Escuela

Yesterday, was my first day of school at Colegio San Juan Evangelista. I have a wonderful uniform that I wear which includes a blue skirt, polo shirt, black shoes and navy tights. I can wear any colored blue/black sweater because there is no heat that circulates the school. In the mornings it makes it alittle chilly, but as the day progresses it starts to warm up. The school is K-12 however they have a different system for grades which I have not really caught on to yet. I am in "curso III C" which I think is similar to 11th grade because there is one more year ahead of us. We do not change classrooms for the classes unless we are going to one of the few sciences or elective classes. There are 3 homerooms for year III and my homeroom has about 20+ students. I have meet many new people however with everyone having similar names and with people coming up to me constantly it has been hard to remember them. The classes I am in a pretty good, some are a little boring, but I am understanding a lot which is not what I expected. My math class today was very easy because it was something I had already learned. The teacher student relationship is nothing in comparison to the US. It is a more friend to friend basis the relationship and the students and teachers have jokes with each other which I could not picture having with most teachers in the US. The school day starts at 8 and goes until 430 every day except Wed when it then ends at 120. Extremely long days. The schedule goes 2hrs of class 15 min break 2hrs 15 min break 1hr then 1hr for lunch then 2hrs then school is done. I'm getting used to it. There are no after school sports I don't think, but people stay after playing "futbol" and basketball.

My Family

In the house I am staying in there is:

Loreto Warner(20) - Hermana (sister)

Andres Warner(22) - Hermano (brother)

Patty - Madre

Cache - Step-Father

Sacha - perra(dog)

My "Fathers" House

Tomas Warner Sarasua(5) - hermano

Andres Warner Soffia- padre

Soledad Sarasua Nieto - Step-Mother

Other People

Esteban - step brother (cachi's son)

Maria - step sister (cachi's daughter)

easy words...huge family :)

The Futbol Game

August 23rd: 6:30pm @ Estadio Nacional: Universidad de Chile v. Everton

I have never been to an actual futbol(soccer) game, so when my host "step-father" invited me to go I agreed. Upon arrival at the game Cachi(step-fathers name) kept saying how this is an ancient stadium and that is was very famous...I was thinking o there must have been some awesome futbol games played here. When we got to the stadium (Estadio Nacional), it looked oddly familar but I could not put the pieces to the puzzle until Cachi said something about Allende. Thats when I realized I had seen this exact stadium in the movie Missing with Sissy Spacek (great movie btw). This was the stadium that they used during the coup in Chile to murder and hide the bodies. Interesting...anyway the game was fun, alittle cold and boring but I was able to handle it. The stadium was not full because it was not a major game however, the crowed still had great spirit. No one won the game...it was tied 1-1 (nice cold 2hr game for it to be tied)

The Journey

Finally I have arrived in Santiago, Chile!

I left Saturday afternoon on August 22nd and arrived Sunday August 23rd. LGA airport was of course confusing and even though I had an e-ticket I still had to wait in a line for about an hour because one of my bags were oversized and because the e-ticket machine was being annoying. Anyway when I got to the desk the attendant at the counter said that it was possible that my 3:05pm flight to Dallas would be cancelled so he put me on an earlier flight. (better for me since the travel agent suggested I arrive at LGA airport 3hrs before my flight leaves. clearly not an experienced traveller.) The flight went smoothly and arrived on time. Only a 4hr flight about. Once arriving in Dallas, I wandered the airport a bit because I had 5hrs and even attempted to go to the Admirals Club...no such luck getting in. Eventually, I wandered towards my gate/terminal which was about a 10 minute airtran ride. At gate D25 there were about 7 other outbound Chilean exchange students. We all chatted talking about the "pre-preparation" for the chile trip and what we all had to do. With in our group there were a few girls from Ohio, on boy from North Carolina, a girl from Pennsylvania, a girl from Iowa, Wyoming, 2 students from Massachusetts, one from New Hampshire and a girl from California. So we all were from all over the US. A few of us had flown before and a few who had not travelled as much. The plane ride was not that bad...even though it was a 9 and a half hour flight it went by pretty fast. Arriving at the Santiago Airport in Chile was a great feeling...finally, the moment I had been waiting for since December 2008 after hearing I was going to be going to Chile. I went through customs and immigration smoothly. Walking out of the actually airport section and into the arrival area where people are always standing was great. All of our families were standing there with signs, posters and cameras waiting for us. They were all very excited upon our arrival. My home was about a 20/30 minute ride from the airport. We drove through the city so I got a brief tour.

O and I think I forgot to mention that it is FREEZING here haha

chao!

ps. here is the link for the arrival photos

http://photobucket.com/aknight