Farewell Chile!

It’s time to say goodbye to Chile.  It’s about 11:30pm Sunday night as I write this.  Tomorrow at about 4pm I’ll be boarding a bus with my entire luggage to head to the airport in Santiago.  My plane leaves at 9 pm.  It’s about an 11-hour flight to Toronto, where we have about a 3-hour layover before flying for 2 hours to Minneapolis.  If all goes as planned I’ll land in Minneapolis at 10:30am Tuesday. 

 

We got back from Buenos Aires safely on Thursday.  Most of the others in our group have either gone home already or are still traveling, so it feels kind of weird to be back in Vina alone with no one to hang out with.  It’s been kind of nice to have a couple days to just do whatever without having to worry about classes or anything.

On Thursday, after I got back to Vina, there was a temblor (a tremor), but it was kind of strong and kind of freaked me out.  More continued during the afternoon and evening. There was another pretty strong one at about 5 am.  They don't last more than a minute usually, but they are strong enough to make the pictures on the wall sway back and forth and the whole house creaks and moans.  There were some more on Friday, but I haven't noticed any since then.  This whole time in Chile I only noticed a temblor on one other occasion when I was reading in my bed and it was pretty weak.  These ones were stronger.  At least if an earthquake is coming I won't need to worry about it!

On Friday I walked around town a little and went to the Feria Artesenal to look for some last minute gifts to bring back.  I packed up a good portion of my stuff so I would have an idea of how much room I have.  Surprisingly, it looks like everything is going to fit no problem, probably because I’m leaving some books behind and some clothes that didn’t survive the trip.  Saturday I was really lazy and didn’t do much of anything except do a little more packing and talk to a bunch of people on Skype.  Today I wandered around town some more.  Went to the beach and browsed for gifts at the little vendor huts that are along side of the beach, and got a little sun burnt in the process. 

 

Then I went to the mall.  I felt like I was back in the US doing last minute Christmas shopping.  It was busy as hell; there were Christmas decorations everywhere; there was Christmas music playing in the background; signs announcing Rebajas de Navidad or Christmas sales; kids waiting in line to see Santa (or El Viejito Pascuero as they say here).  Many of the stores in the mall are the same as in the US.  It’s very easy to forget you’re in South America when in the mall.  I went directly to the food court and got a personal pizza from Telepizza.  It took a long time to get and after that I just wanted to get the hell out of there because I knew what the rest of the day would entail—it was busy and I didn’t want to have to deal with lines and crowds of people.  But I also wanted to find a Chile shirt.  This whole time in Chile I have not come across any type of sweatshirt that says Chile—only soccer jerseys and lame t-shirts.  The mall wasn’t the place though; it’s so North Americanized that the only clothing stores they have are just like US clothing stores filled with overpriced brand name clothes that are made in Indonesia or India.  So I decided to go to the super huge supermarket that’s attached to the mall (this place is like sam’s club size!).  There I bought some Alfajores, a packaged South American dessert, to bring home.  I also bought a bottle of wine for the host family.  The checkout lines were really long.  Fortunately I was able to be in the express lane for 10 items or less, so that sped the process up a bit.  If there is one thing I don’t miss about Minnesota right now, besides the weather—that’s too obvious, it’s standing in lines and dealing with the crowds of people that I usually associate with Christmas shopping.  It’s funny how you can’t escape some things, even 7,000 miles away.  After that, I caught a collectivo, a shared (and cheap) cab, for my ride home. 

 

I brought my camera with me today so I could take some last photos of Vina.  I’ve realized how few pictures I have taken of the city that I’ve been living in for the past four months.

 

I’m not gonna lie, I feel like I could stay here another semester, probably because the weather is so beautiful and I feel comfortable living here by now.  That, and I know my next semester at school is going to be a pain in the a$$ with having to write a thesis in Spanish, having to teach two introductory psych. labs a week, and take 4 classes. I’m excited to see every one though and am glad I will be home for Christmas!  I just may complain a lot after the holidays about how I would rather be back in Chile! Just offering that as a fare warning to everyone.  Well, I’m off to get one last sold night’s sleep before home, since I probably won’t sleep very solidly on the overnight flight tomorrow.  See you all soon!