Why did I come to Chile in the first place?

One day, when I was 12, I was at my uncle's house and he began to relate his stories of traveling through Mexico, the Caribbean, Europe, Morocco, etc. His stories sparked my gusto for traveling, especially to foreign places and I knew I would travel a lot in my life. At 17 I decided it was time to study abroad as an AFS student. I was lucky to have the opportunity. (Thanks mom and dad.) Puerto Rico called my name. I was used to cold and 20, 30, 40 below-Farenheit days and I knew in Puerto Rico I would be near the beach, no matter what. Unfortunately, by the time I got around to filling out my application, Puerto Rico was all taken. Cuak. I thought of applying for Brazil, but I wanted to learn Spanish. My first Chilean friend, D, urged me to go to Chile. She was an AFS student in my high school in the States and told me Chile was lots of fun thus I should check it out. Puerto Rico out of the picture, I was off to Chile. Five out of six of the photos that I sent into AFS were of me and my friends and family in three feet of snow. The sixth picture was one of me on the beach in Florida, with palm trees in the background and a big smile on my face. The AFS staff got the picture. They probably saw the photos, and said "pobrecita, mandémosla a Viña." Which was exactly my plan. It was not-so-subliminal messaging. I wanted to be placed in a beach city, even if it wasn't warm 12 months of the year like in Puerto Rico, at least some of the year it was warm.

I came back a couple times for Christmas breaks and visited my host family, friends and travelled a bit around Chile. My host father works at a University and one day he told me that his U had a good master's program in Hispanic Lit and that it was reasonably priced. I was only in my second year of my pre-grad and wasn't really thinking about a post-grad degree yet, but several years later I remembered and came down to Chile to get my masters. So here I am.