Goodbye Chile

Amazing how fast 5 months can go by - I feel like I just got here, and now I'm sitting in an empty room with the suitcase packed and I am about to leave for the airport! I can't believe that my time here is already over!
I'm going to miss Chile SOO much!

Thank you to everything who made my semester so great!!

Los voy a extrañar harto!! <3

San Pedro de Atacama

For right now I just have pictures... I'll update it later and tell you more about my week! Just know that we had a great time!! : )

Atacama

Yesterday night we got back from the Atacama Desert after a great week!
Here's one picture to start with, more to come when I can find some time. : )

No more school

School is OVER!

I’ve had school for the last 18 weeks and now it’s over! HOW WEIRD!! Yes I’m happy, but at the same time I’m really sad! I’ve really gotten to love my class here and it’s hard to just leave them again!

Let me tell you about my last week: Tuesday was ‘Día verde’, ‘green day’ we did lots of very random things about environmental energy and stuff like that. It was pretty cool! My group built the surrounding of a little train. It was supposed to work with solar energy, but because there wasn’t any sun we ended up just plugging it in… : ) We also watched the Switzerland – Argentina soccer game and then whole school was suffering!

On Wednesday we had a goodbye breakfast with Jimenaz (the person in charge of us exchange students), it was really nice! At night we also had our last official gymnastics practice. Lea came along as well and at the end we took some pictures with Myia, our coach.

Thursday at lunchtime we went to eat at an Italian restaurant with Paloma, the exchange student Spanish teacher. It was really nice as well! Later Lea, Cathy and I went to the Condi one last time to celebrate us being in Chile for 20 weeks and just to eat some yummy cakes and drink some delicious hot chocolates again.

On Friday we only had school until 1pm, all in all we watched two hours of a movie in German. Then had breakfast, afterwards took some pictures and said goodbye to Paloma and then ate some more. I had a hard time saying goodbye to the kids in my class. I’m really going to miss all of them!!

But it looks like I will get to see at least some of them again in the second week of the holidays.

Yesterday I went to the cinema with my familia, we saw ‘la fortaleza’, it was pretty good!

On Tuesday I leave to spend a week in the Atacama Desert, I’m pretty excited I think it will be great fun! I get back Monday night, so don’t expect me to post something before Tuesday! : )

The reality that I’m not going to be in school for six weeks is finally starting to sink in, but I can’t get the fact that I’ll be in Atacama in a week and in the US in two into my head! That would mean leaving Chile! But I feel like I just got here – so why would I be leaving already!?

soccer

traaaain

intercambios

gymnastics

lunch

20 weeks

a part of my generación

intercambios

just one of the many pictures we took on the last day

last day food : )

M4 <3

another week of school

And yet another week has gone by!
The week started out with watching the Chile – Holland soccer game at school. On Tuesday school ended at 1pm for everyone. I went to have ice cream with Cathy and a couple of other kids from school. We also walked through a little park and saw a pretty cool fountain.

The rest of the week went by pretty fast as usual here. : ) Thursday we had another practice earthquake alarm – we’ve had one every month or so. The first thing you have to do is sit under your table and when the alarm changes, then you are supposed to get up and leave the building to go to the cancha where everyone meets divided up in classes. The whole thing is pretty hilarious but the kids from my class are always really annoyed when it goes off. But I guess it makes sense – they’ve had these alarms every month for the last 13.5 years! : )
At night I went to a music thing from the school. Lea and Cathy sang and José played the guitar with his class. It was really cool!

Yesterday we watched the Chile – Brazil game at Andrés's brother’s house. The game was great but at the end we just suffered! They lost by SO little!! Everyone was pretty disappointed afterwards but after some food the world already looked a bit better. : ) At night some old friends of Paula came over and we had another barbecue. Paula taught me how to make a dessert – Crema de Maracuya. It turned out great, but it was super easy too. : )

Today the boys and I went to ‘el muro’ which is a rock climbing gym really close by. We have wanted to go for a really long time but it never worked out. We did quite some bouldering, which is the one where you don’t need harnesses. It was lots of fun! I hope we can go back next week!

Then I went to Plaza Egaña where I met Lea. We walked around, had some AWESOME cinnamon dessert things and then of course some playing one of the pianos.

Tomorrow is the start of our VERY last week of school here in Chile!! It's SOOO weird!!!

fountain in the park

earthquake alarm

Lea and Cathy

José

Crema de Maracuya

cinnamon rolls

piano

Valle Nevado

On Wednesday we watched the second one of Chile’s games in the world championship. They won again and the whole school (all of Chile really) was super happy as you can probably imagine.

Last Friday we had ‘jeans day’ at school. That’s a day where everyone can wear to school whatever they want to. It was pretty cool to see everyone in different colors and not just read and blue! : )

I had gymnastics as usual at night, and then we went to have dinner at a friend of my host parent’s house. He lives farther up, closer to the mountains – still in Santiago though – and you had a really cool view of the city lights until it started getting suuper foggy.

Yesterday Lea and I had a going-all-about-the-city-day. First we went to a market where they sell all sorts of things. Then we went to my house and Lea helped me get my snowboard ready. Afterwards we went to the mall Plaza Egaña – so that Lea could play some piano. This time my favorite people were a guy who gave her a thumbs up sign as he walked by and some other person who started applauding. : ) Our last stop was Lea’s house, where we watched a movie. Afterwards I went home and then had some more organizing things to do.

Because today we went SKIING!! We went to Valle Nevado. The drive up there takes about 1.5 hours and there’s a part where the road winds itself up the mountains – there’s 39 turns and each of them is numbered. : ) The highest point I went to was almost 3500m above sea level! I think that’s pretty impressive!
We had a great time all day! It was pretty cold at times but I still LOVED it! Andrés drove us up there, but then I only went skiing with the boys. In the afternoon I also spent some time boarding with Cathy and then some more with José. One thing that I think should definitely be something other skiing resorts should think about, is that in ‘Valle Nevado’ there were always little stations with boxes of tissues at the botton of almost every chairlift! I mean how brilliant is that?? : ) On our way back down at 5pm the sun was setting behind the mountains and the sky turned orange and purple. It was beautiful!

Just so you know – even though I did get my license I’m not planning on driving around alone for a while!! I know that I still need to practice a lot and I’m not even thinking about just going about the city by myself. I haven’t driven at all anyway since I got my license! : )

Now I only have another two weeks of school and then another two weeks of holidays to look forward to until I leave this crazy, precious, amazing and beautiful country and then head up to the US to spend a month in yet another one of my homes spread about the world.

mundial

Plaza Egaña

trying to get my board ready : )

tissue station

on our way back down