Coming to the end of my time in Chile

AAAHHH I´m leaving in 9 days to go home!!! (Saturday 13th) Okay I could totally write this in a way like, it´s so sad that I will be leaving, I will miss everyone and Chile so much and I hope these last few days pass by slowly so I can enjoy them to the fullest, but NOOOOOO. I cannot flipping wait to go back haha. I have had a good time in Chile overall, I´m glad I have experienced it, but 6 months was enough and I´m ready to go home now:) The most exciting part of me having been in Chile is I can speak Spanish now! This is something that makes me very very happy as I have achieved my goal of doing my placement in South America.

Anyways as most of you have seen on Facebook, I´ve been away on holidays with my parents for two weeks. It started off with a lot of stress as I was meant to meet them in Lima on the 15th of November. I was about to go through passport control and when I got there the woman asked me for my Chilean ID number. I said I didn´t have any and she replied saying I should have gotten one when I registered my visa. Registering my visa? I hadn´t done either of those things, which resulted in me not being allowed to leave the country and a lot of tears. After they took my passport off me and I had calmed down a bit they told me I can´t fly today but will need to go to an office in Santiago to get a letter which allows me to leave the country anyway and then go somewhere else to get my passport back. I had to book a new flight and it had to be leaving on monday afternoon and arriving on monday night as tuesday morning around 4am my parents and I would be leaving Cuzco to start the Inca Trail. This flight cost so much and I had booked a single flight thinking I could just still use my return flight. It would leave at 2pm on Monday so I really had to get everything sorted as quick as possible on the Monday morning.

After booking the flight, I heard from several people you can almost never use the flight back of a return flight when you haven´t used the flight there, so the stress started once again. One guy on the phone from the airline said it was still possible but that I just had to talk to a specialist etc. In the end (while I was in Peru because they never contacted me back, so my roommate had to do all the calling and organising with them) the specialists said it wasn´t allowed, but as we kept saying that one guy had told us it was, we were able to still use it LUCKILY, because of his mistake.

The office on Monday would open at 8.30am and I heard it was always quite busy so I arrived at 7am and saw I already had about 200 people in front of me and the stress began. Well lets just say the following hours were very stressful and with again being close to tears, and being not caring I had a flight at 2pm and having to run from one building to the other, I in the end had everything I needed by about 11am and was in the end able to pass through passport control. That night I finally saw my parents, I made it!!!

We got picked up really early the next morning and we were able to start the Inca Trail with 8 other travellers, 2 guides and about 16 porters who would carry all our baggage, tents, food etc.

These 4 days walking were such a good experience! Lots of muscle ache, feeling dirty, tired and hot, but it was very worth it. The second day was the hardest, with 11 hours of walking and having to climb A LOT, but we all made it! As you can see in the photo above my parents were the only ¨oldies¨ and they did just as great as the others, so good! The last day we got to Machu Picchu and it was so nice to see it and to have the end in sight! Us three all agreed that seeing the Machu Picchu wasn´t our highlight, which it is for some people, but we mainly just enjoyed the whole experience of the hike.

Our treat when we were done!

Following that we went to Santiago for 2 days for me to show my parents where I have been living. As we are not big fans of a city, so especially one as big and busy as Santiago, we decided to go hiking (as we obviously felt like we hadn´t done enough of that) in the Andes for one day upto the Glaciers, finishing with some hot springs.

I am glad we did this because I felt they saw more of Chile by going into the Andes than just seeing Santiago. The second day I needed to go to finally register my visa, which involved 6 hours of waiting and after that we went up the main mountain in the city Santiago itself to have a view of Santiago. After that we went to eat my favourite food:

The following morning we had to get up early to get our flight to Iguazu Falls. After both of our flights being delayed that day to get there, we finally arrived late at night (instead of 3pm) and got into a taxi and the taxi driver gave us an elaborate explanation of the area and also offered to drive us around everywhere the following day so we would be able to see everything we wanted to see in just the one day we had. This was perfect as we hadn´t planned anything yet.

Because of this we were able to leave the following morning to walk along the fall on the Brazilian side and also take a speedboat which went underneath the falls, it was all great! In the afternoon we went to the Argentinian side, which was just as beautiful and ended our evening with lots of wine concluding we had done enough walking the last 1.5 weeks.

After this it was time to say goodbye. My parents would continue to Rio de Janeiro and I would return to Santiago, but fortunately I would see them again soon! The time together was so so great and can´t wait for times like Christmas to spend together with the whole family.

Last Monday I returned back to work and I again haven´t got a lot of work so time passes slowly but it all doesn´t matter as I just have a couple of days left!! My last weekend I will just make the most of the weather (30 degrees) before I return to what I hear is about 1/2 degrees.. brr....

So yes like I said, overall I had a good time in Chile, it was a good experience, but I cannot wait to be home again! To see my amazing friends, family and Philip and to continue my preparations for the wedding! It will take place next August and I will go to Madrid for my exchange from the 24th of January, so we need to be efficient with the time we have. One of the thing that makes me most happy is that I will still see Philip once a month in the 4 months that I am in Madrid, so we will never have to be apart as long as Chile EVER AGAIN haha.

Thank you everyone for all your support in the time I have been in Chile. It has been amazing and heart warming and has definitely helped me when I´ve found my time here challenging. Thank you!

5 more weeks

Already 3 weeks have passed since Philip left and since I had to go back to work. The first week was quite hard, but the last two weeks have been great! I have been getting to know some girls from my church group much better and we meet up once a week to catch up and eat together and followed by praying together which has been really nice.

I've been on 2 weekends away and in the first weekend I joined a tour to go to the mountains and go to hot springs there and go for a hike. We camped there, and it was a great relaxing weekend with awesome views. 

The following weekend we had a 3 day weekend and we went out and sang some karaoke and danced the first night with some girls from church and the rest of the weekend we lay by the pool and went to a fair en just some quality time was nice! 

This weekend we went with 8 girls from our church group and our pastor and his wife to Algarobbo, which is a city on the beach. We all come from such a large variety of countries and the conversations were just great learning about each others cultures, educational systems etc and I'm sure the pastor also enjoyed listening to our conversations about boys, relationships and marriage haha. The apartment was close to the beach, so I got to do some fitness on the beach yesterday morning which was great and later on we did a biblestudy on the beach and sunbathed.

So as you can see I've been keeping myself busy which helps with the wait until I get to go home, because honestly I really cannot wait! Very excited to see everyone again and to just being home sweet home. But what will really help me get through these next 5 weeks is that I'm meeting up with my parents in Lima, Peru, next Saturday and I'll be travelling with them for 2 weeks!! CAN'T WAIT! 

Work has been okay, nothing spectacular or great, but it helps to just tell myself that e.g. right now I only have 3 weeks of placement left! The weekdays pass quicker because I make plans with people to meet up, like prayer night with the girls, biblestudy and I like going out for dinner or a drink with people, like below:) 

I also definitely gained weight in Chile, so I've been doing sports 3 times a week, and because it's now light until 8.30pm, I have time to do this after work and outside, which is so much more motivating than going to a gym.

Oeh another detail is that everyday it's between 25 to 30 degrees which has been so great! Being at work with those kind of temperatures isn't as nice but it makes weekends so good! Wearing skirts or shorts for that matter isn't something I get very excited about in Santiago seen as the men just get worse. I'm sure you've seen the video on facebook or something about the girl walking down the streets of NYC, well sadly that's exactly what it's like in Santiago (see below).

Youtube video

I have been trying to ignore it by always listening to music, but it can get so so frustrating! But anyways, 5 more weeks;)

I will let you know after I get back from my trip with my parents how it was, seeing more from South America will be great! We will be walking the Inca trail from Cusco to Machu Picchu and showing them Santiago, and going to the Iguazu Falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil. I will then fly back to Santiago and they will have a couple more days in Rio de Janeiro! Should be good!

No words for how happy I have been these last 2.5 weeks

Where to even start...
Let´s start with saying that I finished my work on time! So on the Friday that Philip arrived, I was able to hand in all my work and leave work with a nice feeling of not having to think or having to worry about work anymore. Everyone at work had been counting down the days with me and FINALLY it was the 3rd of October, the day Philip would arrive.
To see him again after 3 months was the best feeling in the world, to be able to hold each other again and look each other in the eyes aaahhh. He arrived around midnight and sadly his baggage was left in Sao Paolo in Brazil as his plane had been delayed and there hadn´t been enough time to move his luggage. Saturday we mainly stayed in and it was just so nice to just catch up and watch some movies and just relax together, something we hadn´t been able to do in so long. We went out for a drink at night and just had a lovely day but went to bed early as we ended up arriving home really late after the airport the night before.
We woke up around 5.30am the next morning and couldn´t fall back to sleep so Philip decided to make us breakfast and after 15 minutes he came in with this:

Candles, tea, eggs, bread and some fruit and after about 5 minutes he mentioned that I could put the shells in the bowl which was turned over (in the middle at the bottom on the photo). So I picked it up, and there it was, the box with the ring in it. Philip grabbed it and then I just started tearing up and it was just an amazing moment, because yes then it happened...
WE ARE ENGAGED!!!
It feels so so so so great! Literally there are no words for it, due to this we were even more head over heels in the time that he was here, we felt like there were literally love hearts jumping out of us when looking at each other haha.
My ring:

Then suddenly it was Monday and we only had 2 weeks left. As I´m sure you all saw on Facebook we went travelling a lot and it went by so quick. First to La Serena, where we went biking and did a tour in the Elqui Valley. Then home for a weekend where we went hiking and horse riding and sunbathing at a pool. The second week we flew to Antofogasta and got a bus to San Pedro de Atacama, the desert. Our bus never turned up so we waited hours and then in the end they organised for us and 2 German guys and a Chilean guy to get a different bus and then a taxi to our destination. The taxi driver with the 2 Germans kept falling asleep while driving and even hit something, so I´m glad that we were in a different one... After lots of walking around at 1am, we found our hostel and we quickly went to sleep at 1.45am to then have to get up at 4.15am for a tour to the geysers.

As we had only arrived a couple of hours ago in San Pedro which is at a height of around 2500 metres and then went to the geysers at around 4300 metres, we found breathing at such an altitude very hard and tiring and also felt just so tired and I got really bad headaches. But the sights were amazing and followed by swimming in the natural hot thermals. The next day we went sandboarding which was awesome as well to see the desert and yes to do such an activity there.
We then got the bus upto the far north of Chile, Iquique where they had great beaches where we straight away jumped in the sea at 8pm when we arrived and the next day we went surfing and at night did some bootcamping followed by jumping in the sea again. So great to be able to do so many things and see all these places, instead of just knowing and staying in Santiago. Chile is definitely great in its variety and has some really beautiful sights!
We arrived back in Santiago on Saturday afternoon which meant we nearly got to end of our time together. That realization made me sad at several points during our last weekend but we definitely made the most of our time together and loved it so much!
I had to drop him off at the airport yesterday, and it took everything not to go after him and join him on the flight back home. I would have loved to... But no after some tears it was time to go back to work.
Motivation for work still needs to be found but hopefully I´ll find that soon and I just hope time goes quickly as in 25 days (4 working weeks, 15 november) I finally get to see my parents again, it´s been so long, I cannot wait! In the mean time I´ll try to keep myself busy and definitely will still make the most of it! 
Thanks all for reading my blogs and for keeping in contact with me and being so excited with us for getting married. Thanks once again for all the post I receive, post takes 6 weeks and I still have 8 weeks left so if you still wanted to send me something then I would recommend to do it in the next week or so.
Lots of love!!!

Fiestas Patrias and Ronja!

I had a great last 2 weeks! It started off with a weekend of Fiestas Patrias, in which Chile celebrates its independence. This consists of lots of barbeques everywhere, lots of quality family time and just a lot of food and alcohol. We were allowed to leave work early on Wednesday, at 2pm and each employee got lots of meat from the company to take home to cook up in the following days. I decided to freeze mine in, so Philip can help me eat it when he gets here. Thursday Barbara and I went to a Fonda, which is just a big park event, with music, food and lots of stalls.

This was such a nice day, we had a lot of fun! 

Saturday morning I got up early to join Alejandra, my roommate, and her boyfriend for a day in Viña del Mar where we ended up sightseeing a lot, especially the coast line which was such a nice difference from the city, Santiago, I am used to, and at night her boyfriend invited friends to his and we ended up playing a card game for most of the night. The following day I realised, wow I actually spoke Spanish all night! That is such a great feeling! Still when people ask, Do you speak Spanish? I say: a little bit, but really I can understand most of it now which is exciting! 

On thursday afternoon last week Ronja arrived. For you who don't know, Ronja is a good friend from my university in Arnhem and she is currently doing her placement in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. We both have had some times where we found the placements which are so far away from home, difficult, so now to see each other again, and share our experiences and to just chat with someone again so comfortably who knows your friends and life back home was really really nice! We went to Valparaiso for a day and Viña del Mar for a day, which both lie on the coast near Santiago. We saw a lot of both cities, walked a lot, and just caught up a lot. Saturday night we arrived back in Santiago and Sunday we hiked down Cerro San Cristobal, a high hill/mountain in Santiago, which gave us a nice view of Santiago. We ended our weekend with cooking together and watching a movie and we can now look back on such a good weekend!

As most of you know I got a new ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament/Kruisband in Dutch) and I have been doing sports 2/3 times a week. Suddenly Monday last week, after I got back from the gym, I spotted a massive lump on my largest scar on my knee from that surgery. It was about 4cms long and 2cms high. I must say I freaked out! I cried of shock first, because after all the physiotherapy of last year I really just don't want there to be anything wrong. Tuesday I straight away went to a hospital where they took xrays and ultrasounds. I went to a private hospital as basically anyone that can afford to have good healthcare should go to a private one. They weren't too common with what seemed like a complication from my surgery from a year ago, so because they were doubting on also doing an MRI, as the other scans hadn't told them enough, they sent me to a specialist yesterday. In the meanwhile I wasn't allowed to do any sports (let's just not count hiking as one;)). They also didn't have a lot of experience with it, but the doctor with the most experience had seen it once before but much smaller. I was able to choose out of 3 options, one being not doing anything and just wait and see if it goes away or starts to hurt, another one being putting a needle into the membranes of the cyst, so puncture it, and take away the liquid in there, or the last option being operated and taking out the whole cyst and screw and replacing it with something. The last option they recommended me to do back in Holland though so I decided to go for option 2, and with that option afterwards we also have to wait and see. If it comes back I will still need the surgery. This hurt SO MUCH, I had a little cry, but luckily it's pretty much gone now, so hopefully it will stay away!

I have been working hard at work to get my big project finished which I started on months ago for my placement task. I would like to finish it on friday, so before Philip comes THAT NIGHT, YES ONLY A FEW DAYS AWAAAAAY! So haha yes that would be great, although I can easily get distracted on the internet or with whatsapp, so 4 more days of focus and we shall see how far I get! Then I have two weeks of work and I will be doing lots of travelling with Philip and just spending quality time with him for 2.5 weeks. CANNOT WAIT, I will update you all on how amazing it was after he leaves, although I'm sure in the meantime I will upload some pictures on facebook. 

The office: My desk is the laptop's screen you can see, there are 8 desks in our space of the office. All are great people!
Sadly two colleagues are leaving us today. 

September

What I just will never get used to while being in Chile:

- Randomly seeing a person sleeping on the street
- I've seen people using the street as their toilet, and I see (homeless?) people hiding their bags in the street drainage and drunk homeless people and beggars...
- The metro and the buses at rush hour: literally every one of your body part is touching someone else's body parts, and you get pushed into the bus or metro like this:

- People full on making out in these crowded buses and metros, people have explained to me that because many people live with their parents until about 28, these are the places they can have their "privacy" without their parents watching

- How cold the houses are in the winter/spring

- The amount of cars, people, air polution in a city like this 

Haha so yes probably quite a few more things, which of course makes sense with me not having grown up here. It's interesting to see what life is like here and to really experience it for six months, but it's definitely made me realise that I do not ever want to permanently live in a large city. 

The last 2 weeks I have had quite a few down moments, but overall I am staying positive and making the most of my time here. I still haven't found a friend who I would spill all my secrets to yet, (not that I have many seeing as I'm an open book) I think that's been the hardest. My colleagues forgot to invite me when they went out for lunch last week, and although they realised 5 minutes after they left, those kind of moments just make me miss the familiarity of family and friends back home. But not to worry! I make sure I make myself happy again by distracting myself or making great Dutch cheese pancakes or anything like that haha. 

I also have some great moments of course, like last night I went to see a lovely girl Barbara, who I am getting to know better each week, perform in a play. I went with my two roommates and it was a nice evening and we ended just chatting the rest of the evening when we got home, and yes so those times are nice. Just relaxing and chatting. I also still really enjoy going to the biblestudy group on wednesday nights and church on sunday mornings. Also overall my colleagues are just a great laugh and I enjoy their company, so I am very lucky with that as well. 

What has really cheered me up is  receiving post from some of you, first of all thanks for your patience as it takes 5 to 6 weeks to reach me, but most of all thanks so much for the effort, I appreciate it lots! 

11th of September is a protesting day in Chile of something that happened in 1973. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d'%C3%A9tat It usually involves people getting violent/aggressive, so most people are allowed to leave their work early, around 4pm, and then get recommended to just go home and don't leave the house, because of the violence outside. Leading up to this day, some of you might have read it on the news, also some bombs exploded in Chile, one in Santiago leading up to 14 people being hurt. I got home okay and nothing massively impacting happened during the night either apart from the expected fires or fights. 

The upcoming week are the days which are the Chilean's highlight of the year. They get more excited about this than Christmas or any other festivity. It always start on the 18th of September and then goes until and including the weekend, so this year we have a 4 day weekend which is great! All the national foods will be sold everywhere on the streets, massive barbecues are held in many parks and it's just one big party for these 4 days, so very curious of what it will be like exactly! 

Everyone is very excited about it being September because it means the worst of the winter is gone and, the clocks got changed last weekend so lots more light now! 

Ronja, a good friend from university in Holland who is doing her placement in Rio de Janeiro, is coming over the weekend after, which is very very exciting. And, of course, Philip the weekend after that, so I have lots to look forward to:)

I thought by showing some photos, you can all imagine what it's kind of like here.

Where I live:

What I wake up to every morning:)

Near my house: 

The Metro

My colleagues

Passing time

I have finished 8 weeks of my internship now, 11 more to go! (2x 2 weeks holiday in between those weeks) So in that way time has passed quickly I believe. My spanish has improved a lot which is so great, main reason I came here of course. Overall all is going well here, been ill the last few days, so didn't go to work for 2 days, but will definitely be back on Monday. 

I have been doing sports 2/3 times a week, which has been nice, usually two weeknights (usually with my roommates) to the gym in our building and once a weekend, going for a run outside. This morning it had rained, and to go running after the rain is the best, because then there's the least smog. One thing I will definitely not miss when going back to Holland, is the amount of looks/attention I get. A blonde girl running... Every guy looks, every second guy says hi, every third guy whistles, every third car slows down, and many cars full on brake in the middle of the road to make sure you can pass their car. Very surreal... and highly annoying. (okay some people might say flattering, but if you experience it every time, then not so much.) So to just be running in peace, with no one looking at me, yes that's something I'm looking forward to! 

The last two weeks have been a bit colder again, but the days are getting longer and next weekend the clock goes one hour forward, so summer time is definitely coming nearer! I have been getting to know people better which is nice, went to a theatre last weekend, which was a good way to test my spanish, and okay I couldn't follow every sentence, but definitely understood everything generally haha. I had a work BBQ last wednesday, good way to relax with the colleagues I share an office with every day. Just the 7 of us and their partners, they are a great laugh. I can follow most of the conversation, but overall it goes very very fast and so before I can even think of something to say to participate in a conversation, already the next topic has started. So this can be hard, but I have just been thinking that it's quite interesting experiencing this role of just being a listener to a conversation, as many of you know usually I'm quite a loud mouth, so maybe I'll learn something of taking on this role. (or maybe not haha) But it's definitely another experience! 

I've also just been realising during this time away how great my friends are back home, which is why it's probably harder to find something similar here in Chile, because you don't just find friends like that. I've been in contact with them lots, which has been great! Also Philip and I are still going really great, our weekly skype is still definitely one our weekly highlights and it'll just be really nice to show him everything when he gets here. So yes nothing to complain about really, like the Dutch say: Alles gaat z'n gangetje :)

SUN!

So to start this post off I just want to show my excitement about it having been hot these last few days!!! My face even got burned yesterday, so so exciting haha! Something I'm not sure I've mentioned is that of course it's winter here, which generally means around 15 degrees each day, sometimes around 20, but it only reaches that around 4pm and then the sun goes down pretty quick. Now this weekend it's between 25 to 28 degrees! So nice to feel the sun burning on my face again! Been a while!
That's the main thing the internationals complain about. How cold the houses are during the winter. The houses are barely insulated and so unless you continuously have the heater on, which no one has as it's expensive, it's very cold, so you sleep with a hot water bottle, many many blankets and jumper, long trousers etc. But luckily it's getting warmer so that's exciting!

Something that is very easy in Chile, which has always been a bit of a hassle in Holland, is the way of greeting. You just kiss everyone on the right cheek, when you meet them for the first time and then afterwards always when you see them and when you leave them, you kiss them. SO EASY. Whereas in Holland it's like only if you haven't seen someone for a couple of weeks you kiss them 3 times and then only if you don't normally just give them a hug and if you don't normally do that either, you might just shake their hand or you just wave... Very confusing.

So these last twee weeks have been good! My birthday was much better than expected. I was surprised by work with a personally made cake and some singing and a decorated desk, so that was lovely! Also my biblestudy at night was fun:) Still expecting quite a few letters and packages which have been sent, so I'm looking forward to them, but it takes a month if not 1.5 months, so that's annoying. Then the following night, the 7th, I got surprised by my biblestudy group and some other friends with a surprise party which Mirva, my Finnish roommate had organised, so that was super lovely!!! Had a great night.

The weekend passed pretty quickly and then I was at work again. Work has been quite boring, doing market research every day just filtering information, but I just mix it up a bit with learning some Spanish and using facebook and whatsapp as I shouldn't be doing it too quick anyway as otherwise there might be issue again of needing to think of a new task haha. So yes the days go quite slow, 9.5 hours is a long time each time, but overall my time here goes pretty quickly I think! Lots of things to look forward to from half September onwards which is exciting, so that keeps me going! We will have the national public holidays for 4 days, which is one big feast like Queensday. The following weekend a friend who is doing her internship in Brazil will visit me and the weekend after, first weekend of October, Philip will come for 2.5 weeks! Can't wait!

Friday we also had a public holiday, so an English girl who is new in Chile and came to the church I go to and I went to Valparaiso again for two days. That was really nice and the second day we just spent on the beach which was great!! Today 28 degrees so will definitely be sunbathing a bit more, before I'm back to work again with which I don't see any sun for 5 days.

I got surprised by one of my beautiful best friends Georgia with flowers on my birthday!

Valparaiso

One of the  25 best ice cream places in the world!

1 month

So I'm now 1 month in Chile. So far it's definitely been an interesting experience. Interesting to see the difference in culture and the differences between a city such as Santiago or a small city such as Arnhem or town Geldermalsen. So far I still wouldn't say I'm loving it, but like I said in my previous post, that would require stronger friendships I think.

I had a difficult week in my 3rd week. I was quite emotional a couple of times and the weekend away got cancelled once again which was just frustrating as I was once again left with the concept of what shall I do this weekend... Luckily I was able to meet up with some friends from church and I got to know my new roommate Mirva, from Finland, a lot better which was nice, so still the weekend went quickly and it was nice to get to know some people better. Something that has just been quite difficult is the moments that I'm with a group of people at work or outside of work and they all speak Spanish. I can follow kind of the gist of the conversation, but I can't contribute to it, so I just stand there smiling for most of the time. At those times I just feel lonely although I'm with a group of people. So I find that hard, but at the same time I think to myself, if that's just what I have to do a couple of times a week (e.g. lunchtimes at work) for 6 months, then that's what I got to do, I can easily survive that haha. But yes at those times I just miss my friends back home a lot.

During that week I knew the next week (this week) would be much better as I would be moving to my new room and I would go snowboarding, so definitely something to look forward to. On top of that on Wednesday I got given a task at work which will take me a couple of weeks to do which is exciting as that makes going to work so much better! I have to do market research. The purpose of this market research is to research the Chilean hospital market and to identify all the products that the top 3 hospitals have which Droguería Hofmann sells as well. With that information, it can be seen which products they buy from Droguería Hofmann and which products the hospitals buy from Droguería Hofmann´s competitors. This shows Droguería Hofmann, my work, their market potential. As there's an online software that my work has access to, which shows all the sales in the public healthcare market, I just need to really filter that information and make it into a good accessible excel file etc. 

I also discovered that because I arrive at work at 8am and leave at 5.30pm, with only half an hour of break, I would be working much more than the 840 hours that we have in my contract for 21 weeks. I would be doing 955 hours in those 21 weeks instead, so that would mean I'd be working around 2 weeks too much. Now that's not a really big problem of course but that gave me the idea that maybe there is a possibility I can join my parents more throughout their time in South America, and we have now indeed planned that I'm joining them those two weeks that they are travelling! We will be going to Lima, Peru, doing to Inca trail to Macchu Picchu, seeing Santiago and seeing the Iguazu Fall on the border of Argentina/Brazil, and I will then fly back to Santiago, and my parents will have a last weekend together in Rio de Janeiro. As Philip will come in the first two weeks of October and I will join my parents the last two weeks of November and I leave Chile the 13th of December, those last months will fly by! 

So yes this week has been a lot better, my move went well and I feel at home and my room is nice and warm instead of sleeping in a full tracksuit with jumper etc, so that means I sleep better as well. Snowboarding with two girls from church yesterday, Teresa from Chile and Kate from New Zealand, was very fun as well and was a nice birthday treat for myself haha. Wednesday is my birthday, but don't have anything special planned, just work and at night the biblestudy which is always nice. I will bring cake to both, the way the Dutch people do haha, so I'm sure it'll be a nice day.