Companies, final lectures, dancing, and more - May 12-14

Hola,

This week has been very busy, but I have been having so much fun in Chile! On Wednesday, we visited Codelco's Ventanas Smelting Plant. This visit was very cool! We got to watch and learn about the various process used to purify copper. I got to see how all the processes were monitored and controlled, it really seemed like a big engineering feat. Codelco seems like an interesting place for chemical and industrial engineers to work.

After Codelco, we visited a Centauro factory, a company that cans and packages products such as peaches, tomato sauce and paste, soups, and various fruits and vegetables, and exports products to many countries, as well as selling in Chile. This tour was also very cool and informative. We also received free samples of tomato sauce and a Chilean soup that was similar to a beef stew. It was very delicious. Unfortunately this company has been affected by the global depression, and has lost sales to Mexico, which used to be a main importer of Centauro's products. However, the factory was preparing to expand, and the company seems to be finding new companies from new countries to do business with and seems to be thriving.

In the evening we had our final lectures at the University, taught by Mimo (one of our tour guides), regarding geography, tourism, art (primarily painting), culture, and society and business differences. We learned a lot of interesting information this night.

At night our tour guide Camilo invited the group to his apartment building's rooftop terrace, and later to a bar, which was very fun.

Yesterday (Thursday), we visited Vina Indomita (a vineyard) and LAN airline's main maintenance hangar at the airport in Santiago. Both tours were very cool and informative. At Vina Indomita we even learned how to properly taste wines and tasted three different wines they make. I learned about how difficult it is to make high quality wine, it seems like it must be harder to make than most types of alcohol. I realized why engineering is relevant to the wine industry during this tour.

For lunch we went to Los Hornitos de Curacavi, where I tried Pastel de Choclo, a Chilean dish that is very delicious. It is similar to a shepherd's pie, but is based on corn with a very sweet taste. Muy delicioso!

LAN airlines was cool because we got to watch the mechanics work on their various planes, including very large airbuses. Commercial airplanes require routine complete maintenance, that often take up to 20 days, depending on the model of plane. We also learned about how the industrial engineers at the company have been working to make this maintenance process (which is custom for every plane, depending on what problems are found in the check) very efficient was to lean out waste.

At night we had a BBQ hosted by Werner, the professor at the University in charge of the exchange student program. Some of the Chilean students taught us some popular dances (kind of like the Chilean versions of the Macarena), and we showed them some of our lame American dances like the Cha-Cha Slide. Their dances were much cooler and more fun. Chileans tend to be very good dances. I have realized that most Chileans, and probably most Latin Americans, prefer dancing to playing music. For that reason, many Chileans are very good dancers, but few play instruments.

At night we went to a large club in Valparaiso called Huevos, where we had a lot of fun. I discovered this week that I really like the popular Chilean drink called piscola, which is comprised of pisco, a local hard liquor made from grapes, and coca-cola.

Finally, since we had such a busy week, we got to relax today. While I didn't get to sleep as late as I would have liked, we then went to a resort for the rest of the day, where we had good food, played soccer, and relaxed. Unfortunately it rained most of the day, so we couldn't sit out in the sun. Now it's the weekend, and we have an open schedule. I'm not sure what I'll do yet, but hopefully I'll do some cool sight-seeing this weekend. Unfortunately rain is still in the forecast, but I won't let that stop us.

Viva Chile!