Tuesday, June 3

Today I finally had to go back to school. We had a geometry test, and I actually sat down and tried really hard on the whole test, which is not usually something I do. I think I did pretty well, but it was a little surprising I was after having to concentrate so much for so long. I think I’m a little out of practice when it comes to school stuff and I’m really going to have to hit the ground running in college in 2 months. The rest of school passed uneventfully. As I was walking to the collectivo after school, it started raining, and it didn’t stop for the rest of the day. I had been planning on going to crossfit with Sally, which requires me to take a collectivo to the Jumbo. I bundled up tight over my sports clothes and made the walk through the rain to the big street next to my house where collectivos pass. The street was absolutely filled with a river of water and there was no way to get around the water to cross the street to wait for a collectivo, so I braved walking through it. I took one step in the water, got my shoes absolutely soaking wet, felt the cold rush into my bones, and I immediately turned around and ran home. I still wanted to do some sort of exercise, so I just did a bunch of squats and crunches in my room. I guess that’s what my workout routine is going to become in these next few days while it is raining cats and dogs (as Chilean English teachers like to say). Anyway, Lilian called me downstairs for once early, and so I was back upstairs and in bed by like 8:30. I watched Shrek the movie in Spanish, and then went to bed early to the sound of the rain pattering on the balcony outside.

Monday, June 2

Today I got to sleep in until like 10. I got up, got ready, and then Skyped for a while with Ana. Around 1, I took a collectivo into the center to meet up with the guy Gabriel. He is a guy from my school who returned about 2 months ago from an exchange year in Japan. He’s a little strange and I kind of feel like he only hangs out with me to later tell his friends that he was flirting with the gringa, but I really wanted to hear his cool exchange stories from a year in Japan (which honestly is a whole lot more scary and different than a year in Chile), so I agreed anyway. We were sitting in the plaza talking when this random guy tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a little gift bag.  He said “this is from your friend” and walked away. I opened it, and inside, there was a business card, and little card with a guy’s name, phone number, and the message “add me on Facebook”, and also a little chocolate bar. It was incredibly odd, but whatever, these creepy things seem to happen to me a lot in Chile. We ate empanadas for lunch, and chatted until around 4, when he walked me over to the mall and then left to go look at clothes. I waited there for Pablo, and when he arrived, we took a micro back to my house. I helped Pablo with math because we have a geometry test tomorrow and he really didn’t understand very much. I tried really hard to explain everything to him, but teaching things in English is hard, and in Spanish it’s even harder. I think he did end up understanding though, which is great. After we studied, we went on the computer and looked at old pictures of each other and our “dark pasts” (his is a lot more embarrassing than mine for the record hahaha). His mom came to pick him up around 8, and then I ate once with my family. After once, I Skyped with my mom about more college planning stuff (I’m still not completely sure what I want my major to be and if I want to try to double major in Spanish or something else useful). 

Sunday, June 1

Today Katie and I woke up around 10, and then went downstairs to eat breakfast and talk to Katie’s sister Berni for a while. Berni is actually planning to go to Katie’s house in the US on “exchange” next year, which I think is the coolest thing ever. Their two families are going to have a bond that really will last forever. After breakfast, I changed clothes and caught a micro to my house. I wanted to get home early because I felt kind of guilty that I hadn’t been with my family in so long. I arrived around noon as Lilian was preparing lunch. I showered and then went downstairs to talk to her while she cooked. Manuel arrived a little later, and we all stayed together in the kitchen for like 3 hours while Lilian cooked and then while we ate. After lunch, Manuel and Lilian went to take naps, and I went upstairs to do something productive. My room has been feeling really cluttered lately, so I decided to take all the unneeded stuff like souvenirs and summer clothes and just pack them up into a suitcase.

La puesta del sol de hoy dia

I Skyped Melanie, and then Emily, all while going through my stuff and packing the unnecessary things. I know I still have a long time left and this was just to rid the room of useless clutter, but it was still kind of weird packing up a suitcase. After I finished, I went with my parents to the Jumbo, where there was a big sale at Paris, a department store. They bought me a thermal plaid shirt for the winter (it was a really cute little gift, and I love wearing it because it’s from them), and we picked out a new sweater for Manuel and a pajama shirt for Lilian. Then we went over to Berezzi to get a coffee and talk about life (what we always do together). We arrived home around 8:30, where I was shocked to be informed by my classmates that we don’t have school tomorrow either. I had been all prepared to go to bed early for school, so I decided I would still go to bed early and just get a nice good night’s sleep. I ate once with Lilian, we Skyped for a while with Fran (my host sister who is in Wisconsin right now), and then I went upstairs, watched The Breakfast Club, and then went to sleep.

Saturday, May 31

Sam’s alarm woke us up in the morning at 9:30, and we all dragged ourselves out of bed to get ready. Then we sort of sat around waiting for Lilly’s parents to drive us all to the metro station while Lilly ran around the house frantically packing because she was leaving for the airport at like 4 in the afternoon. Lilly went with her dad to drop us off, and when we got out, we each gave her a giant hug and told her how much we loved her, and it was all too real that this would probably be the last time I hugged her, at least for a while. We got into the metro and made our way across the city to the terminal. I sat with the Talca kids and talked for a while until their bus came, and then I was alone waiting for Katie and Sally to arrive. I listened to music and waited for a long time before Sally showed up.

We got huge ice cream cones for lunch and had a really good talk. We talked about how much we’ve changed this year, and how scared we are that going home will change us back. I have become a better person during this year. I am nicer to my family, more responsible, more aware of the money I am spending, and more attentive to being good to my friends and remembering important things about them. I have also become more confident in myself and more true to who I am and what I like. I don’t ever want to lose these things, but going back to my old routine in the US will just make it so tempting to return to who I was a year ago. Sally and I made a pact not to go back to our old selves. Anyway, Katie arrived after a while and we all got on a bus back to Rancagua. We arrived at Terminal O’Higgins and we were starving, so we walked all the way to the center to get a late lunch of Reina Victoria sandwiches. We waited for such a long time in the restaurant that by the time we got out it was almost dark. Katie and I said goodbye to Sally and got a micro back over to Katie’s house. We sat downstairs and talked with her family for a long time, and then we went up to Katie’s room and just chilled and did nothing and went on tumblr and listened to music for a while. We had been planning on going out with my friends for Ingles, but it just got really complicated with finding rides and everything and honestly we were kind of too tired to go to a party anyway, so we just put on pajamas and brought some hot tea up to Katie’s room and watched Rent.

It’s a really amazing musical, even though it did make me cry. We were super lame on a Saturday night and ended up going to sleep at like 1.

Friday, May 30

Today Katie and I woke up around 10, ate breakfast, showered and got ready, and then went to Terminal O’Higgins to meet up with the rest of the exchange students to go up to Santiago. We met Sally, Nigel, Kristen, Cassidy (who are from Santiago but were visiting in Rancagua), and Louis, and we all made the journey up to Santiago. We got off the bus and took the metro over to Patio Bellavista, where we waited for Aiden and Felix to come join us and then we went over to this place to drink beers and eat giant pizzas.

After everyone else left to say goodbye to Sophie at the airport, Katie, Cassidy, Sally, and I walked across Parque Forestal to this amazing ice cream shop called Emporio de la Rosa. We ate ice cream and talked about how incredible it is that we’ve been in Chile for so long and that at the same time it feels like it’s been 2 weeks and we can’t believe it’s going to be over so fast.

After the ice cream, we parted ways, and Katie and I went back to the micro so Katie could meet up with Madison and I could meet up with Trine and go to Lilly’s house, where we were spending the night. We got to the metro stop a lot faster than they did so instead of leaving the metro to wait for them outside and having to pay the metro fee a second time, we just sat inside the station on the floor listening to music and chatting. Eventually we found Trine and Madison and Trine and I went one way while Madison and Katie went the other. After a long a hectic metro ride, Trine and I arrived at Lilly’s house. We quickly got ready for the Rotary gala tonight (we were supposed to dress semi formally) and Lilly’s parents took us over.

It was at this event center in a big room with tables of snacks on the sides and a DJ and a big open space in the middle. Not everyone was there, but still about 35 or 40 people had shown up, so we spent a long time moving in between groups and talking. It was sort of this scary unspoken thing that this night may be the last time we were all going to see each other. We danced a little bit, but everyone was being pretty lame and just wanted to stand around and talk. Honestly the party wasn’t that fun at all, but it was just nice being with the exchange student family one last time. Lilly, Sam, Vincent, Trine, and I went back to Lilly’s house around 1:30.

Her family set up a bunch of air mattresses in the living room, and we lay down in one line of people to watch a movie. It was Lilly’s last night in Chile (she was leaving for Germany the next day), so we wanted to make it fun for her. We watched the movie, and then lay in the dark talking for a long time. Sam and I explained the education system in the US, and Lilly and Vincent explained the system in Germany. Then, out of the blue, Vincent grabbed a pillow and hit me over the head with it, then bragged for a long time about how he had won the “pillow battle” (I just love Germans so much). We stayed up talking until like 4 in the morning before we finally fell asleep.

Thursday, May 29

The rest of this week we have off school, so I got to sleep in this morning. After I woke up, I realized that I basically had nothing to do until tonight. It was unsettling to think that one of my last days in Chile would be spent doing nothing at all productive, so I decided to take a collectivo into the center to eat lunch and chill alone. It was honestly one of the best days of this whole year. I walked through the center like 70 times while listening to music and looking at the people passing. I brought my Rotary blazer with me and walked to this random sketchy street where I met this nice tailor woman who sewed on the patches for me while talking to me about how great the exchange system is and how happy she was that I had gotten to see Chile. Then I went into a random store where the workers were clustered in the cash register speaking in some Asian language. I love talking to random people, and this was no exception. I went up to them and asked, in Spanish, where they were from. Only one of them seemed to understand, and she said they were from China. I got excited and said the only phrase I know in Chinese, which means “I can teach you Chinese”. They all laughed a lot when I said it and then burst out in applause for my effort. They all asked how I had learned Chinese (it’s not every day you find someone in Chile who speaks even a word of a language other than Spanish or English) and we had a little conversation even though I don’t speak Chinese and they didn’t speak English of Spanish. Those are the types of encounters that only happen to you when you are alone and when you have no fear of talking to new people, and they are the type of encounters that I live for. They are the type of encounters that remind me how much I love humanity and how awesome all of those random people that we pass on the street without even making eye contact can be.

Also finally tried Nuts4Nuts, which is apparently this worldwide chain started by a Chilean... My advice: the smell is a lot better than the taste... I actually ended up giving the bag to a homeless woman on the street who asked me for money

Anyway, I returned home after about 3 hours, talked to Manuel for a while, and then went upstairs to do nothing for a while. I was supposed to get to Vicente’s house around 8, but since he lives in Machali, and I had to go in micro, I got scared that the micro would stop its route after a certain time, and it was getting dark, so I left my house around 6:30 with my backpack packed for the whole weekend. I waited a while out on the street in the dark for the micro to pass, and once it did, it was so crowded I literally couldn’t even get up the steps to give the driver my money because there were so many people standing in the aisle. After a while it cleared out and I got a seat, and about 45 minutes later, I arrived at Vicente’s condominium. He came out to get me and show me where he lives. We sat outside and talked and he started the bonfire. Around 8, Pablo, Dani, Nico, and Fernanda arrived. We sat around the bonfire and talked for a while.

Then I brought out the marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers that I had brought and we made s’mores. It was cute to watch them eat their first s’mores, and they all really liked them. We joked around (mostly they just make fun of my accent and my double chin but it’s okay because I know it is with love) and took ugly pictures of each other on Vicente’s mom’s camera. Around 11, I decided I should probably leave to go walk over to Katie W’s house, where I was spending the night. Pablo walked with me so I wouldn’t have to go alone. Katie let me in and she was already in her pajamas and ready to go to sleep. I changed clothes (my hair smelled gross from the bonfire but I was way too lazy to go shower), and we lay in her bed and talked for a while before going to sleep.

Wednesday, May 28

Today was a pretty fun day. It was only a half day, so we got out at 12:50. Also, Katie W came back to school today to say goodbye to everybody because she is leaving in like 2 weeks. Mariana, Chichi, and I ditched English to go practice the alianza dance, and then Katie joined us when she got to school. She was pretty nervous to come back to school after having been gone for so long, but everyone received her with open arms and she went through the rest of the day with her class. After school, Katie, Cata, Pablo, and I walked into the center to get lunch. Louis joined us later. We ate giant sandwiches from Tio Manolo, and then we walked around the center for a while just basically doing nothing and hanging out. We went into the mall, and on the top floor there were these little kid rides. Just to be funny, I got onto one of them and we tried to put in the money to make it work. This old janitor guy came up to us and told me I had to get off. I politely did so, but then the guy kept talking about how we should really grow up and how obviously we were too fat for the little kid ride to hold us, and Pablo got angry with him. We decided to just walk away, but Pablo didn’t walk away before getting up in the guy’s face a little bit. I guess it’s a pretty sucky job to be a janitor for your whole life, so I don’t really blame the dude for being so rude to us. Anyway, we went into another part of the mall and bought ice cream and talked for a while. It was Katie, Louis, me and Pablo, and so obviously we spoke in English. It was honestly impressive how Pablo was able to understand and contribute to the conversation. And he never even went on exchange. I’m kind of jealous to be honest. I got home in collectivo around 6, and immediately went for a run. After the run, I sat in my room and watched a movie. Downstairs, my aunt was getting the calluses shaved off of her feet at our dinner table (gross, I know), so Lilian brought me dinner on a tray to eat in my room. It was the cutest thing ever, and I felt so grateful to have such a thoughtful and caring mommy.

I ate dinner, finished the movie, and then went to sleep.