Border Control

   On my way to the next weekend adventure! I'm going to Chile this weekend with my friend Megan, and meeting up with some of the other IFSA students that will also be in Chile for our long weekend. Our bus left at 10 pm from Mendoza, which means I could sleep on the bus over night, but also meant I couldn't see any of the scenery around me; its supposed to be a very pretty drive with a view of Aconcagua. I did get a pretty view of Penitentes, though, the ski resort near the border. After spending so much time on a bus for spring break, plus this weekend, its starting to feel normal.
    I somewhat forgot I'd have to go through immigration at the border since all my other trips so far were within Argentina. So we just spent 3 hours at the immigration office at 3 am. At first our bus got stopped about half hour from the border and two guards got on and walked up and down. After that, we kept driving on a road that had been made into a one way road by a line of rocks in between lanes to prevent people from crossing. Then we got to the immigration office and had to get off the bus and form a line outside in the freezing cold, and then joined a line full of people from 3 other buaes. The bus gave us two forms to fill out. One said official use only, so I thought that meant I didn't need to fill it out, but when I got to the window I realized it was the more important form, and the woman gave me the dirtiest look when I asked to borrow a  pen.
    After this line we had to go to another line and wait, but now I have a stamp on my passport! After that we waited around on the bus for everyone to finish, then went into another line to have our bags checked. They all lined us up at really long tables where we had to put our bags, and then Hermis the dog sniffing Labrador came through the room to sniff all of our bags. He even walked on the tables to sniff them. The man nexmt to me got sniffed for a while, then Skylar's bag was suspicious, and Hermis found her orange, which got taken away. He didn't find my two apples though, and neither did the scanner we put our bags through. 
    Afterwards it was back to the bus to arrive in Santiago and get on another bus to Valparaiso and arrive around 9 am. I was so confused trying to get Chilean pesos out of the ATM here because I'm so used to having to deal with the double exchange rate in Argentina and get pesos on the black market. I haven't used an ATM in months I forgot what to do. The denominations of money are so big too it gets confusing. One dollar is worth 500 Chilean pesos, so it feels weird carrying around 200,000 Chilean pesos with me.