In Valdivia!

Well, I'm officially in Valdivia, and barring the couple of obstacles I've encountered so far (all of which revolve around machines! Aye dios mio!) having a great time!

First there was a plane highjacking attempt at SFO while I was waiting for my first plane! So all the planes were grounded and police were whizzing everywhere on Segways and some people were being escorted off the plane bound for NY in handcuffs! So they then had to change the GPS codes of all the planes, so basically my first flight of FOUR was 40 minutes late and I was supposed to have a layover of 40 minutes!! EEK!! Totally thought I was going to miss my plane, buuut luckily we hit a rockin tail wind and I threw some elbows to get off the plane first and RAAAN through the airport and they re-opened the gate doors so I could get on!

Then I sat with a really nice and funny old Chilean woman which was good so I could practice my Spanish a bit before I landed, then after like 30 hours of travel I arrived in Valdivia! Which isn't really an airport, more of a landing strip, so I could not exchange my money there. Then after like 40 minutes of sleep in two days we were brought straight to our host families. MINE IS AWESOME!

Me and Kata (the other girl in my homestay who is from St. Louis) had lunch with the fam and then unpacked our stuff and approx froze to death! I had a converter thing which was the wrong size, which sucked, so my comp died! Then Sat we had orientation at school! and then me and kata went to a market called Lider so I could exchange money, get a converter thingy and buy some slippers (cause it's FREEZING, inside!) and a phone (which was an infamous FAIL) but the machine ate my ATM card (which after lots of pleading and playing the dumb gringa I ended up getting back! thank goood!). But I ended up with no money, no phone and a converter, but my computer still wouldn't charge.

After LOTS of panic and fear, I figured out how to fix the charger! Odvi cause I'm using my comp now...

Then the whole group went out to a bar called STRIKE last night with some local Chileans which was hella fun! and Kata and I were brave and took our first cab (well half-brave, we had a Chilean call the company for us...) and then so far this morning I have showered and eaten! I'm really excited for school to start on Tuesday, but not at all excited for the placement exam we have tomorrow....

need to go study!

-Erin