It is Friday May 20 11:20 pm. I am up in the air over Peru headed back to Atlanta. Our time in Chile has expired and we now return to the States. We got about 7 hrs left till we tap down. I have a lot of time on my hands at this point. So today we all went to lunch together for the last time. I was kind of surprised that that was our only visit to that restaurant seeing as how we’d gone to other places several times. Anyway, the food was good, it was a beautiful day out, and before we knew it, it was time to go. We got to the airport around 4:45 pm and I have no clue what we were waiting on to check in but for some reason the line wasn’t open. The reasoning for this escapes me even to this minute. Once we got to the gate, we had plenty of time to sit and think… some of us completed our surveys we got prior to going on the trip. Others made jokes and looked at photos. Some even managed to do both in all of the 2 hours we had to spare!

Boarding the plane was a blast like usual. Boarding time was 7:05 and we didn’t get on till about 7:30. Lovely. Departure time was 8 and we didn’t take off till about 8:30. Even more lovely. I find it funny that nothing happens on time in Chile. I mean you’d think maybe a handful of things and people would be late, but it’s the whole country. Always approximately 30 min late. Never early and never on time. That’s just how things work here. No big deal right? Back to the plane ride, they showed “The Tourist” starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. I’d seen it once before in theaters with a certain special someone, but today it was in Spanish. It was good practice for me to improve my fluency. Now they are playing another movie that I’m not too interested in watching so I think it’s about that time to catch some zzzzzzzzz’s.

It’s Thursday May 19^th 5:45 pm. I like to call today activities day. I got a late start this morning. I ended up waking up around 11 am, which gave me an hour to get ready to be in the lobby at noon to head to the University of Santa Maria. I finally got to shower in water that was above moderate temperature with the help of a roommate. On the one hand, it was about time, but on the other it’s like “way to wait till the last day to figure it out Ry.” Anyway, we went to the University for the final time and listened to the experiences of a student named Stephanie who is from Belgium studying in Chile. I admired the fact that she spoke French, Spanish, and English. When I see things like that, I feel motivated to learn a second language because it could be quite helpful later on. Then we ate lunch at the University. My favorite part today was the bread which was quite tasty. We had an interesting conversation with a student at the table about career plans and such. It wasn’t the whole group this time, just the three of us who were at the table.

Then we left and went to go play soccer. We initially played country vs. country but that turned out to not be such a good idea seeing as how one side had been playing the game since they were kids and the other side had rookies. So we did a bit of mixing up teams and still gave one side a greater number of players. Now we had a game on our hands (how sad right?) Closely following soccer we went right into basketball. Now, you already know who would have won that game country vs. country. So we did a bit more mixing up and the game was pretty good once again. Today was a good day of exercise. Now here am back at the hotel doing what I do: relaxing, listening to music, Skyping, and blogging for my readers like usual. Tonight is our last night here, so you already know we are going in like a set of keys. I have had the time of my life here and the end is approaching, but I’m going to do me till it’s over. We are headed to eat pizza around 8 and afterwards to some club, not sure which one until we get there.

It’s Wednesday May 18^th 9:53 pm. Today was quite a long day to say the least. Out the hotel at 8 am and back at 7 pm. We went on our final company visit to Bolsa Comercio. Basically what it is is the Santiago Stock Exchange. It consists of buyers and sellers of stocks with third-party brokers who also are investors of stocks themselves. It was unfortunate that the floor where the transactions take place was closed due to construction. So we were only there for about 30-45 minutes. We then went ahead and decided to tour Santiago until lunch. We had a number of groups of students who wanted to take pictures with us. So we took Hollywood pictures for about 15 minutes straight and then left. We went into a museum afterwards and saw other student groups who were learning the same things we were learning. They took a similar route on their tours that we took and saw the same exhibits. My favorite part was the panorama of the old city of Santiago. But after that, we went to lunch and I had some combination of food that I probably won’t order together again. Not to say that the food was bad, it just didn’t work well together.

Anyway, closely following lunch, we went to the top of the nearest mountain, and we saw some beautiful views. The city of Santiago is quite big in fact. It is closed in on the eastern boarder by the Andes Mountains. I also found out, that Santiago is home to about 7 million people which is roughly 1/3 of Chile’s entire population. I even learned about which classes of people live in which regions of the city. We hiked the mountain to its highest point, and got as good a view that we could get. I got a chance to purchase a new type of ice cream that supposedly is new to the US. I heard it came out about a month ago, but also heard it has been popular in Chile for about 15 years now. But I thought it was pretty good. We soon left there, and got back on the bus for another hour bus ride to the hotel. We got back and decided that it was time for dinner. So we ordered two XL pizzas and called it a day. Then somehow when we got back to the hotel, my two roommates and I were locked out of our room for about an hour and then some. The key sat right on the table and we tried every which way to try and get in without busting the door down. Finally we were able to get the window open enough for someone to reach in with a pair of tongs and pull the key out. It was beautiful teamwork. From this day forward, we will make a conscious effort to make sure that the key is in our possession before the door gets closed b/c this is certainly not the first time this has happened. After having successful breaking into our own room, we decided that tonight was a good night to celebrate, although I’m sure we would have celebrated anyway, with or without the key.

Tuesday May 17^th. Today was another day of relaxation. We had to be up and ready to go around 10 am. We went to a spa that had several different pools to swim in, but all pools were a tad bit cold and required a swimming cap which cost money, except for the pool indoors, which we weren’t even supposed to be in. But we were there anyway and my boy and I had a nice little nap under the heat lamps. We waited about a half an hour for the lady to get off her lunch break so we could get our massages. But we slept 45 min overtime and she still never returned. So we had to accept the fact that we weren’t getting the massages that we had waited on day. Some of the group continued to pursue their tanning project while others ate ice cream and empanadas. This was a very nice place to vacation at. There were a total of more or less 7 pools that could hold quite a large number of people if it came down to that. This was quite a beautiful place to be in after a long horseback riding day yesterday. I must admit that I had different expectations of this place today but it’s not like it the place disappointed me. The lunch that we had was quite delicious. One other student and I even came up with a new and tasty drink called…. Well you’ll have to speak to one of us in detail about the ingredients so we don’t give away our ideas.

But after the long stay at the spa, we returned to the hotel. I got some sleep before we went out to Werner’s (professor at University of Santa Maria) place to eat a well-deserved barbeque. We did a lot of dancing at his place and even got to play some games that would normally not be acceptable. But the event was quite fun. The Chilean students taught us some of their traditional dances and we taught them some classic United States dances as well. When we came back to the hotel afterwards, most of us prepared to go out for the night while others decided to take a rain check. Either way, those who went out and partied had a good time as well as those who decided to call it a night I’m sure.  

It’s Monday May 16 6:32 pm. We woke up and had to be in the lobby at 9:30 am. We had one item on the agenda for the whole day and that was horseback riding. I hadn’t done it before today but I’m sure I will do it again one day. We rode over a wide variety of landscapes. We have plenty of pictures to show for today’s adventures through the dark and ominous forests, the hot and open deserts, and the windy beautiful beaches. Horseback riding reminded a bit of the movie Avatar in the sense that the horses weren’t machines that we controlled, but animals that we had to cooperate with so we could both make the best of the experience. We had to become one with our animals, or it would have been a long and gruesome voyage.

Like anything else, it took a bit of getting used to, especially for beginners and first-timers such as myself. But once I got a hang of things, I was ready to ride like the wind. I had a nice little black stallion. Black horse, black jacket, all black everything. The toughest ground to get through was going uphill in the sand because his hooves kept sliding and sinking. The only way to make it was to sprint. Me and horse Bovice almost knocked some heads off. I had to tame the breed for a second. At our pit stop in the shade halfway through, I had the best pineapple ever. How do I know? Because I didn’t like any pineapple I’ve ever had in the past. Riding on the beach was so smooth and relaxing and beautiful that I almost didn’t want to leave. But my horse had a tendency to run when other horses ran and I wasn’t complaining.

Afterwards we had some delicious barbeque. We sat outside in company of very generous hosts and a beautiful house with 14 cats! Several people had ideas of spending the night here, but we couldn’t take advantage like that. We came back to the hotel after we finished and then went to get ice cream and we watched the sunset right on the water’s edge. Today was a great day for Facebook profile pictures as you may see from the changes made by others in the group. Now we sit in the hotel once again, waiting for the night. Party time.   

It’s Sunday May 15, 2011 10:13 pm. We had another smooth day today. No plans until 6 pm dinner at quite a classy and elegant restaurant. But to start the day, I didn’t wake up until 2 pm. Late night last night I know. I woke up to only two other students being here while everyone else went either to the mall or to church or to both. The three of us were quite hungry and went down the street to find some food. There were two stores that seemed appealing, but we weren’t sure if we wanted to eat there, so we decided to leave and come back at a later time. We went instead to the flea market to buy some souvenirs. We stayed for about an hour and then went back to one of the stores that we visited earlier. The first time around, one of the waiters tried to get us to stay and we said we’d be back… Now that we were back, he decided that he wasn’t letting let us escape a second time. The first time he even came from around the back and spoke to us in English to try and make a connection. This time, he asked us to take a seat and he would serve us personally. We had no choice to but to respect his business tactics to make his paper. We sat down and placed our orders. He began to make conversation by asking where we were from and what we were studying. He even began telling us about himself and making jokes, etc. From a business perspective he definitely did his job of attracting customers, but it’s not like we didn’t know what he was doing. Anyway, the food was good and we left and came back to the hotel.

Not even an hour later, it was time to go to dinner at a place called Tierra de Fuego. It sat right on the beach’s edge with a beautiful view. As mentioned earlier, it was quite classy and professional. We all came in well dressed and had heads turning left and right (plus we are foreigners, so that didn’t hurt). We ended up staying about 2-3 hours and had one of our greatest dinners of the trip. We even managed to get a group picture on the walk back to top the night off.

ts Saturday May 14, 2011 9:57 pm. Today was quite a relaxing day. We have partied (or at least gone out of the hotel) every night this week. It was a well-deserved break for all of us. The only thing on the agenda for the day was attending the soccer game. But to start things off, most of us didn’t wake up till 11 or noon. I woke up at 10:30 am and got ready to go get cash with another student. But I think Chilean people time is sinking in because we didn’t go until about an hour after when we planned to make the trip. But anyway, we finally did go and when we came back, everyone was up and hungry. So we all decided to go to a restaurant that the two of us saw on the way back from the money exchange. After that we had about 3 hrs until the game. We watched all types of movies and shows in English and Spanish along with YouTube and World Star Hip-Hop videos. Comedy, comedy, comedy… and more comedy all day.

Soon after that, we left for the soccer game, which was about 20 walking minutes away from the hotel. Soccer truly is the world’s favorite sport (not including the US). The fans were on their feet screaming and chanting and singing and beating on drums all game. They shot off flares prior to the start and waved flags around everywhere. I’d say it was quite intense to say the least. We didn’t know who exactly to root for so we played it safe and rooted for whoever the crowd around us was cheering for. The food at the game was pretty good, especially considering it was cheap. Most sporting events in the US overprice their goods instead of under pricing them. I feel that since there was only one seller and tons of buyers, they basically were a monopoly and would have been much better off if they had just raised the price a little bit. But it is what it is. Now we are back at the hotel and I believe it’s about that time once again. It has come to be quite a routine for us these days. I shall return tomorrow.