wait, what? It's May?!

Whoa, when did that happen? I looked at my watch today and had the heart stopping realization that it is May 18th. I have about two months (give or take, I still don't have a ticket home yet) left in Chile. Alejandro and Veronica are even planning my going away party, scary! It seems like just yesterday I was wandering through the streets of Vina not understanding a word or having any idea what was happening. Oh wait, maybe that was yesterday.
In all seriousness, my time is flying by before my eyes. I'm starting to feel at home in Vina del Mar though, I know where my favorite ice cream shop is, where the hole in the wall market is with the best deals, I've made a lot of friends both fellow exchangers and Chileans and I can finally understand my colectivo drivers! All this, and now I have to go home. It is wonderful to know though that no matter where I find myself I can make it feel comfortable and I know that it will be great to see my friends and family back in Minnesota and Montana again.

As for my last two months in Chile, there are of course some big plans! I recently went to Santiago for a long weekend as mentioned in the last post. It was a lot of fun, we ended up taking the metro all over the city to see as much as possible in the short time. We also did a lovely little hike, the very same one featured in the ever popular "Sol y Viento" (you Montana kids know what I'm talking about)

This coming week we have school off on Wednesday. It's the anniversary of a big navel battle (La Batalla Navel de Iquique, thank you Spanish Class) which Chile actually lost...not sure how that translates into a free day from school but I'll take it! So, in order to take full advantage of this free day I'm heading down to Concepcion to visit Dan. Concepcion is considerably farther south than Vina so it will be fun to see yet another part of Chile, it's amazing how much and how quickly this country changes from north to south!

Long term plans are to head up to Peru and Bolivia in July after school is done and before I head home. I'm super excited for that, but also to see all of you once again too! Life is pretty much a win-win situation right now.

Besos-
Clare