Aquí estoy

...and I am EXHAUSTED. Still. Though not half as bad as yesterday, let me tell you. I think this is the first time I've ever really had jet lag; all I can do is sleep.

Anyways, Thursday was entirely consumed by travel. I left PDX at 9:20, flew to LAX, chilled for about 5 hours, then flew to Miami. The flight was delayed for about an hour on the runway, so I had to run to my gate when I arrived and just made it onto the plane. Mildly stressful, but no big. Arrived in Santiago at ~10:15 Friday morning, went through customs, etc. then went straight to meet the rest of the students in the CIEE (exchange program) group. Definitely the most lucid, attractive, and awesome I have ever come across for a first impression (~24 hours without sleep, with little food, no shower, etc.). Had some orientation session business until about 4:45 and met mi familia at about 5. They took me to their house, showed me around a bit, and left me to shower and sleep. I have never passed out so hard.

Today was pretty laid-back-- my host mom took me into the city to buy a cell phone (it's cheaper to have a Chilean phone than it is to use your own from home) and to show me how the metro works. Good news: it seems very easy. Bad news: it's going to take over an hour for me to get to school. Oh well.

Tomorrow is a free day and then the other students and I start a "Contemporary Chile" class on Monday. It's a week-long de-briefing on the language, culture, history, etc, and every day after class we go to some important site that pertains to what we learned that day (pretty excited about it). I'll do my best to take some pictures or whatever without seeming like too much of a tourist (possible? No sé. But we'll see).

Living with a host family is really... interesting. It's very weird to be pretty much entirely dependent on people you've only just met and with whom you can only mildly communicate, but my host parents are very nice and very patient. Their names are Kelly and Carlos, and they're in their late 50s. They have three children: a daughter and a son that are grown, married, and out of the house, and a 23 (or 24?) year old son who is currently on vacation. He (Javier) won't be back until the end of the month, but they showed me a picture and I noticed (with joy) that he has the beginnings of a fierce South American mullet (see 'el choco fashion'. Hilarious). The mullet is a trend I have followed avidly around the globe, and Javier's has great promise. I'm pretty excited about it. Anyways, apparently he doesn't talk much and only uses modismos (slang) when he does, so we should get along fine (Ha!). So for now it's just me, Kelly, Carlos, and their adorable Cocker Spaniel, Danka. ¡Que rico!

But yes, it's about 3:45 A.M. here (everything in Santiago runs a little later; my neighbors are still blasting reggaeton/Michael Jackson/Tears for Fears and talking quite loudly), so Imma go to sleep. I'll try to get some pictures up of my family (and Danka!) fairly soon, but we'll see how it goes. ¡Buenas noches a todos, que todo les vaya bien!