Fun Times

So, apologies for last short post, but I was short for time. Same story here, as there are people waiting to use the internet, and I just spent a while writing an email to my parents. Anyways, quick rundown here.

We got into Santiago at a bout 3 o'clock local time, about 12 hours after the earthquake. There have only been a couple aftershocks since we have been here, and they have been very small. We are currently in a nice hotel in the better part of Santiago (the the last couple of days since we got here were in a not as nice part of Santiago, which was close to the bus terminal). But we were RESCUED from there by a very nice Lockheed Martin employee. Because the dad of two of the people I am with works for Lockheed (has for about 26 years or so) and was adamant that we get out of there. So this guy is in Chile because Chile bought some F16s, so he's their LM liaison. Pretty sweet. So he took us to the nice part of town (very. nice.), and we are now in a quite nice hotel just relaxing. So we are just kind of going to chill here since we won't be able to get back east until at least Tuesday, since everything, flights and buses, is booked.

All in all, though, everything is pretty good. There is minimal damage in Santiago, and also in Viña del Mar and Valparaiso. The LM guy was in Viña when the quake hit, and he said everything is fine there. So, after a couple days here we might head out west to the beach to relax a bit. Very exciting. Also, anything you have seen on CNN has been sensationalized like none other, and everything here is basically okay. Chile is pretty stable as things go, and it can get back up again. There were some hard hit areas of the country (Concepcion and Biobio were pretty badly hit... I think Biobio got the tsunami) but all in all, everything is good. I think only 300 people died in the entire country or something. This is no Haiti or Katrina. Also, Santiago is a beautiful city and I would recommend to anyone that they come visit it.