Last Day, May 20

Today is our last day in Chile. We got in from the party last night at about 5:00AM, and I slept in until about 12:00PM. We packed in the ‘morning’ until 1:00PM, when we went to our last lunch together. We went to Pueblo Rico, which is a Chilean-food restaurant that we have walked by almost every day these past 2 weeks. They had a special today: we could get beef, chicken, or pork ‘a lo pobre’ (with sunny-side-up eggs and onions on top) and a drink for a reduced price. The food was delicious, and it was a good way to have our last meal.

After lunch we rushed back to the hotel to get all of our stuff together and to clean up the hotel. The upstairs lobby was a bit of a mess after the night before; we had tried to finish off all of the extra snacks Chris had bought us over the week, and we had gone to McDonalds at 4:00AM. We managed to get the majority of it cleaned up, but we ended up leaving some foodstuffs that we did not want to have to check at customs in the airport.

We got to the airport at 5:00PM and headed through the international terminal. We exchanged our pesos back to USD at a 487:1 ratio; I exchanged for 430:1 at PNC bank and 460:1 when I arrived at the Santiago Airport.

I enjoyed my trip here in Chile, and I hope to be able to study abroad here next year – I know Jon was thinking about it too.

Lessons Learned: 1. Chilean airport security is more lax than U.S. security.

2. The exchange rate for  pesos depends on if you are buying or selling.

Twelfth Day, May 19

Today was our last full day here in Chile. We were allowed to sleep in until 12:00PM but I got up at 9:00AM so I could go shopping. I had breakfast alone at the hotel; the hotel staff were very nice and personally served me and asked what we had done in town.

I walked down to the boardwalk first. It was very quiet; almost no one was out besides the street sweepers. On the boardwalk almost all the shops were empty except for one scarf shop – luckily that is what I was shopping for. I then went back into town to shop at the markets. I looked around a lot, but the majority of the shops were closed, so I started walking back to the hotel. On the way back I ran into the girls, so I went shopping with them. I ended up getting a nice silver and Lapis Lazuli bracelet. At this point I was down to roughly 7,000 pesos, or $14, but I had all of my souvenirs.

At 12:00PM we met up with the rest of our group and headed over to the University for the last time. Werner gave us a lecture on coming to the University for an Exchange Program, and he had a Belgian exchange student talk to us about it. I hope to be able to study there.

After the lecture we played futbol and basketball with the Chileans, some we knew and some we did not. My team lost futbol, but we won basketbol.

After that we visited the “school store” to get some university shirts, but the school store was more of a school supplies store: they had pens, sticky-notes, and the like.

Burt and I went to the Casino. I just wanted to do 1 spin, but the machine only took 1000+ peso bills. I watched Burt use up $40; he was up $26 at one point though.  All in all, fun experience for me.

Lessons Learned: 1. La Universidad  Tecnica Federico Santa Maria has tests about every month, and if you do well enough on the tests you do not have to take the final.

2. Vina del Mar does not wake up until 12:00PM

3. Texas Hold ‘Em is not big in Vina del Mar. The casino was almost all slots.

Eleventh Day, May 18

Today was our last company visit. We visited Bolsa de Comercio Santiago, in Santiago – it is the stock exchange. We left at 8AM, and got to Santiago around 11AM. They gave us a nice overview video of Bolsa, and gave a Power Point in person, but we could not visit the trading floor. We learned that very few people use the trading floor anymore; the brokers can do all their work on computers at their offices. They had an engineer come in and answer our questions. Half of the 200 people who work at Bolsa are IT people who work on developing and maintaining the software that lets the brokers work from their offices. They were nice and gave us some calendars/planners.

After the short presentation we walked around the city. We had a bunch of school tours ask to take our picture when we went to Moneda, the capitol building. We also got to see the Chilean National History Museum.

We had dinner at a famous fish market – Donde Agusto. I had some salmon with seafood sauce, the same thing I had the day we went to Isla Negra; it was much better at Donde Agusto.

After lunch we went to San Cristobol, which is a sanctuary at the top of the mountain in the middle of Santiago. There is a shrine to Mary at the top, it was beautiful. There were a bunch of tourist shops near the top.

At night, Jon, Ryan, and I lost our room key. We had locked it in our room. We tried picking the lock, forcing the door, and forcing the window, but to no avail. We eventually got help from the staff at the hotel, but they did not have an extra key. In the end, we got the window out of its track a little, stuck our hand in with food tongs, and grabbed the key off of the nightstand.

Lessons Learned: 1. Some bathrooms in Chile cost money.

2. The stock exchange is more of a company that develops and provides services here than it is in the U.S.

3. How to pick a lock.

Tenth Day, May 17

Today was our day at the Spa. We were all tired from the horseback-riding trip the day before, so we all slept on the way to the spa. It was located in a slightly shady-looking neighborhood, but once we went past the tall bushes and fences it was very nice on the inside; it seemed strange to locate such a nice resort in the middle of a lower income neighborhood.

We started off the day at the spa by learning the rules of the pool; we needed to give our IDs to the resort to get towels, and we had to have swimming caps – they had some for sale – in order to swim. No one wanted to buy the caps, so almost no one swam. Suzie bought a cap for a souvenir and let Jon use it, but the water was so cold that Jon immediately got out of the pool. We also had about 5 Chileans who came with us; Javier had a swim cap of his own, so he was allowed to swim.

The resort had a nice indoor reception area with a gift store, some video games, and the towel area. They had an all you can eat buffet upstairs – we ate there for lunch. Outside they had 2 or more pool areas, nice picnic spots, and some food areas. We got empanadas and some ice cream at our food area. They also had a futbol court, and a heated pool. Most of us just sun-tanned outside by the big pool, I took a nap with my feet dipping in the heated pool.

After about 5 hours, we left the spa. We went over to Werner’s house for a bar-bee-que that night – he is an absolutely fantastic griller. He danced some after dinner, and even taught the Chileans some of our dances.

After the dancing we headed back to the hotel. Some of us went out to Karaoke, but about half stayed in because we had to be up in 6 hours to go to Santiago.

Lessons Learned: 1. Chileans know of the Cha-Cha Slide.

2. Chilean ketchup and other condiments come in bags.

Ninth Day, May 16

Today we got to go horseback riding. It was the first clear sunny day of the trip, perfect for being outside. We got in a van to go to the horseback riding place, we barely fit in the van, but it was still a nice and comfortable van. When we got to the ranch, we got to meet the lady who runs the place; she was very nice and friendly, she even let me borrow a hat. We all put on sunscreen to make sure we did not get sunburned while out riding the horses during the day. Then we all lined up to be given our horses; I got a nice big white horse, the only white one on the ranch. We stayed in the corral for about 20 minutes learning how to ride the horses, and also waiting for other people to get their horses. We held the reins in one hand, unlike in the U.S where we hold them in 2 hands (at least that is what I have seen); to make the horse go forward we would make a *pop* with our mouth and whip the back of the horse with the end of our reins. To stop the horse we would say “shhh” and pull back on the reins. To turn we would kick the side of the horse we wanted to turn away from, and pull to the direction we wanted to turn. While in the corral, we noticed that some of the horses had attitudes with each other. My horse bit Marquis, Morgan’s horse bit Sarah’s horse, and Julie’s horse would not listen to her.

                We left the corral and headed down to the beach, went up into a wood’s area, went up into some mountains made of sand, and then found a little glen up in the sand dunes where we took a break. It took about 2 hours to get to the break spot, so we were sore and tired. We had a snack of water and fresh-cut pineapple that was very delicious. We saddled back up and headed down to the beach for the rest of the trip back to the ranch. We got the chance to gallop on the beach, which was very scary the first time it happened, but soon I was encouraging my horse to gallop and race ahead, but then I would be told to slow down. Any time 1 horse started running, the others would too.

Once we got back to the ranch we had an excellent bar-bee-que. We had sausage, pork, beef, and some sides; it was all very good.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel. We got some ice-cream and all went out to the rocks by the sea to watch the sunset together, it was beautiful.

Lessons Learned: 1. Chileans hold the reins in one hand, not two.

2. Horses copy the other horses around them.

Eighth Day, May 15

Today was another free day. Since it was Sunday I decided to go to Mass; I got up at 11:00AM to get ready for the 12:00PM Mass – thanks Jon for setting up the alarm. I went over to church with Pat, we got a little lost, but asked for directions from some Chileans on the street and they were very helpful so we got to the church no problem. The church is about 10 blocks away from the church, and is the largest cathedral in Vina del Mar. It was very beautiful on the inside; it was a little strange how they used the newer florescent lights though. The Mass was in Spanish and was about how Jesus is our shepherd and loves us; that he is the way and the light and the truth and the gate to heaven. The Mass was very similar to the one given at St. Paul’s in Pittsburgh; they had memorized stuff to say in response to the Father. A big difference though was the lack of books or hymnals to help the congregation sing.

After church Pat and I stopped at a nice bakery that we had seen on the way to church. I got a stick with caramel custard on the inside, a sugar cookie, and a puffball filled with custard; Pat got some soft cookies covered with chocolate and 2 other types of cookies that I did not get to try; all of the cookies were delicious.

After snack we went back to the hotel and met up with some people to go shopping. We went along the beach trying to find the mall; we were lost. I bought a lollipop along the way; here the lollipops are softer and bendy. After walking around for a bit, we found Carmilo walking in the street; we could not believe our luck of having randomly run into him; he gave us directions to the mall, and we found it easily after that. The mall was huge, 4 stories tall, and full of shops. They had a lot of the same shop in different locations, like 3 McDonalds, multiple Gatsby coffee shops, and other food places; unlike in the U.S. where there is only 1 of each store. They also had ice-cream stores all over the place. We did not buy anything at the mall, but we ran into the other students – they had left an hour before us. We went outside along the beach to look at the beach vendors. We found some cool stuff, but I did not buy anything; I plan on going back before I leave though. We saw some nice sand art; there was a whale, a crab, a mermaid, a Homer Simpson, and some other large sand sculptures.

After shopping we went to a nice pizza shop and got 2 large pizzas and a 2.5 liter drink for about $25 U.S. It was very good and very filling.

We went to Tierra de Fuego for dinner; it was a very fancy restaurant and good.

Lessons Learned: 1. Malls in Chile are much like those in the U.S., but they have multiple of certain shops at the Chilean malls.

2. Chilean Mass is just like U.S. Mass.

Seventh Day, May 14

Today was our first rest day. I woke up at 11:20AM to tell Jon to post his blog, then went back to bed and finally woke up at 1:45 PM. We had gotten to bed at 5:00AM the night before.

I went shopping with some of the girls; we stopped at a few places in Vina del Mar. We went to a dollar-store type place with some pretty good deals, but very eclectic items.

After the dollar store we went to the Vina market. We walked around 3 hallways full of vendors and got to see a lot of cool Chilean items. One guy was even working on his stock and showed us how he cut steel into shapes; he turns coins and spoons into jewelry.

Then we had lunch at a nice diner. It looked a little shady on the first floor, but once we went up to the second floor it had a very open room with nice furniture and a beautiful view of the street. I had a nice piece of meat with sunny-side-up eggs, onions, and French fries. The French fries were the best I had had yet in Chile, I do not care for Chilean fries.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel to meet up for a futbol game. We watched Everton play; it was 2-2 at the end of the second period, but we did not stay for overtime. The stadium was about the quality of my high school’s stadium, but the food was amazing and very well priced, I prefer it to the States’ stadium experience. On the way back I talked to Andres in Spanish and learned a lot about Chilean culture.

Lessons Learned: 1. Even small fubol teams have a ton of crazy fans.

2. There are plenty of live cut wires over the streets of Vina del Mar.

Sixth Day, May 13

Today we had no company visits, we just looked around various small towns and went to Isla Negra, the house of Pablo Neruda.

We got to a small town at about 11:00 AM, and found out that we would not be going to Isla Negra until 4:00PM, so we were very confused. We first went around a lower income area and saw a lot of interesting things. There was a castle, and some solar panels on a roof; we saw a pack of dogs, and even went to the tomb of a famous poet.

After visiting the tomb, we went to another town to eat lunch; it was a very nice seafood restaurant, I had scallops, mussels, and Salmon with rice and shrimp.

After lunch we went to go see the largest pool in the world. It was empty, but it was 20 acres big, and we heard it was 115 feet deep. The guard was nice enough to let us into the pool area and take pictures, and then we also got to see a beautiful beach with huge waves and nice sand.

Then we went to Isla Negra to see Pablo Neruda’s – a famous poet – house. It looks normal on the outside, but on the inside it was designed to look like the inside of a boat. We took a tour in Spanish, with Jorge – our professor – translating. It is also a museum and Neruda’s burial place. They had a very nice gift shop with posters and stuff of his poems.

After Isla Negra we drove home in a very, very thick fog; our bus driver was very good.

Lessons Learned: 1. There are many close towns around Vina del Mar and Valparaiso.

2. Chile has the largest pool.

3. LAN is adding 787s and expanding their cargo line.

Fifth Day May 12

Today we visited Vina Indomita and LAN Airlines for our company visits. We had breakfast at the hotel again, this morning it was as good as the day before.

First we visited Vina Indomita, a winery in Chile. It exports the vast majority of its wines to other countries, but keeps some local. It is located in a very beautiful valley, with barren mountains surrounding it. The tour started outside, looking from the top of a hill down on the huge grape fields.  We were told that all of the white grapes were in this valley, while all but 1 type of the red grapes were kept in a different valley; they were introducing a new red grape to the white grape valley. Then we went inside and got to see the wine fermenting area. We were told the whole wine making process, and even got to see the lab where they work on quality control. After that we went underground to where they hold the better wines in wooden barrels; it is underground to keep the wines at the right temperature and humidity. After the tour we tried 3 of their wines, a light white wine, a medium red wine, and a strong red wine. They taught us a whole process of tasting wines; first you use your eyes, then your nose, then your mouth.

Then we visited LAN, my company. First we had a small presentation on the company, and we ever saw a U.S. Air Force plane outside during the presentation. After that we walked around the ground and saw them do maintenance on a large plane. At the end they even let us get in one of their new planes, and we got to try out the first class seats that can turn into beds, and then we got to sit in the cockpit. The trip was a lot of fun, and we learned a lot.

After the company visits we had a Chilean Earthquake and Music class. We learned how to behave in an Earthquake, and that we should run for the hills after the earthquake.

Lessons Learned: 1. Do not run in an Earthquake.

2.  Tsunamis come about 8 minutes after the earthquake.

Fourth Day, May 11th

Today was the day of our first company visits, we went to Bosque del Mauco and Centauro.
We had breakfast at the hotel again, it keeps better better and better each day; today they had jello.
We rode a bus to Bosque del Mauco, which is a mushroom farm. We got to see how they make their fertilized compost, how the mushrooms grow, how they can the mushrooms, and how they pack the uncut mushrooms. The entire process takes 90 days or so, but the last 14 are when the mushrooms grow. We had to wear hardhats, boots, and haircaps. The business looked very much like one in the United States, except they did not worry about making the buildings look pretty. They had plenty of quality control and advanced systems to increase production. They were the only mushroom farm not to be shutdown by the earthquake in Concepcion last year. At the end of our visit they were very kind and gave us a nice snack; we had some Chilean Oreos and wafers.
After Bosque we went to Centauro. It is a family business that sells canned and bagged fruit and foods, especially tomatoes.We were greated by the grandson of the started of the business, he was a very kind and nice man. Centauro was not working at the time, because they shut down after April due to being a seasonal crop business. Throughout the year they work with their tomato paste, but for Janurary through April they work with full capacity, with 9 times the workers. They showed us all their impressive equipment, which is almost all Chilean; they have one machine from Spain and one from the United States. They are working on adding Jalapenos to their product line for Mexico. At the end of the visit they were very nice and gave us 2 bags of marmalade and 1 can of Tomato sauce per person.
After the company visits we went to Las Deliciosas, an empanada shop. They were very quick and good, much faster than the first empanada shop we went to, but this one did not have any dessert ones.
After that we had class at the universtiy on Chilean culture and we gave our presentations on our business ideas we came up with; mine was that there be a month long trip stopping for 2 days in each region of Chile, the Easter Islands, Metropolitan area, and the Antartic region. Jose like the idea.
Then we had salsa class, we learned the double taquila, a spinning dance move.

Lessons Learned: 1. Chilean business are very much like U.S. businesses.
2. Chileans do not worry as much about visual appearences.

Day Three, May 10th.

Today we got up at 10:00 AM to leave at 10:15 AM, our alarm had not gone off so Chris had to wake us up.
We headed down to the university after having a quick breakfast at the hotel. We had a class on Chilean and Latin American business culture and history. We learned a lot of in depth information about how business was done. Our teacher, Jaime, is an engineer and businessman, he is very knowledgeable about a variety of business topics. We took a break in the middle of class to have lunch at the cafeteria again. We had some extra time so we used the computer lab to do our last blog post. The keyboard in the computer lab was different than those in the United States; they had a different key for the @ sign, and had a key for the N with a tilde on top.
After lunch and the computer lab, we continued our class on business. After learning more about business gave our old power point presentations on the companies we will be visiting to our teacher Jaime. He asked very good, in-depth questions about our companies and helped us learn more about them. We also had a new presentation on a mushroom company.
After class we had a lesson in Reggeton. It is a much more sexual type of danceing than Salsa, and a lot of us were uncomfortable with some of the moves, but it was a lot of fun.
After the dance lesson, we went to McDonalds for dinner, and a supermarket to buy some water and snacks.
After shopping we went to a discotecho to try to dance, but we could not get in without I.D. so we instead went to a bar; this was the first time I have been IDed in Chile.

Lessons Learned: 1. Chile is working on increaseing its innovation rate
2. There was a huge ammount of inflation in Latin America due to the houseing market crash in the United States.

Second Day, May 10th

Today was our first full day in Chile. We woke up at 7AM and got ready to leave at 8:15 for Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria. WE had a formal reception and then had our first class. We spent about 3 hours learning about Chilean culture, tourism, History and Literature. Our teacher, Jose, was every energetic and very good at speaking english. We had lunch in the cafeteria, you buy a card to get in, and then there are about  5 items you can take: a drink, a main course, some bread, a side, and some fruit. It was very delicious. We had a tour of the campus, it is very beautiful with a lot of parks and all the buildings match each other very well; it is a gothic style arquitecture.
After classes we went on a tour of Valparaiso and Viña del Mar. We saw the old buildings of Valparaiso, how it has a lot of banks because of the stock markets that grew to support the old ship companies. We saw the old port and the new port from atop of a big hill. Also at the top of the hill were some street vendors; we stopped and all bought some gifts for friends and family, and then took a picture at a beautiful overlook. We then went to Viña del Mar and saw the upperclass district; there were strip malls and shops targeting tourists, the prices were higher than in Valparaiso. We had dinner at Los Radones were they have delicious empañadas. I had a seafood one, and a carmel-queso one; both were very good.
After dinner we headed back to the university to have our dance class. We learned how to salsa alone and in pairs; I really enjoyed the dancing, and our teacher said we were very good, and that the rumor that ``White boys can`t dance`` was not true.
After class we headed back to the hotel to prepare for going out to a bar. I went to McDonalds with somefriends and then we got back just in time to leave (around 10PM).
We tried the native drink - pisco - and it was very good. It is a roughly 80 proof drink made out of grapes. We then did a lot of Karaoke and had a good time. We headed back  to the hotel at about 1:30 AM and stayed up for a little bit more just talking and having a good time.

Lessons Learned: 1. There is a flow of classes from Valparaiso to Viña del Mar, with the inner city being on the lower end, and the suburbs being higher class, just like in the United States.
2. Many Chileans speak english very well.
3. Pisco is the national drink of both Chile and Peru, and they fight over whose it really is.
4. Chileans love english music, our group of Chilean friends love the Backstreet Boys.

First Day, May7th-8th

Today was our first day on the Chile Plus3 trip. We met last night in Atlanta, and traveled together on a 10 hour plane ride to Santiago. I met 2 very friendly Chileans on the airplane; Luis who works with Catapillar, and Pablo who works with Humano. Luis sat next to me and we talked about Chilean mining and various aspects of Chilean culture and language. I asked him about the proper way to greet people in Chile: Men meet men with a handshake, and men meet women with a kiss on the cheek.
We landed in Santiago early in the morning, right after a beautiful sunrise amidst a lot of fog. We exchanged our money at a 460:1 ratio, and then loaded onto the bus. I slept on the bus because I did not sleep much on the plane.
We got to the Hotel Americas in Vina del Mar around lunch time and moved into our rooms. They were very interesting and nice, but my room had a broken toilet so we were graciously moved to a new room.
We had lunch together at a sandwich and hotdog shop, it was delicious and expensive, but the food was huge.
We walked around town and went into a market where I bought my baby brother a toy for his birthday, the price was very reasonable.
We broke into groups, some stayed at the hotel and my group of 5 people went shopping in town. We saw many shops and a few parks; it was very fun and the town is beautiful.
We had dinner with the leader of the University here - Werner Kristjanpoller, he is a very nice man. We had Mexican food, and the restraunt played American music for us.
After dinner we had ice-cream together, and discussed the efficiency of the restraunt's ordering system.

Lessons learned: 1.Chileans are very friendly and nice.
2. Food comes in very large portions.
3. The dollar does not have a very inflated purchaseing power in Chile.
4. Many doors do not have springs.
5. There are many dogs in Chile.

First Post, 3 days Pre-Departure

Hey everyone, this is my first post, and I will just be talking about my excitement and expectations for the upcoming Plus3 Trip to Chile.

I can't wait to leave for Chile, I am looking forward to the 8 hour flight with all my classmates, but I am not looking forward to going through customs. I ran into trouble in Jamaica at customs and have been nervous about international travel ever since then, but I'm sure everything will be fine. I am very much looking forward to speaking Spanish in Chile, I absolutely love the language, and I can't wait to meet all the Chileans.

Estoy muy animado de ir al Chile, voy a salir los EE.UU. muy pronto. Espero para el viaje en avion con mis companeros de clase, pero estoy nervioso a causa de las reglas en el aeropuerto. Estoy animado para hablar en espanol en Chile y para oir espanol, me encanta la idoma espanola. Quiero encontrar a todos los estudiantes chileanos.