aqui!

Well, I arrived in Santiago last night around 10 pm. The flights all went well once I found the correct terminal. My motto the entire time was 'if I don't know where it is, someone will' so that worked out really well. The only problem I encountered was from the Paris to Lisbon flight. It was delayed almost 2 hours so when I finally got to Lisbon I had to pick up my luggage, find the right portal to check it in, then find the right gate to board. I had 20 minutes. By the time the late luggage arrived and I finally found the right place to check in, I was running to get there and they had to call in to confirm it was me and that I was late. Yipes. Anyway, on the flights to Europe and Lisbon I met very interesting people. One was a college student from Cincinatti studying in Paris andhe helped me understand the signs so I could partly get to where I needed to go. Then, from Paris to Lisbon, on the flight I saw the ocean, the Pyrenees, the Eiffel Tower and the Arc du Triomph. My two seat buddies were from France but one knew Portuguese. So we tried to have a conversation, but no one had a common language. Portuguese and Spanish are similar, so we could get by using hand gestures and speaking slowly, and then the Portuguese woman would translate to French. It was very interesting, they were impressed by my teaching English job!

After I made it onto the plane to get to Madrid and then Santiago, the flights were generally uneventful. Valerie, Mindy, and Megan were waiting in the airport because their flight from Madrid was delayed 8 hours!! So we shared a cab to get to our hostel. Which, by the way, is more like a hotel than a hostel. Like, they change our sheets and make our beds and replace our towels!

Today, we went to get a free breakfast, and it is true that you get what you pay for: we had a sweet croissant and a hard roll with jam or butter and cafe con leche. Tomorrow I will make a point to get anything but cafe con leche.

After that, we walked around the city because I needed to get Euros and then to find the Cathedral. It was a lengthy walk, but the city is really pretty and extremely scenic, very picturesque. After that we went to lunch, which was good. I had a tortilla española and vino blanco - which did not mesh at all. Then we had our first orientation meeting. Classes start Monday and we have a placement exam that day as well. Eventually, we are going to be looking for apartments but until then we are just hanging out at the hostel.

This evening, after a late dinner and a completely OVERPRICED dessert, we went out to a bar. However, the bar was having dance classes at the time, so it was mildly awkward for us to just stand there. It's nice to know that the prices of drinks are comparable to what they were in Ireland, beer is 2.50 and mixed drinks are 4.50.

Tomorrow we have another orientation meeting and then a group meal, but I think that evening we may also be going out. Since things don't usually start happening until 2 am, it will take some adjusting to their nightlife. I still haven't figured out the phone thing, but I'm sure it will work itself out. :)