My parents and I left Napa around 6:30PM on Friday night in order to get me to my 11:30 flight to Miami on time. I was way early, as we always are, and I settled into the gate. Around 9:30 my traveling buddy Brittany arrived and we started talking about the holidays and how excited we were about the upcoming events. Suddenly, to my dismay, Brittany pulled out two documents she had received at the Visa Consulate and asked me about them. I had a minor panic attack. I didn't have the documents. I had left them at home. They were documents supposedly essential to my entry into the country. Oh. No.
I called my parents and told them of my situation. My mom quickly located the documents but it soon became clear that I would not be leaving California with them in my possession. I started to panic, unsure if I would be able to enter Chile without them. My parents tried to see what they could do with Fed Ex while I frantically emailed EAP for some assistance. There wasn't much to do except sit and wait. My parents scanned the documents and sent me images of them and it seemed that maybe that was the best we could do. I had no choice but to just sit back and set my sights on the 4.5 hour red-eye flight ahead of me.
The flight was, for lack of a better word, miserable. My legs are entirely too long for a long plane ride like that. I was claustrophobic and uncomfortable for the entire duration and as a result got almost no sleep. We arrived in Miami at about 5:30 AM eastern time, just in time for our eight hour layover.
After breakfast and sitting around for about two hours, the Avianca terminal finally opened and Brittany and I were able to get boarding passes for our next flight to Bogotá, Colombia. This was the first instance where we really began to realize the magnitude of our endeavor. No one around us was speaking English, and the people at the terminal addressed us in Spanish. I finally began to understand: I am moving to a Spanish speaking country. It was overwhelming, but also very cool.
The massive layover wasn't bad. I corresponded with my parents, who said that the documents I needed were being FedExed and would arrive in Chile two days after I did. I also talked to our correspondent in Chile and he seemed to think that the problem could be worked out which gave me some hope. The flight to Bogotá was by far the best one. I watched Inglorious Basterds. It was very good.
We had a short layover in Bogotá and by this time Brittany and I were reaching delerium. We had been wearing the same clothes for about 24 hours and hadn't slept or eaten a proper meal in some time. The final flight to Santiago was another red-eye in which I got about 2 hours of sleep. I did talk to the older woman sitting next to me in Spanish for a while, which was cool.
We got to Santiago at about 5AM their time, which is 4 hours ahead of California. This was the moment I'd been dreading, the moment where I had to go through and get into the country without the proper documentation. I approached the woman with extreme fear and told her I didn't have the papers. She said "Don't worry about it." and processed me. I asked her what I should do once the papers arrived and again she said "Don't worry about it." so, currently, I don't actually know what to do with the papers.
Amazingly, all our bags made it to Santiago and came out early. Then it was a quick trip through customs and a taxi hire. We arrived at our youth hostel at about 6:30 AM and were informed that we couldn't check in until 2. We decided to walk around the city for a while, getting to know it while it was still empty and sleeping. This was my first experience with the fact that I am a tall blonde in a country of short brunettes. Literally every man we passed stared at us until we were out of sight. Cars, even BUSES slowed down as they passed us. We got whistled at, honked at, yelled at, and some stray dogs even followed us for about half an hour. We got back to the hostel around 9 and proceeded to fall asleep on the couch. We were awoken an hour or so later by everyone in the hostel running around and yelling. Apparently, someone had come in while the front desk was busy and run out with two backpacks of people checking out. They chased him and got one of the bags back. It was all sort of a blur.
Finally, at 2 we got checked into our room where we promptly showered and fell asleep for about three hours. After that, we went to dinner at a restaurant called Patagonia. I had fish and a strawberry fruit juice. It was beautiful out, so we ate outside, and our waiter was very nice. I've heard bad things about Chilean food, but this meal was great!
After dinner we found a bar called El Diablito and had Escudo (Chilean beer) and Pisco (Chilean liquor.) Then we had another beer at a cafe near our hostel and met some Chilean guys to whom we spoke, in Spanish, for over an hour. Now, I'm back at the hostel, in bed. Can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring! Pictures coming soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment