I know that it has been a while since I have posted anything but it has been a crazy last couple of days. Here is what has been going on since my last post. I finished my student teaching at Grizzell Middle School, which is very nice but my students almost made me cry. They got me this poster sized card and they all signed it wishing me good luck, $25 gift card from Cameron Mitchell’s, and a huge bag of teaching supplies. The next day was my big departure, and I still had a lot to do. My packing was not complete, I had to complete my final reflection for my student teaching, I needed to put the finishing touches on my literature review for my Capstone, and all I really wanted to do was spend the evening with Aimee, my lovely fiance, and make some final phone calls before I was no longer able to use my cell phone. So I took about 10 minutes and completely freaked out, then I got my stuff done, went to dinner with Aimee and Michael, and did not sleep at all due to the anxiety of the upcoming travel. In the morning I did some last minute preparations and it was off to the air port. Thank God my dad was there because I may have accidentally missed my flight on purpose.
Now normally I love to fly, and this trip started out the same way until the flight from Dallas to Santiago. This was a very long flight, it was over night and we were expected to sleep on the plane. Do you know how hard it is to sleep on a plane, especially in the economy class. So now this is two nights in a row that I have gotten no sleep (if you were counting). So to make a long story short this flight just plain sucked, for lack of a better description, and then we landed. Next step immigration, visas fees, and customs. What an experience. First off the language barrier was very apparent. Second, there was a lot of waiting. Third, I was tired. We were lucky enough to have a van waiting for us at the exit along with Greg (Thomas Jefferson School owner) and Magda (Greg’s significant other), who had arranged a whole day of activities for us. Did you catch how much sleep I have gotten in the last couple of days? Yeah, I was tired, and we had no time to rest.
So, we were off. A day full of sight seeing and eating and shopping and taking lots of pictures. We all also struggled with the exchange rate all day. This will prove to be an ongoing problem. What a great time and what an awesome experience. And that was just Friday, Day 1.
Day two was a little easier. First off I finally got a full nights sleep. I even got to sleep in a little. We were lucky enough to be staying at a hotel that had free breakfast so that saved us some time and money. We then hopped in a taxi and we were off, not really. Como se di say, “Take me to the Mall.” en espanol. It is very hard to take a taxi with no one that speaks Spanish. The Spanish-English dictionary saved our lives. After the mall it was lunch and then to pueblos de los Dominicons. This is the artists’ shops. This was the coolest part of Chile to this point. Everything is had crafted and beautiful. I bought some things and took a lot of pictures. I also had a lot of fun trying to bargin with the artists. Prices are always negotiable here. We lost track of time and ended up spending 5 hours here. Amazing experience. The rest of the day was relaxing and getting ready for meeting our families in the morning.
