Athena - Catching up in Santiago, Chile

So it's been over a week since I last posted. So sorry about that folks! A lot has happened and I even skipped a whole country (Colombia). But I promise to update you about our 3 stop tour of Colombia in another post. Right now we are in Santiago, Chile, having just arrived yesterday morning. Our classes start tomorrow - yes, we actually do have to attend classes as part of this trip. So soon it will be back to reality, back to reading case studies and participating in class. I'm hoping we don't have any long papers to write, but I guess we'll have to see how the professors are here.

Our school in Chile! Classes start 1/15!

The view from our apartment. Beautiful!

  It feels wonderful to finally stay in one place for a while. We'll be here for three weeks. As much as I liked seeing all of the different cities we saw in Brazil and Colombia, packing and unpacking,
feeling pressured to do everything quickly because we had limited time, and not being able to unpack without thinking about stuffing everything back in my suitcase got a little old. Being here for a while kind of reminds me of being in Argentina for 2 months. There's a certain comfort with knowing that you have time to settle in and explore an area. A sense of comfort with being still, with having a 'home base' to operate from.
  We didn't get here to Santiago without any challenges. We flew here from the Bogota, Colombia airport, where the security guard confiscated all of my liquids out of my carry on bag. I haven't had any other trouble on any of our other flights in South America. And the other Traveling Tarheels got through security just fine with their liquids. It was frustrating and I was little embarrassed. They didn't just take my liquids, they also checked my passport and wrote my name down. I guess I'm on some kind of bad passenger list now. So I lost my shampoo, conditioner, lotion and astringent. The shampoo and conditioner were nearly empty so it's not a big loss, but it is very frustrating. I'm not sure how to pack for future flights, but you can be sure that any liquids that I have to have will now go in my suitcase.
   After arriving yesterday in Santiago yesterday, we immediately starting doing laundry. I can tell you how excited we were to have access to washers and dryers again. Cleaning your clothes was an unforeseen challenge for us. The apartment in our last stop in Cartagena, Colombia said that it had a washer, but when we got there the washing machine was actually a lady named Delia who would take your clothes to her house, wash them and then return them to you. Not exactly the kind of laundry service we were expecting, and it was difficult to use in the short time we were there. After finishing our laundry we grabbed a snack, slept for a while and then explored a nearby neighborhood in Santiago. We stumbled upon a very cool pedestrian street with all kinds of stores and restaurants. We walked, checked out the sites and of course got ice cream as well.
   So there you have it, we're breaking the airport rules, getting supper excited about washing machines, feeding our ice cream addiction and overall, we're getting settled in nicely to Chile.