Alli Soenksen: BEACH and paintballing!

Today was another amazing day in Chile! It all started out perfectly. We had a free morning so we were able to sleep in! I slept in til 10:30, showered, and Molly, Carly, and I went to starbucks for tea and breakfast. Afterwards, we drank our tea and walked to the beach. It was our last morning we could do what we wanted so we needed to spend it on the Chilean beach. We spent the whole morning just looking out in the water, laying in the sand, taking pictures, walking alongside the shore at all the rocks with famous spanish sayings on them, and just admiring all of Chile's gorgeous scenery. Carly, Molly, and I got some awesome pictures...we were just missing Alyssa who decided to rent a 4 person beach cruzer. Being on the beach, though, really made me realize how much I was going to miss Chile. It is literally the most beautiful place I have ever been and I just can't leave. Everyone is so nice, friendly, patient, polite, etc. The scenery is breath taking. I really would like to come back during Christmas time when it is summer and Id be able to swim in the water and be in shorts! Unfortunately, we had to go paintballing next. I was kind of excited, but also very upset we had to leave the beach. Anyways, we got to paintballing and they provided us with "very stylish" one piece camoflouge outfits, chest pads, and a mask. Our arms, legs, back, etc was all exposed. The guy who was running paintballing explained to us the rules and then proceeded to pick me as a captain to choose my team. I didn't know what to do so I just picked all my friends...this was not a good idea. The other team was mostly strong, tough, angry guys and we were all girls who weren't really into the idea of paintballing, but regardless, we got red pinnies and went to our tower in the paintballing field. It went downhill from there. The whistle blew and the blue team charged and just shot us all- no mercy! I've never been in so much pain before. I got hit on the thumb, shoulder, and back. So many of our team got hit in the head too! The other team did not go easy on us at all and even in round two, more and more injuries continued to happen. Paintballing was miserable; something I will never do again. After this, though, we were all starving and a few of us went to this well known Italian place. I got raviolis and a salad. It was so good! It definitely made up for the lack of fun paintballing was. My, Alyssa, Molly, Carly, Evan, and Stefan all went to Italian with our advisors, Jorge and Sarah. It was really nice and informative to go to dinner with them. They are two of the most knowledgable people I have ever met and I am so lucky to have gone on this trip with them!