Arrival

The majority of our CIEE group arrived this morning, either in a flight form Detroit or Dallas (which was me). We awkwardly said hello as we saw in each other’s faces, the anxiety we all had in our own. In Dallas Kacey and Dana, a girl from Ann Arbor walked around and got frozen yogurt. I that walk around the stupid airport was when I realized that for the next six months I will be having the excitement of constantly seeing and doing new things like take a stupid picture in front of a metal castle at the Dallas airport. The flight was long but I luckily had a little stash of sleeping pills, which knocked me out for a good six hours. Upon arrival I had my first official conversation with an airport security officer after the customs woman shooed me away, despite the fact that I had all the right papers. I knew I did, and she was wrong but she just shook her hand in my face and mumbled for me to go somewhere else! But it was her loss because the policeman brought me to the front of the line and a very nice woman helped me get through. From the airport we drove from Santiago to Valparaiso, and inevitably, I fell asleep and missed all the apparently spectacular views. In Viña del Mar we got to our hotel and we were fed an elaborate three course meal, with an entrée of some sort of chicken with ham and cheese roll. After this we had a short introduction meeting and then a fun icebreaker game at a park nearby.  It was by far the most fun I’ve ever had at an ice breaker (sorry GV!). The most memorable was the activity when two groups had to get everybody in our group over a rope that was almost at head level without touching the rope or passing under it. We got everyone over using multitude of strategies until the end when the two groups had to help each other. Then after these games we had a delicious dinner at a little family-run café that served pisco sours, wine, a sort of Sheppard’s pie with egg in the mashed potatoes, Chilean salad, and an apple cobbler. DELICIOUS, but holy moly starches, starches, starches!! Already I can tell it’s going to be a fun time! 

Hasta Pronto!