Olé! Olé, Olé, Olé! Chi-le! Chi-le!

I arrived at 8am (I'm an idiot: I'm in eastern time, not mountain time as I mentioned in my last post). The plane ride was okay. I stupidly had a diet coke with dinner (which was served at 10:30ish) so I had trouble sleeping/staying asleep/getting comfy enough to sleep. It was an 8 hour flight. We finally got to the airport. It still hadn't hit me that I was in Chile, but I got a quick glimpse of the Andes as we landed (even though I was in a center aisle seat) which made it all seem a bit more realistic. It took us 2-ish hours to pay our $131 fee to get into Chile, then Immigration, Customs, and Baggage Claim. We finally met up with the IES guy, where we got into different vans to go to our respective host homes. My host mom is great! Her name is Carla. She is a school director, but currently on maternity leave because she is 7.5 months pregnant! She has a 14 yr old daughter, how I have yet to meet because she's at school. I have an orientation in the IES (the organization working with NU that made this study abroad happen) building at 4. It's only a 15 minute walk from here (I live relatively close compared to the other students)!

In our van, the moment the clock struck 10am, the driver turned on his TV (yes! he had a TV in his van, a personal one and one for us to watch) to watch the Chile-Switzerland game. Almost exactly at half-time, I reached my stop, where I met my "mom." She live in an apartment smaller than my apartment in Evanston, but it's nice. My room is roughly the size of a single room in PARC. Anyway, I started unpacking as she watched the game. When Chile scored it's first goal, I ran out to cheer with her. Unfortunately, the goal did not count, do to Chile being offsides. I stayed out to watch the rest of the game with her, while drinking the tea she made me. We chatted as we watched the game. When Chile won (!!!) she took me out to see the partying on the streets. I have yet to charge my camera, but I took pictures with my cellphone. As soon as I figure out how to transfer them to my computer, I will. It was amazing, everyone was out cheering, wearing red, white, and blue hats, shirts, facepaint, everything! Cars were honking, fake vuvuzelas were being blown, confetti was being thrown from tall apartment and office buildings. School kids were hanging out of their classroom windows, people were waiting on street corners for redlights so they could party in the streets. My host mom said that when there is a game, the whole city watches: school kids gather in gyms to watch the game on screens, people don't go to work, etc. It's been 12 years since Chile has made it to the World Cup, so they are all ready to celebrate each game. It was crazy and very exciting.

I'm about to head over to IES to find out my schedule and stuff.

I miss you all!

Nina