Weekend in Olmue

Hello, hello, hello. 

My most sincere apologies that this blog post is a little behind schedule, however I have some good reasons behind the delay so lets get right into it. 

This past week at school was very lowkey. The only thing distinct that I can think to include is that we are rapidly approaching the end of the Chilean school year, which means there have been some different ceremonies, dress-up days, and just activities in general celebrating the Chilean seniors that I go to school with. 

I've included this in other blog posts, but I am a junior here in Chile right now because I will be starting school again in March and they wanted to make sure I could be with the same group of people.

Anyway, apart from all of those kinds of events, school was very normal. 

Now let's talk about the weekend, because this is where life gets interesting. 

I finally went to a Rotary event with the other exchange students! 

This was the first time I met any other foreign exchange students that are here in Chile with the Rotary program because I missed the initial training that they hosted because I needed more time in the U.S. to get my visa situated. 

I'm not gonna lie, before I went I was really nervous. I knew that most of these kids would have prior connections and friendships with each other and I was nervous I would be that random person just standing on the outside of every interaction. 

Thankfully, that is not what happened at all and I would like to think I made some new friends. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me give you the run down of the actual weekend itself. 

For starters, I traveled first to a city called Viña del Mar to meet up with all of the other people who I would be spending the weekend with. Because my Rotary district is so huge here, legitimately almost half the country, lots of kids were getting dropped off in a variety of different ways. 

I arrived by car with my host mom around 11am because Viña del Mar is only about 45 minutes from my host family's house. We all hung out and waited for the entire group to arrive until about 1pm, before heading to lunch in the mall. 

We had some time to buy snacks, grab something to eat, and really just get to know each other. This is where I first met Xavier and Eli, the two boys from the United States. 

Crazy coincidence, but Xavier is actually from New Hampshire and lives about 2.5 hours from Salem. Eli on the other hand is from Arkansas, which is obviously a lot farther away, but he is considering coming to school in the Northeast which would put him in much closer proximity to Xavier and I. 

I really hit it off with the two of them and I think it would be so cool if when we returned from our exchange years, we were able to continue our friendship. Finding people who match your energy is rare, so I think it would be silly to pass up the opportunity to see them, but obviously only time will tell if we will be able to swing it. 

After lunch in Viña del Mar, we all hopped on a bus to head to the true destination of the weekend, a place called Refugios Rukara Rayen in Olmue. Olmue is a small city about 40 minutes from my host city Quillota, and this place was essentially a little countryside property with cabins for rent, lots of different pools, and plenty of space for almost 40 foreign exchange students to miss around for a few days. I loved it. It was the closest thing I've seen of something that actually resembles rural New York so far here in Chile. 

The weekend itself was very relaxing, with lots of hang out time and fun activities like a Halloween costume party, water balloon fight, lots of pool time, and some icebreaker games. There are lots of students here from Europe, specifically Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. There are also a few kids from places like Denmark, the Netherlands, and France, as well as a girl from Canada, a girl from the Czech Republic, obviously those of us from the U.S., and a few other places, but you get the idea. There was a lot of German and French happening in addition to English and Spanish. 

Another girl who had a really big impact on my weekend experience was coincidentially also named Anna. She is from Switzerland and I shared a room with her during the entire event. On one of the nights  we stayed up really late chatting about all kinds of things. It was so nice to speak in English, but also to just talk to someone who understands what I'm going through as a foreign exchange student. She is super cool and Anna if you are reading this, hello diva :)

For me, this weekend gave me renewed energy. I felt less alone on this crazy Chilean adventure and more ready to face the upcoming 6 1/2 months. I want to stay in Chile, if only because it will give me a chance to hang out with these people again. 

Something I do want to say is that this week, my host sister, Almendra, who is on her own exchange in Germany, had to have a meeting and request a change of host families. There were a variety of reasons that I won't get into, but for a hot second there was a possibility that she would need to come back to Chile, which might have turned into me having to return home as well. 

I did some serious thinking about it and I've decided that even though I miss you all like crazy, I'm not ready to come home yet. I'm settling into life here in Chile and am learning so much about the world and about myself. I'm not ready to give that up yet. I think I am finally pulling myself out of my "homesickness spiral". It only took me two months or so. 

Apologies again for this post being so late. My week has been pretty hectic and because I got no sleep over the weekend at the Rotary event, I've been exhausted at the end of each day. On top of that, a few of my extracurriculars have really picked up. I have an actual role in my Chilean theater club now, and although it is small it is very fun. I get to play this crazy, upset, doctor. I probably said that in another blog post, but oh well. 

I also have been going to Chilean band practice and we have a performance this weekend. I will be playing the bongos, tambourine, and as a surprise at the end of one of our songs, singing the chorus at the request of my music professor. 

Stay tuned to see how that goes :) 

Much love always from South America, 

Anna