CHILE... Day 1

Well needless to say it has been QUITE some time since my last post on here! I went to Chile for 10 days with Lucia to visit here Boy Leo :) Kelsey Tulon and Sarah Kennedy joined me. After figuring out a few days before we left that I had bought Kelsey and Sarah's tickets for the wrong dates a little vacation was definitely in order! Kelsey and Sarah flew home a day late because of my HUGE mistake... but while they constantly give me a hard time for it they fail to mention their plane tickets were almost $100 dollars less than mine. All in all we had a GREAT time... I think Sarah wishes we were studying in Chile and Not in Argentina, but I love Argentina! We all got pretty close on the trip and I feel like I have def. made new friends.

Sarah and I have to laugh because we both have sisters. Im the oldest and Sarah is the youngest, so we found eachother "playing our Sisterly roles" as we were In Chile :) Haha it was a good time...

So here I go... Im going to try and out line the trip with the photos I took.. I know im going to miss a lot, but here I go...

We left Rosario at 3:00am and of course half way on the trip we made a stop so all the Argentines could stop and get their Cafe and Media Luna fix.
I was thrilled as I watched them ALL eat.. and nothing here is FAST so we knew we had a little while to wait :)

My traveling companions look a bit tired.


We made it to BA just intime to watch the sun come up!
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We made it to the airport and found our door! This is a picture from the plane of the Argentine country. While it looks JUST like Iowa I found my self marveling at Iowa's straight roads and square mile by square mile lay out.


Pictures dont do ANY justice but Flying over the Andes was BEAUTIFUL!! It was also really neat because as I could see the land rising as we got closer to the Mountians but there was a VERY distinct line were the actual Andes created the boarder between Argentina and Chile...



We finally made it to SANTIAGO! And found our way through the deserted Airport.. not many ppl are traveling because of the earthquake and much of the air port was underconstruction. In just this short time I could tell Sarah's VERY distinct lingo was and has worn off on me. After a day of traveling we were all VERY "angsty" (a mix between Angry and Fiesty)

Sarah and I shared my suit case so we didnt have soo much Luggage but as Sarah drug it down here appartment stairs one of the wheels broke...thats what we think hapened this just made our TRAVELS even more interesting!! LOL!! Luckly we were able to hook my suit case to Kelseys but together they were VERY heavy!!

After the Airport we found a bus that took us to another bus station called "Parhajito" or "little bird" :) (just like i call Breanne). Our suit case troubles became even funnier as we were all VERY tried trying to drag these TWO HUGE suitcases through Parhajito which seemed to consist of ONLY stairs!! At one point, and I laugh every time I think of it, We had completely blocked off a set a stairs as we tried to carry the suit cases down them. Sara was at the bottom and kelsey dropped the top half of it as I stood watching this "quilbo". Every one was giving us dirty looks as the worn out travelers were at eachothers throats trying to find our way in a foreign country! AHHH! soo funny now!

So we finally made it to Viña del Mar where Lucia met us just as we got off the bus!

We took a taxi to the bus stop and then bored the bus, luggage and all and Headed for Leo's house!!
The bus drove right along the Sea! It was soo beautiful! HOWEVER!! The roads are sooo curvy and if I thought the Bus drivers in Rosario were crazy.. they hold no candle to the Bus drivers in Chile!! We cruzed around those curves as if there was no tomorrow, not to mention passing ppl on such tight turns!! IT WAS CRAZY and i felt a bit sick after wards.... only to find that after we got off the bus we had to walk up what sarah called "Pikes Peak" It was soo steep and was at least 6 blocks long!! So we FINALLY made it home!!

It was Leo's birthday the day we arrived so after he got home from work we all got dressed and headed to his Mothers house where we me his family!!
We had a little birthday party for him! We sat out side, and they made the mistake of putting potatoe chips in front of US!! AHH!! We(Kelsey, Sarah, and I) couldnt help ourselves as we had almost forgotten the taste of the beautiful chips and we ate all of them!! :) In Chile they call supper "Once" like the number 11.. instead of "Cena" We asked Leo why they call it once and he told us there are lots of myths of as to why.. one is that it was code when the workers wanted to take lunch but didnt want to jefe/ boss to know. They use once because the actually word for dinner was 11 letters long....

For once, the Chileans dont eat very much... they drink tea and not coffee like in Argentina. Once usually consists of a few small sandwiches and tea. ... and some papafritas(chips!) :) It was different but I enjoyed the change!

We all sang happy birthday after once,



but we(Kelsey, Sarah, and I) were sooooooooo full from once and ALL the chips that we COULD NOT have cake! It was about 12:30 or so when they passed out the cake... We were SOOO TIRED!! Lucia and Leo could see this and offered to bring us home! So nice of them.... This is when and where we acquired the nickname "the niñas" / little girls. Leo and Lucia were going to return after they brought us home. We felt like their children... and to make it worse as we left the TRUE niños were playing out front while the 19-21 year olds were calling it a night!! To top off our new self given name ... we all sat in the back of the car as Leo and Lucia sat in the front and had an "Adult converstaion" haha! But it was nice to be home and in a comfy bed!!