Finding My Way In Chile: January 2015

DAY 1
I landed in Chile on the 21st of January at 11am. The plane ride was 12 hours long and I couldn't sleep. When we were landing on the runway, I couldn't help but think that it looked so much like Awanui! Once we went through customs and immigration we were met by Patricio and his family who would be our stopover host and tour guide during our stop over. We went straight to the hotel to drop off our bags and change so we could sit down and have lunch. We had a raw mushroom and onion starter, which I didn't like mostly because of the raw mushrooms but also because the sauce was so strange, but I ate as much as I could. Then we had the option of salmon or pasta for main and I chose the pasta which was really good. Through this whole meal we all looked like zombies we were so tired that we would just stare at things for ages unintentionally. We had a really nice brownie for pudding which not many of us finished because we were so full. We all had to go upstairs for a presentation which made me so tired my head was spinning and my eyes were so droopy, after the presentation we went to the mall for three hours. The mall is the tallest in the southern hemisphere and is 60 stories high. I felt much better when we started walking around although trying to buy stuff was quite a mission, the checkout people would try to talk to us and we would say that we don't understand and they would laugh at us and keep on talking to us in Spanish. In the malls or shops in New Zealand each shop plays different music really loud and that is what signifies that you are in a different store but in Chile it is the different smells, every store has sprayed probably 50 bottles of perfume in their store, so that their smell is different to the others, it was so horrible because I started to feel so ill and I felt my head spinning. The most in your face thing about Chile that I noticed was the PDA's everyone is pashing and hugging and touching, it is sooooooo odd to see that every where you look, all us kiwi's couldn't believe it was so normal.
DAY 2
I was so tired from the day before that I slept the whole night through without a sleeping pill, so I was rejuvenated for day 2 . We went out to Valparaiso, which took about an hour and a half. We went to the Parliament place where we saw a live session taking place, the head of Chambers was the daughter of the last president before the dictatorship and was a cousin of some famous writer which we had never heard of. When we were walking through a small market a man came up to Reumah who is also staying in Chile and started reciting a love poem to her and then shouted at her and pleaded for money, it was so strange. We then went down to the wharf and jumped on a boat which took us around the harbour so we could see the whole of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. After lunch the weather cleared up and we bussed down to Vina del Mar, to be honest the intention was for us all to go swimming, which sounded like a great idea, but first of all you had to pay to go into the toilets, yes, PAY to use the bathroom! And then we found out that there was no toilet paper. As well as pay to use the toilet you also had to bring your own toilet paper. We just couldn't believe it. So we got changed and went down to the beach expecting to have a nice swim and sunbath a bit before leaving, what a mistake! Apparently all beaches are like this, the beach water smelled so bad, it looked alright but the smell! I didn't swim but three other kiwi students decided to brave it and went out, they went past all the locals who were swimming so close to the shore. The kiwi's did a normal kiwi thing to go out as far as you like in the sea not realising that they were actually breaking the Chilean law. Woops! What a hullabaloo that turned out to be, if you are ever swimming at a beach in Chile don't swim out further that 10 meters! Later that night at about 8pm we set off for dinner at Los Buenos Muchachos with other Rotarians from the hosting club and a couple of students that were already in Chile and a rot-ex who is from Duniden. She is working back in Chile for a year. So the dinner was also a cultural dance show and karaoke and party, during our starters was the karaoke part, and after we had finished those we were shown the local dances of the northern and southern Chile and Rapanui. When the dancers show you how it is done they come down into the audience and hold out a hankie or a twirly thing and someone of the opposite sex has to accept it and join them in the dance, so I got up and joined in and it was so easy for me because the man just dragged me around the stage and I just had to twirl the pom pom thing, but it was lots of fun. Another girl Shante joined in with the Quica, that is with the hankies. We got Reumah to join in with the Rapanui dances and she was given a flower crown and a lei, and made the star/ princess of the dance, it was so funny! Didn't leave the restaurant till 1am because we were dancing. Our room didn't go to sleep till about 4am and we were supposed to be up at 4am the next morning.
Day 3
All those who were staying in Chile had to pack up all of our stuff and put it in our chaperones room so we could check out of our room, as that night we would be picked up by our Host parents. We set off in the bus to be real touristy and do sight seeing. we watched the changing over of the guards and got a picture with a hot as guard. we went through the Mercado central which is a huge as shed ( but a bit more fancier than that) were they have the markets, it sold mostly fish and veggies although there were a couple of restaurants, to be honest the smell was something you would have to get used to. we walked down the back street to meet the bus which had just stopped in the middle of the road to wait for us, making all the other cars squeeze around it, this is normal the bigger the vehicle you have the more important you are on the road so the busses and trucks can stop wherever and whenever they like. while we waited Patricio went to a bakery to get us cheese empanadas, I shared mine with Reumah, it was very filling. We stopped so many times for a minute or so, so we could get a quick snap of a plaza or a building or church. As we were driving on the motorway which the speed limit was 120 km p/h and driving on the right hand side of the road (it felt like I was going to die), my camera, which was really annoying because we were going to go up this huge mountain to look over the city and see the Andes more clearly and walk to the top were there was a giant Santa Maria/ Mary looking like Jesus from Rio. I couldn't really see the Andes because of the smog, which is understandable when you know that 7 million people live in Santiago alone that like almost double New Zealand in one city. When we had had enough of that we jumped back on the bus and travelled an hour west to have a bbq with the hosting Rotary club at a Rotarians house. It was nice an relaxing we swam and watched the welcoming dancers, which is a custom thing in Chile. And just relaxed for the rest of the day till 7.30 when we packed up said our goodbyes and thank you's to the host club and headed back to the hotel where I would be meet by Monica and Victor, my host mum and her nephew. That night we stayed up till almost midnight talking and laughing.
So that was what we did on the stopover, it was a really good time, and I feel really relaxed with being in Chile.
I have uploaded all the photo's I took during this time to Facebook.
Talk to ya soon.

Finding My Way In Chile

Sunday 25 January 2015

Santiago stop over

Sunday 18 January 2015

Packed and ready to go!

Tuesday 6 January 2015

The Very Begining