FIRST MONTH

     I think I have probably put off this blog long enough, so here goes. We'll start with the first week..
Sitting on the plane in Minneapolis was probably one of the most terrifying, exhilirating feelings i've ever experienced. I had no idea what to expect when I landed other than what I had seen on facebook and heard from my dentist and friends. At the airport in Atlanta I met a girl from Germany was an exchange student in Santiago 2010 through 2011, we talked the duration of the 4 hour layover which was the best preperation I could have asked for. 
      The flight from Atlanta to Santiago was around 8 hours and I slept most of the way through the night so it felt like a two hour flight and before I knew it we were having breakfast and descending. Going through customs when we landed was a pain in the ass, took around 2 hours to wait in line [with my new German friend] after that we went to baggage claim and waited another half an hour to have it checked once again by security dogs.
      Walking through the doors into the airport lounge I was greeted by my Rotary Club counselor, Leonel, my mom Marcela, host dad Chris, uncle, Chicho, and youngest brother, Mariano whom all seemed happy about my arrival, we had tea and cookies, discussed rules of Rotary yadda yadda yadda and then packed up to go home. On the way home we picked up my brothers, Rodrigo, and the oldest, Felipe. I am so incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to have the nicest brothers I could've ever imagined having. Going from being an only child to having 3 brothers has been quite the change but they are the most polite, quite hilarious people i've ever met. Mmmk back to the ride home, so the six of us were crammed in a car the size of a Kia sportage if you can imagine that with all of my luggage and Mariano's car seat. On the way home we stopped for empanada's, not sure if we have them in the states, if we do i've yet to try them. Basically, they're the most delicious thing i've ever had..but yeah it's cheese and whatever kind of meat, crab, shrimp, olives, chicken, with cheese packed into a calzone type of shell. After that the brothers and I took a walk on the beach, snapped a few photos and made our way back to the seaside restaurant. Proceeded to pack back into the car and headed for home which was another forty five minutes or so, [we live 2 hours north of Santiago]. 
    This is proving to be a lengthy summary so I'm going to trim some of the fat and try and update this more often...
      So we got to Quillota, unloaded all of my crap and had a little tour of my house. It's a two level house with four bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen, living room, laundry room, and a cute little patio. My room now is a little smaller than at home and my bed is about half the size but I really like it, I have a desk, a tv and quite a bit of closet space. My bedroom is upstairs with my parent's and Mariano's. 
   Rodrigo and I went out to get ingredients for completos which are a Chilean version of a hot dog, normally they have mayo, tomatoes, and avocado, also they're twice the size of a regular hot dog and are surrounded by the best bread i've ever had. The bread here is fantastic, I'm in love. Also, I live in the avocado capital of Chile so we have it with almost every meal, and if you know me you know that i'm very happy about this, I love avocado. Yeah, back to the Completo, it was great the biggest food difference that I can find here is the pastries and the fact that they put mayo on anything they can manage to spread it on. I was a little hesistant at first but, I too, have come to love it. After that I unpacked most of my luggage and went to bed. 
      I arrived on a Wednesday and didn't go to school until Monday so the rest of the week Rodrigo showed me around and we managed to somewhat communicate using a sherade type of language mixed with my broken Spanish and his English.I'd like to add that my oldest brother Felipe speaks very fluent english despite the fact that he has never taken any real English classes, apparently he's learned most of what he knows from movies and the internet, his fluency still surprises me every time we talk. Rodrigo also speaks English pretty fluently but he won't respond to me in English anymore which is probably for the better.
           I felt bad that our mom made him take me out to show me around but it was a great few days getting to see Viña del Mar and Valparaiso along with most of Quillota. We walked the beaches of Vina, went to the mall, had Mcdonalds of all things and did a little shopping. The next couple days we did some more touristic type things then Monday came out of nowhere and I had to go to school. The first day was alright, I have to say that the language barrier is killing me right now. Spanish class did not prepare me for Chilean spanish whatsoever, they drop the consonants on most of the words and use tons of modismos which leaves me lost most of the time. I learn a little more everyday but people here talk to fast most of the time it's impossible to understand and i'm still translating in my head by the time they ask me if I understood. School has been okay, i'm a junior...so i'm 18 in class with mostly 16 to 17 year olds but my class is really nice and I've made a few friends that have been incredibly helpful with anything I need. 
    Mk so theyre so much to say but I'm home sick and need to eat something so next blog i'll touch on what I did for the 18th which is like Chile's 4th of July, the party life here, my school life, activities, yadda yadda yadda and try to figure out how to get my pictures on here for ya'll that dont have Facebook! 
     I absolutely love it here so far and although I miss home at times, I'm grateful for this opportunity to experience an entirely different culture, I'd like to thank Rotary, my parents for the funds, and my friends for the support through this incredible experience. 
    I hope to post again this Wednesday so if you don't see anything please message me on Facebook or iMessage me and tell me to get my ass on it. Miss all of you in the states so much and I hope school is going well for all of you in college and for those of you in your Senior year, embrace it! It goes by way too quickly.