The Journey

Overall, everything went smoothly. The flight from Orlando to Miami was short and sweet with me being able to sleep through it all. The Miami airport though is another story. One of the worst airports I have ever been to. I knew it was bad from some connections there before but nothing like this. It took me literally half an hour walking at a quick clip to go from my arrival terminal to the departure terminal. It definitely made me wish I had booked my large backpack.

The flight on LAN airlines was very good though. The flight attendants were all very pleasant and they give me an exit row (Yay!). The flight itself was not bad and only took five hours to Lima, Peru. After a few hours in the Lima airport (which was markedly better than Miami's BTW), I boarded my final flight for Santiago. Unfortunately, I was all slept out at this point, but they did have a pretty good movie selection on board. I watched "Two Lovers" with Joaquin Phoenix (begin movie review). It was the slow, quirky, indie film which I usually enjoy, but this one not so much. It was good, just not too entertaining (or maybe it was just the fact that I was watching it after being on a plane/in an airport for the last twelve hours). The fact that the main character is subtly bipolar made it a little better. Overall, I would recommend it if you want something different than most mainstream movies (end movie review :) ).

Before I got off the plane, I finally started talking to my neighbor whom I assumed knew no English but actually had a perfect American accent despite not being American (apparently she studied in Colorado for three years). She had finished studying in Santiago a couple of months ago and was back to visit friends/sites. She told me about the best way to get into the city, which is a service called TransVIP. Basically it is a van that picks up a group of people and drops them off one by one at their destination. I had some trouble communicating with the driver, but a very nice lady helped me out. She lives in upstate New York but is from Chile originally. She even gave me the number of a niece who lives in Santiago in case I needed help. I don't think I will use it, but it was nice none the less.