Santiago

Hola!

It feels weird to write a blog post about my trip to South America while I’m sitting on my bed in Europe… but, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I spent the last 8 days in Santiago, Chile. It was my first (but certainly not last) time in South America, and I absolutely loved this country, and my local tour guides made it that much better.

Landing in Santiago went unexpectedly because, despite the flight attendants telling us we were landing “right on time” at 8:42, it was actually 9:42, so we were an hour late. More than that, when I got off the plane I was greeted by Kelton, Sloan’s roommate who I had never previously met, holding this sign:

 

Turns out Sloan was still in Peru when I landed, but that’s another story. He met up with us that night and was able to show me the best week in Santiago. Writing just one blog post about a weeks worth of adventuring just doesn’t do it any justice, but I will anyways to give an idea of what we did. Our first few days started off late because we were both exhausted and I was definitely a little jet lagged. That was the longest flight I’ve ever taken.. it ended up taking 13 hours on the way there from Madrid to Santiago, but I had to take a bus to Munich and then fly from there to Madrid even before that. It was an extremely long day of traveling for me… I traveled between 4 countries and 2 continents completely by myself, and it was so incredibly worth it.

We spent the week adventuring the city that he’s called home for the past three months. We walked through various markets with the freshest, most abundant amounts of fruit I’ve ever seen, and others with more fish than I could ever imagine. We climbed the Santa Lucía Hill to see an unreal view of the city. We hung out with local Chileans and attempted to go to a carnival… but failed when we found out it was cancelled. We ate the most interesting sandwich I’ve ever had, a waffle sandwich. (Literally a waffle filled with turkey, cheese, lettuce, tomato and BBQ sauce.. and it was delicious). We spent a night with other USC students drinking pisco and too much beer. Sloan made delicious breakfasts almost every morning, Garrett whipped up some amazing dinners, and we all made homemade margaritas. Thanks again for understanding my love of tequila, Sloan.

We spent the day at Los Dominicos Village, looking through all the souvenir shops and most importantly at the bunnies. We got ice cream at one of the world’s best ice cream shops, Emporio La Rosa. He took me to see his school’s campus, Universidad de Chile. We spent hours at Patio Bellavista getting happy hour drinks. We shared way too many top chocolates and churros… and I swear they got better each day. We almost convinced ourselves it was a good idea to take home the sweetest stray dog who we decided to call Brownie. Then we almost got attacked by 5 other dogs, but don’t worry Sloan pushed me into the middle of the road so I didn’t get hurt 😉 We had dinner on a rooftop restaurant overlooking the city and made friends with the two men sitting next to us who continued to tease us all night. I also got Sloan, Garrett and Kelton all to watch two scary movies with me and I considered this a major accomplishment of the trip.

I truly had such an amazing week and I can’t wait to get back to this city someday. Sloan Garrett and Kelton, thanks for being great hosts all week. Sloan, thanks for making me practice a little Spanish even when I didn’t want to, for eating dessert with me every night, and for sharing my love of spicy food. I can’t thank you enough for the week and for how much fun I had with you, but I hope you know how much I enjoyed it and how much I hated saying goodbye. I’ll see you soon 🙂

A few last hoorahs

Ever since my mom left, life in Prague has gotten crazy. Trying to balance studying for exams, doing all of the things I had left on to-do list in Prague (did not complete this list), planning out my trip through Italy when Mackenzie and Kiley come to visit, and preparing for my journey to South America… well it hasn’t been easy. On top of all that, the weather finally being beautiful was just pure temptation to ignore everything I just mentioned and spend some time outdoors. Somehow I managed to do all of it with somewhat success.

Studying for exams abroad is arguably worse than in Columbia. Yes, the classes are easier, but I am very much convinced that I developed temporary ADHD while studying abroad. It is literally impossible for me to focus on studying, ever. My mind just travels off to the 100 more interesting things happening in my life.

---

The more enjoyable parts of my last few weeks:

Boat party. The university arranged another party for erasmus students that conveniently was a boat party down the Vltava River one night. It was Great Gatsby themed, and people took this to heart. I actually saw a couple guys in tuxedos which made me question if they brought them all the way to Europe with them, or if they rented them here for the occasion… Interesting either way. It was Lauren’s last real night in Prague, so we got our big group all together and literally just laughed all night long. (Oh, and waited in bathroom lines for over an hour)… I couldn’t even put my finger on what made this night so perfect, but I don’t think I stopped laughing for more than 30 seconds at a time.

Lemon Leaf. Last family dinner at Lemon Leaf, our favorite Thai restaurant. Weirdly enough I have eaten more Thai food in Prague than anywhere else in my life… and also probably more than any other cuisine here. But all 9 of us (Lauren, Taylor, Dale, Sonum, Austin, Lexi, Colin, Jacob and I) got together for one last dinner. I hate goodbyes, so luckily I didn’t have to say them that night, but the thought of leaving everyone really does suck.

Skydiving. The most exhilarating thing I have ever done. I’ve been wanting to sky dive since high school and just never went through with looking up the details, but now that I’ve done it once I 100% will do it again in the near future. If you haven’t already, watch my Facebook video to get an idea.

Paddle boating on the Vltava River. One of the last days in Prague, a couple of us rented a paddle boat (actually it looked like a car on water), grabbed some beers/ciders, and floated along the Vltava River at sunset. It might not have been so relaxing for everyone… shoutout to the guys who were pedaling because apparently it was more of a workout than a relaxing “float down the river”…. But seriously, the views from the Vltava are unreal and doing this just further confirmed my beliefs that Prague is the most beautiful city in the world.

Nation2Nation. One last N2N party… these are parties that our university organizes for all the erasmus/exchange students every Tuesday night. The last one was at Duplex, which was also where the first party was located. Duplex is a rooftop club that overlooks Wenceslas Square and it’s just so much fun. It felt right to end the semester in the same place we started it. My bus left at 8 AM the next morning to start my journey to Santiago, so staying out until almost 4 AM probably wasn’t the best idea, but then again, I made my bus and now I’ll be able to pass out for this 12 hour flight, so was it reallly that bad?

---

 

I will be back to Prague but everyone will be gone by then, so: GOODBYE EVERYONE I LOVE YOU ALL. Seriously without getting sappy, thanks for making this semester even more unbelievable than it already was. Traveling with people definitely makes you get closer faster, and I’m grateful I got to share that experience with you all. Can’t wait to see you all again someday and visit your schools

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in the Munich airport about to get on a flight to Madrid, and then from there I go to Santiago, Chile. You know what they say, once you start to travel you can’t stop….