Adios, Chile!

I spent the last day and a half getting back to the US from Chile. Fortunately, that means I am much more relaxed. Unfortunately, that means anything I write about Chile will be in past tense, but I will make an attempt to write a little more about some of my experiences there in order for this to be useful to others and to get any errant tidbits out of my head. I will also post more of my best photos over the next few days.

Sadly, the impressive bottle of red wine I bought at the vineyard was broken on the way to the states. This means all my clothes from that bag are a lovely shade of burgundy and smell of wine and earth. I'm pretty crestfallen over it because I thought I had done a really good job of packing. I guess I could have saved the one pair of white socks turned purple, but instead I threw them away in disgust. I should probably just be happy all three bottles didn't break, but I've never been so good at that "glass half full" thing. Did it have to be my favorite?

On the topic of my learning experience in Chile (other than pack your wine better next time), I think I learned quite a lot of Spanish. It was disorienting at first for me to be in the Atlanta airport, and on my flight from Atlanta I accidentally tried to speak Spanish to the flight attendant. She just looked at me funny when I thanked her for my cracker with "gracias" and moved on. Is it possible that I have become less fluent in English? It was a common joke that our syntax was slowly shifting while we were in Chile, but I really do feel a tiny bit dumber. Oh well, I guess I can give up a little fluency in English to have a stronger hold on Spanish if so. My biggest goal in this relatively short study abroad program was not to "master" Spanish, or any crazy idea like that. It was simply to become accustomed to speaking even when it is uncomfortable, and even when I know a sentence isn't perfect and I might get laughed at. I am happy to say I broke that barrier, and therefore I got what I needed out of it. Thankfully my host family spoke next to no English, except for my sister who provided emergency translation when absolutely necessary. I started to feel like a toddler, being only able to express my most basic and immediate needs: "No sugar please, my tea is fine without it. No, really. Really, I don't drink my tea with sugar. Seriously." and "No thanks, I like my food without sugar sprinkled on the top. No, really, it tastes good with no sugar. Very tasty." were about the most expressive sorts of conversations I could muster. Conversations about politics were mostly brief and involved lots of hand gestures and confused moments of silence.