In the beginning

¡Hola from Chile!

Have decided, after Dale's council, to do a blog instead of emails. This way yall can check whenever you want/have the time. Also, you can ask specific questions or whatever if you want as comments.

Alright, so after my decently long flight, everything worked out and I was taken to my homestay with Amelia. On the drive there we took home like 6 others, so I got to watch the city fly by via shotgun. The amount of stray dogs here is simply astronomical; I even saw one wearing a purple sweater...

When I got there, the doorman helped me with my suitcase to go up to her floor and any of you who have been abroad know how tiny the elevators are, thus, was supremely squooshed up against him awkwardly since I was still wearing my enormous backpack. Anyways, Amelia is very sweet, speaks absolutely no English, and has been a homestay mother for four years! She says it keeps her young...she's a widow and her siblings have all died, so I can see why she enjoys the company even though she has tons of friends.

So that first day she showed me how to get to my school (takes about 25 minutes to get there...I have to take a bus cause it would take me way too long to walk I think. On of these days I'll walk and time it, but the first day was not the day for such an adventure) Ok sorry bout the tangents...back to the story. So that day was pretty uneventful since it was a Sunday and NOTHING is open save the supermarket. So obviously, she took me there - woohoo! Also, she cooked me homemade fries. The were incredibly delicious. No idea how she did it, but they were ridiculously yummy and I hope she makes them again.

Ok, so day 2, first day of class:

Walked to bus stop. Could not fit in first bus due to gargantuan amounts of people splurging from every crevice. So I waited for the next one and pushed my way through the back doors. There were so many people (tantamount to the population of China who all of course got off at every stop and then some in between) that I ended up being a bit late to my first class...whoops. There are four other students in my class...I think three of them have been here for a month or so to take Spanish classes. So they all know each other already - nice for them, a bit awkward for me since I don't really know what's going on yet. But I'm sure it'll work out nicely.

We got out early and I went on about an hour escapade to try to find a place to recharge both Amelia's and my BIP cards (for the metro and busses) and adapters for my plugs. Online it said that Chile used both the 2 circle prongs (like most of Europe) and 3 circle prongs all in a line. Of course I only had the 2-pronged adapters, and of course once I got here everything has used the outlets with 3. I didn't find those until I came back to the supermercado (unimarc) that my señora had taken me to yesterday. So there I bought shampoo, etc, and the adapters (which thankfully work since my computer's battery only lasts 32 minutes when completely charged.)

Alright, must do my homework. Le sigh.

¡Hasta luego!