May 13: Presentations and Futbol: GOL!!!

Today began with us giving presentations on the companies we researched to Jaime at USM.  Though we had all seen each other’s presentations before, what was really interesting was seeing how much Jaime knew about all of our companies and business in general.  In fact, he spoke for about 20 minutes after each of our presentations that had only lasted 10 minutes at the most. Jaime had us think out of the box with his questions about why we thought certain trends occurred.  For my company, Bosques del Mauco, he seemed impressed with our level of research, which made us happy because we had had many difficulties finding specific information about the company.

After our presentations, Jaime asked us to discuss some of the unexpected cultural aspects of Chile that we have encountered so far.  We discussed traffic laws, stray dogs, education, clothing prices, artwork and many other topics.  He was able to explain to us about how many things in Chile have become expensive recently relative to the dollar because of the recent increase in the value of the dollar.

We spent some time around the university and discovered a unique tile mural on the floor and an old cannon from earlier years.  Here are some pictures:

Next, we spent about 2.5 hours playing soccer in mixed teams with some of our Chilean friends.  It was extremely exhausting but invigorating.  Who knew Dr. Abad was so great at soccer!?  Anyway, I ended up spending most of my time as the goalie for my team and I made some great saves and gave up some very unfortunate goals.  Ultimately, I have become very sore but it was well worth it!  Here is me in front of the goal:

Finally, we returned to the mall near our hotel and Javier and Paula, too of the Chilean students, took a couple of us to a restaurant to try El Completo - a hotdog with guacamole, mayonnaise, tomatoes, and ketchup or mustard depending on if you want to put those on as well.  Despite many difficulties with keeping all of the components together on the bun, it was an amazing dining experience.  I wish they had El Completo in the US.  Here is a picture of different varieties:

I am very excited for tomorrow because we are visiting the final 3 companies and I will finally be able to see how Bosques del Mauco produces mushrooms with my own eyes.