Santiago, Chile baybay

So it is currently the second week of being here in Santiago so far. I haven't posted because I wanted to take a decent amount of pictures first. . .but honestly, I haven't had enough time to do so. Allow me to tell you what happened. . .

So we left on Sunday last week before the crack of dawn. Now I enjoy traveling, but I HATE packing and moving all my crap from one place to another. I also don't enjoy waking up before 8. So as you can imagine, moving all my possessions and waking up at around 4:45 in the freakin morning made me about as happy as Tiny Tim before he got all the goodies on Christmas. I piled into a cab with Phil and we drove (correction, driving would be the normal word but our dude was easy goin 40 over the speed limit and speeding through red lights) to the airport. I felt kind of bad handing our driver 5 dollars in nickels, dimes, and pennies but honestly I had to get rid of as much change as I could.

So we fly first to Lima, Peru and had about an hour layover (big ups to airports with free wireless, honestly all airports should have this). I was a little bummed this was gonna be a 3 hour plane ride. . .until we got on the actual plane. It was the size of Fisher Hall in Notre Dame, with each seat equipped with its own TV and access to over 40 movies, TV shows, music playlists, weather reports. . .I'm surprised the TV didn't have the capabilities of makin me a sandwich. Which really didn't matter, because we got handed a bigass in-flight meal AND free refills on drinks. . .including wine and beer. While I got a water and inca cola, how sweet is that though? LAN airlines really knows how to pamper their customers.

And now on to Santiago. . .honestly, this place reminds me a lot of like the best parts of LA. The weather is dry, it gets hot but never too hot, and it's incredibly more modern than Quito. Not even close. I honestly I feel like I'm in the states except for the fact that people are incredibly hard to understand. It's one thing to not know Spanish. It's another thing ENTIRELY to not know Chilean Spanish. Oh my SWEET DEAR GOD it is different. First of all, people cut off their s's from words. Now I was used to this on the Ecuadorian coast, because people do it at the end of words. But no, Chileans do it at the end, the middle, and the beginning sometimes. Also, there's a lot of slang I need to get used to. . .in general, I've heard a lot of people say "pues" at the end of their sentences. This has been cut before into just "pue" and in Chile, it's said like "po." Why? I have absolutely no idea. All I know is that it makes it extremely hard to understand people for the most part. . .but just like anything else, it will come in time.

OK, here is a lil tidbit about the family I stay with. First of all, I almost didn't have a family at ALL. I was going to live with the director of English at St. George, and the current CHACERS did everything in their power to NOT allow that to happen. They obviously know the director and thought it would be everything I wouldn't want. . .so they were able to find a family that took me in at the last minute.

Flash forward to the moment when all of us are waiting in the CHACE apartment for our families to pick us up and talk to us a moment. Nerves were running a little high. . .the experience was getting more real, and going home to actual St. George families (that's the school I'm teaching at) was really knocking the point home. The CHACERs told families to get there at 6:30, expecting people to show up at 7:00. . .typical Chilean arrival time. However, lo and behold at 6:20 the doorbell rings. Then again at 6:40. Yet again at 6:45. Families start pouring in, and I was told that the families must have been outrageously excited and eager to come so early. Before you know it, 7 hits and all my buddies from St. George have families. . .

. . .except Eamon, Greg, and I. As we sip on Chilean wine and shuffle our feet, a mom and dad come powering through the door at 7:15. MY FAMILY! I eagerly say hello, and listen to a small conversation they have with the professor taking care of us new CHACERS in the group. We leave fairly soon, and we're just doing rapid fire conversation. . .and I'm following everything. Once we put my stuff in the car, we start driving and things are good. Then this happens. . .

Dad: So do you like sports?
Me: Yes, I really like playing basketball actually.
Dad: YOU DO? I WAS ON THE NATIONAL CHILEAN BASKETBALL TEAM!!!!
Me: Wow, really??
Dad: Yes, many years ago. . .but our family is like a team you know. We do two things: play sports, and eat well.
Me: niiice.

So right off the bat, I know that my dad might be a little intense but is going to be someone I like. Tomorrow, I'll take some pics of the school and post some more stories soon. Until next time!