HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

This week has been my worst in Chile and I am thankful that it's over. It's hard to be away from home when you are super stressed, especially when you know that you are missing out on your most favorite holiday and time of the year while you are away being super stressed. I'm finally ready to find myself at home again, even in it is snowing and there is no beach....

So in the spirit of the day I will leave you with a few of the things I am thankful for: being done with this week (obvio), the delicious dinner I will be having tonight with all the ISA kids, my awesome parents for patiently listening to me complain the past few days about all my work and offering words of encouragement without nagging, my lovely sister who gets thanks just for being cool, BP who I haven't talked to in forever but made my day the other day (I know without knowing it) just by being friendly, the warm sun that is peeking out of the clouds we have had for the past few days, my amazing friends both here and at home who help keep me sane, a good talk with Marinela this afternoon and luscious lemon bars sitting on the counter in the kitchen.

*a side note, life in Chile in a nutshell*

So today I finally finished my tests and headed back from class to the house where I figured out what dessert I was going to make to bring to dinner tonight. I had all the ingredients I needed minus the powdered sugar. I was just about to go to the store down the street when Marianela mentioned that there was another supermercado closer, a few blocks over in a different direction. After she explained where it was I was still a little fuzzy on the instructions as I don't know that area as well. I decided I would just go to the regular store since I can get lost in a cardboard box and wanted to get started because I didn't know how long it would take. Marianela however offered to take me to the closer one and since she usually seems a bit put out when I decline I opted instead to take her up on her offer. So we trot down the street and quickly come across the store. However, instead of going in she saids, "I need to get some soap, lets go there first so we don't have to carry the weight (as if a bag of powdered sugar is a lot, but whatev)." So we keep going, and going, and going, going beyond ever where the initial grocery store would have been. Plus all this way we walked past all kinds of stores that had soap, they just weren't "the" store. I was so frustrated, all I wanted to do was get my sugar as quickly as possible and get baking. But, we took a detour. Finally we made it to the store and finally we made it home. But what was meant to be a "quick" 20 minute trip turned into an hour long adventure. Yep, I should have known better. The concept of "fast" and "schedule" aren't really well known here. At least I know where the close supermercado is so I can go there alone next time.