Last Day, May 20

Today is our last day in Chile. We got in from the party last night at about 5:00AM, and I slept in until about 12:00PM. We packed in the ‘morning’ until 1:00PM, when we went to our last lunch together. We went to Pueblo Rico, which is a Chilean-food restaurant that we have walked by almost every day these past 2 weeks. They had a special today: we could get beef, chicken, or pork ‘a lo pobre’ (with sunny-side-up eggs and onions on top) and a drink for a reduced price. The food was delicious, and it was a good way to have our last meal.

After lunch we rushed back to the hotel to get all of our stuff together and to clean up the hotel. The upstairs lobby was a bit of a mess after the night before; we had tried to finish off all of the extra snacks Chris had bought us over the week, and we had gone to McDonalds at 4:00AM. We managed to get the majority of it cleaned up, but we ended up leaving some foodstuffs that we did not want to have to check at customs in the airport.

We got to the airport at 5:00PM and headed through the international terminal. We exchanged our pesos back to USD at a 487:1 ratio; I exchanged for 430:1 at PNC bank and 460:1 when I arrived at the Santiago Airport.

I enjoyed my trip here in Chile, and I hope to be able to study abroad here next year – I know Jon was thinking about it too.

Lessons Learned: 1. Chilean airport security is more lax than U.S. security.

2. The exchange rate for  pesos depends on if you are buying or selling.

Twelfth Day, May 19

Today was our last full day here in Chile. We were allowed to sleep in until 12:00PM but I got up at 9:00AM so I could go shopping. I had breakfast alone at the hotel; the hotel staff were very nice and personally served me and asked what we had done in town.

I walked down to the boardwalk first. It was very quiet; almost no one was out besides the street sweepers. On the boardwalk almost all the shops were empty except for one scarf shop – luckily that is what I was shopping for. I then went back into town to shop at the markets. I looked around a lot, but the majority of the shops were closed, so I started walking back to the hotel. On the way back I ran into the girls, so I went shopping with them. I ended up getting a nice silver and Lapis Lazuli bracelet. At this point I was down to roughly 7,000 pesos, or $14, but I had all of my souvenirs.

At 12:00PM we met up with the rest of our group and headed over to the University for the last time. Werner gave us a lecture on coming to the University for an Exchange Program, and he had a Belgian exchange student talk to us about it. I hope to be able to study there.

After the lecture we played futbol and basketball with the Chileans, some we knew and some we did not. My team lost futbol, but we won basketbol.

After that we visited the “school store” to get some university shirts, but the school store was more of a school supplies store: they had pens, sticky-notes, and the like.

Burt and I went to the Casino. I just wanted to do 1 spin, but the machine only took 1000+ peso bills. I watched Burt use up $40; he was up $26 at one point though.  All in all, fun experience for me.

Lessons Learned: 1. La Universidad  Tecnica Federico Santa Maria has tests about every month, and if you do well enough on the tests you do not have to take the final.

2. Vina del Mar does not wake up until 12:00PM

3. Texas Hold ‘Em is not big in Vina del Mar. The casino was almost all slots.

Eleventh Day, May 18

Today was our last company visit. We visited Bolsa de Comercio Santiago, in Santiago – it is the stock exchange. We left at 8AM, and got to Santiago around 11AM. They gave us a nice overview video of Bolsa, and gave a Power Point in person, but we could not visit the trading floor. We learned that very few people use the trading floor anymore; the brokers can do all their work on computers at their offices. They had an engineer come in and answer our questions. Half of the 200 people who work at Bolsa are IT people who work on developing and maintaining the software that lets the brokers work from their offices. They were nice and gave us some calendars/planners.

After the short presentation we walked around the city. We had a bunch of school tours ask to take our picture when we went to Moneda, the capitol building. We also got to see the Chilean National History Museum.

We had dinner at a famous fish market – Donde Agusto. I had some salmon with seafood sauce, the same thing I had the day we went to Isla Negra; it was much better at Donde Agusto.

After lunch we went to San Cristobol, which is a sanctuary at the top of the mountain in the middle of Santiago. There is a shrine to Mary at the top, it was beautiful. There were a bunch of tourist shops near the top.

At night, Jon, Ryan, and I lost our room key. We had locked it in our room. We tried picking the lock, forcing the door, and forcing the window, but to no avail. We eventually got help from the staff at the hotel, but they did not have an extra key. In the end, we got the window out of its track a little, stuck our hand in with food tongs, and grabbed the key off of the nightstand.

Lessons Learned: 1. Some bathrooms in Chile cost money.

2. The stock exchange is more of a company that develops and provides services here than it is in the U.S.

3. How to pick a lock.

Tenth Day, May 17

Today was our day at the Spa. We were all tired from the horseback-riding trip the day before, so we all slept on the way to the spa. It was located in a slightly shady-looking neighborhood, but once we went past the tall bushes and fences it was very nice on the inside; it seemed strange to locate such a nice resort in the middle of a lower income neighborhood.

We started off the day at the spa by learning the rules of the pool; we needed to give our IDs to the resort to get towels, and we had to have swimming caps – they had some for sale – in order to swim. No one wanted to buy the caps, so almost no one swam. Suzie bought a cap for a souvenir and let Jon use it, but the water was so cold that Jon immediately got out of the pool. We also had about 5 Chileans who came with us; Javier had a swim cap of his own, so he was allowed to swim.

The resort had a nice indoor reception area with a gift store, some video games, and the towel area. They had an all you can eat buffet upstairs – we ate there for lunch. Outside they had 2 or more pool areas, nice picnic spots, and some food areas. We got empanadas and some ice cream at our food area. They also had a futbol court, and a heated pool. Most of us just sun-tanned outside by the big pool, I took a nap with my feet dipping in the heated pool.

After about 5 hours, we left the spa. We went over to Werner’s house for a bar-bee-que that night – he is an absolutely fantastic griller. He danced some after dinner, and even taught the Chileans some of our dances.

After the dancing we headed back to the hotel. Some of us went out to Karaoke, but about half stayed in because we had to be up in 6 hours to go to Santiago.

Lessons Learned: 1. Chileans know of the Cha-Cha Slide.

2. Chilean ketchup and other condiments come in bags.

Ninth Day, May 16

Today we got to go horseback riding. It was the first clear sunny day of the trip, perfect for being outside. We got in a van to go to the horseback riding place, we barely fit in the van, but it was still a nice and comfortable van. When we got to the ranch, we got to meet the lady who runs the place; she was very nice and friendly, she even let me borrow a hat. We all put on sunscreen to make sure we did not get sunburned while out riding the horses during the day. Then we all lined up to be given our horses; I got a nice big white horse, the only white one on the ranch. We stayed in the corral for about 20 minutes learning how to ride the horses, and also waiting for other people to get their horses. We held the reins in one hand, unlike in the U.S where we hold them in 2 hands (at least that is what I have seen); to make the horse go forward we would make a *pop* with our mouth and whip the back of the horse with the end of our reins. To stop the horse we would say “shhh” and pull back on the reins. To turn we would kick the side of the horse we wanted to turn away from, and pull to the direction we wanted to turn. While in the corral, we noticed that some of the horses had attitudes with each other. My horse bit Marquis, Morgan’s horse bit Sarah’s horse, and Julie’s horse would not listen to her.

                We left the corral and headed down to the beach, went up into a wood’s area, went up into some mountains made of sand, and then found a little glen up in the sand dunes where we took a break. It took about 2 hours to get to the break spot, so we were sore and tired. We had a snack of water and fresh-cut pineapple that was very delicious. We saddled back up and headed down to the beach for the rest of the trip back to the ranch. We got the chance to gallop on the beach, which was very scary the first time it happened, but soon I was encouraging my horse to gallop and race ahead, but then I would be told to slow down. Any time 1 horse started running, the others would too.

Once we got back to the ranch we had an excellent bar-bee-que. We had sausage, pork, beef, and some sides; it was all very good.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel. We got some ice-cream and all went out to the rocks by the sea to watch the sunset together, it was beautiful.

Lessons Learned: 1. Chileans hold the reins in one hand, not two.

2. Horses copy the other horses around them.

Eighth Day, May 15

Today was another free day. Since it was Sunday I decided to go to Mass; I got up at 11:00AM to get ready for the 12:00PM Mass – thanks Jon for setting up the alarm. I went over to church with Pat, we got a little lost, but asked for directions from some Chileans on the street and they were very helpful so we got to the church no problem. The church is about 10 blocks away from the church, and is the largest cathedral in Vina del Mar. It was very beautiful on the inside; it was a little strange how they used the newer florescent lights though. The Mass was in Spanish and was about how Jesus is our shepherd and loves us; that he is the way and the light and the truth and the gate to heaven. The Mass was very similar to the one given at St. Paul’s in Pittsburgh; they had memorized stuff to say in response to the Father. A big difference though was the lack of books or hymnals to help the congregation sing.

After church Pat and I stopped at a nice bakery that we had seen on the way to church. I got a stick with caramel custard on the inside, a sugar cookie, and a puffball filled with custard; Pat got some soft cookies covered with chocolate and 2 other types of cookies that I did not get to try; all of the cookies were delicious.

After snack we went back to the hotel and met up with some people to go shopping. We went along the beach trying to find the mall; we were lost. I bought a lollipop along the way; here the lollipops are softer and bendy. After walking around for a bit, we found Carmilo walking in the street; we could not believe our luck of having randomly run into him; he gave us directions to the mall, and we found it easily after that. The mall was huge, 4 stories tall, and full of shops. They had a lot of the same shop in different locations, like 3 McDonalds, multiple Gatsby coffee shops, and other food places; unlike in the U.S. where there is only 1 of each store. They also had ice-cream stores all over the place. We did not buy anything at the mall, but we ran into the other students – they had left an hour before us. We went outside along the beach to look at the beach vendors. We found some cool stuff, but I did not buy anything; I plan on going back before I leave though. We saw some nice sand art; there was a whale, a crab, a mermaid, a Homer Simpson, and some other large sand sculptures.

After shopping we went to a nice pizza shop and got 2 large pizzas and a 2.5 liter drink for about $25 U.S. It was very good and very filling.

We went to Tierra de Fuego for dinner; it was a very fancy restaurant and good.

Lessons Learned: 1. Malls in Chile are much like those in the U.S., but they have multiple of certain shops at the Chilean malls.

2. Chilean Mass is just like U.S. Mass.

Seventh Day, May 14

Today was our first rest day. I woke up at 11:20AM to tell Jon to post his blog, then went back to bed and finally woke up at 1:45 PM. We had gotten to bed at 5:00AM the night before.

I went shopping with some of the girls; we stopped at a few places in Vina del Mar. We went to a dollar-store type place with some pretty good deals, but very eclectic items.

After the dollar store we went to the Vina market. We walked around 3 hallways full of vendors and got to see a lot of cool Chilean items. One guy was even working on his stock and showed us how he cut steel into shapes; he turns coins and spoons into jewelry.

Then we had lunch at a nice diner. It looked a little shady on the first floor, but once we went up to the second floor it had a very open room with nice furniture and a beautiful view of the street. I had a nice piece of meat with sunny-side-up eggs, onions, and French fries. The French fries were the best I had had yet in Chile, I do not care for Chilean fries.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel to meet up for a futbol game. We watched Everton play; it was 2-2 at the end of the second period, but we did not stay for overtime. The stadium was about the quality of my high school’s stadium, but the food was amazing and very well priced, I prefer it to the States’ stadium experience. On the way back I talked to Andres in Spanish and learned a lot about Chilean culture.

Lessons Learned: 1. Even small fubol teams have a ton of crazy fans.

2. There are plenty of live cut wires over the streets of Vina del Mar.