this is my first time ever doing one of these so i dont know how this works...
but i arrived in Santiago about 7:30am. i had no idea we were even landing because it was sooo foggy outside you couldnt see anything! as we were flying into Santiago I was able to see one of the most beautiful sunrise ever! it was a brilliant orange and a very deep blue and then snow covered andes mountains. i wish i took a picture but i was half asleep and just totally spaced and i was also not sitting next to the window so that might have been weird to snap a picture 3 seats away. but i really dont know what santiago looks like still, because when we left the airport it was still very very foggy (which is totally weird for me!). we took a 1.5 hour drive to vina del mar and it was very pretty, everything was so green!
honestly, vina reminds me a little of mexico just not AS ghetto haha im definitely not in america any more! but they have some gorgeous views! Vina is right on the ocean and part of the city is on really big hills. my house is like a 5 min walk to the beach, where we have gone the last two days to take the two dogs my family has for a walk. the house is small but it is in a very good location. my room is even smaller!! but at least i have my own bathroom and a heated blanket! I am freezing down here!! they dont use heating in the house so im always bundled up. It starts to get warmer in September, but i dont know if ill consider it warm compared to tucson! but at the same time anything is better than what it is now down here!
my family is very nice! they dont speak much english at all, the girls only know a few words here and there so that makes conversations interesting. I can understand more of what they say than i can say back to them. its starting to get a little better, but its still rough. we have been acting things out and explaining things like we were all 2yrs old hahah
the food so far as also been good. i have only had my Paulina's (my chilean "mother") cooking so far. for breakfast these last 2 days i had toast with cheese, butter and ham...not exactly the breakfast im used to, hopefully this isnt it for the next 4 months. Saturday for lunch we had turkey, potatoes, lettuce, avocado, corn, tomatoes. everything except the turkey was plain and we had salt, olive oil and lemons to season it with. the turkey was very good and the salad i made didnt consist of much hahah im going to have to learn to not be picky! today (sunday) for lunch we had very good chicken, lettuce, avocado, tomatoes and corn again (think those are going to become a normal thing for lunch). we also had this fruit thing called palmito, i looked it up in the spanish-english dictionary and it says palm heart, not sure exactly what that is...but anyways it was good sort of had a bitter sweet taste to it.
im learning all sort of new words, its hard to keep track of them all. its weird being here just because at home i could do so much and now i sort of feel helpless, as of right now. but thats just because i dont know my way around or the language! but it will all come to me very soon.
I will try and upload pictures soon! and i will try my hardest to keep up with this journal. pardon me for all the grammar errors, im not really paying attention to any of that! but im off to bed, i have an early day tomorrow. im not sure yet if its my first day of school or just orientation.
thanks for reading!
Chao
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