It was a wonderful week, even with the bumps in the road that we experienced, starting with waiting for our rental car for two hours while all the other companies were sending cars out one after another. But eventually we finally got our car and made our way to our little rented apartment in Viña del Mar. Once we got settled I got to take them to the market to grab our fruits and veggies for the week and show them a little bit of weekly life here in Viña. The Feria (Market) is only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays so it's not really a daily thing here, but it was an interesting experience for me as well because I've always been to the feria with my host mom. So the whole experience of talking to the vendors and translating for my family was very fun and interesting. After that we dropped off the food and went to a nice Italian restaurant two blocks away because we were so hungry. We hadn't eaten since early that morning before their plane had landed, and we were also tired so we took a nap before heading to my host family's place to share dinner.
Dinner was very very nice, my mom had made a paella for us that was very tasty, and I got to "show" my family how my Spanish has improved since I've been here since I did a lot of translating back and forth for both families since the only other person who knows both languages is Jolene, which I was definitely grateful for a second person with the ability to understand both! For me, conversation was always going since in order for both families to talk they had to go through me, making it a little hard to eat since I hate talking with food in my mouth. In all it was very fun, and my parents were so excited to see this side of me that they've known was there but never got to see because it's English almost everywhere we've gone before, except for El Loro... Which that really doesn't even count. :)
Sunday was a pretty lazy day, after sleeping in we went for an afternoon walk on the beach and to the artisan fair that was there. We had planned on getting much more done, but we ended up staying at the apartment when we had only planned to stop for ten minutes for a new application of sunscreen. Not really a big deal for me since I like the quiet of hanging out at home with my loved ones. When dinner came along I was really excited because I've missed my parents cooking so much and the smells of their stir-fry brought me back home and made me excited for my homecoming Also, I got to have some of dad's Dr. Pepper that he brought back on the plane with him, and oh my god. I miss it. First thing I'm buying when I see it in Atlanta. Hopefully.
On Tuesday and Friday we went and toured a winery on each of those days, which was the main thing that my family had wanted to do while they were here. The first winery we went to was from the Casablanca valley in between Santiago and Viña which was the Casas del Bosque winery where we did a tour and got to try four different wines, all of which were very good. Our Friday winery/vinyard was the Concha y Toro company, the biggest wine exporter of Chile and one of the largest of the world. We went to their location south of Santiago which is the only location that the wine is bottled. There we got to try two pours and also had a wonderful lunch there before driving home to make dinner for my host family.
Dinner for my host family at our rented apartment was very similar to Saturday night's dinner, just enjoying conversation, and food. We discussed a lot of what we had done over the week, which was a little less than what we had planned on doing, but with me having classes still and other unforeseen circumstances it still turned out great. Much less I know it's not the last time we'll be here. The other things we did over the week don't have a lot of details, so they don't really get their own paragraph, but they do deserve mention. We visited the beach one more time before they left, visited Viña's flower clock, went to the Mall and to Centro (kind of a commercial center) and drove up along the shore to some of the cities north of us.
It was very hard to say good-bye to my family at the end of the week, but it was a lot easier than it would have been had they visited earlier in the semester as I would be seeing them all again when I land back in Minnesota two weeks later.
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