made it, Santiago

We made it to Santiago. It was a very long flight. From 10 p.m. from Atlanta, arriving 9 a.m. Santiago. I slept reasonably well. All our luggage made it. We are staying at the teacher´s house from the school. We are immersed in Spanish and Chilean culture. We are learning Spanish naturally, meaning Fernando spent Friday afternoon with us telling us about Chilean history, industry and geography. Yesterday we went on an excursion with other students to the countryside. We traveled by bus, subway, taxi and highway bus. We got to meet artisans making pottery, baskets and chairs. We ate typical Chilean food at the restaurant run by a friend of our hostess.

We are staying in the middle of a city of 5 million people. The house has a courtyard full of fruit trees. Today the students from the school are coming here to go to the market and prepare a meal. The weather is very comfortable. The Andes glisten with some snow remaining from winter. People are friendly. The taxi driver thanked us for the privilege of being the first to drive us in South America. Our hosts are Boris and Liddian. The grandparents of Boris are Russian and German. People are diverse. we met a member of the church of Latter Day Saints. In a country with 16 million peple, there are 18 milion cellphone accounts..

Tommorrow we start Spanish school for six hours per day. We will take the bus and metro to get to school. Class is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. My Spanish has kind of come back If someone speaks slowly to me, I can understand. I say a bunch of nouns and verbs and they understand me. We have students from States, Brazil, Australia and Iran.