Today I left Punta Arenas...which was strange, since I've been there for so long. Granted, I was on the ship for three weeks, but still. It felt like a sort of home base for me, so it's odd to leave. I got up a bit early, packed my bags, and finished up some shopping and mailing postcards before getting picked up to go to the airport. The PA airport is fairly small (like Gulfport) so getting on the plane was easy. And, what luck, there was no midway stop in Puerto Montt this time, so the flight to Santiago only took 3 hours!
When I got my bags at the airport, I met Felipe's parents, which was great. Even though I didn't know them, it was nice to have people who knew of me around for once! I had to check in with the Chilean travel agency that the US Antarctic Program works with, but it took a long time to find the guy and all that. Thankfully Felipe's dad (Ricardo) helped out with the Spanish...I'm still getting used to speaking it all the time.
After that was finally over, I went with Ricardo and Ljubica (you-bee-za; Felipe's mom) back to Santiago in their car. It was a nice drive, and even better weather outside! So warm! After freezing for weeks...it was a great change. We drove through the downtown area of Santiago and saw the Andes, even with the smog, which I'm realizing is the worst part about the city. Otherwise it's gorgeous - parks and trees and flowers everywhere. I really like it.
When we got to Felipe's house in Ñuñoa, which is one of the suburbs of Santiago, I met his grandma and we sat down for lunch. It was really nice to talk with his family - they're great people and very friendly, even though my Spanish isn't very good. I'm glad I audited the one class this summer...else I'd be totally lost. But we had a good lunch of steak with tomatoes, onions, and bread - standard fare for Chileanos - with some Chilean wine, a carmenere, which is unique to this country. It was fantastic.
After lunch (which was quite late) I settled in, and got ready for Patty (Felipe's wife)'s mom's birthday party, which I was invited to. I felt bad because I only had jeans and a t-shirt available, but I realized it was fine once I got there. Along the way we picked up Benoit and Claire. I know Benoit because he worked in Dr. Wiegel's lab at UGA for 9 months this year, and Claire is his girlfriend, and they are from Switzerland and France, respectively. Got to speak in English with Benoit for the first time in quite a while, so that was really great.
Patty lives quite a ways outside of Santiago, so after the drive (about 45 minutes) we made it to her house and said hello. It was great to see her, and nice to meet her family. It's a pretty big one - both her parents each have 9 siblings!!!!!!!! And I thought the Strunk side of my family was big haha. But it was a fun evening. Great food, great conversation (even if I didn't understand all of it), and just a lot of fun altogether. I really enjoyed being around friendly faces and people. Not that the others I've encountered have been unfriendly - in fact, people here are some of the most friendly I've met in the world. So it's been fantastic. But good to be in a more personal setting, and it reminded me of my crazy family get-togethers, so that was really fun too. We left her house around 1 AM (typical for these South Americans...I don't know how they do it) and so I got in bed at 2 AM, exhausted...it's been a long but great day. Tomorrow Felipe's dad is going to take me to downtown Santiago to see it, so I'm excited.
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