First Impressions

Well Folks, I am writing this entry from Santiago, Chile! I arrived this morning and met up with the others in ISA-Chile's Spring semester program. There are about 50 of us... representing all parts of the US. We will stay here in Santiago until Sunday, the 28th, then head to our host families' houses. Honestly, I still have not wrapped my head around the fact that I am in this part of the world. I look out the window of this hotel and things look like they do in the northern hemisphere. I have not seen anything too culturally different so far. I suppose that I inadvertently expected a place that I know so little about to feel like a foreign planet. However, I am so excited to be here! The directors seem great. There are a lot of cool places to be seen in this part of the world. The opportunities are endless. :)

One thing that sets me apart from the other students (or most of them, anyways) is that I don't speak any Spanish. This was part of the plan, though. I have always thought it would be such a great adventure to simply be immersed in a culture/language before ever having actually studied it. There are a few reasons that I feel this way. One is that grammar is easier to accept if you are not constantly translating it into your native language. Babies do this. They don't have anything to translate to, and not being given a straight up english definition will do this for me, I hope. Granted, I do not have the malleable brain of a baby, but I am crossing my fingers that this concept woks in my case, too... On second thought, I do some pretty ridiculous stuff from time to time. Maybe I do have the brain of a small child... The second reason is that living here, I will have a reason to immediately learn the language. It can be applied to speak to people that I really need/want to talk to. Foreign language class (especially like the French class I took) in The Woodlands, Texas provides no motivation to actually learn the language. You (or maybe just I) do it for the grade. The final reason is that I DO like to travel and I DON'T really like to study textbooks. It may sound to some like a waste of money, but I see this as life experience. :)

As we were landing this morning, I saw the Andes mountains. I looked down at them and saw some white, fluffy stuff at their base. This didn't make sense to me... the tops of the mountains didn't have snow on them. How could the base be snowy? Also, this is summertime in Chile. Well, I was humbled when I realized that the snow I was looking at were clouds and the "mountains" were actually "mountain tops." Woah. The Andes are pretty freakin' big... Speaking of Andes, I wish I had brought some Andes mints with me so that I could eat an Andes in the Andes. Hm, maybe they sell them here somewhere...

Today, we went sight-seeing. We rode a funicular to the top of the "center of Santiago" and were able to look out at the city. It was beautiful. Santiago is a really big city! I forgot to bring my camera along, though. :/ So far, I have enjoyed getting to know the others in the group. Many of them are also juniors. We kind of did your standard "Where are you from? What is your major?" thing to each other all day. Everybody seems pretty friendly.

Tomorrow, we will do more sight-seeing and have an orientation session on theft and personal safety. This would not be an issue if they just issued out firearms for us to defend ourselves with... ;)