Santiago, Chile

Today marked the end of an amazing experience. The day began early in the morning as usual when Sebastian’s woke me up and I went to shower. After getting ready, I ate the final breakfast with my family: fruits and yogurt. I went to go pack my bags before we had to go to school. I must have rushed too much because I forgot to take two jackets and a pair of shoes, but hopefully Sebastian can bring them when he visits us. After packing my bags, I went to give my family a gift for letting me stay with them for two weeks. After the thanks and goodbyes, Sebastian’s father took us to school. After dropping my suitcase and backpack at the office, we went to homeroom with the students. Afterwards, we were taken to the middle school where we learned what we would be doing until lunch: visiting the elementary school classes. In small groups of 3 or 4, we went to individual classrooms and spent time with the children. We started off with second graders and worked our way through every class until we finished with the fifth grade classes.

In each class, we usually introduced ourselves and then read a book and then the students usually had many questions to ask us about our life in North Carolina.

We finished a bit early, so we had around 30 minutes to relax before lunch. I spent that time outside enjoying the surprisingly warm weather. Then we ate lunch at the school cafeteria and many of the host students came to eat with us. Later, we went to class with our host students; Sebastian had math class and we spent our remaining time talking. At 3 P.M. the dreaded time had arrived where we had to say goodbye to our exchange students and everyone who we met on the trip. Tears were shed and pictures were taken as we got our bags and boarded the bus. It was hard saying bye to such amazing people, but it was reassuring to know that we would see them in December again. Then came all of the airport check-in and security; however, the lines weren’t too long. This gave us plenty of time to eat dinner. Some students ate pizza while others ate burgers and had milkshakes. After using the bathrooms, we headed over to our gate and talked about our trip.

The plane opened it’s doors for boarding and all of us got in line to get on. Luckily the plane wasn’t fully booked which allowed people to get 2 or even 3 seats to themselves. After the flight, we flew from Atlanta back to Raleigh and said our goodbyes.

Today is our last day in Santiago, Chile. I woke up at 6:50, ten minutes earlier than usual to make sure I packed everything. I went to have breakfast with the whole family for the last time before I left. I had toast with avocado on it. The avocados here taste better than the ones in the US. That is one of the many things I will miss when I have to go back home. I also tried a new fruit. It was the inside of a cactus and had many seeds. Interestingly enough it was called tuna. When asked if I wanted tuna, it wasn’t what I had in mind. I’m glad I got to try it before I left because you can only get them in two parts of the world, according to my host father. After breakfast I took my suitcase to the car and my host mother gave me my snacks for the day. It reminded me how thoughtful she had been this whole trip. For example she got me a coat because I packed for 60 degree weather, not 30. I would really miss her. I gave her a hug and said my goodbyes and got in the car with Cristobal, his father, Carolina, and Nico. As we drove out of the driveway, I realized that this may be the last time that I see this house and it made me sad because I don’t like thinking about places I’ve been to for the last time in my life. We got to school and my host father dropped us off at the curb and I thanked him for being such a good host to me. I thought about how generous he was with taking me and the family to fancy restaurants so I could get the full Chilean experience. I walked with Cristobal, Carolina, and Nico to the gate and said goodbye to them just in case I didn’t get a chance to later in the day. I didn’t see Carolina again, but I saw Nico. I hope I will get the chance to see them when they grow up to see the people they will become. I went to the administration building to drop off my suitcase. I then went to meet Cristobal in homeroom for the last time. I won’t miss that! After homeroom we went to go read to the lower schoolers, starting with the first grade. We went in there and read a book about fathers for fathers’ day. Then they proceeded to ask questions about us. One of the kids asked if Suki, Milen, Osamah, Maya, Nadeen, and I were all siblings. The families here are pretty big so that might be why he thought that. The younger kids were more hesitant about speaking in English than the older ones. I noticed a lot of the signs in the classrooms were in English, so they must start them early and integrate 2 languages into other classes. This is different for classes in the US because Spanish is only taught in Spanish class. I saw Nico when he went to recess and I said bye again and he gave me a war head for the plane which was nice of him. After we visited each grade, we had some free time before lunch. We hung out in the hall and talked about the trip. That was all we really had to talk about. It’s been such a big part of our lives for the past 2 weeks and it will be weird to go back to my old schedule. After that we went to lunch. We tried to snag a table big enough for the whole group so we could have a last lunch together. However, not many of the boy host students were there because of a football (soccer) game going on at lunch. I would have appreciated Tatiana’s barbecue more if I knew that would have been the last chance we could all hang out together. After we ate we went back to the 10th grade hall to say bye to the friends we made outside the exchange. We took pictures to remember everything and everyone. It was all very sad. Maya was the first to start crying. When the bell rang, Emily and I went to math class. All the students got their tests back and they were just making corrections so we were rather bored. However, the 40 minutes went by too fast and before we knew it, we had to leave. The students with exchanges were dismissed to say bye to everyone. However people not participating in the exchange had to stay in class. However Sofia and Flo tried to come with us to say bye. When I walked past a classroom to the administration building, Samirah ran out of her classroom to say bye to me. She only could stay for a second because she would have gotten in trouble. I felt really honored that Samirah, Flo, and Sofia cared about us enough to risk getting in trouble. It made us all really sad that we may never see them again because they weren’t on the exchange, making leaving even harder. We took pictures in front of the admin and got our suitcases and then we had to do what we dreaded the most: leave our students. We all said bye to each one personally and many people cried. Even Suki, who yelled at Maya earlier for crying, did. We stayed until Señora Solis dragged us onto the bus. I took a look at the mountains surrounding the school. It was going to be weird to not see them everyday. I had gotten used to them. While everyone else was on their phones airdropping pictures on the bus ride to the airport, I looked out the window. I wanted to soak up every last bit of Chile that I could, because who knows if I will ever return? When we got to the airport, it felt like a whole new day started. We had to get our boarding passes, tickets and check our bags. All of those take forever. Then we had to go through security. After we got through security, we had dinner at Johnny Rockets. Most of us are together. Even Señora Solis and Señor Craig ate there. However they were at a different table and pretended not to know us. We were all focused on how much we would miss our students, I don’t think we realized how much we would miss our fellow Cary Academy students. I had grown accustomed to seeing them everyday, I am sure I will be lonely this summer. We talked and enjoyed each other’s company for a final time in Chile. We had a great time. Suki and Maya even danced with the waiters! Soon enough, it was time to go to our gate. While we were at the gate we thanked our amazing teachers for taking us on this trip. And especially Señora Solis for organizing it, which we all know took a lot of effort. It was definitely one of my favorite trips I have ever taken. Plus we made all the other trips jealous! I definitely think we got the best trip! We boarded the plane and took our seats. I sat next to Megan and Emily. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I was too busy thinking about the trip. I remember the first day of the trip, Suki said that it still hasn’t hit her she is in a different country yet and I agreed. And now on the final day, I felt the same way. It seemed like we were there for so long, it started to feel like a second home. After watching a couple movies, I went to bed thinking about how sad it will be to wake up the next morning and it would all be over. All that we have been looking forward to for the last year would be over. But now we can look forward to the Chileans coming to Cary in December, so we can make new memories with them. Memories just as amazing as the ones we made in Chile.

Today is a very sad day. We are leaving our beloved exchange student to go to what we call home. I’m having mixed emotions right now. I don’t want to leave, but I miss home and my brothers. I woke up at 6:20 to eat a protein bar before fasting. I’m super ready for my last day fasting for only 12 hours but I don’t want to get back to fasting 16 hours. That’s 4 extra long hours that I could be eating. After breakfast I started packing because I was too lazy last night. After packing I took a shower and got ready for this depressing last day. I said good bye to my exchange students mom and then rode to school. I then took some pictures with my guy’s brother, sister, and father before going to homeroom. At Home room I said goodbye to all the people I won’t see in 6 months which took a very big toll on me. They are friends that I may never see again. After this sad sight, my friends and I walked to and went to different elementary school classes. I read books to them and answered so many funny questions. They asked what food I liked, what sports I play, and lots of stuff about tornadoes and flying cows. This one kid literally brought it up out of nowhere. He was like,”do you have flying cows when tornadoes come?” I died with laughter and said that I’ve never seen it happen. Now I am chilling in the park with Cole and Milen. We are talking about license and driving, which is sad cause I won’t get my license till after my student comes. I just arrived in the casino and it’s getting saucy in here. Everyone is eating but with sad vibes. I’m not ready to leave this place. After that I spent my last moment with Andres in math class where I watched him work on test corrections. After the sad bell rang, we walked down to the reception to grab my bags. It felt like we walked in slow motion because of all the sad heavy hearts in one place. I gave out so many hugs that if I had a dollar for each hug I gave, I’d probably have 47 dollars. I then saw Suki ball her eyes out when she said she wouldn’t which was very hysterical. I also cried 1 tear but then decided that it was time to be a man. I was sad when we left but I have many pictures that will help me remember my friends. We got into the airport and checked in my bags but the woman at the desk made me mad. She literally took like an eternity while my friends took a solid 2 minutes. Now I’m waiting to leave to the gate with the group. We are at a restaurant called johnny rockets and I’m starving. I haven’t eaten yet and I will break my fast on 20 minutes. My stomach is growling but I’m prepared to wait for a delicious meal. I just bought some pasta and ate it until I couldn’t feel my tongue. We are waiting for the boarding to occur and I’m ready to board the plane and sleep. I got onto the plane and I found my self in a row with no one next to me. I was delighted that I was able to finesse my way through the plane and actually relax. I watched the rest of the movie split that I didn’t finish during the previous flight and then slept. When I slept, my dream was very sad because of the emotions I am feeling right now. I enjoyed this trip and would never want to take it back for the world. I guarantee every single one of the people on this trip would not want to take back these two amazing weeks. All I can say to end off the last blog is thank you to Ms. Solis and Senor CRAIG for everything they have done for me and my friends on this trip.      

Pablo and I decided to wake up earlier than usual today so that we could pack as much as possible into our final full day.  We had a long drive back to Santiago in front of us, as Pablo took me to his beach house at Viña del Mar for the night. I took in one last view of the beautiful Viña Del Mar beach before we left.  Mr. Toledo took us on a scenic route back home, and I got to see some sea lions playing on the rocks and a white wine vineyard. When we arrived back in Santiago, we decided to visit the SportsMall. This is a regular-sized mall, but it is filled only with sports stores. On top of the sports stores, there are also many different sports activities at the mall including a skating rink, a surfing simulator, a ropes course, and a rock climbing wall. I usually find malls boring, but I had a blast walking around SportsMall. After the mall, we went to a lunch barbecue at Tati’s house. Hotdogs and hamburgers were grilled while we enjoyed the beautiful weather by playing soccer, jumping on the trampoline, and talking. It was warm enough outside that you could take off your sweatshirt and still be comfortable.  This was the first time during the trip that I could say this.When we got home from the lunch barbecue, I enjoyed my last dinner with the family. We reflected on all of the unforgettable memories that I made during the last two weeks. After dinner, I began packing my suitcase. While casually putting my belongings back in my suitcase, the room suddenly shook for a few seconds. Startled, I left my room to go find Pablo. He explained to me that I had just experienced an earth tremor, a common occurrence in Chile.  We learned that Chile has approximately 200 tremors per year, so I was surprised that this was the first one that I felt during my two week stay. When I finished packing, I decided that I was going to stay up until midnight because the next day was Pablo’s birthday. During this extra time that I had, Pablo was able to finish teaching me how to fully solve a Rubix cube. We counted down the time until his birthday and at exactly midnight I began singing “Feliz Cumpleaños” to him.  Exhausted, I fell asleep shortly after.

This morning I woke up at around 9:00 to Tomas yelling “goal”.  He was playing fifa in the room right next to mine.  I got up and went to watch him play.  He had just scored with his favorite player, Son.  I watched him play for two more games.  He won both of them.  His team is very good because of all the good players we have won doing SBC (squad building challenges).

We were both a little hungry so we went down stairs to have a snack.  We had some marshmallows with manjar.  They were very good but a little too much sugar for me in the morning.

We went back up stairs to watch some Netflix.  We watched some shows for about an hour until it was time to have breakfast.  His parents had made eggs and toasted some bread.  We ate breakfast and talked about the rugby tournament in Argentina that his little brother played in last week.  Apparently a lot of the kids got hurt or sick. One of the kids even broke his collar bone.  I can say from watching Tomas play that rugby is a very violent sport.

Once everyone was done, Tomas and I went back upstairs to watch Netflix again.  We continued the series we were watching  for about an hour.  Then Tomas had to take a shower, because he had to go get his hair cut.  While he was doing that, I had to do the sad job of starting to pack my suitcase.

When Tomas got home, we left to go see his moms new office.  Her new office building is very cool.  From there, we drove to the barbecue at Tati’s house.

At the barbecue we talked, played soccer, and bounced on the trampoline.  We had burgers and hot dogs to eat.  It was a good time and our final get together as a group in Chile.  We will be sad to leave tomorrow, but I know we are all looking forward to seeing each other again in December.

We left the barbecue at around 6 and went back to Tomas’s house.  Tomas and I continued to hang out and watch Netflix.  We watched more of the TV shows we had been watching earlier.

At around 9 O’clock we had our final family dinner.  We had chicken and talked about how fun the last two weeks had been.  We had dessert, and Tomas and I went back upstairs.

As we were watching TV, Chile had to say goodbye to us.  It did this in form of a small, about 10 second tremor.  It was a pretty cool and unique feeling when the ground moved under my feet.  After this we decided to go bed because of my big travel day tomorrow.  I quickly finished packing and was off to bed.

On behalf of all the CA kids, I would like to thank all of the exchange families for the kindness and great hospitality they have shown us.  It was a really fun time, and I think we are all sad to leave.

Today I woke up at a nice freezing temperature. It was seven in the morning and I couldn’t feel my feet so I decided I would just go back to sleep. A few hours later I woke up at around 11 am where it all the sudden felt like summer. Since it was to late for breakfast I decided to take a shower instead to start off my morning. A little while after max (my exchange student) and I decided to watch a movie. I honestly don’t remember what it was but we watched it. Then we decided to go biking around. Since the bubble is located in the mountains and around we had to bike up these huge hills. Some of the inclines would go up for what seemed like miles. The even worse part was since the first time I woke up it was freezing cold I thought it would still be cold outside. I went outside with a hoodie, long sweats, and I even brought gloves. It was not fun going up the mountain but going down was the fun part. It was so nice to feel the wind hitting me as I cruised down the mountain. Since it took so long to go up the mountain, the way down was long as well. That meant I could cruise down the mountain for a long time. Overall the biking experience was really fun and I enjoyed it.

After we came home we immediately went to the tourist area of Santiago to try out a new restaurant. I had some corn mush that tasted horrible. I have loved everything I had tried in chile except for that corn mush. It was okay because I had empanadas which tasted really good. After that we went to some shops. The layout would be instead of everything spread out there would be narrow alleys you go into from the street the widen into multiple shops. We went browsing for a couple hours until we went back home. Max and I watched game of thrones for a couple hours until around 7. Then we left for a girl named Flo’s house. All the exchange kids gathered there and we socialized for a while until we all left for Alfredo’s house (another exchange student). There was a barbecue at his house where we all hung out and ate food. We did that until 1-2 am then went home and went to sleep.

I woke up at 10:00 am and went to the kitchen to eat breakfast, but i was the only one there.  I went to check and see if Alfredo was awake, but he was still sleeping.  I decided to go back to bed, and then i woke back up at 11:00 am and watched Netflix until Alfredo woke up.  When he woke up we both watched Netflix for a while, and were very lazy.  After a couple hours, we ate chicken and rice for lunch and then went back to watching Netflix for half an hour.  We then made our way to the mall for the House competition.  The school is split into four houses, and all of them compete against each other in random tasks to earn more points.  Alfredo was in the Blue House and we gathered together with other people in the group, including Osamah and Andres.  Our task was to do the Harlem Shake in a public place, so we did it in the outside part of the mall.  When we were done, we went to a candy store with Osamah and Andres to buy various types of chocolate and sour candy.

After that, the four of us ate at the food court in the mall.  Osamah and I used our spanish to order several items off of the Burger King menu.  Then we all sat down to enjoy our food and made sure that everyone had time to finish eating.  After that we went to a friend of Alfredo´s house for a small get together.  Most people from the exchange were there and we all got to talk to each other and get to know each other more.  After a while, everyone went back to Alfredo´s house for a barbeque.  There were also veggie burgers for the vegetarians, and plenty of tomatoes and avocados.  After a couple hours of talking and hanging out, people began to filter out.  I decided to go to bed after most of the people had left and fell asleep instantly.

My Saturday morning started off pretty similar to my previous one, with an alarm around 8 and Javier arguing to sleep in more. I jumped in the shower in preparation for the viewing of my second rugby game during my time in Chile. For breakfast, I had a bagel and some Nutella-covered bread. Javier’s mom then explained to me that Nutella was not a usual food in their household and that Javier had persuaded her to buy it specifically for me, so I could experience the foods of Chile. After breakfast, I told Javier that we have Nutella in the US to which he was not surprised. He simply just wanted some Nutella for himself.

As we headed off to the rugby match, Javier explained the magnitude of the match to me. The team they were set to play is one of their biggest rivals. Because of this, Javier showed me his pump-up routine for a big game. This involved a playlist of old american rap like eminem and Kanye West that probably would have been in my 6th grade playlist. Javier said he didn’t even understand the words, he just liked the songs to get hyped.

The match was at the rival team’s school, which I had never been to before.

I met Milen and Michael Epperson there because their students were also part of the game. We explored the school a little bit and it was quite different that Santiago College. It looked more like the Biltmore than a school.

Unfortunately, Santiago College lost and Javier was pretty wiped out. He had to teach a class at his synagogue later in the day but first, we went home to have steak and sausages for lunch. For an appetizer, we had some provolone cheese bites which his father cooked in an ‘Argentinian’ way. The main dish was a mix of different types of meats such as pork chops, steak and hot dogs. This was definitely one of the better meals I’ve had because there was no side dish, just a lot of meat.

After lunch, Javier had to go to his class so I was dropped off at Tomas Hauser’s house to hang out with Tomas and Michael E. We played some FIFA then went outside and played soccer in the backyard. When we came back inside, Michael and I tried some dulce de leche ice cream as well as some Chilean marshmallow treats. After this, Tomas’ mom ordered some pizza and we started to get ready for a meet-up with the other exchange students. We ate pizza then went to a party for a total of about 10 minutes before people decided they wanted to change locations. Since the next location was too far away, we just went back to Tomas’ house. After watching a movie, I went back to Javier’s and went to bed.

This morning I woke up and ate avocado toast and drank orange juice for breakfast. We got to school thinking that we were going to shadow our students for the day, then met with Sra. Solis and were told otherwise. After meeting in the upper school to discuss plans we headed over to the cafeteria in the morning.

We went over to the cafeteria where we found out we were having an empanada making class. The chef was a really fun guy, and taught us how to make empanadas in spanish.

Inside the empanadas was ground beef, onion, chili powder, garlic powder, oregano, salt, raisins, and olives.

Then they had a break in their school and we went back and spent some time with the Chileans. Then we went to a room where we watched Machuca, a movie about Chile. We got partway into the movie before going back to the cafeteria to eat our empanadas.

After that, we went to the art room and all painted mandalas. Santiago College has a mural wall composed of each year’s students mandalas. Each student paints a mandala and the best ones are put up to make the mural. So we went to a room and the art teacher talked a little to us about the history of mandalas before letting us design our own and paint our own. I stayed through lunch to finish painting the mandala since most of us were full from snacking during the movie and the empanadas at 11:30 in the morning.

After that we returned to the upper school where we met our students and were going to continue to shadow them for the remainder of the day. I met up with Tatiana and went to English class with her. Abby, Nadeen, and myself all sat together in class while they did their work.

After English class we went to the class which is a pre-requisite for a Theory of Knowledge class. The class was in Spanish so…we could pick out a couple sentences here and there. The concepts were too complex to understand in another language.

After class we hung out in the sophomore hallway while waiting for a few select people to get out of their classes before making plans. Nadeen, Cata, Abby, Tatiana, and myself went to Portal mall and got frozen yogurt. Then we went and shopped around and walked around a few different shops before going to Jumbo Supermarket to pick up stuff that some people needed. We hung out in Starbucks before getting picked up and going to Javiera’s house (a girl from outside the exchange) where a group of us ate pizza, watched an NBA game, played Twister and listened to music. Osamah, Kevin, Michael, Ian, Jack and myself were all there hanging out.

We were going to go to a party after Javiera’s house but the party got cancelled so we stayed at Javiera’s house longer and then went home. Then everyone went home and we went to bed.