Wrapping-up Linares and arriving in Santiago

Yesterday (Monday), we finished up our Linares section of the trip and made the trip back to Santiago. It was sad to leave our Linares families, especially since after a week of living with them I was beginning to really get to know them. A week just seemed like such a short period of time. I would have much preferred to skip at least some of the time living at the Chacahuin retreat center in order to spend a greater portion of our short two weeks in Linares with the family. I will most definitely return to Linares during the semester.

Our last days in Linares were very enjoyable and quite relaxing. We took a day trip to the Panimavida resort, well known for it's hot springs. After arriving early in the morning, we all got into the pools. Even the hottest pool wouldn't be considered "hot," and was quite a bit cooler than a typical hot tub, but it was unique because the heat was all natural. The water also contained a lot of minerals which are supposed to be great for your skin. Whether this is true or not was of little importance to us. The water was thoroughly refreshing and a nice change from the cold-water showers about half of the students were experiencing at their homes (I for one had hot water). After lunch (a $24 buffet, our only option!), some of the group went to the spa while some of the rest of us went exploring in the surrounding area. The resort was fenced in, but we still found some interesting stuff within the grounds. First we explored an old collapsing house. It was very much the stuff of horror movies, with a dark, damp feel to it inside and holes in the floorboards. It was a cool place, but nothing compared to what we found next, what looked like an abandoned spa. The large building was composed of two long and narrow, parallel hallways with probably 30 smaller private spa rooms connected to each hallway. The inside of the building was very dark, and there were broken tiles littered everywhere along the floor. After much urging, we failed to convince the majority of the girls (way to go Katy!) to follow us. But this didn't stop us as we ventured through the ominous hallway. In some of the rooms lay the remains of tile bathtubs. We had a few screams at the expense of the sanity of the girls outside, who were already sufficiently scared. All in all, the old spa reminded me of the scene in Shutter Island where DiCaprio's character is venturing through the poorly lit hallways of the old prison. It gave us all the chills, but was a lot of fun. The day at Panimavida was a mix of relaxation and excitement.

The next day, Doris (instead of Dori as I had accidentally put earlier) and I made a trip to a retreat center in Rabones with the rest of the students and their adopted families. Rabones is a very rural town filled with farms that fill the shadows of the Andes Mountains. We spent the day at the retreat center relaxing in the outdoors, sharing one of our final days with our families, and of course playing soccer, gringos vs. Chileans. We again lost, but the game is under protest for one-sided officiating.

Yesterday I also got a chance to be on Chilean TV! A fellow student of mine, her Linares mom, and one of our professors from Linares were interviewed live on a Linares news program. We were asked to share our experiences from the program and got to give our host families a special thanks over the airwaves. As we were leaving the building, the radio show hosts also asked us to join them on-air to do a similar interview. I didn't think that anyone would have caught us on TV, but when we arrived at the parish to catch the bus to Santiago, my friends and their host families all congratulated me on a job well done. Pretty cool experience! We paid our last thanks, said goodbye to our gracious hosts and headed North.

Once in Santiago, we were greeted by our host families at St. George's School, a Catholic elementary-high school run by C.S.C. priests, the same congregation as Notre Dame. My Santiago mom, Leticia, and one of my sisters, Camila, picked me up. We headed back to their beautiful house where I have been settling in these past two days. The family is composed of Leticia and her husband Leonardo, two sisters Vale (22) and Cami (20), two brothers Luca (10) and Stefano (9), and a big ole dog Dunkel. It is quite an energetic family where I look forward to many great months. Oh, and lest I forget to mention, I have an awesome bedroom with a beautiful view of the mountains!

Today I also visited La Pontificia Universidad Catolica, where I will be taking classes, for the first time. I met with Esteban and Estela, the two professors in charge or coordinating our program. Esteban also teaches one of our required classes, Chilean Politics and Society. I can't say the campus is as beautiful as Notre Dame (this shouldn't really come as a surprise, should it?), but it is still very nice looking and feels removed from the bustle of a major city like Santiago. Today was largely spent going over administrative details of the program, our classes, how to register for classes, how to get around Santiago, etc... It wasn't the most exciting, but very necessary. Tomorrow we have our first official tour of Santiago, given by fellow UC (for Universidad Catolica) students.

That's all for now, but I'll keep you updated as I begin to know Santiago better.