Day 12: Heading Home =(

Well, Plus3 Chile 2012 has sadly come to an end. Thursday me and a few others woke up and got our last Chilean breakfast. I finally got my over-seas hot chocolate to fuel my already ridiculous addiction to it. Their hot chocolate is much thicker and chocolate-y in case you were curious. At noon we went back to Tiki Taco to make the restaurant our first and last meal in Chile.It was nice to look back at two weeks ago when we barely knew each other to now, where we know each other so well. Other than that, it was a lot of traveling to airports, standing in airports and being on planes. It took about 28 hours from when I got on the bus to go to Santiago to when I arrived at my house. Overall a long day, but I wouldn't change anything because it meant more time spent with my friends. I probably won't be able to see anyone over the summer because we live so far apart, but I look forward to our reunion at Pitt!

International Hot Chocolate

Day 11: HORSES!!!

By far the best day of the trip and possibly ever. We rode horses for 3 hours. But we didn't just ride horses-- we rode horses EVERYWHERE: on the beach, on the sand dunes, in the woods, etc. I used to ride horses when I was little so I was very excited to do it again but I was mildly nervous. We all had an amazing time. Everything was sooo pretty. I tried taking a few pictures, but cameras wouldn't do it justice. From the beach we could see the rest of the city in the background, and on the sand dunes it was legitimately just windswept sand dunes. To be perfectly honest, if I saw everything in a picture or TV I would have thought it was Photoshopped. For the first 2 hours we mainly walked a bit and trotted. I remembered how to post/ ride somewhat correctly which was nice. Basically, it means my butt hurts a little less than most people's right now. For the last hour, we turned around and went back on the beach. Some of that time we got to gallop. That was amazing. I was a little nervous because I last time I went that fast it was by accident when a horse just sped off. The instructor told me the horse wanted to be with his friend, as if that was comforting that I almost fell of a galloping horse. Either way, it was sooo much fun to do that, no matter how nervous I might have been. I personally love the wind in my face for some weird reason and galloping on the beach did exactly that. When we got back to the barn we had a delicious lunch. They grilled us pork and steak and lots of other rices and salads. We literally ate like kings. We were sitting around the fire and I mentioned that it was the perfect time for a s'more and the women who hosted us went inside and grabbed some marshmallows! She had never heard of a s'more before and when we explained it she didn't seem to like the idea. Oh well, more for us =) We grabbed some oreo-type cookies and had a few make-shift s'mores to make the day complete. We hung around for a while, looked at the animals on the farm, and enjoyed our last full day in Chile. For dinner we went out to a pizza place (fancy pizza, not regular) with a lot of the Chilean students for one last hoorah. Everything was very delicious and I'm glad we were able to say goodbye to the Chilean students. We head home tomorrow and I'm so sad to leave everything and everyone.

Day 10: Pastries and Paintball

The tough Team Rojo

Today we were able to experience more of Vina del Mar. A small group of us woke up a little early and walked around and looked for breakfast. We stopped at a small pastry and bread shop and got delicious fresh bread and other deserts. My pastry was very similar to a honey cake, and was very tasty, although huge. After that we walked around and went into another little market-type tent area to look at all the other things they had. More scarves and jewelry and souvenirs. I'm planning on what else I need to get people, now that we have another place to go. Completely by accident, we ran into the rest of our group as we were walking to the beach. We all enjoyed the warmer weather and ocean and took pictures all together. After that we headed back and prepared for paintball. I had never played paintball but I thought it might be fun. We all had a good time, although the other team won all of the games. I certainly have to work on my aim, but everyone else was struggling so it was more of a free-for-all. But hey, randomness is also fun. After paintball we came back, cleaned off the paint and some of us went for Chinese food. We wanted to see how different Chilean Chinese food was from United States east coast Chinese food. Our waiter was from the United States so he helped us with the menu. It turns out their Chinese food is a bit different; they didn't have General Tso's chicken or even sweet and sour chicken. I got a dish the waiter liked the best and he said was close to sweet and sour chicken, but with pineapples. It was delicious. Tomorrow is our last day and we finally get to ride horses on the beach! I can't wait!!!

Day 9: Hardware and Tomatoes and Cueca!

We had a super busy day today. First we went to visit Hela, a hardware company. We got a tour of the plant and the different stages to make paintbrushes and other equipment. I used to work at a hardware store and saw all of those items, although not Hela's, on a regular basis so it was cool to see them being produced. I hadn't realized that there are so many steps to produce one paintbrush. After Hela we drove to Centauro, a canned food company. We talked to the owner of Centauro and he discussed all of their products, and how they even change the name of their brand to seem more Italian to appeal to that business in the US. He let us taste their canned peaches and tomato paste. I thought the peaches were so good, and even better than the ones we have at home. The owner mentioned that their peaches are very popular and they don't have any preservatives or much additives so that may be why they tasted so good. Centauro just started production on squashes/pumpkins for the first time. The owner seemed very excited that they were venturing into this line. He let us have a taste of the pumpkin puree and it was actually really good. We stopped for a late lunch of empanadas and then had cueca lessons (we were very Chilean today with both). Cueca is Chile's national dance and our instructors came with the "costumes" for it. Cueca is much slower than the other dances we learned so that made it a bit difficult, although it was mostly walking around in circles while the men "wooed" the woman. It was cool to try the national dance because salsa and reggueton are both Latin American dances so we could have learned them anywhere. That was all for today. Its amazing how we've been ending early the past few days but still doing so much.

Day 8: Soccer and lectures

We had an easier day. We had our final lecture at USM today and presented our companies to Jamie. We had a lot to discuss because we had visited Bosques del Mauco and got much more information than the website gave us. After presentations and our final questions to Jamie, we had our last lunch at the university and headed back to the hotel for a quick break before we played more soccer. It was weird for me to finally play this time because I haven't played soccer in three years, and I definitely missed playing it. We split the games up by guys and girls so us girls had a lot of fun joking around and playing while the guys took it seriously playing with Chileans again. It was a close game and we all took a few tumbles from either the turf or the interesting contact moments we had. After soccer we went shopping some more. Many people hadn't been at the mall yet and people wanted to look around and even try to get some of the types of the clothes the Chileans wear. They are always dressed up pretty well, and a couple of the girls wanted to get their shoes and jackets and such. Once the mall got a little too American for us, we went back to the tent outside too look at the hand made things again. We ran into a few girls that went to school in Arkansas and were studying abroad for 3 month. Their classes were actually in the hotel they were staying at and their teacher just taught from there. I personally would rather actually going to a university for classes, especially since they were Spanish majors and well versed in Spanish. Either way the experience would be amazing. I can't believe this trip is almost over. I keep realizing that we leave in a few days, especially since we had our last lecture today.

Day 7: Free Day!

Today was a free day. I finally caught up on sleep (yay!) and ventured out for breakfast. We walked around the area by our hotel looking at all of the stores and restaurants. We realized how weird it was to see the people around the town in daylight because we are usually only in Vina del Mar at night. We found a little cafe, and I finally had some hot chocolate! My trip is now complete because I've now fueled my hot chocolate addiction internationally! It was a bit interesting because they kept coming over because they didn't have enough food. We ended up having 5 sandwiches for 6 people. Oops. After eating we walked around and aimed for the mall. There were many tents out selling things for Mother's Day. I bought some thing for my mom and dad, and some souvenirs for myself. We finally got to the mall. Its the biggest mall I've ever seen. We left pretty quickly because it was more American stores which we could have gone to when we go home. We dropped our stuff off back at the hotel and went for a walk by the beach. The beach was so nice and we took so many pictures. The Chileans thought we were entertaining posing for pictures by the freezing water. There were more stores so we decided to stop and look around again. Many of the stores were up because it was a Sunday which is very family-oriented and because it was Mother's Day. We headed back and got dressed up for dinner. Dinner was at this nice restaurant that was right along the shore. It was pretty funny when we realized we were eating there because we actually noticed how nice the restaurant was when we walked by it a few short hours ago.  Tierra de Fuego was so good. I got the house filet and it was muy delicioso! We all had a great time and head back for the night. Our last lecture is tomorrow and our last time at USM. This trip is going by so quickly I can't believe it. 

Day 6: SPA!

Today was so much fun. We got to sleep in (always a plus) and then went to the Spa. It was more like a resort than a spa, but it doesn't matter what you would call it, it was so pretty. There were palm trees and pools everywhere. First, we played soccer against the Chilean students. I contributed by staying off the soccer court, which I think was quite helpful. I think we held our own for Americans, although the beat us in all but one of the games. We played a lot of Foosball and played games with the DJ. Some brave people decided to go swimming in the freezing cold water. I was jealous at first because the pool was so nice and it was pretty warm, but their shivering reminded me how terrible of an idea it was. Lunch was the most delicious thing ever. Any time I turned around I saw something else I wish I had on my plate. We sang Happy Birthday to Abby and Allison and embarrassed them a bit. After lunch we played more foosball and ping pong. We spent a long and interesting bus ride to go to Werner's house, where he held a barbecue for us. More good food and foosball. Tomorrow is a free day so it will be a lot of fun.