Do you think I'm the type of person who should go skiing? Skiing, the sport that mixes nature, sports and heights into a terrifying coctail.

The program I am affiliated with here, Academic Studies Abroad, payed for me to go on a skiing trip with the rest of the international students this week. I knew about this trip since before I left for Chile and was ready (bahaha).
The night before, I asked my mom to pack me a lunch because I knew I would be gone from about 5am to, at the earliest, 6pm. This is what I got.

5 ham, cheese, and butter sandwiches (FIVE)
3 bananas (b-a-n-a-n-a-s)
2 oranges
1 apple
1 yogurt

Everyone else got a big lunch, no one else got five sandwiches.

The ski resort is on the opposite side of the Andes from Vina del Mar. All the students gathered outside the international office at 5:30am, not the safest time of night/day to be out walking around, but it was fine. We departed from Vina del Mar in the dark, so I couldn't look out the window, but I knew the mountain range was visible during the day. Most people slept for a while until we got to Santiago (about a 1.5 hour drive) where we could rent things like ski pants, jackets, gloves, etc. At the stop, I ate a sandwich and a banana and drank a chocolate milk my friend gave me (her mom packed her 2). Once everyone got their stuff, which took FOREVER, we got back on the bus and started to climb the mountains.
At first the terrain is still somewhat green, because it's winter here, and pretty rocky, looks a little like West Virginia. There are a few houses, pretty secluded and surrounded by mountains. Then we get to a much narrower, less frequented (I assume) road. The tour guide we were with then announces that on the way up the mountain there will be 54 "switchbacks." I had no idea what that word was, so I'll explain in case you don't either. A switchback is when you're driving on a road and you need to make a 180 degree turn because you can't drive strait up a mountain. Okay, no big deal, 54. No. It is a BIG deal. It took us an hour to get to switchback number 22. Each one had a sign to indicate how far you had gone. This is when I start to regret eating my butter, ham and cheese sandwich. Hello altitude sickness, we've met before, like when I fly, but never like this. The whole way up I am thinking "Pleasedon'tletmebethegirlwhothrowsuponthebuspleasedon'tletmebethegirlwhothrowsuponthebus!!!" Also I was in the window seat and kept looking down at how close we were to the edge of the road. It is at this time when I think to myself, "Kaylie. What are you doing? You've never been skiing in your life, what makes you think you can go to the ANDES, which are taller than the Rocky's and just wing it? You are really dumb, aren't you?"
The whole time we are driving up, it is very beautiful and about half way up you can really see that your starting to get level with the mountain tops and while there was no snow at the bottom, little by little it adds up until everything has a thick blanket of snow. Very pretty. It's around the time we get to the point where snow is everywhere, that we pull over (as much as we could) and there are all these buses pulled over too and men standing around outside. What are these men doing? They are putting chains on the tires of every auto bigger than a sedan, how nice of them. This process takes an hour. "Picture time!" chirps Carlos, the instructor of the International student. It was fun because we could get out of the bus and take pictures, and get some air. As one Mexican student said to his buddy, "Picture time, pendejo!" ("pendejo" is a Mexican word, maybe Chilean too, I don't know, for asshole.) I got out of the bus, went over to the edge, and sank into 2 feet of snow. Awesome. I get back on the bus to put my extra socks on, and it starts to rock back and forth, already being nauseous, I get off the bus again quickly and spend the rest of the break outside. It was pretty cold and windy, but when the wind stopped I was okay with a sweatshirt and my fleece (and my polar tights).
When we finally make it to the parking lot, it is 11:30 and now we need to get our equipment. Chileans do not believe in lines. Everyone crowds around the desk and pushes to get to the front, it's complete chaos. I get my boots, and skis and lift ticket an hour later and realize I really have to use the bathroom. No one else does though. Finally I hear someone say "Oh Janine has to go to, go with her." Finally! I turn to Janine and say "HEY! Do you want to go to the bathroom with me?!" only, it's not Janine, it's some random American girl who kinda looks like her, so I don't even have the maybe-this-is-a-foreigner-thing on my side. I notice this as I say "HEY!" but I decide it's better to pretend like I'm asking this random person on purpose... She gives me a who-the-hell-are-you look and says "Noooo". So I say, "Oh, I'm just looking for someone to go with...." and exit the building asap.
So at 1pm we had a lesson for beginners, it was me, maybe 5 other girls and 2 Spanish guys. The instructor spoke English, but would not speak it to us. So here I am, learning how to ski in Spanish. Skiing being a sport that you should probably learn in your mother tongue so you don't miss something important, like how to stop, for example. We spent about 10-15 minutes just walking around in our boots, sans skis to get a feel for them, like I hadn't been walking around in them enough. Then when we finally get to put our skis on, Christian, the instructor, was a pretty impatient guy. On accident a girl, Catie, went down the hill before he told us to, and he just stopped, and yelled at her. "BIG A, BIG A," he shouted down to her. That's all we learned in the lesson, just how to go strait down the hill making a pizza shape with our legs. I'm no expert or anything, but I'm pretty sure going strait down the side of a mountain is for expert skiers, not us beginners. So I went down the practically horizontal beginner slope about 2 times, called it a day and went to eat lunch in the lodge. (Perhaps if I had acted more like Bridget Jones and had grappa in the lodge before the ski lessons, it would have been "bbllurry easy peasy.")
We left the resort at about 4:30 and started the trek down the mountain, I told Sarah, the girl I was sitting by that she had to sit next to the window this time. But it didn't really matter because it was a white-out outside and you couldn't distinguish mountain side from sky. Good thing I wasn't driving. Every time we turned around on the switchback, the side of the bus scraped the snow dunes.
I was a little nauseous on the way back down again, and severely dehydrated from going out the night before and not getting enough sleep so when we stopped in Santiago again I bought some Gatorade and water and it lasted for the ride home. I stumbled into my apartment at 9pm, took a hot shower (two in one day, score!), watched Ratatouille and went to bed. It was an exhausting day, and even though skiing is definitely not for me, I'm happy I got to see the Andes and be in the snow and hang out with my friends here. If you go to http://internationalofficeoiieuvm.blogspot.com/ you can see more pictures of me in the snow and read what Carlos Torres had to say about our trip!