Santiago con mi Mama

So, I flew back from Buenos Aires, Argentina in the early morning. I had finished my final draft of my thesis paper, but needed to get it bound in Santiago so that I could turn it in to the professor. I got off the plane and headed for the bus that would (cheaply) take me to the center of the city. I got on the bus and we started off for the center of the city. I felt in my pocket and my passport wasn't there. I was so frightened since my passport was always in my front pocket. I had the bus stop and get my stuff off the bus. I hitch-hiked back to the airport and ran to the information desk to see if there was any chance they had found a passport. They looked and, thank God, the passport was there. I gave the man who found the passport on the floor (it must have slipped out while I was going through my pockets). I boarded the bus again for the center of the city. My flight got in with enough time (including losing my passport and finding it again) for me to go into the center of the city and take the thesis to the printer to get published. After running a few errands, I went back to the airport to pick up my mom. By now all of the taxi drivers knew who I was and that I was looking for my mother... not to mention they all wanted to "help" take my mother and me to our hostel (for a price of course). My mom's flight got in around 12:30pm, however it took over 2 hours for her baggage to come to the carousel... so I waited nervously for her to come out of the international arrivals terminal. There is a window area where people who are waiting for people to get their bags can peer down to try and see their loved ones arriving. I went there to try and see if mom was there and I couldn't find her. Later, mom informed me that she was there and had seen me. When we finally saw each other the first thing mom said was "Look at your hair!" I started crying... I didn't realize how much I had missed my mom.
We let a taxi driver take us into the city to our hostel. When we got to the hostel mom told me that I had to take a shower (my flight left very early from Buenos Aires and I didn't have time to take a shower). So, I took a shower and then we were off to explore Santiago. We first went to pick up my published thesis paper and turn it in to my professor. We also stopped at the IFSA office to turn in a copy of the paper to the IFSA office. It was nice to introduce my mom to the people I had spent so much time with over the past few months. Mom was hungry so we had a very late lunch at a little cafe by the COPA office. She had a hamburger like sandwich and a couple beers, I had a natural juice. We walked through the Catholic University central building after lunch. It is a nice little courtyard with water fountains and a statue of pope john paul ii.
After Catolica, we went to Cerro Santa Lucia (Santa Lucia Hill). It is a small hill that has beautiful fountains, and a nice view of the city. We had planned on attending the ballet the next night, so after the hill we walked to the ballet ticket office, however it was closed. Since it was closed, we grabbed some ice cream and walked to the presidential palace. There were people who were setting up for what looked like a public concert. They also placed flowers at the statue of Salvador Allende (the president who was deposed by the military dictatorship in 1973)... so I think it was a rally of some sort. It was nice to see the sunset.
After sunset we took the metro to my host family's house for dinner. Mom met Veronica and Rafael and we had a very nice meal. After dinner we chatted for a little while, but took a bus back to our hostel where we both fell exhausted into bed.

According to mom we both slept like rocks. We slept in a little later then planned but went to the Consino Macul vineyard a little ways outside of the city. We took a combination of taxi and metro to get there. The vineyard was very nice and we tried a couple different wines and got to keep our glasses. I had to drop off my library books. Since we bought 4 bottles of wine, we went back to the hostel to drop off our wine. We took our extra luggage to my host family's house so that we didn't have to carry it around Chile as we were traveling. We went to the central market to have lunch. We ate a really nice lunch with lots of interesting entertainment from people who stopped by to talk to us. After lunch we walked to the central plaza to see the plaza, the cathedral, and to eat some ice cream. We went to the ballet to buy our tickets. We had "once" or tea at a little bakery and then went to the ballet. The ballet was very, very good. It included two more modern ballets and a classical one. After the ballet, we walked towards our hostel where we grabbed some 'liquids' as mom likes to call them, diet coke, juice, etc. We then watched some dancing water fountains that were lit up at night. It was very fun to see them. Mom felt pretty cold, so we ended up going to the hostel and going to bed.