Chao, Chao Chile!

Saying good-bye to my Chilean family and friends was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  My two weeks in Chile was the best experience of my life so far, and I will never forget it.  My favorite thing of all of Chile is the people there.  They are so friendly and I also had a blast spending time with them. 

My last week in Chile was definitely tiring.  Along with classes, all of the UNI students tried to do everything that we wanted to do during our last week.  Monday night, our "primos" (literally meaning cousins, but they are our conversation partners) threw a party for us.  They invited us over to one of the prima's houses and made completos for us.  Completos are really big hot dogs with guacamole, mayo, and tomatoes.  I am not a big fan of hot dogs, but I do enjoy eating these.  They are kind of hard to eat because they load all the ingredients on it.  Still, very delicious!

Katie and I eating completos

Wednesday was a relieving day.  We had our final exam in culture that day.  Once it was over, we felt that we were free!  Not exactly though, because we still had classes on Thursday and Friday, but we had nothing due.  We just had to go for activities.  Later in the afternoon, we all met downtown at Schopdog.  It is a restaurant where they are known for their huge rockets full of beer.  We didn't go there for the beer though.  We met there to discuss our plans on how we were getting home.  We found out that the border closes at midnight on Monday morning and didn't open until 7 or 8 am.  Therefore, we needed to discuss where we were going to stay in Tacna, Peru on Sunday night, and if we were wanting to go by taxi or bus. 

After our meeting, Allyson Berry, Katie Wencl, Katie Kinsella, Rachel Zidon, and I walked around downtown and did a little shopping.  I ended up buying a pink and black scarf.  I love it!  Eventually, we went to Dimango's and got ice cream.  They have the BEST ice cream... and it is really cheap, too.  There we met up with our Chilean friends, Romina and Cynthia.  We said good-bye to Allyson and Rachel and the rest of us walked around downtown for a while.  We also walked to the beach and captured some awesome photos. 

Katie Wencl, Katie Kinsella, me, and Romina

Me and Cynthia

After classes on Thursday, our coordinator arranged for Rachel Zidon, Katie Wencl, Allyson Berry, and I to go visit a Junior College.  Students at this school ranged from elementary to high school level.  The four of us were chosen to go because we are all teaching majors.  The other three girls are TESOL majors and I am a Spanish-Teaching major.  At the school, we stopped in 3 classrooms that were learning English.  We first observed the room and then later had to go in front of the room and speak in English and in Spanish about the topic they were learning about that day.  We felt like celebrities because everyone was coming up to us and asking to take photos with us.  It was pretty funny. 

Later in the day, Rachel Zidon, Katie Wencl, and I went over to Cynthia's house to eat supper and hang out.  We watched the movie, "Despicable Me" (in Spanish), and tried to converse in Spanish as much as we could.  Later on in the night we hung out with her whole family and just talked with them.  It was a pretty fun night.  It wasn't over yet, though.  After we were done at her house, I went out with some of the group to the casino.  I didn't go there to gamble; I went there for karaoke!  All of us picked out English songs to sing... we didn't want to try any of the Spanish songs, haha.  Once it hit 1 o'clock we decided to go home.  We had class at 8 in the morning!

Katie Kinsella, Allyson Berry, and me

Friday was our last day of classes.  We only had one and we went there to find out our grades and to talk about how the class went for us in the two months.  Once the class was over we all went home and got ready for our closing ceremony.  The ceremony was pretty short and sweet.  We got our certificates and gifts and then headed over to the restaurant called Lo Nuestro.  There we had a buffet and said our good-byes to our professors and to the rest of the people we wouldn't see later.  It was there when everything started hitting me that some of these people I may never see again.  Which made me feel very sad.  The rest of the weekend we tried to go out, have fun, and spend time with all of our Chilean friends.  It was definitely a lot of fun, but always in the back of my mind I would think that this all was coming to an end. 

Sunday I packed up all of my things.  I actually found it easier to pack everything up than I thought.  Usually it takes me forever to even get started.  While I was packing, I wanted to empty out one of my duffle bags that had been sitting in my closet to repack it.  As I was reaching in to pull things out, suddenly I saw a big, black thing move really fast in the bag.  I freaked out, haha - creeped out.  That bug was so HUGE and gross. 
After I finished packing, our family took us over to our host dad's parent's house.  We ate lunch there and hung out with the family.  I really enjoyed spending time with them and talking.  It was amazing, because I felt like I actually was understanding everything they were saying and was able to have a conversation with all of them.  Eventually they had to take Allyson, my roommate, and me to the terminal.  They drove us there and we ended up running into Kim, our leader, and her Chilean boyfriend, Javier.  We originally thought we were going to take a taxi, but we decided to ride in the bus with Kim and Javier.  We didn't think we were going to take the bus, because we heard it wasn't as safe as a taxi.  Since we would be with Kim and Javier we knew we would be fine.  Taking a bus is a lot cheaper as well, so it saved us money.  There in the terminal we said our good-byes.  Some of our primos came to say good-bye to us, too.  It was really emotional.  I hugged everyone like a hundred times saying good-bye.  I was told to get on the bus and we all got on and looked through the ends and waved to all our friends and family.  It was so sad.  I didn't want to say chao.  Eventually, our bus left and we headed to Tacna, Peru where we would stay the night.

The next morning we took taxis to the Tacna airport.  We all got in line and ordered our tickets.  Unfortunately, the airplane ran out of spots on the plane and some of our group was told that they were not going to get on the plane and would have to wait for the next one later in the day.  So, we said good-bye to those students and got on the plane.  We were all sitting there ready to go, when all of the sudden we saw the students on the plane.  They had extra spots and were able to get on.  We were so thankful.  We did not want to split the group up.  Later, we arrived in the Lima airport.  There we had a 14 hour layover that we all were dreading.  It actually didn't turn out that bad.  We watched movies on laptops, ate in the restaurants, and some people even left and toured Lima for a little bit.  When we were able to go check in, we found out that our flight was delayed about an hour.  So, the crew had to reschedule all of our flights.  Some of us didn't get all of our tickets printed, but we thought we were all on the same flights.  It also turned out that instead of getting home about 3 pm, we were going to get home around 6 pm.  This made a few of the students uneasy, but I was just happy that we were still going to get home on the same day.

The flight from Lima to Atlanta went very smooth for me.  I slept most of the time.  When we arrived in Atlanta, I went up to the front desk to ask them to print my tickets for the next flights.  There I found out that I wasn't even on the same flight as everyone else to get to Minneapolis.  The group was leaving at 12:10 and Allyson Berry, Liz Bauer, and I were on the flight at 1:50.  I was happy I wasn't alone, but I was upset at first because I thought it screwed up my next flight.  They told me I would catch my next flight with the rest of the group though.  Everything went fine and we met up with our group in Minneapolis.  When we tried to leave Minneapolis to get to Cedar Rapids we noticed that they were taking forever to board.  It turned out that they had some maintenance problems.  We eventually boarded and our plane pulled out, but we sat for about a half hour.  I was starting to get really anxious.  I just wanted to get done flying and be home.  Our plane landed in Cedar Rapids about a half hour later than planned.  It was definitely a tiring trip back home. 

Our families greeted all of us when we came off the plane.  We grabbed our bags and said our final good-byes to our group.  This part was sad for me as well.  I just kept saying, "I'll see you in three weeks!"  I have been with this group for 2 months and saw them everyday.  Now our trip was actually over.  I always will remember my summer in Chile.  It was definitely an amazing experience and I miss Chile and everyone so much!  I do consider Chile to be my second home.  I want to go back someday to visit or maybe study for a semester there.  Who knows?  All I know is is that I want to go back.  I will always have Chile in my heart.  For now though.. Chao, Chao Chile!