¡Hola famila y amigos! I can finally say that I made it to Chile safe and sound…and not a moment too soon. After twenty-three hours of traveling (door to door), I arrived at my new place in Las Condes around noon yesterday. I had a few minor issues at the airport in Santiago but overall my trip was pretty smooth. Initially, they rejected the 140 dollars cash I brought for my visa because there was a tiny bit of ink around the edges of the bills. I started panicking a little bit because my program told me that I needed to pay in cash but it turns out they took credit cards so all was good there. Then I couldn’t find my shuttle and a whole bunch of people were bombarding me with taxi information and trying to convince me that my ride wasn’t going to show up and that I should just go with them. Luckily, I got that one resolved too. I sat next to this cool old man on the shuttle and he showed me some pictures of his trip down to the southern part of the country. He also told me a little bit about what was going on around us as we drove through Santiago (which, by the way, is a gorgeous city).
I was met at home by my host, Andrés and another student named Brett that is renting one of the three rooms in the house. A third student, named Ruby, should be showing up in a few hours. All the people that stay here are members of my program and Brett just went through it so he was really helpful in terms of getting some insight into the program. Looks like I’m in store for some pretty intense nights of studying and preparing lessons. Time to get back into school mode!
Amazingly, I didn’t crash out as soon as I got here and I actually unpacked and organized all of my stuff. Brett and I walked down to a little empanada shop nearby and grabbed a few of those which was great since I hadn’t really eaten much since In-N-Out in LA before I left (24 hours before that).
Andrés gave me the lay of the land over her and it seems like a pretty sweet set up. The house is beautiful, my room is nice and the neighborhood is pretty cool. There’s a little farmer’s market on Saturdays just around the corner that I’m planning to check out next week. My classes start tomorrow but it’s just a Spanish course so it won’t be as intensive as my TEFL course which begins early February. Overall, things are looking good and I’m excited about getting things started! Besos everyone! More soon :)
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