Arrived!

I now reside in a two-bedroom apartment deal on the ninth floor of the Rent-A-Home in Santiago, where I will remain with suitemates Carissa, Sheana, and Madeline until Sunday. The flights were long and rather uneventful, save for thunderstorms crossing the Caribbean that lit up the clouds every ten seconds or so and a brief sighting of what I think was the Panama canal, considering that it was extremely narrow, well-lit, and surrounded by huge ships-- the only maze of light visible for almost 4000 miles. Dinner was limp vegetables, pasta, bread, and water; breakfast was a banana, bread, and orange juice. Despite fears, I did not get overly lost in the Atlanta airport, though I did purchase a salad to eat and walk all the way to the correct gate to eat it only to discover I had neglected to pick up a fork.

First impression of Chile: mountains. Lots and lots and lots of mountains. They seemed to have no snow on top and glaciers sliding between, until I realized that the glaciers were clouds and the initial mountains were foothills to the real mountains, hazy and distant and shadowed by the sun. The flight arrived in the early morning, so what I saw was sunrise-- over the Andes.

After an initial panic after landing where I thought they had misplaced my luggage (they hadn't), I couldn't find my entry papers (they were folded in my backpack), and customs almost confiscated my boxed smoked salmon (they made me take the box out, then glanced at it and proclaimed it 'bien'), I successfully entered the country. And then waited at the airport for four hours until the rest of the ISA students arrived. International travel seems to be the ultimate test of patience. (As an aside, the other students seem to have been drawn evenly from across the States, from San Diego to Colorado to Chicago to Nashville to Boston to Iowa, names varying according to whether or not a certain state possesses a large enough city to be widely-known on its own).

Finally, I and about thirty others were loaded into a tour bus and driven into Santiago.

Picture Seattle, without the waterfront and the elevated highway viaducts. Make it flat-- so flat that it sprawls between mountains as a single massive sheet of stucco paint and steel-grey. Then add an atmosphere so caustic the mountains are almost entirely invisible. Permit things like high-rise glass-walled skyscrapers with billboards the size of Rhode Island and decaying shacks made of corrugated steel and guarded by barbed wire to stand side-by-side. Add modern and extensive public transit that can and will run over any pedestrians who don't get out of the way fast enough, extraordinarily persistent beggars, ton upon metric ton of discarded cigarettes, a snoozing dog on every corner, Spanish phrases rattled off like a linguistic firing squad, and a giant statue of the Virgin Mary on a hill.

Pictures attached.

Lunch was long and leisurely, conducted in a mishmash of Chilean slang, gimped starter Spanish, Southern drawl, and frantic gesture. I ascertained that the banks open at 10 and close at 5, and the clubs open at midnight and close at 5, and if you go to the wrong clubs or the wrong banks someone will leap out of a back alley and stab you and take your money. I also learned that the restaurant food in this country is pretty darn good.

Rode the metro, walked through town with my group led by my group jefe (boss), almost got hit by a few buses, discovered that the restrooms at the top of the funicular track that runs up to the big statue cost 2 bucks to use toilet paper.
There are no black people.
There are also no Asian people.
There is, however, a sushi restaurant down the street.

At this point, having been on a plane for sixteen some hours and waiting in airports for another six or seven, given about three hours of sleep in total, I'm tired. My knees hurt. My head has that special floaty feeling that comes from extended periods upon a swaying aircraft and exhaustion. Random Spanish phrases are drifting through my head, in hopes of being used, and I have the satisfaction of knowing I can make myself understood sort of more or less even if the reverse isn't always true ("Gakgakgakgakgakgakgakgakgakgakgak?" "Uh...").

Meeting for dinner at 8:30. I intend to get in a little R&R before that.

Signing off for now, from Santiago, Chile,

Paige