Chile! Highlights of Day One

Today I woke up to my third day in Chile! I feel like there's a lot to catch you up on, so maybe I'll break it down.

Day 1.5

My plane actually left! And on time too. My seat was in the very middle:17D in between an Austrailian man and a Pennsylvanian man. The flight was not full, so the Aussie offered to move back a row so I could move over. Around 10pm they served dinner (a Chilean cultural thing that I will explain later) and a guy in 16B, Sabastian, invited me to eat with him. I thought "dinner" could be as long as I wanted it to be, so why not?

Sabastian is Chilean but goes to school in the states. He is going back home to work at a bank in Santiago. I can't remember what school he goes to, but his email has the word "harvard" before the .edu, so it must be offiliated. He's studying political science. He told me about the Chilean geography, education system, and some culture. We talked mostly about why college is important and how he can encourage Chileans to come to school in the states. When I was finished picking at my food, I noticed that Mr. PA had already decided that I wasn't coming back and sprawled out on all 3 seats. Shoot! Fortunately, Sabastian had found an empty two seats for himself and offered his spot to me. So, I got to sleep for a couple hours...with awesome eye covers.

When we landed in Chile, I soon found Karen with her red High School Musical balloon as promised. We headed out after finding my bag and stopped to get coffee for the way home. One disappointing thing about Chile is that they don't grow coffee here. Everyone just drinks instant coffee, but a lot of it.

The rest of the day was spent settling in, going to Valpariso (Valpo) to hang up flyers for the performance on Thursday. We also went to Jumbo which is the Walmart of Chile to do some grocery shopping for the group coming in. Rest, then once, then more rest. A great first day.