International Flights…¿Qué Divertido, no?

Estoy in Chile!!! It’s crazy to think that I’ve already been here 2 days! It feels both very short and much longer than that at the same time 🙂

But I’m gonna focus on the adventure of getting to Chile for this blog post, because let me tell you, it was quite the adventure. We took a pretty crazy flight because we were able to get it SUPER cheap…but part of the reason for that was that it had 2 layovers in foreign countries and arrived in Santiago at 2:35 in the morning…yikes. We left O’Hare at 10am, arrived in San Salvador, El Salvador at 1:30, had to wait for 2 hours, took a 4 hour flight to Lima, Peru, had to wait for 2 more hours and then took another 4 hour flight to Santiago! Once in Santiago we had to wait until 8 am to get picked up by the people from the Y and then had a 2 hour drive from Santiago to Valparaíso.

So here’s what I learned from this international traveling experience:

ANNA WIERSMA’S DO AND DON’TS OF INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL:

DO talk to the people next to you on the plane, you’ll be amazed by people’s stories!

• I was a little bit worried about sitting alone (didn’t want to get stuck by a fat man snoring, ya know?) but I actually had really interesting people by me every time! First I had two male dentists who were going to Honduras for a week to volunteer in a dental clinic, second a couple going on their honeymoon to Macchu Picchu and third two Chilean women who I started to call my “mamas chilenas”. My “mamas chilenas” were my favorite becasue they were both my mom’s age with 20 year old daughters and started fussing over me immediately, it was adorable 🙂 They needed to know everything about my life at college and my travels to Chile and gave me as much advice as they could cram into our conversation! I’m very used to the American culture of public transportation where you sit as far away from strangersas possible and don’t talk, but everyone was very kind and eager to tell their story and hear mine, it was a great start to the trip. But you could definitely see the cultural shift with my “Chilean mamas”. Instead of onlytalking for 15-30 minutes, we talked for at least a good hour, in Spanish! It definitely calmed some of my nerves to actually hold an hour long conversation, plus they said my Spanish was really fluid already, so that was encouraging! When they heard that I had to wait in the airport for 5 hours to get picked up they were all worried about me and saying that they wish they knew me beforehand so I could stay and sleep at their house…and I’m finding that this is pretty typical Chilean hospitality, it’s grand 🙂
  

  Pobrecitas! 🙁 Our makeshift beds in the airport

DON’T choose a flight where you arrive at 2 am and have to wait to get picked up…

• The only scary/bad part was when we had to wait from 2:30-8:00 in themorning I suck at sleeping on planes…it’s bad. I tried so hard for the last flight, but I can never get comfortable enough, no matter how tired I am!  I probably only really slept for an hour. So my advice would be, don’t bank on getting any sleep in a plane, unless you have a long flight and Tylenol PM! For our wait in the airportwe set up camp on some benches and tried to sleep, but it wasn’t very comfortable and the airport was FREEZING for some reason! Plus, we looked so pathetic, I felt homeless, and it was just odd trying to sleep in public. Again I only really slept for about 2 hours, because we were trading watches over all of our luggage! And THEN, in typical Chilean fashion, they didn’t show up until 8:30! I was freaking out that we were at the wrong gate, because we could only find 1 and not 1a like they had told us, and the telephone number we had for the Y wasn’t working and I was getting SO worried, until all of a sudden these 3 Chileans descended on us and started hugging and kissing and saying “Bienvenidos!”! Phew!

DO fork out the cash to get yourself some real food in the airport!

• TACA airlines, thank for feeding me on every single flight. Really, that was super nice of you. But already by the second time around, your limp pasta noodles were not making my stomach too happy, sorry to say. Ordering from Subway in San Salvador however, was a lifesaver! Plus, it was hilarious. I had no idea how to ask for oil and vinegar, I had done well up until then, so I apologized and asked for “the salsa rojo y la salsa amarillo” and they started cracking up, but they understood. And then they told me I had done a great job for an American and even clapped for me once I paid successfully in pesos. I took a little bow, which got them laughing all over again, “tontos americanos” (stupid Americans ;D)

Ok, I think that’s all I’m gonna say for the trip. I have some pictures to share of our travels and my past two days have been jam-packed with touring Valparaíso, meeting new people, going out to try Chilean food and speaking in Spanish todo el día!! Valparaíso is an absolutely gorgeous city. I’m right in the center of the city at the Y, but there are humongous hills surrounding the whole city that are stuffed with brightly colored houses as far as the eye can see and I’m also a 5-10 minute walk from the ocean. I’ll describe more in my next post, I’ve already taken so many pictures!!!

As they say in Chile, “Chao!”