And so the real fun begins...

I think my brain function has returned to normal, at least enough to write a post. Man, I was wiped out last night! It was like my body was hanging in there just long enough to get through the last week, to go all those nights with only 4 hours of sleep, to get all of my work done for the last day of classes and then… shutdown. I spent my whole weekend studying and working ahead as much as possible, thinking that then I could avoid having to try to cram everything in Monday night. Wrong. I did everything I could possibly do over the weekend but then Monday we got back some of our papers for re-writes, got the details on the portfolio we had to put together, AND I had to plan a class. So what I thought would turn into a nice, leisurely last evening at home with Edgar y Maria turned into… ready?… eight hours, count them, EIGHT hours of homework. From 5 pm til 2:30 am, other than the bus ride home, a quick dinner and an even quicker shower, I worked my tail off. It was brutal. Margaret (our trainer) saw the stress on my face before I left the academy (granted, it wasn’t real hard to notice) and offered to give me an extension on the papers and the portfolio so I could focus my time on planning Tuesday’s class but somehow I just couldn’t let myself take it. I became determined to get it all done on time. Stubbornness has its downsides. Most of which result in 8 hours of studying in one evening. But I got it done and was able to hand it in by the 4 pm deadline Tuesday! It was a gigantic relief. Aaaaaaaaah.

So our last day of classes was yesterday and it was definitely bittersweet. Teaching my last class, saying goodbye to the students, walking out of the academy for the last time… all oddly sad. But we made the most of it; for lunch the five of us went out for fabulous Italian food, then came back for a “fiesta” at the school with some of our students. Then, because you can never have enough of a good thing, we went out in the evening as well to celebrate. Good times, I must say! And then came the moment at the Metro when we were all going our separate ways and I had to actually say goodbye to the people that I have spent 8 hours a day with, have stressed with, have laughed my guts out with for the last 4 weeks. And it was sad. Those 4 people and I have shared something that I can’t possibly explain to anyone who wasn’t there, going through it together made us kind of a “club” of our own, with an understanding that comes only from sharing such an experience and with an arsenal of inside jokes that still make me laugh, and that no one else would get. I will definitely miss the camaraderie that we shared!

Even more sad was leaving Edgar y Maria today. I will be back in Santiago in a week and we have plans to meet up for dinner so I didn't think today would be quite so hard as it's not like I'm leaving them permanently. But, nevertheless, the realization that today was the last day that I would be in their house was worse than I had antipated. The look on Edgar's face as were saying goodbye brought tears to my eyes. But we will meet again....

So now I’m on a plane to Buenos Aires. I have one week before having to be back in Santiago and I plan to do as much as is humanly possible in those 7 days! My plans are to do Buenos Aires, then take a day trip to Uruguay (I’ve been told they have the most beautiful beach in South America), then Saturday I’m flying north to Iguazu (magnificent waterfalls) and will take a day trip from there into Brazil. Then back to Buenos Aires for another day and then back to Santiago on the 12th. But those are my plans now and anything can happen between now and then. We’ll see how it actually pans out over the course of the week. I’ll keep you posted!

And for today, two random observations: Santiago airport is non-smoking but right by my gate there was a little room for smokers. I’ve of course seen smoker’s lounges in airports before but never one like this. It was essentially a small, little glass box in the middle of everything; it somehow had the feeling of watching fish in a fishbowl. And it was just so funny to walk by it and see this big huddle of smokers, puffing away and enveloped in a gigantic, swirling cloud of smoke.

I went Monday to exchange some money but when I got to the exchange place, keep in mind place where their JOB is to have foreign currency, they said they were out of Argentinean pesos (think back to the story with the pizza). So he calls another down the street and they’re also out. Okay, I say, will you have them tomorrow? Ah, yes, we’ll definitely have them tomorrow! Okay, I’ll be back and would like to change 50,000 Chilean pesos to Argentinean ones. Nooo problem, he says. So I go in Tuesday and get to the counter and he starts rifling through this random pile of bills on the counter and ends up telling me he only has 36,000 worth. Oh, plus a bunch of random coins he found laying around on the counter. It was pretty comical but Lord only knows how they track anything that they do there.

Margaret made an interesting/funny comment one day (which she borrowed from someone else): that the definition of a “second world” country is one that has everything but none of it works. I think it just may apply. Chile has a massive bus system but absolutely no timetable for it, a Metro system with no maps, pizza shops with no pizza and change houses with no foreign currency! But they try… and they’re super nice about it all so how can you get annoyed? At this point, it just makes me laugh.
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Well, I made it! I’m in my hotel room in Buenos Aires and, as a bonus, it’s much nicer than I expected. Woo-hoo! The flight was as smooth as could be and, other than my Mexican seatmate who was video taping me (the blonde thing goes a long way down here), it was graciously uneventful.


This is going to sound like a strange thing to say about a country that I’ve only been in for approximately two hours, but my first impression is that the people are extremely nice. While everyone I met on a personal level in Chile absolutely couldn’t have been nicer to me, the people in public tend to stay to themselves and they’re not very likely to get into conversations with strangers. In my two hours in Argentina, I’ve already had 3 or 4 people offer to help me out with things… and I hadn’t even asked! I’d been told that the people here are extremely friendly and helpful, but didn’t honestly expect to experience it firsthand before even getting out of the airport! Off to a good start….