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!

La Playa y La Casa de Pablo Neruda

So far, today was my favorite day of the trip! The day started off poorly when I woke up to find out that the hotel had no running water, but the rest of the day certainly made up for it.  We began our day with a company visit to Indomita, a winery about an hour away from our hotel.  Our tour guide, Sebastion, gave us a wonderful tour and synopsis on how grapes are harvested and how wine is made.  We even got to see the wine cellar!  The visit ended with a wine tasting on the front porch of the beautiful building.  The wonderful weather today made the visit even more enjoyable! After the visit, we were off to La Isla Negra to have lunch and take a tour of a famous Chilean poet’s home, Pablo Neruda.  The lunch was amazing because we got to sit outside at a table that overlooked the beach!  Even though I don’t like seafood, I still thoroughly enjoyed the lunch.  When we finished lunch, we walked down to the beach and enjoyed its beauty for a little while.  I’ll post some pictures I took at the beach below! After spending some time relaxing on the beach, we took our tour of Pablo Neruda’s house.  Pablo was born in 1904 and died in 1973.  We learned that he wrote his first poem when he was only nineteen years old!  I also learned that he married his wife Matilde in his living room and that he was buried just beneath his beautiful home.  He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1971. Although the tour guide spoke Spanish, she was very patient and spoke slow enough for us to understand some parts of the guided house tour! After the tour was over we headed back to good old Hotel America to get ready for another night in Chile.  Tonight we are going to get dinner for Alison Bundy’s birthday. I can’t wait! Tomorrow we are going to play sports with the Chilean students all day.   I hope my years of playing soccer in elementary school will help me out!

Mushrooms Mushrooms Mushrooms

After a long night, today’s rough morning began with another lecture at the University from Jose.  Today we learned about Chile’s cultural differences when it comes to business, music, dance, and many other things.  I think I would like to do business in Chile much more than in America.  Business in Chile is much more relaxed and you can show up late to almost anything.  Jose told us that a meeting scheduled to be one our long will consist of talking about your family and sports for forty minutes and business for the last twenty.  This sounds much nicer than the uptight way the USA does business.  I’ve noticed that Chileans are also friendlier than the people in the USA in general.  All except the man that cussed out a few of us in McDonald’s last night for no reason. Jose also told us about a program Chile has called Start up Chile.  This company allows entrepreneurs from other parts of the world to come start their business in Santiago.  The government will help the entrepreneur by giving him or her the capital needed to start his or her business. The program seems to be very successful thus far.  After learning all about business in Chile, we watched some Chilean advertisements and learned about the music in all parts of Chile.  After the lecture, we were off to our second company visit at Nature’s Farm.  Nature’s Farm is a mushroom company about an hour away from our hotel.  We got to see how mushrooms are grown, packaged, and sold.  Although there was an unpleasant smell throughout the company, it was a very interesting and informative visit.  I had no idea to grow mushrooms, you need to make a special compost for the mushrooms to grow in.  The process was very interesting; it included the fermentation of straw and a few other steps before the compost was ready.  After we learned all about the creating of the compost, we got to go in the rooms that held all the incubating mushrooms.  The room was cold and dark with mushrooms stacked in boxes 11 stories high! I will post a picture of the mushrooms in the incubator below.  We also got to put on hair nets and face masks to go to the room where they package the mushrooms.  The company packages around 50,000 packages of mushrooms a day!  Touring the mushroom company was an extremely interesting experience.  After the tour, we headed back to the university for our last dance class.  Now it is time for me to get ready to go out with the Chilean students!  I’m looking forward to visiting the winery tomorrow!

First Company Visit

Today started with another long lecture at the University.  A professor named Jose gave us a wonderful synopsis of Chilean culture.  We learned all about how Chileans live, and we also learned about natural disasters in Chile.  Since Chile is located on top of the ring of fire, it is susceptible to earthquakes.  Jose showed us a video made in 2009 that simulated what would happen to Chile if a massive earthquake ever occurred.  They creators of the video predicted a huge earthquake like the one simulated in the video would happen one million years from 2009.  Ironically, a devastating earthquake occurred in Chile the next year, February 27, 2010.  I was sad to find this out because that is my birthday! We watched videos and saw all the terrible damage caused by the earthquake.  We also saw videos of the sever looting that happened because of the earthquake.  We watched a video about Michelle Bachelot’s poor decision not to send out the Chilean military to restore order in the country after the earthquake.  She finally called for Chile to be in a state of emergency.  This meant that personal rights and laws could be broken in Chile in order to keep everyone safe during the devastating tragedy.  I really enjoyed Jose’s lecture!  After the lecture, we left the university to head to our first company visit at LAN Airlines in Santiago, Chile.  When we arrived to the company, we went inside and sat in a boardroom where an employee named Luis gave us a presentation about LAN.  I was surprised to find that LAN has had zero accidents.  I also found it surprising that LAN had increased profits after the September 11^th attacks in the USA.  I always thought that the attacks would have negatively affected all international airlines, but Luis told me it actually benefitted them.  I was excited to learn more about LAN because this is the company I have to make my presentation on.  I am looking forward to adding all the new information I’ve acquired to the first draft of my project.  After our company visit, we went to our second salsa class.  My partner and I tore up the dance floor with our moves.  I got a good laugh out of the dance instructor throwing my friend Carly around.  Finally, it was time to eat some more empanadas and get ready to go out for the night.  We went to Café Journal and danced with many Chileans!  I am really enjoying hanging out with people from a different country and learning all about a different culture.  

Vivimos Santiago

We began our day today by waking up very early and taking a long bus ride to the capital city of Chile, Santiago.  Before we toured the city, we went to a quick company visit to the Stock Exchange of Chile.  We got to enter the room where the Chileans trade stocks!  The room had a beautiful mural and a huge screen with all of the stocks on it.  It was nice to learn about aspects of business in Chile through the stock exchange.  After the visit, we began our tour of Santiago.  I didn’t expect Santiago to be so big! The city was really pretty and the people in Chile are very friendly.  I have noticed that the people here are MUCH more patient than Americans.  All of the waiters and people we have worked with have been so patient with us and the language barrier.  A waiter from the United States would never deal with a situation like this in a friendly manner like the Chileans do.  The students are also very patient and helpful to us.  I ask them a ton of questions every day and they never seem to get annoyed and they never stop helping us!  They never rush you here either.  Being late in Chile really isn’t a problem, people seem to be much more laid back!  We got to see the building where the president lives in Santiago.  The building was huge!  Many guards were outside of the building, some of them were even on horses.  We also saw a stunning cathedral.  We got to go inside and look around to see all the beautiful statues and pictures inside.  I will attach many pictures below from the inside of the cathedral!  Later in the day, we got to ride up an extremely tall incline (which scared me to death) to see a chapel on a hill overlooking Santiago.  There was an outdoor chapel, shops, and a massive statue of the Virgin Mary on the peak of the hill.  It was so peaceful and quiet at the top of the hill which made it a great place for a Chapel.  Religion is very important to Chileans, so there are many religious spectacles throughout the areas in Chile.  After we all slept on the way home from Santiago, we were ready for our first reaggaton class!  I like the reaggaton class much better than the salsa class.  The reaggaton dance is energetic and fun to do!  After the activities for the day were done, Carly, Alli, Molly and I went to buy Chilean Doritos and Pizza Hut.  We needed a relaxing evening after our first few busy days! The Chilean students like to stay out late, and it’s been taking quite a toll on us!  I’m looking forward to getting a good night sleep and going to our first company visit to LAN tomorrow. 

Me Encantan Empanadas!

Today was a wonderful day! I experienced empanadas for the first time.  They were so delicious!  I’m going to miss them so much when I come home.  My dear friend Evan and I decided we are going to open an Empanada restaurant when we get home and make Americanized empanadas.  We are going to name our restaurant “Gracias y Empanadas” and serve empanadas stuffed with buffalo chicken, pizza ingredients, big mac empanadas and many others.  Before I ate the empanadas for the first time, I had a day full of activities.  The day began with our first ride on Chile’s public transportation.  I think I saw my life flash before my eyes multiple times while riding the bus.  The bus drivers here drive like maniacs and reach speeds I never knew achievable for a bus.  After the frightening bus ride, we attended our first lecture at Universidad Technica Frederica Santa Maria.  Profesor James gave us a lecture full of information about the economics of Chile and other countries in Latin America. The campus is absolutely beautiful! It overlooks the ocean and has amazing landscaping throughout the campus.  I wish Pitt could look more like the campus here!  After the lecture we toured Vina del Mar.  Vina del Mar has so much character! All of the buildings are colorful, and in many places the buildings have intricate murals painted on them.  The only thing I disliked about the tour was the excessive amount of steps we had to climb to get to the top of the hills to see the view of the bay in Vina Del Mar.  I have so many pictures from the tour I can’t wait to share with everyone back at home!  After a long day of lectures and touring, we went to our first salsa class.  While entering the salsa class, I was playing on my phone and ran into a bench in front of a lot of students.  I already stick out like a sore thumb here and that certainly made it worse!  The salsa instructor began the class by asking us all which girl fell into the bench and then he assured me that everyone saw me do it  Besides the pre-class trauma, learning how to salsa was very fun.  I definitely want to practice the dance a little more before I try to dance with any chicos in the clubs!  When the dance class concluded, the Chilean students took us all to a Karaoke bar near our hotel.  We all had such a great time! Three boys in our group put on an amazing backstreet boys performance for everyone in the bar.  From salsa dancing to singing in a karaoke bar, I think we have been a great source of entertainment for the Chileans! 



One of the adorable stray dogs on the streets of Chile and delicious empanadas (top)

Finally In Chile!

After a long, eight-hour flight to Santiago, we are finally here!  I thought the traveling was going to be much more difficult than it was but everything went smoothly.  The only difficulty we faced was the pickiness of the people accepting our money for the country’s entrance fees.  The dollar bills had to be pristine or else they wouldn’t take them; it was very annoying and we really angered some girls on a Canadian handball team behind us in line.  We arrived in he hotel around eleven o’clock this morning and prepared for our first full day in Chile!  After I took my first freezing cold shower, I was ready to go out to our first lunch together as a group.  We went to a Mexican restaurant called Tiki Taco and had a delicious sampling of Mexican food.  The restaurant is putting a picture of our group on their Facebook page! After taking five years of Spanish, I thought I would be able to read/ speak some of the language while I was down here, but so far I had thought wrong.  The natives to the country speak very fast and so far it is hard for me to understand them or communicate with them.  I also need to start to work on learning how to manage the currency here because as of now I am clueless as to how the Peso works.  The two Chilean students we met today are extremely nice and helpful.  They along with the professor in charge of this Pitt program took us to a futbol game this afternoon.  The fans were so loud and dedicated! The Chileans literally never stopped cheering throughout the whole game.  I have been to many sporting events at home and none of the fans compare to the fans down here.  I am now going to head out to have dinner with some of the students in my group.  I had such a good first day, and I can’t wait to continue to learn more throughout this study abroad experience! Below I have included photos of the dedicated fan section at the futbol game and a picture of Molly and I at our first lunch.

Leaving Today!!!

I am currently in the airport waiting to board our flight to Miami.  After we arrive in Miami we have a three hour layover and then we fly to Santiago.  We're expecting to arrive in Santiago around 8 am! I am so excited to land in Santiago and see our trip advisor Jorge along with a group of Chilean students.  I am looking forward to making new friends from another country and learning more about Chile!

Related Links

Related Links:

Chile Plus3 Website
Official 2012 Blog