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

The Norwegian Getaway

7 days cruise in the Caribbean.. It was AMAZING!

We went with the Norwegian Getaway cruise, which is a completely new cruiseship (2014) and could carry 4000 passengers. (!!!!!). 18 floors in total,  with lots of awesome, all you can eat food (didn't know I signed up for the waist-width gaining club on the cruise), amazing latin dance shows, lazy days on the sun beds, more food,  funny shows, dancing lessons and more activities! etc. etc.

Samba lesson, and sweaty bear hugs for free:

What do we love equally as much as eating? Watching cooking shows

Braiding my hair vs normal hair?

                     

Miami

After the last day of school I went straight to Miami to meet my family that had already arrived the states 3 days ago. 

First impression of the US: 

People are SO TALKATIVE!! (and friendly)

I arrived at 4am, stood in line for 1 hour to go through immigration, and I though that the immigration policemen would be really grumpy since it was so early. But no! I came there, and the police guy asked where I came from, I said Santiago, and the he started talking to me in Spanish. I had to ask him to slow down since my Spanish was not that good, and he did, so we had a great talk!

At 5.30 am I came to Subway and had breakfast. The guy working there was so happy and were singing, dancing and talking to me. If I were to go to work at 5 am I would not have been singing or dancing at all..

Later I finally found the bus terminal and wanted to buy a ticket. There, again people were super friendly and was helping me. A policeman was giving me lots of information about Miami, where to go for shopping, how the bus system works, asking me about Norway etc etc..
I had to give him a couple of hints that I needed to go now, but he kept on talking and talking haha.

Also on the bus, the driver was so nice, and after 20 minutes I was finally at the hotel and meeting my family again :)

Miami  Beach

4th and last week of the course

The last week of the Spanish course went by so quick!!

Watching Germany winning over Argentina in a super crowded bar with lots of Germans, eating out together, and wanting to go out for the last time together (but didn't really work since we were all tired from partying and had to study for the last exam!)

Friday the 18th of July we finished our last exam, ate empanadas together with the teachers and we were singing and dancing in the classroom. Afterwards we went to a cafe for a drink, and that was the last time we were all together :( The Spanish class people had a last party the same night, but I was on my way to Miami to meet my family!

Cheering for Germany! 

Eating empanadas

Two of our teachers: Carina and Margot

Last beer with the people before heading to Miami