June 17th, 2013
The first few days here have been exciting, and very challenging. I arrived around 9am in Santiago, where Erin, (a girl I met through the same program who arrived from California a short time before) was waiting for me. It was nice to see a familiar (from facebook) face. We took a scary taxi ride to our hostel near downtown Santiago. After checking in, we roamed around a bit, then hung out at the hostel. The next day, was move-in day to our apartment! Our other roomate Emily, from Missouri, had been in Santiago a week already taking a different training course. Emily, Erin and I rented an apartment together through an online booking service. The apartment is great! It has a big living room, three bedrooms, and bathrooms, and a full kitchen. Unfortunately, we drew straws, and I got the small room...(it is technically a sunroom, so it is a little cold since it is winter here, with lows in the 30's) but I'll be paying less in rent, which is a plus. After getting comfortable, we ventured out downtown. We live very close, only a few blocks, to a major metro station and malls and grocery stores. We went on our first adventure to the grocery store and bought food for a few days. We ended up going back to a different grocery store, named Jumbo, in the mall which had a lot more and bought some more food, and pillows for our beds. I'm sticking to my eating plan well, except in Chile, I guess they don't measure their food, because they dont have measuring cups or food scales I could buy, so I've been eyeballing everything I make. The mall here is in the tallest building in all of South America. In it, is a five story mall as well! Too bad I won't be shopping...maybe if I win the lottery. ;)
Sunday was quite an adventura (adventure) as well. Erin, Emily and I wanted to go for a hike, so we looked up some trails the nearest to us, which were still about an hour away. We had to take the underground metro, a bus, and walk to get to the hiking. We were all pretty nervous about getting lost, but we made it! I was pretty proud. The hike was pretty! There were a lot of families hiking, and after paying an entrance fee we hiked around for an hour or so. There was many cacti and "poisonous" trees, similar to poison ivy, so we didn't touch anything. The only wild life we saw were some roaming cows.
This morning, I set off to find a gym to workout at. I went to two different ones, and chose the one closest to my apartment. It is nice, but pretty pricey. In Chile, the cost of living in the city is pretty high, groceries and most everything I buy is a dollar or two more than what I would buy in the states, so it keeps my spending way down. For example, I got a burger and a drink at Applebee's and it was about $28 dollars! After my workout, Erin and I had our first day of "teacher training" at the BridgeAbroad Linguatec school. The center is only a 5-10 minute walk from our place, which is really nice. We learned about the business students we will be teaching, along with got some homework for preparing a lesson to demostrate tomorrow.
After class, Erin and I (Emy is taking a different class this week) finally saw the Andes mountains and blue sky! In Santiago, in the winter, it is usually very smogy, so it is rare to see blue sky or the mountains sadly.
Off for now to write some lesson plans and finish essays!
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