HOLIDAYS

Everybody loves holidays; they are the perfect reward for a whole year's of hard work. Personally, the mere thought of summer, beaches and sleeping until noon gives me hope in the middle of the academic days.

My best holiday experience was a couple of years ago, when some friends and I went backpacking to the south of Chile. We took a bus in Santiago to Concepción, and from there just depended on other's kindness. And boy were they kind! We were expecting to go from Concepción to Valdivia, mostly because according to our calculations, we would had run out of money by then, but unexpectantly the people we met on the road ended up offering us food, bedding and movilization for free. Thanks to them we were lucky enough to get to know new places that were pretty inaccessible to most tourists. Towards the end of the journey,  half the group got the flu, but it was completely worth it and it didn't ruin our vacation in anyway. Contrary to our original expectations, we traveled as far a Puerto Montt, and with the money we saved, got a bus ticket that brought us directely back to Santiago.

Of course, not every holiday experience is good. My worst one is a time when my family and I rented a hut in zapallar. Unlike my backpacking experience, this vacation was not cheap at all. Not just the hut's rent was ridiculously high, but everything else in town was at least 5 bucks more expensive than the regular prices at supermarkets. Also, there were people tons of people everywhere, so there were a limited number of places where you could actually lounge. On top of everything, that was the summer where we found out I was allergic to bees, when I got sting by one outside the hut and ended up in ER, effectively ruining everybody's vacation. Even though the hut was already paid for two weeks, my parents decided that enough was enough, and the moment the hospital discharged me was the same moment my dad went back to Zapallar, grabbed all our stuff, put my convalescent self in the car, and drove all of us back home. I must say, the holiday we spent lounging in our backyard was much more pleasant.