Veinte Personas

For being here for less than 24 hours, I sure have learned a lot and seen a lot that I would never have experienced in my daily routine.

To begin this trip or “stucation” as one may like to call it (study + vacation = stucation), I woke up at 3:20am Central Time and arrived at 8:40 Eastern Time in Santiago. This day included three flights and sitting on the tarmac in Miami for an hour. We then bought our tourist card and went through customs and then found our bags. I was thrilled because all of them arrived, and earlier that morning I was panicked because I thought I was never going to see them again. We then loaded our bags and got onto the Gringo Bus, which is what we call the bus that the ILAC Center owns and transports everyone in. After about a 20 minute drive down a skinny narrow highway surrounded by houses, we arrived at the ILAC Center.

The ILAC Center is gorgeous and everything is open with very few walls and doors. Many of the areas are opened with big cutouts in the walls that have no windows and our bedroom has two windows with screens and blinds and right in front of our desk, there are four windows with just blinds.

The next morning we woke up at 7:30 and had breakfast at 8am. Breakfast is at 8am everyday and there is fruit with bread. There are eggs and meat and cheese. After breakfast we took an in depth tour of the ILAC Center and learned where our classes are and the offices and looked at all of the lounge areas. We then went to the Spanish Mass after going down to the end of the street to exchange our money from dollars to pesos. The mass was difficult to understand, but it will just take time to understand and pick up on the typical words and phrases.

After mass we had lunch at 12:30 and it consisted of rice, beans, meatballs, chicken with pico de gallo and fruit. Every meal consists of fruit such as pineapples and mango. After lunch, we took the gua guas to Santiago. We walked down to the end of the street and climbed into the gua gua. The gua gua to Santiago had about 18 people. The gua guas are similar to VW vans and they just stuff you in and there are no seatbelts and the windows are open and the sliding door stays open the whole time so dropping people off and jumping out are really quick. There is a man who is in control of driving and another who stands in the door way while holding onto the handle and collects money. It costs 20 pesos each way (about 55 cents) no matter how far you go. We were dropped off on a street corner and walked up to the monument and sat on the steps for a while and people watched and looked at the view of Santiago.

On the way back, our group fit into one gua gua and had 20 people in the van. These drivers speed down the roads, since there are no speed limits and honk at slow motorcycles and cars that are in front of them. I can never imagine driving here and have cars zipping around me and stopping inches away from where I am parked.

Once we got back, we had some time to relax and then ate dinner at 6pm, which included lasagna, salad, fruit and bread. After dinner we had a meeting where we learned all of the rules and learned what to do and what not to do. Later that night, we ran and walked around the track and played card games, such as “Ve Pez” (Go Fish). I can't believe I am here and so far this has been an amazing experience.