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| During our free walking tour of Valparaiso |
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| A drenched tour of Concha y Toro winery |
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| At the Santiago Zoo on Cerro San Cristobal |
Less than a month until I can visit her in Sao Paulo!
- Saturday, May 14, 2016
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- Saturday, May 14, 2016
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My flight was 10 hours long & not that eventful aside from my everyday awkwardness. Just for laughs, I thought I'd share the random things I wrote about while watching hours of James Bond & House of Cards:
- I'm exhausted, but I already started watching Spectre and I can't just not see how it ends.
- My Spanish is (really) rusty right now; this should be interesting.
- I still feel so sorry for the seven people I hit with my duffle bag but those aisles are definitely way too small.
- Over-packing my backpack meant that it was too big to lift off the ground when the seat in front of me was reclined, which also meant I couldn't actually find any of the stuff I over-packed in it.
- Why did I dress nicely? Just for the insta? Poor judgement. Jeans are not the way to go on a 10 hour flight.
- WHY DID I PUT MY PASSPORT IN THE BAG THAT'S IN THE OVERHEAD COMPARTMENT? ... Also why didn't I look which compartment it went in?....What if it gets stolen?... This stranded and passport-less hypothetical situation wasn't enough to make me get up and get it, but still stressful nevertheless.
- I really want to go to Cerro San Cristobal when I get there.
After the plane landed, the customs officer kept telling me I had to go to the "policia" and I thought I was being passive aggressively arrested at the airport. She was actually just trying to tell me how and where to register my Chilean visa once I get there.
When the taxi dropped us off at our AirBnB, the series of unfortunate (mostly laughable) events continued. Between Kendall's luggage falling into the street and almost getting run over by a bus, and then the two of us not being able to unlock our door, it was safe to say we made a gringa-kind-of-entrance.
Accomplishment #1: We got a Chilean SIM Card! We walked- a better term for it would probably be "trekked"- over to Tottus, a shopping center on Vicuña Mackenna. I'm still not entirely sure what happened in the process, but now I have a Chilean phone number so I guess it worked!
Then, we did some touristy sight-seeing and ate a completo (a hotdog with mayo, salsa and tomatoes that tastes just as fattening and random as it sounds.) We couldn't sight-see all that much because we had to meet with the owner of the apartment, but that's definitely the plan for tomorrow!
For now, I'm fighting with a wine bottle, trying to open it with a foreign wine opener that looks more like it could be used to kill someone. I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore.
- Thursday, February 18, 2016
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Despite my best efforts to procrastinate, the packing has started.
I’ve been calling what I have done a “rough draft,” but it sort of looks more like a mess from this picture.
I can’t really give any advice about what to pack & not pack in the way of clothes because I’m still not entirely sure what I’m doing. I have no idea how 9 months of clothes will fit in one luggage.
I’m a serial over-packer and I’m somewhat emotionally attached to all my clothes. What if I forget to pack my green dress and then I want to wear it? I obviously need to pack it just in case. *entire closet gets shoved in my luggage*
I’ve read a million and five Pinterest packing lists & a couple items stood out to me:
- Collapsible duffle for weekend trips
- Jacket clip to attach a jacket to a bag instead of carrying it
- Collapsible laundry bag
- Copy of important documents
- Febreeze wrinkle spray
- Lock for the hostel lockers instead of using theirs
- Travel water bottle possibly with a filter depending on where you’re going
- Allergy medication, kind of self-explanatory but some students in the cohort group before me had trouble adjusting to the smog in Santiago so this is a definite item to bring
- Comfort food! Something as simple as Sour Patch Watermelon will make you feel better on a homesick-kind-of-day
I thought these were interesting because I wouldn't necessarily think/remember to bring them. They're random & mostly obvious items, but I feel like they could be overlooked easily.
I know one of my biggest questions when packing was definitely how many bags do I bring & what size. I decided to pack one huge luggage (literally half my body size) that all my clothes will go in and then my shoes & toiletries will go in a carry-on sized luggage. I’m going to check both and then for the flight, I'll just have my backpack and a cross-body bag.
I absolutely love the luggage set I got. It was cheap, has a TSA approved lock, and it's a hard shell. This is the set I got & what it looks like in person:
TravelCross Luggage 3 Piece Spinner Set
Half way through the year, I’m planning on making an updated packing list with what I wish I did or didn’t pack. For now, I guess I should just finish packing.
- Monday, February 15, 2016
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