  I could not have had such a wonderful experience in Chile without them!  

Last Day In Chile

I am very sad to say that this is my last full day in Chile.  I have had such a wonderful time!  Today we horseback rode all day it was AMAZING! I was very nervous to ride a horse at first but it ended up being such a great time.  We rode the horses on the beach and up huge sand dunes.  Riding up the sand dunes was scary at times because it felt like the horses could have fell over! One student in our group fell off his horse will the horse was trying to climb a steep dune.  Luckily my horse, whom I named Tom, was a pro at climbing the dunes.  I thought we would be walking on our horses all day, but when we would ride on the beach the tour guide leading our expedition would make our horses run!  It was interesting to see the competitive nature among the horses.  If one horse started running, all of the other ones would take off.  I remember observing the same thing in the movie Seabiscuit.  I liked when the horse ran much better than when it only walked.  Everyone had a great time! When we arrived back to the ranch with our horses, Jorge told us there was going to be a barbeque for us.  It was better than any barbeque I’ve ever eaten!  There were chefs grilling meats, a buffet of side dishes, and wine for us to drink.  Spending the rest of the afternoon at a barbeque sitting around a fire was amazing!  Later in the evening, we went out to get pizza with the Chilean students.  We were all thrilled when the group gave all of us sweatshirts from their university.  The students were such a great help to us while we were here, so we gave them all Pitt t-shirts in return.  It was so sad saying goodbye to the Chilean students! I’m going to miss them a lot when we get home!  I hope we all can continue to stay in touch via Facebook.

TEAM SANGRE

Today everyone had a free morning.  My friend Evan woke me up at the crack of dawn to make the most of our free day.  Evan, Stefan and I began our free day by getting some pastries and going shopping in some markets near our hotel.  After we bought some souvenirs, we decided to rent a four-person bike to ride around Vina with one of our trip advisors, Sarah.  This was quite the adventure.  Only three wheels worked so we got into multiple bike accidents.  At one point of our cruise, I ended up in a bush when our breaks failed. Our adventure ended when we crashed into a cement wall and broke the bike in order to avoid traffic.  We decided to return the bike after this.  When we returned back to Hotel America, it was time to go play paintball with the Chilean Students.  Paintball was much more violent than I expected it to be! We got to wear big one-piece suits to protect our clothes from the paint and sand we had to roll around in.  I made it out of the two paintball games with only a few battle wounds.  Unfortunately I was a little too trigger happy and ran out of paintballs before we were done playing.  I must admit I was happy to be done playing early!  My poor friend Molly got shot right in the head at the end of the last game.  Thankfully she is recovering.  We ended the day with a huge meal at an Italian restaurant nearby our hotel.  Now it’s time to get ready and head out to Café Journal with everyone.  Jorge told us all that tomorrow is the best day of the trip so I am looking forward to it! 

Company Visits y Cueca

Today began with two more company visits!  The first company visit took place in HELA, a tool manufacturing company about an hour away from our hotel. Although I couldn’t understand the tour guide very well, I still enjoyed the visit very much.  We got to see how almost all of the tools are manufactured in the large factory room. I never thought making a paintbrush could be such a difficult process!  I am interested to see if the country will expand in the future.  After this company visit, we were off to our second company visit at Centauro.  Centauro is a canned goods processing plant.  They can fruits, vegetables, and ready to eat foods.  This was definitely my favorite company visit! One of the two brothers that own the company gave us the tour.  I think he was the best tour guide we’ve had yet.  You could tell he was very proud of his company and wanted all of us to learn as much as possible about it.  He let us taste test canned peaches, canned tomatoes, and tomato paste.  The company makes their most profit from selling tomato paste.  I thought all of them tasted delicious!  None of us could believe that the canned peaches were three years old! They still tasted fresh!  The tour guide also let us try the pumpkin paste they were producing that day.  The tour guide was kind enough to let a girl in our group take a whole jar of the pumpkin paste home.  I think everyone had a great time at this company visit! After the company visits concluded, we stopped at one of the most famous empanada restaurants in Vina. Our day concluded with a dance lesson on Cueca at the university.  I enjoyed learning this dance because it is a culturally important dance to the country.  The two dancers that taught us were very good at the dance and fun to watch!  I took a huge nap when I got back from the day’s activities.  I can’t wait to have a free morning tomorrow to explore Chile some more.

Jugamos Soccer

Today was another wonderful day here in Chile!  The day began with our last lecture at the University.  All of the project groups presented our company presentations to Jorge, Sarah, Jaime, and the class.  I think everyone’s power points have improved very much since the first drafts!  After we presented our power points we asked Jaime additional questions regarding Chile and it’s economy.  After the lecture, we ate our last meal at the university (thankfully) and we headed back to Hotel America.  I went to a Chilean Laundromat during our break between our lecture and our soccer games. They do everything for you at Laundromats in Chile, it’s very nice!  After I dropped off my laundry, my fellow students and I were off to play soccer all afternoon!  We all had so much fun! I scored a goal and played some superstar defense. I even made some of the players fall down when I was defending my team’s goal! Whenever I get home I would love to continue to play soccer with my friends.  I wish it was more popular in the United States! Whenever we were done playing soccer, we headed off to the mall for some shopping.  I really like walking through the mall and seeing all the different stores that can’t be found in the United States.  I noticed that some of the brand name goods in Chile are much more expensive than in the United States.  I am not quite sure why this is, but I think I am going to ask a Chilean tomorrow!  Because of this, I didn’t buy much inside the mall.  Instead I bought some things at the outdoor shops again!  I really have been enjoying communicating with the Chileans while doing things like shopping and ordering food at meals.  I feel accomplished when I can communicate with the Chileans with the Spanish I have learned in school!  When we got home from the mall, my friends and I feasted on some empanadas and went back to the hotel to take some naps before we went out for Karaoke night with the Chileans.  Today was a fabulous day and I can’t wait for another one tomorrow!  

Tierra Del Fuego

Today was our first free day on the trip.  I took advantage of being able to sleep in! When I woke up, a few friends and I went on an adventure through Vina del Mar.  We went to a bakery and ordered some delicious Chilean treats.  My friend Evan ordered an adorable dessert! It was a chocolate covered pig made of chocolate cake.  After we explored Vina, we headed to the mall.  The mall huge! It was four stories and full of many stores I have never seen before.  There were also many outdoor vendors and shops outside of the mall.  I did all of my shopping at the outdoor shops!  Shopping inside the mall seemed to be very expensive, I didn’t want to spend too many of my pesos!  After the mall we headed out to our surprise dinner Jorge and Sarah had planned for us.  We all got dressed up and went to a restaurant called Tierra Del Fuego. It was a beautiful restaurant located right on the beach.  The food was delicious and we all had a wonderful time together!  Evan entertained us with a live singing performance of some Christina Aguelera songs.  The walk home from dinner was very interesting to say the least.  A man dressed up in a scary alien/robot costume complete with fake weapons chased us down.  I almost cried.  In Chile, many people dress up and perform on the streets to make money, but this was the scariest costume I have seen so far.  When we finally arrived safe back at Hotel America, there were a bunch of dogs mating outside of the hotel. Needless to say, I am happy to be safe inside writing my blog! Tomorrow begins a new week full of lectures, company visits, and more adventures!

Spa Day

I didn't think any day could be better than yesterday-I was wrong! Today was amazing! We got to sleep in, and when we woke up we headed to our spa day.  Spa day in Chile isn't like a spa day in the United States; in Chile, spa day is when you go to a resort that has pools and a soccer field.  Spa day was much nicer than I thought it would be!  The resort was beautiful.  There were six huge pools and the scenery was gorgeous. We got to play soccer and lay by the pool all day.  The DJ by the pool also had trivia games for us to play every so often, and if you ever answered a question incorrectly you had to dance or do something embarrassing.  It was really fun!  After a wonderful day at the resort, we went to Werner's house for a barbecue.  Werner is our Chilean professor at the university.  He made us great food, and many Chilean students came to the barbecue to hang out with us.  We all had such a great day!  Tomorrow we have a free day until Jorge takes us out for a surprise dinner.  I can't wait for tomorrow and for another week in Chile!