Arriving in Santiago

Hola de Santiago de Chile! After a few bumps in the road I have finally arrived in Chile. The day my flight was supposed to leave, there was a blizzard in Denver and all the flights out of the city were cancelled. I had a get a flight for the next day and miss the first day in the city with my group. I was really upset at first because I was so excited to leave, but once I got here it didn’t seem like such a big deal. On the plane ride from Miami to Santiago, I sat next to the nicest man. He helped me with my bags and spoke to me in both English and Spanish and it helped me practice my Spanish before I got here. Because my flight was delayed a day I had to go straight to orientation. I was able to change my clothes at the center which felt great after about 24 hours of traveling. The first day of orientation was really long and there was so much Spanish, I was very overwhelmed. Yet I absolutely loved the day and diving right back into Spanish with almost a year of not using it. After orientation yesterday, I met my host family and they are absolutely fabulous!!! It’s a single mom with a 14 year old son and the son knows a little English which is very helpful when I have no idea what they’re saying. For dinner last night we had a tomato salad which was very good and beef with rice. The food here is pretty bland and they eat a really big lunch usually later in the day, about 2. My host mom packed me such a big lunch today that I couldn’t even finish it all. Today we got to explore the city a little bit and it was really nice to walk around and get to know where I will be living for the next 4 months. I absolutely love the city so far. It’s beautiful and fun and there seems like there is so much to do. I’m so excited for the next 4 months and hope it doesn’t go by too fast. Chao por ahora!