mysteryfish 5/19

Today was our last full day in Chile, and I'm really sad about it. My time here has been fantastic and eye opening. We began our day at the university, and heard a story from Stephanie about her likes and dislikes of studying at University of Santa Maria over her normal school in Belgium. Studying abroad more is definitely something I've always considered and now have no doubts about doing more of. Chile will always be a choice to come back to, it’s a beautiful country. Also because Spanish is something I’ve been including in my curriculum, a Spanish speaking country will be a pretty obvious choice. We then ate lunch at the cafeteria, and I can honestly say I will not miss that part of our time here. We had some sort of fried fish, and though I ate it fine at the time, it didn’t sit so well after. It was time for our activities outside, and as good as I am at soccer (not) I chose to sit this round out. Several other girls and I watched the people we came with hold their own against the Chileans who have been playing soccer forever. They did pretty well. After that, we returned to the hotel. We went to the market and I bought some candy only available around here to take back with me. Tonight should be fun; we’re having a pizza party dinner with everyone we’ve met and our entire group. Tomorrow is airport day, and starting at 2pm I’ll spend probably around 24 hours en route back home. I have mixed emotions. Mostly, I’d love to stay.

fishmarket.... 5/18

Today was our day to take a trip to Santiago. We left really early this morning, and didn't arrive until around 10:30 in Santiago. We first went to Bolsa de Comercio. This was my company, and essentially it is the primary stock exchange of Chile. It was definitely not what I expected, because the main trading floor was closed. I'm pretty bummed about that, I was excited to see it and talk about it in my presentation. It's okay though, because we received an extremely informative presentation and got to see the building. We then did a short walking tour in the nearby area, then went for lunch at a fish market. Their marketing strategy of walking through piles of frozen dead fish to go to the restaurant is really rather horrible. The thought of ordering fish after seeing it dead so nearby was gross to me so I ordered lomo a lo pobre. The basic idea of this meal is a steak with eggs on top served on a bed of grilled onions. It was enormous when it came out, but so good that I nearly ate the entire thing. We then continued a tour of Santiago, and took the bus up a mountain that was about 150m high. (That's around 450 feet for anyone who hasn't had to use metric for the last couple weeks) It was incredibly high in the air, and you could see how truly large Santiago is. We got an ice cream, and then we got on the bus and returned to Vina. I got pizza and went to the grocery store with a few compadres. All in all it was really an interesting day.

buffet!! (: 5/17

Today was another fantastic day in Chile. We woke up and went to the “spa.” I say spa in that way because it definitely resembled a resort that no one was staying in. We arrived and ate some empanadas. We then played a game of soccer. A lot of girls didn’t participate, but I figured I should. Our saying of the trip seems to have been “you’re only in Chile once,” and that’s so completely true.  In that moment, that saying was all I could think of. So, I played soccer, and was just as awful as I thought I would be. My team won, however I did nothing to help that. After the soccer game, we laid in the sun. It was luckily so nice out and we were all very ready to relax in the sunshine. For lunch, we had an enormous buffet. It’s very hard to describe it, because it was such a variety of foods. My favorite though was probably the potato stuffed with cheese, some type of seafood, and cream. I ate a lot, but it was okay because I honestly think everyone was really eating over their limit. After we got back, we went to Werner’s for a barbeque. Like all the barbeques I’ve had here thus far, it was extremely delicious. We began with sausages on a bun, and I had quite a few because I was unaware that we still had a meal coming. So, we had those and danced a bit of salsa. If I’m not a pro by Thursday, it’s going to be a bad thing because I’ve had so many opportunities to learn it. I’m really enjoying our relaxing days, but tomorrow is my company visit!

BBQ!! :D 5/16

Today was an excellent day! We woke up and went horseback riding. It was probably the nicest day of the whole trip as far as weather goes. It was absolutely perfect! First everyone got a horse, mine's name was Hipe. Since I've ridden a horse before, it wasn't scary for me at all, it was just a nice reminder of my childhood. So we started riding, and it was certainly an interesting trail. We began on the beach. It was absolutely incredible. The view from where we were could see the entire bay of Vina del Mar. We then went through the sand for awhile away from the beach and at one point all you could see was sandy hills around you no matter where you looked. We stopped to have some pineapple and water. The pineapple was so incredibly sweet; it didn’t even taste like fruit. We then rode back on the beach, and we even got up pretty quick in speed. Honestly, this blog post can never be an accurate portrayal of how gorgeous it was to be on the back of a horse on the beach looking at a view that goes on for miles and miles. It was certainly a once in a lifetime experience. When we arrived back at the ranch, there had been a barbeque prepared for us. It was incredible, with sausage, chicken and steak prepared fresh on a fire grill. It was delicious, and for once there was extremely good vegetables. After we returned to the hotel, we decided that it was too nice to stay indoors. A large group of us went and got gelato and sat near the ocean. It was a very relaxing, amazing day.

5/11/11 queso empanada.

Today was the first of our company visits. The first we visited was Bosques de Mauco, which was a mushroom farm. In my life, I have never seen anything like it. The smell was horrendous, and because I don’t like mushrooms, it never got better for me. The most fascinating part of the whole thing was the packaging and canning. Also they were extremely selective about the mushrooms they chose to use for things even such as canning. The products they use are only the best. After the mushrooms, we went to Centauro. Centauro is a canning company owned for three generations. Our tour was given by an actual decendant of the family who founded it, and he was clearly extremely passionate about his company. It was so adorable how he kept referring to his great grandfather and how they only use the best machinery. He gaves us a few samples, which I hope make it back into the states, considering they need refrigerated after opening and that just isn’t at our disposal. After our company visit, we went to Las Deliciosas. They serve empanadas with a million different types of seafood and cheese. As far as meal empanadas go, theirs were defintely delicious. They are receiving a close competition from the carmel and banana empanada as far as I’m concerned though. We then finished our Chilean culture lectures. The thing that sticks out most to me in retrospect was learning about the earthquakes. I admire the Chilean mindset that it happens, it will happen again, however they love this country and have no plans to leave. We then had a dance class and I honestly feel like my salsa dancing is improving. One of the students took us to her apartment at night, and it was SO nice. The view was absolutely breathtaking and it was just all around a really fun evening.

5/15 fillete!!!

As I’ve been told, Chile is prominently made up of Catholics. This was made even clearer today. Sunday is their day of rest, and it was also our day of rest. I got up later today than I have in years, and it was very nice. After we woke up, we decided to do some shopping. So we walked to the mall. We weren’t exactly sure where it was, but we figured it out, because we actually ran into a Chilean student on the way there. It was perfect timing, because we were pretty clueless at the time. The mall was an experience, very similar to malls in the United States really. It was large with three floors, and a very nice place. The food court honestly looked nearly identical to our malls, with a Subway, KFC and McDonald’s. It was clear that we wouldn’t find souvenirs here, so we decided to go to the boardwalk area to the souvenir shops. I bought nothing, which is pretty good because my money seems to be disappearing. After this, we were absolutely starving from not eating since dinner last night. We were going to go to a hot dog shop (which would’ve been an adventure) but like many places on Sunday, it was closed. We went to get pizza instead, which was very similar to our pizza. Tonight we’re dressing up and going to a nice dinner with the entire group. It kind of reminds me of a little Sunday family dinner. I’ll also finally get to wear my dress pants somewhere. Dinner was honestly FANTASTIC. We had steak, and it was so tender that we didn't even get steak knives. It was really nice to be in a more formal setting with everyone all dressed up. This evening we've all been just really relaxing.

picante! 5/14

This morning was definitely needed by the whole group of us. We got to sleep in, and many of us didn’t surface until around noon. It’s been an action packed week and we really needed some genuine rest. After we woke up, I decided it was really time to do some laundry. On the way to do laundry, we went to buy some souvenirs. I spent a lot of money in the last 24 hours. I had brought way more dress clothes than necessary, so the amount of regular clothes I had just wasn’t enough. Jen, Colleen, Christine, and I had quite the adventure trying to find a Laundromat, luckily at the dry cleaners we first went to, a woman spoke English. She gave us directions to a Laundromat. The man there spoke zero English, but as far as we know we somehow got what we wanted. We then ate at a pita shop. I decided to play it safe and ordered a chicken quesadilla. I’m disappointed with that decision, because their wraps looked extremely good. After this, we picked up our laundry and relaxed at the hotel for awhile. We then went to a “football” game which is actually soccer in the US. They take it extremely seriously. There were flares and fireworks and flags. I also thought the bleachers were interesting; they were made of solid cement. While sitting on them, I could only think of what a process it probably was to make them. Also, I had a really good/ interesting sandwich. It had really delicious guacamole and spicy picante sauce on it. Today was very relaxing, and I really think everyone needed it.