Day 6: Vina, Lunch, Beach, Pablo's House

The days are starting to get lighter and lighter. After today, we are down to 2 more company visits and only one more lecture. We got an extra hour of sleep tonight and I took full advantage of it. I probably slept for 6 hours instead of 5. I am starting to get used to most of the Chilean customs. I have popularized once with some of the other plus three students. Two of my friends are packing bread everyday now in order to have their small meal at around five pm. This custom is something I will probably bring back since I am always hungry between lunch and dinner. I could just picture a little sandwich to eat in between. Stray dogs on the streets seem to be normal for me as of now. Most importantly though I am starting to understand more of the language and sometimes even help translate for some of my friends. The company visit today was with Vina Indomica, a vineyard in the Casablanca region. The tour was short but sweet. We saw the production process and the aging process. The tour concluded with a wine tasting with instructions on how to properly asses a wine. This was probably my favorite visit so far. We then hopped on the bus for an hour long ride to isla negra for lunch and a tour of one of Pablo Nueradas house. The lunch had a beautiful view! It was a typical lunch for Chile considering it took around two hours from start to finish. Our tour was not assigned until 4 pm so we had a little over an hour of time to kill. We walked to the beach that the restaurant overlooked. It was truly beautiful, I walked all over the rocks and tried to keep climbing and ended up falling shin deep into water. Worth it though, it was a great experience. The tour we then went to was completely in Spanish! I had two strong Spanish speakers in my group so they helped me out for some words that I didn’t know, but I am still surprised at how much I knew considering I haven’t taken a language class since my junior year of high school. I am now on the bus back to our hotel where I plan to get empanadas, groceries, and rest up. Once again, the Chilean students will be taking us out again.

Day 5: Lecture, Mushrooms, Dance

Today included going to a lecture about Chilean culture and music, going to a mushroom farm, and our final dance class of the trip. This was another early morning where I stocked up on bread to eat throughout the day. We took the city bus into the university again. This is becoming routine for me which is great considering the first day on the city bus was something that kind of scared me about the city. Lecture today was interesting! We got to watch some Chilean ads and it was cool to see the difference between how the two cultures and how they try to portray their product to the public. One of the main difference is that family is the most important thing in the Chilean culture. Pretty much every ad we saw was showing an entire family using the product and enjoying each other’s time. Number two I believe would be football. They love soccer here as we could tell from the Everton game we went to. They are a division two team. In America, a minor league team has about a thousand fans and not many passionate. The game we went to earlier in the week had an entire section of probably close to 1,000 and they were jumping and singing the entire time. The Mushroom factory was our longest visit so far. Once we got to the place, there was an overwhelming smell from all of the mulch and manure and it almost caused a gag reaction. We were given a tour by one of the owners so that was really nice. I saw the entire process from making the mulch to growing the mushrooms to packaging the mushrooms and then how they ship it. Tonight was our last dance class this week. It was actually a hard workout! Our instructor had us moving up and down the college floor for an hour. These dance classes are much more fun than I thought they would be. I am hoping to use what Ive learned tonight when the Chilean students take us out to the casino for a discoteca. I feel like even after these four dance classes I still look silly trying to dance though! It is all good fun though. So far, I am really happy with my trip to Chile. This is us trying to show the dance we learned!

Day 4: Lecture, LAN, Salsa

Yesterday I was very, very busy. I ended up waking up at seven-fifteen and did not go to bed until a little bit after four am. I was up for close to 24 hours! The day started with my standard breakfast bread and I also grabbed some bread for an on-bus once meal, which is a small meal that is common for Chileans to eat around five PM. It is normally a piece of bread with cheese or meat to hold someone over until dinner. After taking the crazy city bus to the university, we had a lecture on the culture of Chile. I am pretty sure that the bus driver accelerates during turns just to scare the customers. I enjoyed this lecture more than the first and it was very interactive. The lecture ended and we grabbed lunch in the cafeteria with all of the students from the university. I still haven’t had a conversation with a random student, but that is something that I would like to try in the next couple of days or so. We then bussed to LAN airlines and I changed into the steel-toed boots. The person who gave the tour is an engineer that maintains the planes when they come into the hangar for inspection. He was very knowledgeable and brought up some good points. Basically, if you want to work internationally anywhere in Latin America it is a necessity to be bilingual. This has got me thinking that learning a completely new language is something that will probably be very beneficial. Salsa was next on the list and this was the intermediate level of the class. There was a lot of stepping on other peoples feet. Salsa is something that I have enjoyed so far and I am looking forward to using my new found skills at a club. To finish the day we went to a pub. I am still not used to being of age to do almost anything. I have not even been asked for my ID once. We got a lot of funny looks from the natives, but it was fun to hangout with the rest of my Plus3 students as well as students from USM.

Day 3: A visit to the capital of Chile

Today started with an early breakfast followed by an hour and a half bus ride into the capital of the country, Santiago. This bus ride consisted of me sleeping the entire time since last night I didn’t get to sleep until around 2:30. Something I have noticed is that the Chileans stay up so late even when they go out to bars or clubs. I can tell already that once I hit my bed at home I will sleep for probably two straight days. We started our day at the Chilean stock exchange. We received a power point presentation followed by a question and answer section. The power point of the stock exchange was very informative and provided a good overview of basic supply and demand and how it affects money instruments. Since I am a first year student I still am not that familiar with these money instruments, but I definitely learned a lot. One of the main topics of discussion was the MILA which is the trade agreement between Columbia, Chile, and Peru. We then had a bus/walking tour of the city. The main stops was the “white house” of Chile and a very large cathedral that I forget the name of. Both were very nice, but we could only view the capital but it still was a sight to see. We went on an incline that was very, very steep and caused a couple of the students a little bit of anxiety. Something that I haven’t mentioned yet that is a big factor is the fact that there are stray dogs on almost every street you walk on. This is just a very big cultural difference that I have noticed. I actually like the dogs though. They give me some friendship for the quick ten minutes I get to walk with them. After we left the city we drove straight to the university and had our first reggaeton lesson. This was non-stop moving for an hour. I am now back at the room after a dinner with a majority of the other students and could not be more tired. I have to wake up in about 6 hours so I will update tomorrow!

Day 2: Our first look at the University

Today was a good day. It started off at 7:30 am with a traditional Chilean breakfast. I had a hard bread circle with jam and it was surprisingly good. After realizing that lunch does not start until after 1 pm I am going to have to eat way more than one piece of bread to hold me over. We started our actual day with a tour of the university of 6,000 students or as I am getting used to 6.000 students. The period and comma our switched in pretty much every country but the United States. The tour was a nice one and I definitely noticed some difference between the two countries. The Chilean university, or as they call it the U or Uni, is completely closed in by a fence just like most other Chilean buildings that I’ve seen in Vina Del Mar. The university was very nice! After we had our tour we had our lunch with the students. This was an experience that was different from most lunches I have had before. It was so packed and I was forced to sit with only one friend to sit next to many students native to the university. Conversations in Spanish were all around us and I felt like my friend and I were out of place. It was fun however, there was a couple that were French kissing next to us and this was seen as normal to the population of Chile. We then had our first salsa class. This was great and awkward at the same time. This started with a solo portion and then the couples portion felt much more natural to me. It was very fun, but I am still sure that I am not a very good dancer. For the first time, I went to a bar where I was able to drink which is completely different from anything that I have done before. Karaoke was very fun and this was a good time to meet some of the other Chilean students. There is a video of some of us singing the Backstreet Boys, but I do not have the courage to post that up here. Sorry! Another good day in Chile and I am looking forward to a tour of Santiago tomorrow.

Day 1: Arrival

After leaving the University of Pittsburgh at 12 pm yesterday, we finally arrived in Santiago, Chile. Our journey began with taking Pittsburgh’s 28X to the airport. We flew straight to Miami and had a three hour layover where we went to a group lunch at TGI Fridays. Knowing we were going to be on a flight for eight hours I stuffed myself! The food was so good and this was one of our first bonding experiences as an entire group. I could tell I was really going to enjoy myself in Chile. This dinner took around two hours which was perfect because as we finished and walked back to our gate the plane was getting ready to board. Fast forward eight hours of me sleeping and I wake up to a breakfast on my tray table and the pilot saying we will be landing in 25 minutes. Walking off the plane it hits me that I am no longer the native. The first thing we have to go through is immigration and that was an experience in itself. Chile only accepts perfectly crisp and clean bills and this is something close to none of us had. A simple process was drawn out greatly due to everybody switching up bills with everybody else. I pass through and while getting my bag we saw dogs walking around by themselves. These were the most well trained dogs I have seen in my life. I was so surprised that they just let the dogs do the job of bomb security that in America also takes a policeman to walk around then with. As weird as it sounds, another thing I noticed different about Chile was the toilets had a trash can next to it. After finally translating the sign on the stall, I realized I had to throw out the toilet paper in the garbage. This is something that I would have to get used to soon unless I wanted to clog the toilets. We took out our first pesos and hopped on the bus for a two hour ride. I went to the casino to check it out. It seemed fairly normal. Something that was different from us is that they do not card pretty much at all. After talking to our Chilean student counter-part he agreed. Dinner was at a tiki bar and I tried to get an authentic dish. I got the Lomo a lo pobre which is a steak with a fried egg on top. In my opinion this was not the greatest of meals. My friend and I went back to the Casino to spend the rest of our free evening. After being up 80000 pesos, I got too greedy and tried to chase losses and ended up losing close to $30. All in all a fun night however and I am ready to head to bed to wake up for a 7:30 breakfast and 8:30 bus ride into the university to get a tour.

Anticipation

Today is May 5th. To some, this is Cinco De Mayo and there is a huge celebration. For me, there is a celebration, but for another reason. Today is the day that I leave for the country of Chile. This trip is going to have so many firsts for me! This is the first time I have ever studied abroad and this is the first time that I have traveled to the continent of South America. As an 18 year old college student of the United States, I hope to be treated as, and act as, an 18 year old Chilean college student. I do not want any special treatment and would like to live the next few weeks as any standard Chilean university student would. To be fully involved in something means a lot to me and this is the way that I would learn the most about a completely different culture than ours. Speaking of different cultures, something that is different down south is that they are very personal and get close to others while talking and even in their greetings. Even though at some points I can be an awkward person, I hope this will help me grow as an individual and make me feel more comfortable in group and even one-on-one settings. Another thing I find interesting is that there is no time difference. If I sleep on the entire plane flight I should wake up feeling completely refreshed and ready to start the day. This is something that I have never done before in traveling due to the jet-lag. Something that I am going to miss is my family and my friends, but meeting new people for a couple of weeks should be a nice change of pace. So far, all of my fellow plus3 members seem to be very nice and I have connected with a few of them. All in all, I am very excited for this trip and can't wait to study abroad in the South America country of Chile!

Here is the first picture! It is me at the airport checking my computer.