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.