The Final Countdown

My journey here is officially wrapping up! I can't believe it. I only have 12 days left in South America, and I am not ready at all to leave!

I have some fun blog posts to write about my weekend in La Serena, but my photos are taking forever to sync so I am going to give you all a little insight into my thoughts going into my last two weeks! There are many things I am going to miss about Chile, but there are also things I am looking forward to back in the USA! This is also a fun way for you to learn some differences between the US and Chile. So here are three lists that I have been thinking about as I prepare to return to life in the USA. That 7 hour bus ride on Monday gave me a lot of thinking time for this :)

Things I Will Miss About Life in Chile:

Speaking Spanish: I absolutely love the Spanish language and I am really going to miss seeing it, hearing it, and speaking it all the time. I wish I had more opportunities to use it in Grand Forks!
The Food: Empanadas, Sopaipillas, the fresh bread, the amazing fresh fruit, the nectar juice, wonderful fresh seafood, wine, and pisco. US food just can't quite compare.
Riding the metro: As annoying as public transportation can be, I actually really like the metro and all the cute little cities I pass through. It's a nice half hour of reading time or music.
Living two blocks from the beach: DEFINITELY going to miss this! It is so nice to be able to just walk outside and around the corner if I feel like going to the beach.
Beach sunsets: Speaking of the beach, the sunsets here are incredible every day.
Chilean music: I have really fallen in love with the music here and will definitely be downloading some when I leave!
Being called a gringa: Even though this is usually thought of as a negative word, it has really grown on me! Haha. At work we always laugh at the gringa things I do and it's kind of a fun thing I embrace now.
The People: The people here in Chile are absolutely amazing. There is something special about their culture that I love. I am going to miss my great fellow interns and roommates who I have spent a lot of time with, my supervisor and other interns at work, and my Chilean friends who have really shown me what life is like here and taught me how to have a good time!
Runs/Workouts along the beach: Working out is so much easier when the view is amazing.
Giant shower: Our shower here is HUGE and it is so nice.
Being called "meetchell": I don't even remember the last time I introduced myself with an English accent. I love saying my name in Spanish.
The views: I feel like no matter where I am or what I am doing, I am surrounded by natural beauty of palm trees, the ocean, historic buildings, or the mountains.
Walking: I absolutely love that I have to walk everywhere here, and my step counts have been crazy high here!
Living across the street from the grocery store: Most convenient thing EVER.
Having thousands of dollars in my pocket: The bills here are in increments of 20,000 10,000 5,000 2,000 and 1,000 . . . so I always feel so rich. Haha
Estufa: My space heater friend.

Now to switch gears a little bit, here are a few things I will NOT miss about Chile.

Being stared at: Yes, I know I am white. Thanks for reminding me.
Street dogs: They are ALWAYS in the way and always make me feel bad for not petting them.
Gas stove: I would be perfectly content if I never have to light a burner with a match ever again in my life.
Hand washing laundry: Let's be thankful that washing machines exist.
Darkness at 8:30am: Waking up is so hard when it's still dark outside.
Typing on a flip phone: My Chile phone here is a very basic old phone and it takes FOREVER to type things with ABC clicking. NOT going to miss that at all.
Having sand everywhere all the time: Though the sand will probably track back to the US with me and haunt me forever.
Smoking: So many people smoke here, and they are able to smoke in so many public places.
Converting between metric and US: I look forward to the day someone tells me the size or weight of something and I don't have to do math to understand it. Or the temperature.
Getting ID'd: I get ID'd every single time I use a debit/credit card and it is SO annoying.

Kind of on the same note, here is my last list! Things I am looking forward to back in the USA!

Real gum: I miss chewing gum so badly. They only have the hard chiclet type gum here and I hate that stuff.
Free water: I hate having to pay for water here at restaurants and anywhere. But I guess that's what happens when you're in a country with a limited water supply.
Flushing toilet paper: The water pressure in Chile is not very great, so in most places we are supposed to put used TP in the trash, not flush it down. That grosses me out and is such a hard habit to break.
DRIVING: I cannot WAIT to get behind the wheel and just go for a drive. I miss it so much.
Split bills: At restaurants here, the bill always comes added up all together for the table, so splitting it up ourselves is such a hassle.
American radio: I am excited to actually hear new songs! They play a lot of American music here, but it's old music.
Washer and Dryer: I will never take them for granted again. I can't wait to have clothes that actually feel clean and are actually dry. I am probably going to wash everything multiple times.
Brown sugar: This beautiful delicacy does not exist in Chile, which is such a shame.
Target: The greatest store on Earth. They really need to expand worldwide.
Grocery shopping: I am SO excited to be able to go grocery shopping and find all the food I want and actually know where it is in the store.
Real milk: The milk here is so weird. You can store it a room temperature which grosses me out so I don't drink it, I just use it for cooking or on cereal and oatmeal.
Summer Heat: I will probably have a heat stroke when I get back and it's like 90 degrees, but it will definitely be a nice change!
Pandora and Spotify: I depend on these apps for my music and they don't work here!!!
Dishwasher: Such a great invention that I really miss.
Longer days: I am super excited to experience evenings that are still light, and having the sun come up before I leave for work!
Real coffee: Chileans are all about instant coffee, and it's just really not that good.
Different clothes: So pumped to wear clothes that haven't been with me for the past two months.
American outlets: It's going to be so convenient to be able to plug things in without moving my adapter back and forth.
Bonfires: One of my favorite things about summer.

There you have it! Maybe now you will have a better understanding of the little things about life here! Stay tuned for blog posts from La Serena whenever my photos load! My motto for these last two weeks is "You can sleep in America." So I am trying to make the most of every last minute that I have here!

Travel Weekend

Just a little update for you all!!

This weekend is a long weekend here Chile, because Monday is el Día de San Pedro y San Pablo (Day of St. Peter and Paul), which is recognizing the fisherman. This is obviously a big day here in Chile, since fishing is such a large industry. Since we have the long weekend, a group of us interns decided to take a little trip!

We are heading to La Serena, a beautiful beach city about 7 hours north of here. We will be taking a bus Friday afternoon after work, and spending the weekend there and returning on Monday. We have some great things planned! Just north of La Serena is Punta de Choros, an area where we will have water access and go on a boat tour of Isla Choros, Isla Damas, and the National Penguin Reserve. Yep, I said penguins! It is crazy to think there are penguins in the northern part of Chile, but there are! There are also dolphins, sea lions, and some cool birds. I think that'll be a fun trip, because it is something unique! Instead of being just another city or another beach, there is actually something neat and different! We got a great deal on a tour for that, and it also includes an evening at the Mamalluca Observatory. The skies in northern Chile are super clear and beautiful, so it'll be cool to experience seeing the stars! Especially because I never see the stars here since we are in the city!

It should be a fun weekend! I'm not bringing my computer with, so you probably won't see a blog post from me until Tuesday!! Maybe I will try to upload a little something from my phone.

In other news, Chile won their quarterfinal Copa América game last night in wild fashion. 1-0 with that only goal coming with about 10 minutes remaining! It was crazy and the teams were bickering and fighting the whole game. It reminded me of hockey! Ha. It is so cool to see how passionate all the fans are here, and how excited they got that Chile is now in the semifinals! I am quickly falling in love with soccer and have learned so much from watching it with my Chilean friends! I am picking up on the Chilean cheers, chants, and even the national anthem.

Here's a snapshot of Katie and me before leaving her house to go watch the game! Her host family's dog Honey made a guest appearance as well. HAHA

Hanging out with my main man Alexis Sanchez at the supermarket. Clearly I have become very passionate about fútbol as well ;) 

Baking Abroad

As many of you know, I love to bake! Baking comes with many difficulties in a foreign country, but Katie and I decided to be brave and attempt to bake some treats for ourselves and to bring to our supervisors at work.

We headed to Lider to begin our shopping adventure. Katie wanted to make Nutella brownies, and all she needed was nutella, eggs, and flour! So that was easy. I was not sure what I wanted to make, but I didn't want to have to buy a ton of stuff. I decided I wanted to make smore's bark! It is simple, easy, 3 ingredients, and very United States! However, that did not work out so well. I was able to find marshmallows, but only jumbos. Oh well, I can cut them. However, they do not sell graham crackers at all! So that was a bust. FAIL 1. My next thought was to make cookies, because I do it all the time so I have good experience, and I love them! Next challenge, they do not have brown sugar here. Laura had told me this, but I refused to believe her and we searched and searched. She was right. No brown sugar. FAILED AGAIN. Then I decided I would buy a cake mix and make cute cupcakes! As I was picking out the mix, I realized I do not have a cupcake pan. FAIL 3. I surrendered and bought a cookie mix, which only needed butter and eggs added, so I decided I could handle that. We checked out with our goodies and headed back home.

We got everything set up and ready to begin! I had to wash most of the big bowls and the pans because they hadn't been used in forever and were super gross. Here we are!

We started going, but it was a bit of a struggle even from the start. Obviously Chile uses the metric system, and I am really not as proficient at metric as I should be. Ha. I know Chemistry measurements, but that's about it. So we got out our converters and it was all good. I needed 1/3 cup of butter, which is easy in the states when the butter has measurement lines on it, but not so easy here. Luckily, I found some gram measurements and made it work. We were each putting our own thing together. Katie was struggling because she needed to get the Nutella out of the jar and we did not have a spatula. In case you ever find yourself in this predicament, microwave the nutella for about 15 seconds and it is miraculously more runny and cooperative. I encountered another issue with my dough, because I was only supposed to add 1 egg and 1/3 cup of softened butter to the mix. No oil, no water. So obviously it was just a crumbly mix of ingredients, so I decided to add some milk so it would actually stick together.

We got our batters/dough ready and lit up the oven. The oven proved a challenge as well, because it is gas and has to be lit with a match, and it only heats from the bottom, so the bottom of the pan/desserts are obviously way hotter than the top or sides. It also has no heat degree controls so we just had to watch and hope it would work! Luckily, Katie's brownies turned out great!! We took them out to cool and began the cookie adventure. We don't have a cookie sheet, but I just used a round cake pan and only made 5 cookies at a time. They cooked and got super fluffy! Haha. I think it is because I added milk. The bottoms were getting dark so I took them out. They tasted super good, but were more of a cupcake texture! Ha. I continued making my 5 cookies at a time, and it all worked out. I also tried making one in the toaster oven, since that cooks from the top and the bottom. It actually turned out really well! There's a first time for everything.

Even though we had some struggles, we made it work and ended up mostly successful! They were not the best they could have been, but they tasted good! :)

Never take simple things for granted, like brown sugar, cupcake pans, spatulas, and electric ovens! :)

Last Full Weekend in Viña!

Hard to believe it, but I just had my last full weekend in Viña! This weekend my friends and I are taking a bus trip up to La Serena, a beautiful beach city north of here and going to an observatory and to a penguin reserve! The weekend after that I am going to Buenos Aires to visit my friend Paul, and then the weekend after that is my last weekend in Chile and I fly back on that Sunday! Time sure flies :)

On Friday night, Katie and I hung out with some of our Chilean friends to watch the next Copa América game between Chile and Bolivia. They were super intense about it and set out a big screen and projector in their yard and we watched the game outside with speakers and grilled sausages and meat and it was so fun! Chile won 5-0. It was crazy!

On Saturday we went to the Jardín Botánico here in Viña and walked through the beautiful park. It is listed in everything of things to do in Viña, so I figured I'd better check it out! Katie, Natalie, and Mahathi came with too. We had to catch a bus to rural areas outside of Viña and then walk about 10 minutes to reach the park. It was such a beautiful and cute place! It is a big park area with tons of open spaces, very cool plant species, trails, an adventure area with rock climbing and a rope course, and a picnic area with tables and grills. It would be the PERFECT place for a family outing when the kids are young. Lots of space to run around, play soccer, eat food, and enjoy the beautiful Chilean weather. Haha.

Here are a few pics from the garden!

Such a sunny and beautiful day! I actually walked around in a t-shirt for a while! For those of you who are curious, I am on the left, Natalie is next to me, Katie is in the back left, and Mahathi is in the back right.

 So many interesting plants!

 Autumn is my favorite season, so I was LOVING all the beautiful fall colors and leaves here! 

We came back to Viña and walked around for a while and grabbed some empanadas. A successful, relaxing day. Sometimes it is hard because I feel like I am traveling and need to be doing something 24/7, but then I realized that this is my home for 2 months, so sometimes I need to take a break and just chill and do nothing for an afternoon because that is important for my sanity as well. I am not crammed for time in a weekend, so I need to balance out my running all the time. :)

Sunday was the winter solstice, the official first day of winter here! I celebrated by going for a run along the beach and embracing the beautiful winter of course. It was 72 and bouncing between partly cloudy and sunny throughout the day! Best first day of winter I have ever seen :)

Then on Sunday afternoon, Katie and I had a baking party! It was quite the adventure :) I am going to dedicate my next blog post to that, so stay tuned! :)

La Casa

Since I have been here for over a month now, I suppose I should give you all an inside look at where I have been living!

I live in a shared 3-bedroom/1-bathroom apartment-style house with two other interns. I lived with Laura and Grace for my first couple of weeks, and now I live with Natalie and Mahathi. Since we all start our internships on different days and stay for different periods of time, it is kind of an in/out apartment with interns coming and going.

We live in a great location!  Our house is two blocks from the beach, 5 blocks from the mall/movie theater, less than a block away from a supermarket, and one block from a panadería. The only far thing that I use a lot is the metro station, which is about 20 minutes away.

Here is our cute little yellow house!

 I will now take you on a mini tour!

This is the view when you walk in the front door. We have a large, wooden dining room table with benches to the left, and this area leads into the living room. We have three very retro couches, a nice coffee table, a TV and DVD player, and a full body mirror. Also seen in this photo is our space heater, aka Estufa. He is so great and will be getting his own blog post dedicated to him later on. Stay tuned for more information on him. Two bedrooms branch off this common area to the right. 

We will continue our tour by walking down the hallway on the far end of this photo.

Take a left, and you will find yourself in our one and only bathroom! We only have one bathroom which is inconvenient at times, especially when there were 4 of us living here for one week, but it is a very large and spacious bathroom. It comes fully equipped with a bathroom, extremely large shower, strange-colored porcelain sink, and a plastic laundry tub. We do not have a washing machine so laundry is done by hand, or can be dropped off at a local laundry place where they wash, dry, and fold it for you and return it a few days later. Another interesting thing is that our water heater is run with gas. Unbeknownst to us, it ran out of gas my second week here and so we had cold showers for a couple days as we just waited for it to come back. Then we realized we needed to ask Williams to bring more gas. HA! I won't bore you with more bathroom photos. It looks like, well . . . a bathroom.

Down the hallway on the right, you will find the kitchen!

This is the place where the pretend cooking happens. It is a bit small and does not have much cupboard space, but we do not need many dishes since we have to wash them after every meal anyways. We have a gas stove/oven which is something very different for me! I have never had to light a burner or the oven with a match before, but it works! We also have a fridge, microwave, toaster oven, blender, and coffee maker so we have a lot of options in that regard. The house is furnished so there are plates, cups, silverware, pots/pans, tupperware, etc. provided which is nice. A lot of it is really old, but it works!

Here are a couple additional angles of the kitchen.

Branching off the kitchen, we have our open-air patio space! It is kind of like a mini storage, junk area, but it is nice to have somewhere to get some sunshine or fresh air. And of course, a place to dry our laundry! This is actually the view out my bedroom window. Haha GORGEOUS. And no, that toilet is not functioning. Though that might come in handy sometimes.

At the very end of the hallway past the bathroom and kitchen, you will find the best room in the house: my room!

Here it is! My favorite thing in the house, MY BED. I am always so exhausted here and cannot wait to get into my bed and be warm and snuggly. Unfortunately I end up staying up way later than I usually plan. Haha. I usually pass out within about 10 minutes of laying down. It is suprisingly comfy, though I do wish I had more than one pillow. My room is very large and spacious, which is nice. But I really do not have that much stuff to fill it. I have a big window that looks out to our storage patio, so it does not have a view but it does let sunshine in which is super great. The floor is tile though and so it is FREEZING at all times, especially in the mornings. Houses here do not have heating, so they get very chilly overnight and during the cooler days. It gets down into the low 40's right now overnight, so when I wake up in the morning, the air outside my blankets is so cold and I never want to come out! There is a cleaning lady who comes to our house once a week and cleans the common areas, and she also changes our sheets! It is funny because Laura had been here for a long time and she would always go around to our beds to see if anyone had sheets that she had not gotten yet. I just got my first repeat set this past week!

Here is the view from my bed.

I have a large dresser/closet space, the fold-up hamper I brought from home, and a bookshelf where I have unpacked all of my miscellaneous supplies. I also used to have a wooden chair in the other corner of my room, but we moved it to the kitchen because there were only two chairs in there which was inconvenient when Laura and Grace and I would sit down for dinner. It is a nice cozy room and I really like it!

Once you hit the end of the hall, you reach my room and the end of the house! So there you have it! A full tour of the little yellow house. It is very old, but it is cozy and welcoming. Walls are shared here between houses so sometimes we can hear the neighbors on various sides of us. I share a wall with the people behind us, and I feel like it is a business of some sort because they have a phone that rings quite frequently, and I can hear an automatic paper towel dispenser. Haha! And once in a while I hear babies. We also have two cats who sometimes hang out on our roof and I hear them howling at each other sometimes!

Hope you enjoyed this high-class tour!

A Perfect Day

Yesterday started out like any other routine day at work, but then Katie and I decided to meet up and hang out in the afternoon, and it turned into such a PERFECT afternoon.

She met me at the metro station after work and then we walked to Pig Waffles for lunch (see previous blog post with delicious looking PB&J waffle). But Pig Waffles also has healthier waffles, and we decided to try their real food waffles. It was the strangest thing because I am so used to eating waffles with sweet toppings like syrup or fruit, but mine was filled with bacon, cheese, spinach, caramelized onions, garlic sauce, and pickles! It was SO GOOD.

We ate outside at a table in the sunshine and chatted for a while and made some plans for next weekend. It was SO gorgeous outside! Then we walked to the mall because Katie needed a couple of things and I wanted to look at suitcases. I have decided that it is going to be much easier and a lot cheaper if I just buy another small suitcase here to take back with me. I am allowed to check 2 bags for free, and only brought one, so the only extra expense is the actual suitcase. My bag coming here was 48 pounds and the limit is 50, so I feel like there is NO way I would still be under 50 coming back, and the weight fees are ridiculous. So instead of stressing and trying to cram one bag, and probably ending up paying a large fee, I can invest that money in a suitcase and then I will end up with a suitcase out of the deal, and a lot less stress.

We walked around the mall for a while and explored, and then went to Lider, which is like the Wal-Mart here. I don't go there very often because we live less than a block from a supermarket here, but I wanted to just browse around the whole store and see what they really have because it is SO big and I am usually in a rush. Katie and I browsed through there and I found some GREAT things including American pancake mix, actual shredded cheese (which is impossible to find here), microwave popcorn, ranch dressing (AHH) and sour gummi worms. Since Lider is owned by Wal-Mart, they have a lot more US-type products than a normal supermarket here would, which is kind of nice. I have been trying to not be all American with my food and eat other things, but there are a few necessary things like ranch, because all the other salad dressings here are disgusting. It was a successful grocery trip for sure.

By that time, the sun was getting close to setting so we decided to walk to our favorite ice cream place near the beach and get ice cream and watch the sunset. The ice cream was amazing as always, and so was the sunset. We sat on the rocks above the beach eating our ice cream and laughing as it melted all over the place.

As we were walking back towards our houses, we passed by this little empanada cafe with over 40 different types of empanadas! The curiosity was too hard to resist, so we stopped in for a quick empanada. With 40 options, it took FOREVER to decide but I decided on a shrimp, bacon, and cheese empanada. It was DELICIOUS. Katie got one with chorizo (sausage) and something inside and it looked pretty good. They also had sweet empanadas with manjar and chocolate and such which I thought was interesting.

Que RICO!

After the empanada stop, we actually headed home. It was such a great afternoon. Definitely not a typical day for me, because I rarely eat out, let alone 3 times in one day, but they were all just little snacky type things and it was SO delicious and Chilean. We had some great conversations and laughs and made a bucket list of the things we still need to do in Chile before we leave since we both came and will leave on about the same day. It is crazy to think how quickly the time is winding down!

Casablanca Valley

My final blog post catching up from the fun weekend!! :)

Chile is famous for being home to some of the best wine country in the world so on Sunday, Katie, Natalie, Mahathi and I went to Casablanca Valley on a wine tour to visit a few of the vineyards!

We booked it through a tour company so they came and picked us up and drove us the hour to Casablanca. The first vineyard we visited was Casas del Bosque, and it was a HUGE vineyard with beautiful scenery. There was frost on the ground when we arrived around 10:30 which was crazy. We got to have a tour of the vineyard and see the fields of grapes and also got to learn about growing them, the harvest, and then see the factory and how they ferment them, store them, and bottle them. I learned SO much about wine and all the work that goes into it and it really made me appreciate it a lot more! It is no easy task. This was a huge vineyard that produces over a million bottles a year and exports to countries all around the world. Then we got to go inside and do some wine tasting. Our guide explained the different wines to us, the differences in the grapes and fermentation time/process, and how/why it has the taste and aroma it does. 

Here is a pic collage of the wines we had at Casas del Bosque: Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Syrah. We also got to keep a little book with more info about them and what foods they go well with! I loved all three of them, but I think the Sauv Blanc was my favorite one. I am a total white wine person.

Here are a few pics from the wine building! The bottling machine and some of the storage barrels! They store different wines in different types of barrels depending on the type because it soaks up aromas from the barrels. A lot of the white wines never even get put into barrels.

Second we stopped at Emiliana Organic Vineyard, which was a beautiful vineyard that also had llamas, chickens, and bees! All the animals play somewhat of a role in the wine making process which is cool too. They are the largest organic vineyard in the entire world! We got to walk around the vineyard and explore, but did not really have an official tour. Then we did a wine tasting there too. We were at a big table with some other people too, and they were from Brazil so they spoke Portuguese! I was actually so impressed at how I was able to understand what they were saying. It makes me really want to learn Portuguese too because it is SO similar and I think I could pick it up pretty quickly. The wine there was SUPER good and our wine guide was amazing. He was super nice and fun and made it a good experience. 

Here are the wines we had at Emiliana! We had a Chardonnay, Rosé, Carmenere, and Coyam. Carmenere is a HUGE wine here because Chile is the only country that produces it. It used to be only in France, and then they got a virus or something which eradicated that type of grape and they thought it was gone from the world forever. But then once they started doing some genetic grape testing, they found that Carmenere is alive and thriving here in Chile! Because of this, the customs to enter Chile are SUPER strict and you cannot bring any fruits or vegetables or animal products across the border. They do not want to risk ruining their precious wine. Ha. Fun fact. And the coyam wine is a hybrid wine that is a combination of 4 or 5 different wine flavors, which I think is super cool!

Our final vineyard visit was at Bodegas RE! They are a much smaller vineyard and only produce about 45,000 bottles a year. They do a lot of their fermenting in clay pots instead of barrels, which I thought was super cool! We got to look inside one at some of the grapes. They are kind of bringing back an older style of wine making, and that is where the RE in their name comes from. It stands for renacimiento, which is like rebirth. 

Here are the wines we had there! Pinotel, which was a mix between Pinot Grigio and Moscatel, and Vigno. They were both super good as well. I did not have one wine I did not like throughout the entire day!

I really enjoyed the wine tour and was so glad we got to experience that during our time in Chile! There are over 30 different vineyards just in the Casablanca valley, so we only cracked the surface of all the options here. I am definitely going to miss the amazing Chilean wine when I come back to the states.

El Zoo!

Slowly catching up on blog posts from the weekend! Bear (so punny) with me :)

On Saturday Katie and I decided to take an adventure and go explore the zoo in Quilpué, a smaller city about 15 minutes from Viña via metro. I go through Quilpué every day on the way to work and am always tempted to stop, but I really didn't want to go to the zoo by myself. Haha. I had asked some of my patients about it, and they all said it was okay. Cute, small, precious. So I figured it was nothing extravagant, but their website seemed super nice and they had photos of a lot of cool animals so we decided to check it out!

I am SO glad we went! The zoo was actually SO great! And really cheap. It was just 2500 pesos which is about $4! We wandered around and discovered the zoo was way bigger than it looked! The first big animal we came across was a jaguar and I was so pumped about it. I have never really seen one up close and it was chewing on a hunk of meat which was cool. We kept going through the zoo and saw a large variety of animals including a ton of birds, many species of monkeys, Baboons, the jaguar, flamingoes, kangaroos, cows (LOL), llamas, alpacas, lions, a tiger, pumas, peacocks, fox, deer, and sea lions! I'm sure I am forgetting some. The sun was shining and for the first time in forever I was actually too hot when I was outside! Such a nice change. We walked through the zoo for about 2 hours and took a ton of photos. All the info boards for each animal were in Spanish, so we learned a lot of strange animal names in Spanish as well. The zoo was up in the hills and the zoo had some hills to climb up with different animal exhibits, and the view from up there was amazing! I really like rural Chile, and I like that I work in rural Chile because it gives me a chance to escape from the city life and see the beautiful mountains and little towns.

Another reason I really wanted to go is because I wanted to see how zoos differ here from in the US, or what types of animals they would have. They had a lot of similar animals to zoos in the US, but I found it really funny that they had pens of cows, chicken, goats, and sheep. One big difference was how the animals were caged. I feel like at zoos in the US, the animals are in a huge area down below where you walk and you kind of just have to look from afar. But at this zoo, they were in fenced-in enclosures that we could walk right up next to which was amazing. I don't think I have ever been that close to a lion or tiger. They have about 3 fences in between so it's still safe, but such a cool chance to get so close to the animals. We took a bunch of selfies with the tiger because he was pacing back and forth and we thought it was funny. We also almost got spit on by a guanaco, so maybe that's a disadvantage of being so close! Haha. We named her Debbie and she wasn't loving all our photos. Or maybe it was because I was eating and not sharing with her.

It was such a fun day! We were both so glad we went, and then we walked around Quilpué and explored a little bit afterwards and got some DELICIOUS empanadas. Then when we got back to Viña, we stopped at Pig Waffles, a place I had heard about and really wanted to visit. It might have been the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. They have waffles that are filled with meat and veggies and meal-type foods, and also with desserts. So clearly we chose dessert. Mine had peanut butter, raspberry jelly, banana, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and homemade whipped cream. HOLLA

Now that I deviated from the zoo theme, let's move back! Here are some animal photos from the zoo. I took WAY too many!

Got my tiger selfie! What a beaut.

My little goat friend who just wanted a cracker.

Simba status.

My BFF the jaguar.

Beautiful monkey.

Majestic proud oso pardo.

Debbie the guanaco. Preparing to spit.

Curious little llama!

Copa América

Life in Chile right now is ALL about the Copa América! As I mentioned before, there are posters and signs everywhere, every single street vendor and store is selling Chile fan gear and memorabilia, and there are tourists everywhere! The one good thing about all the tourists is that I do not feel as stupid taking photos of things! Ha. I was on my run tonight and saw SO many people taking selfies and taking photos of the beach and such. I talked to one group of people from Ecuador because they asked me if I was from Chile and knew any good restaurants nearby.

Viña is one of the host cities for games and I went to the game on Friday night! We got the cheapest tickets because we just wanted to experience a pro fútbol game here and it is SO close by. I went with my roommates Natalie and Mahathi and another intern friend, Katie. Before the game we met up with some other Americans who are studying here and our Chilean friend Javi for dinner and drinks, but their cheap seats were in the North and we were South so we had to split up for the game.

It was such a fun experience! The fans were crazy wild and so passionate about soccer and their teams. The game was between Mexico and Bolivia, so I expected there to be a lot of Bolivia fans since they are so much closer. Surprisingly, the stadium was dominated by Mexico fans! I am not sure if it was all Mexicans who came down to watch, or if a lot of them were Chileans cheering for Mexico. Chile and Bolivia are having some major political and economic disagreements right now so I could see a lot of Chileans coming and cheering against Bolivia. Haha. Either way, there was a lot of Mexico red/white/green in there!

It was pretty chile (LOL I left this typo because I thought it was hilarious. It was chilly in Chile!) outside since the sun was down, so we were bundled up for the game. It was fun and went a lot faster than I expected. The one experience I wanted to have was seeing the fans go CRAZY when somebody got a goal, but I never got to see that! The game ended in a 0-0 tie! How crazy is that?!?! And since this first round is just pool play, they allow ties and don't go into OT.

On the game days when Chile plays, the whole city goes nuts. To try to give you something to compare it to, it is honestly like the Super Bowl. But every single time they play it is like that. All the people are wearing their Chile gear, all the news stations are talking about it, the bars and restaurants are packed with people, and there are people walking around with Chilean flags and wigs and craziness. All the patients talk about is the game, and the news broadcasters are even wearing Chile jerseys and every other news story focuses on something related to Chilean soccer. They played last Thursday, and Katie I went to the house of one of her American friends studying here. She has a host brother who is 23 so he had a ton of his Chilean friends over, and she had a ton of Americans over. It was PACKED in their house and there were probably like 30 of us in total, but it was such a cool experience to see how the Chileans do game day. It reminded me a lot of the watch parties we would have for Frozen Four Sioux Hockey! They were glued to the TV and yelling and cheering and they would do these Chilean soccer cheers so it was fun to learn them. Chile won that game and they all went wild.

Then last night, Chile played again and Natalie and I went to a pizza place near our house to have pizza and watch the game. Two new interns from our program came on Sunday, so we met up with them there which was fun. The game was very action packed with many goals, but ended in a tie at 3-3. The people at the pizzeria would freak out every time we got close to scoring, scored, or had a nice save. Their entire hearts are in soccer and it is so cool to see their pride in Chile.

Here are a few pics from my Copa América experiences so far! I cannot wait to continue enjoying the Chile games! I hope they stay in the cup for a while yet!

 You can't really see anything here, but I tried to take a clip of Javi and his friends cheering like crazy at the house!

Here are the 4 of us at the Sausalito Stadium! We were able to walk there which was SO nice. They also have horse races, soccer games, and other events at this stadium.

We had a great view of the goal! Luckily most of the action was at our end during the game.

During the game I had to get some churros of course and be extra Chilean! Go México! We got our faces painted by some random girls walking through the mobs of people as we were standing in line waiting to enter the stadium.

Busy Weekend

Hello! Just thought I would give a quick update on what I have been up to because this weekend is full of busy things! I will write some individual posts on each thing a bit later because I currently have a ton of photos on my camera and phone that I need to upload and sort through first.

The Copa América, which is like the World Cup of Soccer for Central/South America just began and this year it is being hosted in Chile! It is such a cool experience and I am so glad I am here for it. The Chileans are SO passionate about soccer and there are Chile flags, shirts, hats, posters, etc. everywhere. All the restaurants and bars have Copa América specials and there is red, white, and blue everywhere. That is kind of strange to me because the USA is red, white, and blue as well so it doesn't feel as "foreign" as I would expect it to! Chile played on Thursday night and we went to a friends' house to watch it and it was CRAZY! They love their soccer team and their country! Plus Chile won so that was a bonus. They play again on Monday. Viña is one of the cities where games are played, and we got tickets to Friday night's game between Mexico and Bolivia. That was such a cool experience, even though the game ended in a 0-0 tie.

Today Katie and I went to Quilpué, a smaller town about minutes to visit the zoo! I had heard there was a small zoo there, and some of my patients had talked about it. They all said it was small and cute, nothing extravagant, but I really wanted to check it out! We LOVED it! It was actually a pretty good sized zoo and they had a lot of cool animals. Keep checking back for a post with a ton of animal photos. I went a little camera happy. Haha. Then we stopped and got an empanada near the zoo, and when we got back to Viña we went to this place called Pig Waffle I have been wanting to try! They have waffles and crepes and it was seriously the most delicious waffle I have ever tasted. Stay tuned for photos of that as well.

Tomorrow Katie, Mahathi, Natalie, and I are going to Casablanca for a vineyard tour and wine tasting! I am really excited for that because Chile has SUCH good wine and going to the vineyards is definitely an experience that I should take in while I am here.

So that is my busy weekend! I will try to write some posts as I get my photos done. Hope you have a great weekend!

La Rutina

Now that I have been working at Comin for a couple of weeks, I have started to get a good daily routine down so I thought I would share with you what I do here! My friend Abbey asked me what a typical day is like, so I figured more of you would also be curious!

An Extremely Detailed Day in the Life of Intern Michelle

7:54 am: First alarm rings. Snooze it and pass out.
8:02 am: Second alarm rings.Tell myself I need to get out of bed but the air is too cold.
8:10 am: Actually get out of bed in a slight panic.
8:11 am: Bathroom.
8:13 am: Go into the kitchen and start the coffee maker and my oatmeal.
8:15 am: Get dressed (minus my scrub top) and jump around to warm up.
8:20 am: Eat oatmeal and drink my coffee.
8:30 am: Wash my dishes.
8:35 am: Brush teeth and put in contacts.
8:40 am: Put on scrub top and shoes.
8:43 am: Try to wrestle my humidity hair in to a decent looking ponytail, braid, or bun.
8:45 am: Give up on the "decent" part and settle for having my hair controlled and out of my face.
8:50 am: Make-Up
8:56 am: Fill up water bottle.
8:58 am: Put purse, book, and water bottle into my backpack.
9:00 am: Put on jacket and backpack. Turn off the lights.
9:03 am: Depart from home and walk to the metro station
9:07 am: Pass by the nice man at the flower stand and say hello.
9:13 am: Cross the street before 1 Norte so I do not get fumigated by the construction work.
9:15 am: Wait forever for the walking light at Libertad/1 Norte to turn green
9:18 am: Get swarmed by pigeons by the park and pray I do not get pooped on.
9:24 am: Arrive at metro station. Pictured below.

Somewhere between 9:26 and 9:29am: Board metro and find a window seat, trying to avoid any human interaction. Zone out and start reading my book.

9:54 am: Hear the lady say "Estación Las Concepción" and begin to pack up my things.

9:56 am: Arrive at metro station in Villa Alemana.

9:58 am: Walk to Comin.

10:01 am: Arrive at Comin.

10:02 am: Greet Mati, Rodrigo, Francisco, and our loyal 10am patient Don Luis.

10:05 am: Be asked by everyone how I am. Reply with well. Every single time.

10:07 am: Someone new will ask me how I am. I am still doing well.

10:10 am: We still only have Don Luis so I begin organizing things and watching the crazy people on the TV Talk show "Mucho Gusto"

10:30 am: More patients come in and I begin to do various tasks such as ultrasounds, shortwave therapy, exercises, stretching, cleaning, or changing bed papers.

10:45-1:30 pm: Do the same tasks as listed above. Chat with patients. Run across the hall to grab ice packs. Say hello to the kind guy who works in radiology. Ask Francisco what he did the previous day. Predict that he will say "Worked at my other internship in the afternoon. And then did nothing." Secretly laugh to myself when that is exactly how he answers my question. Use the bathroom because I have been drinking a lot of water. Laugh at the weird people on the TV show. Resist the temptation to play with the hot wax and see what it feels like. Chat with patients about various Chilean things like food and slang words. Hope I don't accidentally electrocute someone with the Electric-Stimulation therapy. Explain for the thousandth time that it is not "cold" outside and that I am very accustomed to the cold in North Dakota. Undoubtedly ask Mati a stupid question that I already knew the answer to but did not realize at the time. Answer many questions from patients about life in the US. Get weird stares from new patients and people in the hallway because I am clearly not Chilean. Feel proud when I tell a patient to do something and they fully understand me and my Spanish. Laugh at something awkward Francisco does and how he tries to casually play it off. 

1:35 pm-2:00 pm: Usually only one patient remains, so we begin to clean up and get things in order for the next day. Chat with the other interns about life. Test each others' balance skills, proprioception, and strength. My favorite thing to do is to balance on the mini bosus. They're so cute! Rodrigo tells me my balancing skills are "solida!" 

2:00 pm: Leave Comin and walk toward the metro station.

2:01 pm: Be amazed at how hot it is outside compared to when I first arrived.

2:03 pm: Awkwardly chat with Francisco for two blocks before he turns to head home.

2:06 pm: Arrive at metro station just as a train is pulling away.

2:08 pm: Get to the metro deck and wait for another train to come.

2:12-2:16 pm: Finally board a train.

2:17 pm: Try to squish into a spot on the packed train where I can easily escape when it is time for my stop.

2:18-2:40 pm: Spend my metro ride analyzing the people around me, listening to the musicians, and looking at cute babies.

2:44 pm: Disembark from the train and race up the stairs to get into the card scanner line before everyone else.

2:45 pm: Scan my card and get out, thankful that Chileans are slow walkers.

2:46 pm: Start the trek home.

2:50 pm: Wish I lived a lot closer to the metro station.

2:52 pm: Walk past the sopapilla guy and resist the urge to buy one. Some days, the temptation wins.

2:55 pm: Realize I am only at 4 Norte and start speedwalking because I need to pee again.

3:08 pm: Arrive home.

3:09 pm: Phone goes crazy with emails, snaps, and texts now that I have phone service.

3:10 pm: Bathroom break

3:12 pm: Go into the kitchen with intentions of making lunch but end up spending around 10 minutes just catching up on phone notifications.

3:30 pm: Start throwing together some lunch with intentions of being healthy. I usually eat something light and quick, like eggs, fruit, a sandwich, salad, leftovers, or a quesadilla. 

3:45 pm: Eat lunch. Here is a typical lunch for me. Scrambled eggs with cheese, salad, and a smoothie!

4:00 pm: Clean up my mess and wash dishes.

4:10 pm: Change clothes and sit on my bed.

4:15 pm: Start getting everything prepped to go for a run.

4:20 pm: Get to the front door and realize I forgot to bring my keys.

4:22 pm: Strap keys to armband and try again.

4:25 pm: Run along the beach and try to avoid eye contact with the PDA-infested teenagers

4:35 pm: Laugh at the funny pineapple trees along the path

4:48 pm: Consider working out with some of the beach playground workout equipment, but get weirded out and decide to keep running past.

5:00 pm: End my run and go stretch on the beach.

5:02 pm: Realize that sitting in sand is a stupid idea when my legs are sweaty. Continue sitting in the sand anyway.

5:05 pm: Get sick of stretching and just sit and enjoy the scenery.

5:10 pm: Walk back home.

5:15 pm: Change out of my sweaty run clothes.

** At this point, I may do a variety of things including but not limited to reading my book in bed or on the beach, Facetiming, doing my homework, looking at photos, going to Starbucks, going grocery shopping, walking around Viña, chatting with roommates, Googling cool things to do in Chile, checking Social media, or cleaning my room.

6:30 pm: Head to the beach to watch the sunset.

6:55 pm: Begin to freeze because the sun is now down.

7:05 pm: Return home and spend a few minutes relaxing.

7:15 pm: Look at the clock, horrified that it is already 7:15pm and I have so many things to do.

7:16 pm: Still don't do any of those things.

7:30 pm: Decide to get up and start making dinner. 

7:50 pm: Eat dinner. Here is a typical dinner for me! Spaghetti, apples, BREAD :), and juice!

8:15 pm: Clean up from dinner and wash dishes.

8:30 pm: Sit down in the living room with estufa and my computer with the intention of accomplishing many things.

8:35 pm: Browse all social media, look through photos, send a few important emails.

8:50 pm: Get up and get some water.

8:55 pm: Actually open up my blog to write a post.

9:00 pm: Realize I need to edit my photos first and spend a half hour editing photos.

9:30 pm: Look at the clock with horror because I wanted to go to bed early.

9:32 pm: Scramble to write a blog post or Facebook some photos.
10:00 pm: Realize I forgot to do something else important and commence doing it.
10:15 pm: Eat a light snack before bed.
10:30 pm: Take a shower and enjoy the warmth.
10:45 pm: Take out contacts, brush teeth, and bid goodnight to my night owl roommates.
10:50 pm: Hop into my bed.
10:51 pm: Waste time texting my friends and on social media. Curse the time difference.
11:05 pm: Hate myself because it is already past 11.
11:09 pm: Put down my phone and turn off the lamp.
11:13 pm: Almost asleep, and then realize I forgot to set my alarm.
11:14 pm: Set my alarms for 7:54 am and 8:02 am.
11:15 pm: Close my eyes and drift off to sleep to the sound of the hot water heater, the cats on our roof fighting, or the neighbor lady talking.
6:36 am: Wake up and take relief in the fact I still have an hour to sleep.

AND REPEAT!

So there you have it. An extremely detailed, inside look at my glamorous (or not so glamorous) life in Chile. The weekends are much more exciting and usually filled with travel, but I try to keep a good routine and get enough sleep since I am working during the week. I usually will do something extra special one day a week like go somewhere new here or go to a movie or something. I just like to relax and hang out and enjoy time on the beach. So if you are ever wondering what I am up to, calculate the time difference and come to this post! You have an 82.4% chance of knowing what I am actually doing.

Have a happy rest of your HUMP DAAAY! :)