First Post from Chile

I’m sure this will be a really random post just by the nature of my activities over the first 48 hours of my time in Santiago.  First, I’m at a hostel with other participants from Teaching Chile, so imagine a tiny little room with the majority of us being female and having approximately 4 bags each!  Second, I had only been here one day and had to attend an orientation at my institute for my classes which begin on MONDAY!  Yikes, I haven’t even had a chance to sit down and write a lesson yet for my Monday class, which thankfully isn’t until Monday evening, and I still have to make a trip down to pick up materials for my Tuesday/Thursday class, which I still won’t have time to do until Monday morning.  Tomorrow, hopefully I will get the heck out of this hostel since 3 nights will definitely be my limit here.  Thankfully I have met some really cool people and two of them happen to have birthdays this weekend so we plan to go out tonight to do a bit of celebrating! So far I am enjoying the city and trying to find my way around and get used to the subway lines so I don’t do something stupid and end up being really late for a class.  It’s a great city, and the weather has warmed up quite a bit since my arrival. It’ll be nice to get a little clearer view of the Andes at some point and hopefully see less of the smog blanket.  I’ve already eaten a great Peruvian meal and tried an empanada de choclo.  Keep your fingers crossed that I move into my casita tomorrow, get unpacked, and write a good lesson plan!