In any case, the end of the semester in Chile wasn't too different from any other end of the semester: stressful, lots of tests and essays. One nice surprise did happen though: I showed up to one of my exams only to be told I didn't have to take it because I had a high enough grade in the class! I guess that is sort of a common thing here, and it was definitely a huge sigh of relief for me. Other than that, everything ended up going pretty well at the end of the semester. I now that I passed all my classes...another good sign ;)
When my Dad and Gray got back from Buenos Aires we took a few days to check out the city. We walked around my neighborhood and downtown area, and I did my best to share the knowledge I had of the city. I felt a little bad, because I kept having to leave them to go do school stuff, but I tried to get stuff done the quickest I could to enjoy maximum time. It was kind of weird taking people around the city, and realizing how well I actually do know the city now, and how, just by chance of living there, I have already seen most of the major tourist sites.
One of my favorite nights that we spent together was Thanksgiving. I had my last final the morning of Thanksgiving (which was weird to have school on Thanksgiving), which was actually nice because the I could enjoy the evening and not be stressing out about school that night. We all shopping at La Vega, the big open air vegetable market in Santiago, for the freshiest veggies for dinner. Then we hopped on the metro and went to one of the biggest supermarkets in town (called Jumbo) to find the rest of our supplies. All and all, we were fairly successful in finding everything. Once we were loaded up, we headed back to my place to cook. My kitchen, and especially my oven, are not of the highest quality, so we had to do our best with what we had.
Gray and I prepared most of the food (mostly Gray teaching me what to do...), and surprisingly, there were no major mishaps :) We made some of the traditional foods and improvised some of the others: chicken (instead of turkey), cooked veggies, salad, beans and bacon, potatoes, pie... We had scheduled to have dinner at 8, so of course no one showed up until 9, which actually ended up working out well because the food was all ready at the point.
It was a really fun Thanksgiving, even if it was not the traditional one. I'm so glad that my Dad and Gray could be there to share it with me and that they were willing to prepare a big dinner and invite people over, in the Thanksgiving spirit. And, I'm so grateful that Gray was there to help prepare everything or I would have been completely lost! We were the only United Statsiens (I can't say Americans anymore, it has been drilled in to me down here), so for everyone else it was there first Thanksgiving, which I think made it all the more special and fun. We had Ivan and his parents, my roommate Pauline, Barbara and Eduardo (Barbara is the amazing woman who I stayed with when I first arrived in Santiago). Everyone seemed to get along, which was a huge relief, and the night passed quickly with a mixture of talk in English and Spanish.
Somehow, Gray's time in South America came to an end way to quickly. It seemed like she had just gotten there when it was time for her to hop on a plane back up north again. It was so much fun to spend time with her and my Dad in Santiago and I'm so grateful they got the chance to come down and visit me and I was able to show them a little piece of my life in South America :)
After Gray headed back, I had one more essay to write, which of courese I put off until the last minute (not totally my fault, my teacher kept pushing back the due date so I kept putting of writing it) until finally it was 12 hours before my Dad and I were supposed to get on a plane to Bolivia and I had still only written a paragraph...So, I ended up staying up rather late the night before finishing my essay, BUT I finished in time and got it sent off to my professor and a friend to print it and turn it in for me.
The morning before my Dad and I left, we tried to go get visas from the Bolivian consulate. However, they didn't have any (how a consulate cannot have visas, I do not understand. I think the only explanation is that Chileans don't need them to enter Bolivia, and not very many US citizens try and get them in Santiago). So, after a nice scenic trip to the Bolivian embassy, we were on the metro to the airport...
(for those who didn't realize the post below this one is also new even though it says it's from November, just FYI)
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