¡Bienvenidos a Chile!

¡Hola amigos, estoy in Santiago, Chile! So much has happened since I arrived yesterday, I hardly know where to begin. My flight from Denver to Atlanta was uneventful, and I arrived almost 5 hours prior to my expected depature to Santiago. I knew that there were 13 other students in my exchange program on the flight, so I began looking for likely suspects once I arrived at the terminal. I approched a likely suspect, about my age wearing a Boston t-shirt, and asked if he was visiting Chile. He introduced himself as Jose, a Chilean student who had studied in the the U.S. for five months and was returning home. He was very friendly, and probably a little bored, so we talked for about 30 minutes. The flight was an hour delayed, but when we boarded I sat next to a Methodist preacher from Bolivia who was also very friendly. He came to Chicago 11 years ago for a second degree, and has lived in the States ever since. He was very friendly, and helped with my Spanish a little bit. (Turns out that the spanish word for girlfriend "novia" means "fiance" in Chile, and the word for girlfriend is "polola"...no wonder Jose thought It was strange for me to leave Kelsey behind). The flight was pleasant and I slept most of the time.

The other ISA students and I were picked up at the airport by Lizette, who is our guide to Santiago for the next few days. There are 29 of us all together, and 29 gringos walking through the heart of Santiago is quite a sight to see. (we get a lot of looks.) We drove in a van to the hotel and rested until lunch. After lunch we visited Cerro san Cristobal, which is a huge hill in the middle of downtown Santiago. We took a furnicular up, and rode a gondola down. At the top is a huge statue of Mary (probably 50 feet tall) built by the Spaniards. The view from the top of the hill was incredible. To the east are the snow-covered chilean alps and to the west are more mountains. Everything else is city. From the top of the hill, Santiago stretches as far as the eye can see in every direction. It is a HUGE city, and contains 5 million people, one-third of the country´s population. The pollution, unfortunately, is very bad. The river that runs through the city is little more than a soggy wastebasket, and the smog obsures the view from the top of Cerro san Cristobal. Ugh. After arriving back at the hotel, the group split up. Myself and several others visited the grocery store (which was very crowded at 9:30 pm) to buy bread, cheese and wine. I paid 1,029 pesos for a bottle of wine (the exchange rate is 1 USD : 540 pesos so that´s about 2 dollars) and it was very good. We ate our bread and cheese, and went to bed, exhausted, at about 10:30.

Today has been all sightseeing. We watched the changing of the guard at the Palacio Presedencial La Moneda, and afterwards got a tour of the building. The tour guide spoke in rapid-fire Spanish and I understood about 8 percent of what he said. Crap. La Moneda means ¨coins " in spanish, and apparently the building got it´s name because when the building was consructed bythe Spaniards, it was intended to be a mint. Us taking a tour of the Palacio Presidencial is the equivalent of showing up at the White House and having a look around. The rest of the day has been relatively uneventful, and now I´m just killing time until an orientation meeting (three hours of it) this evening. Augh.

All in all I have really enjoyed my time here so far. The people are friendly and welcoming (and willing to put up with my linguistic blunders) and very polite. Everyone is dressed very nicely. For instance the waiter at our (not fancy) restaurant was wearing a full-on suit. Even the guys who polish shoes for 30 cents look downright classy most of the time. Crossing streets is another matter altogether. If you are in the crosswalk when the walk signal is red, you will be flattened by a city bus at 40 mph. Oh, did I mention that there is no notice that the signal will turn red sometimes? It goes directly from green to red.

Well I have to be going, but I hope everyone is doing well at home!

ya me voy
Andrew