I knew from the very beginning that I was going to be bad at this whole blogging thing. Okay! So, about two weeks before I left, I received the information about my host family. They live in Calama, Chile which is in the desert in the north. I have two sisters, one of which lives in Santiago for college. Her name is Valeria and she goes by Vale. My other sister lives at home and is a senior in high school. Lastly, I have a mom and a dad. So, on Wednesday the 27th of July, I left Phoenix for Miami, Florida at 7 in the morning and boarded the plane at 7:45. The movie was Rio, which was kind of ironic, hahaha. I arrived at Miami International Airport at 4:00 their time, so the flight was about 4 hours and there was a three hour time difference. In Miami there was a short orientation for all the people in the United States who were going to South America. There were 3 other girls who were going to Chile as well. The next afternoon we went to the airport at around 3:30 even though our flight left at 7. On that flight I didn’t sit next to any of the people I knew but I did get an aisle seat. The in-flight entertainment was AMAZING. There was a touch-screen TV in front of us and it had movies, TV shows, videogames, and music. Lots of everything. They weren’t bad movies either! They had The Hangover, Limitless, The Lincoln Lawyer and much, much more. The music was good too. The plane landed at around midnight and we had a one hour layover in Lima, Peru. I didn’t sit next to the girls on that flight either and I was in the middle seat of the middle row. And my entertainment didn’t work. AGH, it kept playing Diary of a Wimpy Kid and I couldn’t turn my screen off. When that flight landed it was 5:30 in the morning and we had to work out the many, many problems with the Visas and customs and so on and so forth. We finally got out at 8:00 am (ay, Dios mio.) and we met the AFS guy who was waiting for us. I was starving so I had scrambled eggs with cheese and hot chocolate (yumm). Then we went in a van to the church-like place we were staying at with around 70 other AFS students from all over the world. I met so many incredible people! I was, of course, exhausted. Did you notice how I didn’t mention sleep? Yeah. Well we got to the place at around 9:30 but we weren’t allowed to sleep because we were the first there and there were plans when the others arrived. We were allowed until 11 to do whatever we wanted. By the time I finally crawled into my bed it was 10. I had a 45 minute power nap. The rest of the day was spent welcoming the flocks of people coming from Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Mexico, Czech Republic, Russia and much more. I had been awake for approximately 48 hours when I finally got a good sleep. Saturday. When I awoke I was still completely worn out, 8 hours was definitely not enough time to sleep! I powered on, however, because there was orientation work to be done. Work, work, work, chat, chat, chat, and make friends the whole day. Unfortunately, in the middle of the day I felt a migraine coming on. I was dizzy, all the time, and was having vision problems. I went to my room to lie down and my stomach was upset. I didn’t eat breakfast or lunch but threw up twice. I slept from 10 to 7, awoke to play some games with AFSers and went back to sleep at ten. The next morning, Sunday, I felt much better! My family picked me up at 8:30 and we drove around Santiago for a while. We went to my sister’s apartment (she lives and studies in Santiago) to drop off luggage, then to the Santa Maria (see photo) on a mountain, then to my grandparents’ house for lunch. The food, OH, the food. It was an asado (barbecue) and there was steak, chicken, sausage, and ribs. Lunch is the main meal of the day and there was so much food! We hung out at the house for a while because more family kept coming to visit. We left around 6:30 for the airport and my family was shocked at how little luggage I had (16kgs compared to my sister’s 22). The flight was okay but I was still tired and it’s impossible for me to sleep on the plane. When we arrived in Calama, we went to the itty-bitty airport and climed our luggage. I was met by my AFS liaison (Cecila) who recently went on a foreign exchange program to the US who gave me a flag of Chile, a mining hat key chain of copper, and a blue scarf to go with my uniform. When we got home we had a late onces at around 11:30 then went to bed. My bed is so big and there are at least 10 blankets. I am basically buried! I slept well and woke up without an alarm at 7 and went to school in regular clothes because I didn’t yet have my uniform. At the colegio as it’s called, I met Sofie de Sena, my best Finnish friend! She is so sweet, speaks English but practically no Spanish (but is catching on super quickly) and is a little more than a year older than me but in the same grade. My class is excellent! I love the people. The schedule, however, is very confusing. It is different every day. That first day was really bad for me because I still hadn’t gained my Spanish ear and I had dance, Curso, Volleyball, Math, Chemistry, English, and Language. Everyone spoke so fast. Now, if a teacher doesn’t know me, my classmates tell him/her that I understand only if he/she speaks slowly. MY favorite classes are Math and English. Math is just numbers and the words are similar. For example, Pythagorean Theorem is “Teorias Pitรกgoras” and 2^2 is “dos al cuadrato”. So, I understand and am able to exceed! The teachers of math are impressed. Chemistry, however, is entirely different. I haven’t taken Chem before and I jumped into the second semester of Junior Chem in Spanish. My second day of Chemistry I broke down and cried. I cant take it! So, recently my parents went to a back to school sort of thing where the parents talk with the teachers and such. When they came home, they were like “guess what! You don’t have to take chemistry anymore!” So now instead of chemistry on Tuesdays I help the little kids in my school in their English classes. It’s so funny because when I go out for break, they all yell “hola Hannah! ¿como estas?” haha I’m famous. The weekends, oh, the weekends are incredible! I am perpetually exhausted because I am always so busy! Parties with classmates are called “carretes” and are every weekend. They go from about 8 pm to 2 am and are so much fun. Sometimes, I will just hang out with a couple of friends at the mall (which I think is really big), the cine, or even just a friend’s house to watch a movie like I did Friday night with Diego, Sofie, and Marcelo. Yeah, so I will really try to keep this blog updated and this post was hard because there is so much catching up to do. If you want to see photos, on my facebook there is an album titled “chi chi chi le le le” and it has all of the photos I have taken so far! CHAO! (:
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