Back in the USA

So after a 9 hour and 32 minute flight I'm back in the USA. The flight was good, even though the movies were terrible, and immigration and customs was a breeze.....kind of too easy really. To be honest Chilean customs were more difficult to pass than US customs today. Immigration took about 30 seconds during which a highly uninterested agent scanned my passport casually asked me how long I was out of the country and the reason for my travels. Next all of the passengers of my flight were waiting around a baggage claim for about 20 minutes, then they made an announcement that they had changed the baggage claim machine (what do you call those things?) so everyone frantically ran over to find their luggage. Next was customs. I showed the agent my form, he asked if I had any food, I said no, I kept walking without putting my luggage through any screening or anything - I feel like I could have just smuggled in cocaine or something (I do have student loans to pay off you know...).
Now I sit in an incredibly crowded airport waiting for a few hours for my flight to Louisville. While waiting in line at Moe's (the airport Moe's has amazing breakfast burritos) I was talking to a flight attendant. Apparently it was raining early this morning and the airport was basically shut down last night form a storm and, according to her, when it rains the planes have to land every 3 mins rather than every 90 secs. This results in complete chaos in the airport as everything gets a little backed up. The business men (aka guys who travel a lot) are all on their cell phones telling their friends that they've never seen ATL's airport this busy (seriously, the walkways are shoulder to shoulder). Beyond being crowded half of the people are highly pissed off - every airline I walk by is announcing that they oversold the flight and that they don't have room on any flight anytime soon for extra passengers - I'm really hoping that doesn't happen to me (if it does I'll surely be pulling the "I've been on a plane for the last 14 hours" card).

So I feel the need to reflect a little on my trip. First and foremost, it's really weird being back in the states. Americans are very very easy to pick out of a crowd - we just have this appearance that's different from anyone else. It's also awkward to be speaking only in English, I find myself starting to speak in Spanish and having to switch languages. More or less, this trip has made me highly aware of my "Americaness" even thought my "americaness level" is less than most. My Spanish has improved although the Chilean accent (yeah, I pick up accents very easily) has ruined my pronunciation - I no longer feel the need to pronounce 90% of my "s's" and answering everything with "sipo" is somehow ok in my mind. I've also learned that I'm more than capable of suriving in a forgein country on my own and that I can handle most situations that come my way. Really to sum it all up, this trip has shown me one thing - I love to be abroad. I have a feeling that before I graduate I'll study abroad again, and who know's what I'll do after I graduate (teach English in Temuco? Fullbright in a Spanish speaking country? foreign master's program?)

An Unexpected Shower, A Slight Let Down and Tons of Smog

I wrote my last post while waiting for Eric on Saturday; however, I left out something that happended on Friday. So while heading to Boca de Lobos I got an unexpected shower. You see the drainage system in Temuco isn't the greatest; when it rains the streets tend to flood a little. As cars drive by some make huge walls of water splash onto the sidewalks. I was one of the lucky ones that got literally drenched by one of these lovely "showers" of drain water.....let's just say I was drying my hair with paper towels in the bathroom at the bar.

Now on to the slight let down. It never stopped raining in Temuco, sure it would calm down for a bit but it was always gloomy and foggy. Thus when Sunday rolled around I decided, along with Eric, not to head to Pucon as the weather was the same there - more or less it wasn't worth the money nor the time to get there and see more rain and fog and maybe, just maybe a bare outline of a volcanoe shaped form. Although, all together I had a ton of fun in Temuco and I'm very very happy I went there - at the very least I got to see where some of my friends are from and begin to explore the possbility of applying for the teaching position at the Colegio Bautista.

The Smog...
After class today we went to Wasabi, an amazing (and super cheap, for lunch at least) sushi place. Next we headed to San Cristobal, a sort of overlook up a mountain with it's own statue of the Virgin Mary - very South American. We took a gondola ride to the top which was quite fun. After exploring for a little while we headed back down in a type of train type thing that was very "Jurasic Park" like. However, the most interesting, and disturbing, part of this trip was the amount of smog. Pollution is a huge problem in Santiago. The government tries to fight it by heavily regulating cars (each day a certain number of people, based on the last numebr of their license plate, can't drive) and making things such as chimenys illegal. However, the government doesn't regulate factories as they think it will hurt the economy. The result is a permanent layer of blackish gray smog over the city. I took some pictures (which should be on flickr soon) but all you can really see is the smog.

I only have 4 days left in South America as I leave on Sunday night. On the list of things to do is visit the city center, visit the city cathedral, by some things, eat (maybe cook) Chilean Sea Bass and eat in a Chilean restaurant.

Temuco

I arrived at the bus station on Thursday night around 11pm. I went to platform 8 to find a huge double decker bus; the same bus I would be sitting on the second floor of for 9 or so hours. For $40 round trip I was able to travel 9 hours south....I really wish this luxury bus thing would catch on in the US. The bus pulled into Temuco around 7:30 after which I met up with Eric Blair and one of his Chilean friends. We headed back to the house Eric is staying at, a house of one of the English teachers at Colegio Bautista, and had breakfast. Next we headed to the Universidad Catolica to see Carolina. At 11am we headed to Colegio Bautista for an "acto" in honor of the 4th of July. In all honesty we didn't stay for the whole thing, but it was interesting, and to be honest comical, to watch a few Chilean students get on stage and sing Six Pence Non The Richer's "Kiss Me" (a British song on the 4th....). Afterwards we headed downtown to explore a little, but it was raining so we didn't get to see much. I checked into my hostel and we went out with Carolina and a friend of hers; which was a lot of fun. I slept in today (Saturday) and I'm currently waiting for Eric to meet up with me at my hostel. Who knows what we'll do as it's been raining all morning long with no signs of stopping. Hopefully the weather forecast it right and it won't rain tomorrow, then we can go to Pucon.