Week One: Orientation

After a long layover in Miami (which I spent most of the time at the beach), a long flight to Santiago, and a short one on to Arica, I arrived at my destination with all of my baggage. Each layover, I met up with more and more of the students from my program so it was nice to not have to go through customs and all alone. Our coordinators met us at the airport and loaded us all onto the bus that then took us to the hotel where we would be spending the next five days for orientation. We got a chance to explore the city, check out the beaches, talk with locals, and try some delicious (but very large) meals. Arica is a city of about 177,000 people, but around the city is a complete desert. There are barely any plants (besides imported palm trees) in the city because it’s very difficult to actually grow anything in the dry land. Who knew the land could be so dry right next to the ocean? I’m really liking this city, though. And since being here, these are a few of the things I’ve noticed:

-The people in Chile (and in Arica, more specifically) have a different accent from the rest of Latin America. They tend to drop the “s” sound in a lot of their words, making it difficult to understand them at times. They also have their own sayings and words that they use, called Chilenismos, so I’m trying to update my vocabulary.

-Lunch is the biggest meal of the day. However, the meals are much more spread out. Breakfast at 8, lunch at 1:30/2, dinner at 8/9. My stomach is trying to adapt to these long breaks in eating because I’m used to eating every 2 hours or so…. I think I’ll be buying lots of snacks here.

-We’ve also been eating a lot of fish here and I love it! Salads are also a part of just about every lunch and dinner. I haven’t noticed any other big food themes yet, but we’ve also only been at eating at the hotel. Once we move in with our host families things might be different.

-Sunsets here are BEAUTIFUL (when the clouds aren’t in the way). The sky turns PINK almost every evening.

-Things here are soooo cheap!! I love it so much. Bargains on bargains on bargains. I bought an adapter for $1, a pair of jeans for $6, and the program gave us each a cell phone for $30. It's not quite as cheap as Vietnam (there I got a cell phone for $16) it's still very cheap and very much okay with me!

-As if this town weren’t prefect enough, everyone takes naps after lunch. No, but seriously. All of the stores in town are closed from 2-6 because it’s “siesta time.” Even the students all go home for lunch and then don’t go back to school for about 3 hours so that they, too, can take a nap. What a genius idea, Arica!

-Apparently my name is difficult for the Chileans to say (or any Spanish speakers, really). Most of them call me “Hay-dee” and recently I’ve been told here that I look like Princess Diana, so the nickname “Lady D” has been catching on. I’ll take the compliment ☺

When I started this post I hadn’t met my entire host family yet, but now I’m on my second day with them and things are going really well! I’ll write all about them in my next post, so stay tuned!!

All for now!

-Heidi