Vina del Mar

So, I was sad to leave Santiago, but have LOVED Vina dal Mar. It is beautiful!!! Our hotel is a few blocks away from the coast. I'm on the sixth floor so I get to look out over the city and see all the bright lights at night! :)

Our first day in Vina del Mar, we spent some time at the University. We had a few lectures on the Chilean fruit market and their exports/economy. We also took a tour of the agricultural experimental fruit farms. Kiwi trees!

Avacado trees!

Chili is a huge producer of avacados.

We actually got to tour an avacado producing facility and it was fascinating!

Lauren and I bought these scarves at the market in Santiago, and wore them to dinner on our first night in Vina del Mar. Our first night, we went to dinner and walked along the coast.

Tyson, Lauren, Brent, me, Andrea on the coast.

We spent a day tidepooling! We drove up the Chilean coast and went to a few different places, including Ventanna. Ventanna is "window" in Spanish. This is Brittney and me at our little pool, the first place we found. We saw a little baby lobster guy and some sea urchins in this place! You can see our reflection :) There were tons of creatures though, and we saw a ton of cool things.

Here's the window! (the ventanna!)

Starfish!

This guy was huge!

A Sea... Thing.

A little crab!

As part of our tour, we had a hosted lunch at a resort on the top of the mountain. It was beautiful, with delicious food, it was like... um, not real! Ross pinched me to help me figure out that it was, indeed, actually happening. haha! After lunch, we tidepooled some more and hiked around the coast. We stopped at a place called Penguin Island.

A group of us in front of Penguin Island! A group of penguins live on this island year-round apparently, but we did not see any today. We did see, however, a BUNCH of dolphins!! That was neat! There were a ton of them flipping out of the water in the distance.

Jumping for joy at the tidepools excursion! :)
Success!

Carlos and I before heading to our fancy dinner. I helped him pick out his ensemble, and basically we were matching like dates! :) This kid is hilarious. He's from the Domincan Republic. His Spanish comes in handy down here!!

Fancy dinner at the casino!

We had dinner with students from the Principado Universidad Catholica. We're working on some projects and case studies with these students next week. It was really fun to get to know some of them and enjoy an amazing meal with them! :)

Derrik, me, Sam

Fancy food just kept coming. Yum.

Santiago!

Hola!

Santiago was beautiful! We arrived on Tueday morning and had the day to play. We had visits on Wednesday and Thursday, and then checked out of our hotel on Friday morning to head for Vina del Mar. While in Santiago, we explored the city, rode the metro, took taxis, saw the temple, went shopping, and visited Banco Santander and the U.S. Embassy.

Our first company visit was to Banco Santander--the fourth largest bank in the world.

This is a picture of me and Brittney in the cool bridge/building connector thing between Banco Santander business buildings...

Banco Santander is on the left. That bridge/walkway thing is awesome! We went and stood inside it and took a gazillion pictures.

Lunch break!

Lauren, Eddie, me, Kristina

Sam, me, Lauren, and Derrik riding on the bus from Banco Santander to the U.S. Embassy... and playing cards. :) It's so fun to ride the bus throughout the city, we get to see some amazing things. I love just looking at everything in the city as we drive along--there's just SO much to look at!!!

Maren and I after our visit to the US Embassy in Chile!

That was one of my favorite visits so far.

Eddie and I on the way to a company visit.

We ride this sweet bus everywhere we go. We have this great guide named Marcello who is a Chilean native and tells us these great things about the city, etc.

We visited this mineral production/manufacturing company to see their operations and processes. This company produces rubber and its products go to mines and fisheries. We took a tour of their plant, and listened to a presentation. They were awesome hosts and it was fascinating! This is Sam and I sporting the safety goggles at our visit to Weir Minerals.

Safety first.

ai lot yu!

The view of Santiago, from the hill of Cerra Saint Lucia.

Cerra Saint Lucia, where Santiago was first founded.

During some free hours, we walked to the Santiago temple!

It took like 30 minutes to walk there from our hotel... and 10 minutes and 500 pesos to take thet taxi back home afterward, haha! It was way cool. It was on the side of a busy Santiago street, but it was awesome because as soon as you stepped onto the temple grounds, you just felt peace, quiet, calm, safety. There were tons of cars and traffic etc all around, but everything was peaceful on the temple grounds.


The back temple grounds were my favorite, soo pretty!

Jake, Chris, Jaquie, Maren, me, Lauren, Will

Dinner at the pizzaria!

Maren's pizza had bananas and mine had cherries. Way good.

Brent got some crazy pizza... with fried eggs on top!

It must have not been too bad cuz he ate the whole thing!

Jaquie and I had a blue bathroom. :)


Santiago was amazing!

-darcy

Chile Day 1!

Derek and I on the way to Salt Lake airport!

It's 4:30 a.m., but we don't mind. Look at the excitement! ;)

Team #1 is awesome! :)

Justin, me and Rob at the Salt Lake airport.

We bombarded the bag check around 6:30.

Me and Kyle in the LA airport before we head to South America and he flies to Asia! :)

Lauren and I at the LA airport before flying our separate ways. :)

Maren and I on the plane!

We arrived in Santiago around 5:30 Tuesday morning.

Me at the airport, just off the plane. Finally! :)

Lauren and I with our stamped passports!! :)

Our first day we went around the city and went on this cool cable-car thing up a mountain.

Matt, Derrik, Shannon, me, Lauren, Eddie

Chris, Sam, Ross

When we got to the top, we could looked over the entire city. It is HUGE and beautiful.

This is a huge statue of Saint Mary on top of a huge mountian above the spot where the city was founded. Cool! It's beautiful. It lights up at night. We hiked to the top.

Santiago.
Santiago.

Cool building.
There was actually a huge group of people protesting outside. We saw like three separate protests on this Tuesday--I guess Chilleans like to protest about anything.
The architecture here is beautiful!

And the palm trees are great also. Love them!

Hello! We went to a little restaurant for lunch and look what we found! License plates from various U.S. states, including IDAHO! :) Lauren and I are Idaho girls, so hello, we were very excited. Idaho plates in Santiago, Chile!! :)

Eddie and I tried this mysterious hot sauce!

I was scared, but it was way good! muy bueno! :)

Um... first day was successful! :)

This is is awesome!

-darcy-