Miercolespo

Before coming to Chile, I did not know much about Santiago. Nothing about the food, the culture, the poeple, nightlife, etc. The only thing I heard I had to check out, was "Miercolespo".

I thought it was a bar called Miercolespo, which was open on Wednesdays. 

But I was wrong. 

It's a party for exchange students every Wednesday, with different themes and different location every time. Girls get in for free all night, while boys need to pay after midnight. And Chilean guys have to be on a list to get in... (or pay 12000 pesos!! =120DKK)

But somehow, there are always a lot of Chilean guys there, so I guess they all pay, in order to get in and get to know some foreign chick.. (but usually failing to do so).

It's a fun night and a perfect break from studying, and since most students are off on Thursdays, they all go to Miercolespo :)

And what do they all drink? Pisco!

Casa 1060

This is my casa:

 I live here together with 18 other exchange students, our landlord and his mum! 

Its a house with 3 floors, where the landlord has his own "apartment" in the basement, 10 students living in the first floor, and 8 students and the mum in the second floor.

We have 2 livingrooms, 2 kitchens, terrace, outside area with pool and barbecue place, and a small gym. I only share bathroom with another girl, so that's perfect:) 

Even though it sounds a lot living with 18 people, it's actually not that bad! Becasuse the house is so big, and we have classes at different hours every day, and eat at different hours, we don't see each other that often. There are people from Holland, France, Germany, Spain and Colombia! People here are so nice, and we really enjoy each other's company. Our landlord usually arranges trips and parties for us, so its never boring to live here :) and sooon we can start using the outdoor swiming pool!! 

Livingroom first floor

Kitchen first floor

not used to gas... 

roomies! 

Terrace

living room 2nd floor

pool!

Earthquake, Drug Bust and Fire

Last weekend I went to the coast of Chile, specifically " Playa el Tabo". It's a "rustur" arranged only for 3rd year students, but they were so kindly to invite us exchange students as well! So off we went, over 200 Chileans and only 30 exchange students. Living in small cabins was really fun, and just as the Danish Rustur, we went also partying from cabin to cabin and ending up at the main area where we could dance all night long:)

One of the cabins!

On Saturday, around 18.30, a strong earthquake of magnitude 6.6 on the Richter scale struck central Chile with the epicenter cloose to Valparaiso. (We were about 2 hours away from it). At that moment, me and my friends were outside at the terrace mingling with Chileans. First it was only a small shake, but as it grew bigger we could feel the earth shaking and see how much the cabin were shaking as well!! It was all over in 40 seconds and afterwards all the Chileans were on their phones trying to figure out how big it was, where the epicenter were at, if people got injured etc. (Nothing was damaged, and no one got injured either). The staff were warning us to stay away from the main area in case of a Tsunami.. and to stay high up were all the cabins were. But nothing happened and we continued the night with good food and drinks!

Sunday night some of my roommates were on a bus from La Serena to Santiago (5 hours trip), and about half an hour from Santiago, the police stopped the bus. Sniffer dogs came in and they arrested 3 people carrying 8 bags of cocaine! 3 of my roommates were sitting next to them, and they could have easily put the some drugs inside their pockets or in their bags as well.. but luckily that didn't happen.

And Monday morning at 4am, two of my friends woke up because someone was screaming fire. Their neighbor house had gotten on fire, and they had to get out quickly. One of them woke up earlier because he had heard some weird noises coming from the neighboring house, but he couldn't understand what it was, so he continued sleeping. His room was right next to the burning house. 

When they got out of the house, this was what they saw: 

My friend's house is the bigger one

So it must have been burning a lot while they were inside as well!!

I remember I woke up that day and saw that Universidad Mayor's facebook page had written about a fire in a house on the same street, but I had no idea which one, and I never imagined it could be my friend's place. Later a friend texted me saying that two of our friend's house was the one fire! Then I really panicked. Luckily it was wrong info, and it was not their house that got burned down, but two rooms are totally wrecked (out of 18).

They are all fine now, and can move back into the house in one month. But it must have been such a scary experience.. I was so nervous for them even though I knew they were already safe somewhere else. And I'm so happy that they all got out quickly and that the firemen managed to stop the fire from spreading.

Its been quite a dramatic weekend. But still, I really enjoy being in Santiago... and I can't wait for the next earthquake.. (and Emil better be with me then!) 

Parque Aguas de Ramon

Friday was a national holiday, so we spent the day hiking in this beautiful national park.
(30min. from Santiago)
 We saw mountains, trees, cactuses, snow, cows, waterfalls, rivers and more! 

And we also saw how polluted Santiago is, with the layer of smog lying all over the city. 

There were 3 different routes of different difficulties of hiking terrain, and we took the middle one, taking 4 hours. It was only difficult in the beginning since it was very steep, but the rest was fine, and I think everyone really enjoyed the day:)

Valle Nevado

Yesterday we went to ski in the Chilean Andes! And it was amazing.

Intro days!

Last week we had two days of introduction days.
Basically we just got lots of information that we didn't need, and nothing about what we really need to know.. (like what we were supposed to do this week!). The fun parts was that we learned about the different indigeneous people living in Chile and their traditional dances (which they also thought us), and we had some activities and games where we were divided into teams.

We could choose ourself what traditional dances we wanted to try, and I tried the tradional "Cueca" dance (no pictures). :)

All 250 exchange students! Most people from Mexico, France, Germany and Spain.

Campus Huecheraba: where we spent the intro days at! 

The Caribbean

St. Martin, St. Thomas and the Bahamas

I enjoyed all the islands, but for me, St. Martin was definitively the best and the most beautiful island.

In St. Martin we had a private driver that drove us around the country, showed us different sights (could stay for as long we wanted) and told us all about the history. It lasted around 4-5 hour for only 25$ per person!! (If you booked a tour on the cruise it would have costs 50+ $ per person, and only 2-3 hours).

Before arriving to St. Thomas I was suuuper excited. Everyone told me I could swim with sea turtles there, so the first thing we did was to go to a tourist office when we arrived the port. My dream is to swim with sea turtles and now I could finally do it! And then what do the guy say? No more tours to the turtle bay?!

I was crushed. 

All tours were fully booked and there was nothing we could do. (Future people wanting to see turtles: book in advance, on the cruise, even though it's more expensive). Instead of swimming with turtles we went on a tour up in the mountains of St. Thomas. We saw some amazing views, but our guide/driver was really bad and we never understood what he was saying.. The tour ended in Coki Beach, which was a small, but nice beach. Our waiter in one of the beach restaurants was very rude and we had to wait a very long time for the food :( (even with no guests)

We paid 25$ per person for a "guided tour" for 2 hours (if you book it on the cruise it costs 55-75$ per person), and we didn't even get to see the capital (Charlotte Amalie). All in all it was a nice day, but it could have been much better.

Before arriving to Bahamas we booked a tour on the cruise, because we did not want to risk not getting on a boat, and not being able to snorkel. We paid 49$ for sitting on a small boat for 30x2 minutes and snorkeling for 45 minutes. (Mistake: there were soo many tourist offices in Bahamas, and probably a lot more cheaper than what we paid!!). Snorkeling was really hard in the beginning because I had never done it before! But after 20 minutes struggling in the water, I finally found out the technique.. Then it became really fun :) When we came back to Nassau (the port) we went to the market and looked for souvenirs.

All in all the Caribbean islands were so beautiful and my family and I had a really great time there! Definitely going back again.

Arrived to St. Martin after 3 days on the cruise!

Mi familia :)

Dutch capital: Philipsburg

French side

Maho Beach

St. Thomas: Charlotte Amalie (the capital)

Magen Bay

Four cruiseships in Bahamas at the same time!

Our cruise- the Norwegian Getaway

St. Martin

Snorkeling for the first time! Bahamas

The Atlantis hotel, Bahamas