Greetings from Chile!

I've arrived in Chile! My host family is so nice! They have one daughter who is 10 and a son who will be 13 by the end of August. Their names are Francisca and Esteban. However, we call Francisca by her nickname, "Panchy." Maria Cecilia is my host mother and Sergio is my host father.

They are the nicest people, EVER. I love my sister because I get to watch Hannah Montana with her (in spanish too btw). I get to craft with my mom. I made earrings yesterday! And she's going to teach me how to knit, crochet, cook, and make these cool wood art paintings. She's so crafty, I LOVE IT. The other day we also made these cool wire trees. Every night my dad shows me cool videos of Chile on youtube and tells me everywhere I must visit. And my little brother makes fun of me, just like a typical brother would. Perfecto!

It's been a week since I've been here. No puedo creerlo! The plane ride was long. However, I ended up sitting next to a man who is a professor at the Universidad de Chile (La Chile). His name is Pato and he's a professor of physics and was coming home from an astronomy conference in China! He was really nice and invited me to have dinner with him, his wife, and their 1 1/2 year old baby whenever I get settled in. He also drew me a map of Santiago and showed me the good pub areas (I didn't even ask for it, I guess he just assumed that I wanted to know?) Also, I might take a class at La Chile, so he said he would take me on a tour of the campus and show me the telescopes there (because apparently Chile has one of the best skies for studying astronomy). (To Joey: I'm glad you explained to me about the gamma rays and your research because after the physics professor guy told me about his stuff, I got to sound smart and explain to him the research that you're doing. He seemed pretty impressed that I had something intelligent to chime in.)

The past week was a whirlwind including language and cultural immersion classes and many viajes (trips) to different parts of Santiago. By the end of the last week, we also got to visit Isla Negra, Viña del Mar, y Valparaíso -- all which is about 1.5 hrs west of the city. I got to visit Pablo Neruda's house in Isla Negra. It was amazing! Here are some pictures of the trip.

Neruda was quite the collecionista! He had three houses in Chile, one in Santiago, Isla Negra, y Valparaíso, one house for every wife he had. He collected a lot of random things, like different type of bottles, butterflies, ship masts, etc. Algo interesante is that todas de sus houses are in the shape of a boat. I guess he really liked el mar (sea).

These pictures don't do the scenery here justice. I'm going to have to find another website where I can post my pictures. I'll try to set that up soon!

This past week we've been trying to get ready for classes. I had my first class today. It was pretty hard to understand but hopefully within a few weeks I will be able to understand the spanish better. They talk so fast! I'm taking a medical Spanish class, doing clinical observations at la universidad de Diego Portales with a seminar about medicine and healthcare, a spanish grammar class, and hopefully a physics class at La Chile so I can get one of my pre-med classes taken care of here. Also, I'm hoping to take a photo class so I can take beautiful pictures here and I hope to volunteer to teach english at la universidad as well!

Today after class I finally unpacked all my suitcases, organized my closet, and cleaned my room. My mom was making fun of me because I have been here for more than a week and was still living out of my suitcase. jaja. I guess Angela in Chile is still the same as Angela en los estados unidos

Chao!

Words I learned today:
piojo = lice (While watching the news on tv during lunch, turns out there's a big lice problem in Santiago right now)
hacer cosquilla = to tickle (because my brother and sister were tickling me all day)