I'm home now. On Friday, we packed up everything and left. Grace, Jess, and I took pictures of the Flower Clock before we left. The flights were long, but uneventful (thankfully).

Today, we went horseback riding. It was so much fun!!! It was my first time riding a horse. We rode along sand dunes and then along the beach. On the beach, some of us galloped. My horse only wanted to trot, so that's all I did. I did get to gallop once, but it wasn't for very long. After riding for 3 hours, we had a BBQ, Chilean style. The food was great. We went back to the hotel. At 7:30, we had our farewell dinner with the Chilean students who worked with us from the University of Santa Maria.

Yesterday, we had the morning and part of the afternoon free. Jess, Grace, and I went to the flower clock to get pictures of it. Unfortunately, there were workers all over it planting flowers. (We think that they were planting the winter flowers.) We walked around Valparaiso street for a little, doing some more shopping. Everyone met Jo and Ben and ate empanadas for lunch. We played some games on the beach with some of the students from the University of Santa Maria. At then end, some of us played volleyball. I had fun, although my arms were very red (and maybe slightly swollen) when we stopped. At 7, we had our last salsa class. Today, Jordan was my partner. By the end, we figured out the dance.

Today, we toured one of the houses of Pablo Neruda. It was very interesting. He modeled his house after a boat and Chile, an interesting combination. The doorways were very narrow. He had some beautiful artwork in his house. There were two tours in Spanish and one in English. I went on one of the Spanish ones. After the tour, we climbed on the rocks and took pictures of the waves. We saw the world's largest pool. It was huge (go figure). We were on our own for dinner today. We had dessert first!

Today, we went to Santiago. Jess, Grace, and I slept through 4 alarms. Thankfully, Maddy woke us up. We had 25 minutes to get ready, instead of 50. By some miracle, we were ready in time. We toured the Bolsa Comercial de Santiago (the Santiago Stock Market). Then, we walked around Santiago for a little. After lunch, we went up Santa Maria Hill. We could see all of Santiago from there, and some of the Andes. It was beautiful...except for the smog. It hindered our view of the Andes.

Yep, I forgot again yesterday.

Saturday was mainly a shopping day. I bought some cool things. We tried to go to the Easter Island Museum, but it was closed. They have to do repairs from the earthquake before it will be opened to the public. When we figured that out, we went to Santa Teresa Cathedral. It was just a block away. We took pictures of the outside and then someone offered to show us the inside. It was very beautiful, but it also suffered damages from the earthquake. They are holding services in teh room next door until the repairs are made. We walked along Valparaiso Street/Avenue/whatever and went into two flea markets. We also went to the venders along the beach. I can not believe that our trip is about half over.

Today, started kinda early. Jess, Grace, and I went to church at the 9 o'clock service at Santa Teresa Cathedral. After that, we walked along the beach. It was very nice out. We originally planned on shopping at the beach venders but only about 3 were open. We watched the futbol (soccer) game - Chile v Mexico. Unfortunately, Chile lost. We went back out to the venders on the beach. We met some girls from the US at Starbucks. They're high schoolers studing abroad, something I found surprising. Jess and I went out the watch the sunset over the ocean. There's only one way to describe it: BEAUTIFUL!

So, oops, I forgot to post for yesterday.

Yesterday, we toured Vina Indomita and LAN Airlines. Both tours were very intersting. I'm in the Vina Indomita group, so I paid particularly close attention to what the tour guide was saying for that company tour. For dinner, we went to Werner's, the person who organized the Plus 3 trip for us. We had so much food; it was crazy. It was a lot, but it was all amazing.

Today, was a day of R&R. We went to a resort and stayed there until 5pm. We played soccer until lunch (1:45 pm). It was a lot of fun. It started to rain/drizzle part way through the games, but we kept playing anyway. I did better than I thought I would, considering that I haven't played soccer in about 10 years. We got back to the hotel around 7 pm.

Today, we toured Codelco and Centaro. Codelco is a copper smelting company. It was an insteresting tour. Then we went to Centaro, the canning factory. (By the way, it's noon and we haven't eaten lunch.) The tour was great. I learned so much. It was very interesting to see how the food is packaged and where they send their food. The manager gave us some food to take home as a thank you for touring the factory. We went back to the hotel, had lunch (at 4), and then went to the university for more lectures. These were the last two lectures and they were on Chilean Culture. They gave a good insite into some of the workings of the Chileans' minds. At the end of the lecture, we were given empanadas, which were very good. We went to salsa lessons afterwards. I think I improved from the previous day.

Today, we went to lectures on Chilean business. The first one started at 11:00 am. We had lunch after it in the student cafeteria. Our next lecture started at 3 pm. The second one followed it after our short break. After the last lecture, we had another salsa class. This one went better than the first one for me. (I'm not sure how it could've gone worse.) I seemed to be doing OK. At the end, we did partner dancing. Unfortunately, there are an old number of people in the group and more girls than guys. A Chilean student joined the group to make our numbers even and then there were two pairs of girls. I was in one of those pairs. We did farely well, although we fudged some steps. On the busride back, we were by ourselves and we split up. The bus I was on stalled out twice. We got dinner when we returned to the hotel.

Today, or rather yesterday (depending on how you look at it), we had our first lectures at the university. These were on the culture of Chile. We ate lunch at the student cafeteria. After the 3 lectures, we were given a tour of Valparaiso. We rode an incline during the tour. Part of the tour was walking and part of it was on the bus. We rode the bus (this is the tour bus) out to a large grouping of rocks. We climbed on the rocks to get different views and different pictures...and just to have fun. For dinner, we went to a restaurant for empenadas. They were excellent. After dinner, we went back to the university for Salsa lessons. Some people picked it up quickly, but I didn't. Then we came back to the hotel. We then went out to karaoke. It was lots of fun.

Today, we arrived in Chile. We had the day to ourselves, mostly. After lunch, Grace, Jess S., and I walked along the beach and took pictures of the bible verses on the rocks. We tried to figure out what they said before we looked them up. We (Jess and I) had an interesting conversation with a Chilean. I realized that my Spanish isn't nearly as good as I thought it was. Later, we went to dinner as a group.