I apologize for the lack of updating over the past week and a half, I fell behind updating and then the task seemed rather daunting after so much has happened. I will attempt to briefly cover all that has happened in the past 10 days, but am bound to forget something. Also, I apologize for the lack of visual aids (fotos), I am still camera-less and Gina has yet to put up pictures so that I can steal them so they will come eventually I promise! I am going to start this entry with a quick summary of the happenings of last weekend/this week and then move on to my thoughts going into this final 2 weeks I have left in this country and with the friends I have grown to love over the past 5 months.
Friday of last weekend was mainly dedicated to studying for the final I had this past Tuesday, so Gina and Lindsey and I sat ourselves in Juan Valdes, a very classy coffee shop, and studied to the best of our abilities for 6 hours. WOAH. Also, I had the best drink I have ever had in Chile. It was called a Brownie Nevado and was basically a Mocha Frappucinno with literally an entire brownie put in a blender and blended into it. I literally was drinking a brownie. SO GOOD. I will have to return for one of these before I leave.
On Saturday morning, 2 of Gina's friends arrived from California and we (along with Karen and Jon and most of EAP to be honest) headed to the California Cantina to watch the USA vs. England World Cup game. It was incredibly crowded and the service sucked, but it was definitely fun to watch the game in a bar, have a few beers, and be surrounded by a country and restaurant full of people who actually care and love soccer; so different of an environment from back home! After that, I went over to Karen and Jon's fancy apartment in the center of Santiago and watched a movie and they made a delcious dinner.
On Sunday, I crossed off one of my ultimate goals of this whole abroad experience of going snowboarding in the Andes in June. Once I have pictures, I will post them! The snow wasn't incredibly impressive as it is still fairly early in the season, but it was SO MUCH FUN. It was incredibly gorgeous to look out from the mountain and just see never ending snow capped Andean peaks and was definitely an experience I will never forget. The Andes truly are spectacular and I am so lucky that I get to see their snow-capped glory every day. That is one of the things I will truly miss about Chile.
Monday was Lindsey's 20th birthday so in the morning, Gina and her friend and I surprised Lindsey at her apartment and made her a pancake breakfast with dulce de leche and nutella spreads. Not only was this delicious, but it was so fun to be able to do something nice for her on her birthday without her expecting it! Then, we returned to our apartment and I ran some errands as Gina met up with 2 more of her friends who arrived. I studied for my Tuesday final all afternoon and then we had a big group birthday dinner for Lindsey at Tiramisu, the delicious Italian restaurant we have become semi-regulars at these days.
Tuesday was my final which I can honestly say I feel very good about, so hopefully that is reflected in my grade! This is for my class where if I do well enough on everything prior to the final, it is possible for me to be exempt from taking the final so I'm keeping my fingers crossed! After school that day, Karen came over and we watched several episodes of Glee and then we had our Farewell Meeting for EAP with our director, all the staff, and all the students. There were a lot of people at the dinner that I hadn't seen for months and the food was delicious! It really made it start to sink in that this is almost over, but more to come on that later.
Wednesday (yesterday) I had my final day at my internship teaching English. The kids made me adorable thank you cards and I got a lot of hugs and kisses. I will miss those kids. In the biggest Chilean news of this update, Wednesday morning was also Chile's first match of the World Cup at the ripe hour of 7:30AM. Let me just say, the environment was absolutely NUTS. As I don't have a TV, I was following the game on the FIFA website which turned out not to be necessary as I could hear the reactions of all of Santiago through my window before the website could possibly update. While usually when I head to my internship at 8:30 the streets are crammed full and it takes nearly an hour, the streets were deserted and it took me about 15 minutes. As the game ended seconds before my first class started, teachers and students alike were running around the school yelling "Chi-Chi-Chi-Le-Le-LE-Vi-Va-Chi-Le! Ganamos! 1-0!". The pride was incredible. It is absolutely awesome to be down here for the World Cup.
Today marked my final day of classes, with all remaining of my semester being Tuesday with 2 finals and a brief assignment due. I would be lying if I said I'm not excited for school to end. It's a shame that studying abroad really involved studying if you ask me hahaha. But in all honesty, I do feel like I have learned valuable things in my classes so it is nice that it doesn't feel like I wasted 2 quarters of academics. Although the amount that I have learned outside the classroom through this experience FAR outweighs anything I learned in the classroom. Tonight, I am heading over to Lindsey's for burritos with her and her boyfriend who is visiting plus some other people before going to La Piojera for Terremotos with all the visitors plus Lindsey and Gina and more! It should be a fun night.
So, I have reached a point in this journey where the end is very much in sight. In a nutshell, I have 2 finals Tuesday, will finish and turn in my internship report Wednesday, and then have 8 days to hang out and do the list of things I have made of things I have missed around Santiago and hang out with friends before getting on a plane and leaving this life I have made for myself down here behind to return to my incredible friends and family. This has become an incredibly strange feeling for me. Everyone who ever told me that a semester abroad leaves you at the end finally feeling like you actually live in the place and beginning to really love it right as you have to leave was so very right. It is also so odd for me since the beginning was so rocky and I always thought I would be so ready to go home when the time came, and now it has come and I find myself genuinely sad to leave my life of the past 5 months behind. Gina leaves in 7 days, which will make this whole leaving thing really real. For now, although everyday I am torn between emotions of sadness for the pending leaving of this place, love for the friends I have made down here, and incredible love and excitement to see my friends and family back in California so soon, it's all kind of surreal.
However, although I will be sad to leave this experience behind, I cannot even begin to express how excited I am to see my Mom, Dad, and Brother who I have now gone longer than I ever again want to go without seeing and love so much, and my friends who I plan on running up to and not letting a single moment of fun and love go to waste. It'll have been 6 months, we have a lot of shenanigans to catch up on.
GET READY!
Love you all!
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