Day 2: We Are Definitely Tourists (5 May 2013)

Needless to say, I did not sleep very soundly. It is difficult for me to sleep in an upright position with lights on all around me, but apparently I slept well enough that I did not get a chance to eat any of the breakfast they served about an hour before we landed (which, I'm told, was relatively tasty). Oh, well.

When we finally disembarked the plane, we had to wait in a multitude of lines before we could leave the airport. First we had to pay an $160 entrance fee into the country. Then we had to have our passports stamped. Then we had to go through customs. Then we had to claim our baggage, which thankfully did not get lost. Finally, we had to all take out Chilean pesos from a single ATM near the airport exit, which took quite a while. 

However, we there met Jorge (our professor) and two Chilean students named Tomás and Marcello. Though I did not speak with them extensively, I am excited to talk with the students here in the future. It will be very interesting to see what sort of differences there are between the United States and Chile. 

We then boarded a bus to drive to our hotel in Viña del Mar, about an hour and a half away from Santiago. Because this is my first time out of the country, everything excited me, from the signs in Spanish to the very different landscape. Despite this, the motion of the bus lulled me to sleep within moments. 

The hotel we are staying at is very cute. My room (the only quad room) opens into a small courtyard. Once we got settled into our rooms, we walked to a nearby restaurant called Tiki Taco and got lunch/dinner (it was about 3 pm) as a group. The food was very good and the waiters were patient with my terrible Spanish. Then we walked around the beach and the boardwalk and took lots of pictures since it was such a beautiful day with very picturesque scenery. 

My first awkward encounter of the trip occurred when a street performer dressed as a mime singled me out and began performing around me, even taking my sunglasses and pretending to be blind in the streets. I had no idea how I was supposed to react so I did what I do best and laughed awkwardly (a lot). He was quite funny and everyone took a lot of pictures of him as he performed. 

I was reminded of just how poor my Spanish skills are when a group of us went to get some ice cream from a nearby mall. Ordering and paying was very difficult for me and I ended up getting the wrong flavor and paying with the wrong amount of money. All we could do was laugh at ourselves because we knew how difficult to understand we must have been. 

All in all, this was a very eventful day. Being in Chile for not even a day has made me very excited for the rest of the trip!