My First Week in Chile

It is now my 8th day here in Chile so I thought I would do an update on how my first week went. I post daily updates on my @kennainchile instagram that is shown at the bottom of the home page. This is a recap for those who've missed that.

I went from the Portland airport all the way to Chile with a group of exchange students from the USA that I became good friends with. Most of them are from Washington or California. I found out that I was in the same rotary club as one of the other girls. My flight from Dallas to Santiago was 9 hours and 30 minutes long, it was also delayed by and hour. I thankfully had a window seat but it didn't really matter because it was night the whole time. I slept most of the flight because I was getting close to a full day of traveling. I had airplane spaghetti for dinner that was actually okay besides the maybe meat maybe mushrooms on top of it. When we landed we met up with some Rotarians that were going to help us through customs. We also met the other group of Americans from the other half of the USA. Then we went through PDI and customs...Sooo fun. After that we went to wait for the bus to bring us to orientation with ALL of the other exchange students, which is about 80 people. It took about an hour for the bus to come, most of us were hungry and wanted breakfast. It took about an hour and a half to get from Santiago to El Quisco.

Then we had orientation for 2 and a half days. It was freezing cold the entire time which was not expected by any of us. We did a bunch of activities that never really worked out because there are 80 of us. Most of us just wanted to be with our host families the first couple of days. Orientation was a bit hard because everyone had all of their luggage with them. Not all of it would fit on the bus so we had to put some in someones truck. To sum up orientation for you, we never had time to rest and they ignored our jet lag by playing a bunch of games that weren't very inclusive, but I got to meet a lot of really cool people.

Next we got to meet our host families. We went to the San Bernando Rotary Club to meet up with them. All of the kids got into one room while all of the families were on the other side of a curtain. Then they pulled it open and we got to see all of the families with their signs. It took a while to find my family because of the amount of people in the same small room. But I finally met them, they were just as I imagined except that I was taller than a couple of them. I also got to meet my exchange student in Alaska's family, they looked just like the pictures. It took a while to adjust to the family and I still am but its better than the first days where I was scared to do anything. I'm still getting used to the not having a set dinner time, I'm always scared I'll miss it.

I got to their house Sunday night and went to my first day of School on Wednesday. I got to wear the uniform and everything. Since Chile is in the southern hemisphere they are in the middle of their school year, it is also "winter". So we thought that I was going to go into the last half of the equivalent of Freshman year, but once we got there, we were told that I was in the last half of Sophomore year...so that was interesting. I got to my class, now by myself and didn't know what to do. There weren't assigned seats so I had to find the only seat available in the class which was right in front of the teacher, which I actually like since I can hear the Spanish better.

The very first thing I did was take an hour long biology test on meiosis and mitosis which was easy besides the Spanish part, a good amount of the words are almost the same. I thought it was strange that they were just learning what I learned in the beginning of freshman year, at the end of sophomore year. There are a couple of breaks during the day so I just went with some of the girls in my class and sat with them because I wasn't really able to add to the conversation much. They asked if high school was like high school musical minus Zac Efron and I said yes, because it basically is.

I went to biology and English class but then had to leave to go and get my Chilean ID. I went with the other exchange students in my area...which were a lot more than I thought. After that, it was basically the end of the school day so we went to Walmart and got some peanut butter and some jelly so I could make sandwiches. Then we went and picked up my host sister from school. I talked a lot with my host mom in Spanish and felt very proud of myself and felt that my Spanish had already gotten a little bit better. The next day we went to school at 11 because school had been canceled because it is the host of the Maristas School Olympics. We went so that we could pick up the girl we were hosting for a week from Santiago. That night, we went to the start of the olympics and saw all of the Maristas perform for the opening. Then we went to a restaurant and got dinner. I got a sandwich that had meat and cheese in it. It was super good but I could only eat half of it since it was so big. Then I went to sleep, woke up and wrote this. I also posted a video on youtube of my fist week in Chile.

All in all, I'm still adjusting to my life in Chile but am having great time. Thanks for reading!!