My time in Chile is coming to an end.

It´s so weird. I remember during week two thinking, "goodness, I have six weeks left. Sooooo much time," and now all I can think of is how quickly it has passed by, as cliché as that sounds.

I´m ready to be home. I´ve had an excellent time full of lots of sporadic moments, but I can´t wait to get home to my family and WSU. That´s one of the things about traveling, I always feel good to come home. It´s amazing experience but I always come back feeling proud of where I come from.

My time here has been exhausting in a good way. I´ve accomplished learning more Spanish. I´ve had six articles published in a fairly prominent newspaper. I made a lot of great friends down here. I learned a lot about a culture that I knew nothing about when I arrived. More or less, I think I´ve accomplished everything I came here to do.

One of the hardest parts of going home is answering the question, "so how was it? Tell me ALL about your trip." Where do I even start with something like this? The big moments, like meeting President Bachelet or accidentally being cast as an extra in a Chilean movie? My very first salsa lesson or the time I tried my first completo? My decision to leave my host family? Sútbol? The internship? I can´t even pick out the most important bits to share, because they´re all so much a part of the experience as a whole.

Perhaps I can share my biggest lesson. I can never expect to understand a culture or another group of people without living in it. It´s so funny to think of all the stereotypes people have about cultures they don´t understand. I surely had them about Chile. I had my expectations... lots of latin music, hot men, long nights of dancing. And yeah, I got all of that. It lived up to my expectations. But there´s so much more to this part of the world. Their love of a good time, a good night out. The fight for more women´s rights. The way everyone gives out money to the people begging on the streets without judging their intentions or whether they´ll just use it to buy a pack of cigarettes. The countless numbers of songs and chants they have for soccer games. These and so many more that I could never finish listing.

During the finals of the FIFA U20 World Cup yesterday, La Rojita took 3rd place with a 1-0 win over Austria. The goal is accredited to Martinez, but the overall stellar performance and professionalism demonstrated on and off the field has to go to Cristopher Toselli, goalie/my personal favorite. He also broke a U20 record for number of minutes without a goal scored against him (492... so he only beat the record by a minute or so, but who´s counting?!)

It´s been interesting to see the difference in press coverage over the incident in Toronto following the Thursday slaughter by Argentina and the fights that broke out with Canadian police. The same AP story I see repeated over and over in Canadian and US publications says the players were completely out of line, attacking the cops to the point where they had no choice but to whip out the taser. Chilean news (which, by the way, every major news station and newspaper in the country was in an uproar over this for all of Friday and Saturday... if there was any other news going on in the country I´m not aware of it because this was basically the only story covered) said it was more or less a case of discrimination... the players were only trying to meet-and-greet with fans when the police came out of nowhere and attacked them, treating them "like animals." And last I heard, I think FIFA said the players were only responsible for their actions on the field... but don´t quote me on this.

I love the media.

As for me, I think they were young, rowdy, frustrated guys who stepped a little bit out of line and the police totally overreacted. I don´t think there was need to attack , taser and injure 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds whose careers (and physical well-being) could be put in jeopardy. I think a few of the hotheaded players made some bad decisions to act up, and this could come back to bite them in a few years. I feel bad for their parents who had to watch their sons in the spotlight like this, and i feel really bad for the players who felt the need to stick by their teammates but didn´t want to get involved and now may face consequences in the future.

But overall, I´m really pleased with them this year. So they acted up a little, and perhaps they wanted to be world champions. But they played an incredible season that totally compensated for the failures of La Roja in the Copa America. And I am so stoked to see what some of these boys will do in the future.

So I haven´t updated in a week, I´m having huge blog withdrawals and I´m leaving for Santiago in T minus 5 minutes... but the briefest of sports updates is absolutely necessary.

Recap:
FIFA Sub20 World Cup
Last night, Argentina v. La Rojita
= DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA
Yellow cards like candy
Really angry Chilean players
Argentina won, 2-0
Took an entire Canadian police force to keep La Rojita from beating up the refs (look this up on YouTube, the TV footage was incredible. For WSU students, think of that time Tony Bennett flipped out on the court and threw off his jacket and whatnot. This is like 5x better)
La Rojita was later tear-gassed on the streets or something (if I understood the news correctly) while signing autographs, 7 were arrested
Hella drama between Canadian officials, police, FIFA, Chilean fans and the Sub-20 jugadores

Main point: Basically, there are a lot of angry, angry people in Chile and Canada right now.

If you can read Spanish, I´m sure this article explains it so much better than I could in under three minutes.

http://www.emol.com/noticias/deportes/detalle/detallenoticias.asp?idnoticia=263126

Updates to come.

This just in: I LOVE my job.

To all who have passed by and clicked the link to my blog for the past month and a bit, I extend my sincerest apologies for the lack of content. nevertheless, the blog server is up and running now and I will attempt to recap the past month and a half of my life in chile.

I feel it might be best to begin with my reasons for visiting this skinny, oddly-shaped country. That tends to be the one of the most common questions I am asked by chilenos, second only to "de donde eres?" (in which I have to explain I am not, in fact, from Washington, D.C. but rather from the other superior coast, an explanation which is quickly followed by, "ayyyypo. Kurt Cobain!"

I am currently interning as a reporter at El Mercurio de Valparaíso, and will continue to do so through the end of July. My responsiblities are the same as those at The Daily Evergreen at Washington State University, where I work at home. I receive an assignment, hit the streets, write it up, and it gets published. The key difference is that I came to this country speaking virtually no castellano, and after three weeks of language school I´m not sure I was quite prepared. But it is fantastic experience, and through it I´ve met president Michelle Bachelet, other government and municipal officials in the region, and had a great excuse to talk to citizens.

As for the blog, I am hoping to offer some insight to anyone who has even the slightest interest in the region. There´s a lot to love about this region, but also a lot that required serious adjustment and cultural acceptance on my part. I came to this country with the mission to make every day an adventure, and I certainly received more than I bargained for.

Chao--