First Official Night and Day!

Today was my first official day in Chile and by that I mean full day here. It has been packed full of activities and I am just now getting some time off to write a blog post and relax. But before I get into that I would like fill anyone who is reading this in on my first night here in Chile.  My night was fairly low key and consisted of walking around where my hotel is and trying to get my head around the fact that it is summer here and it stays light out for much longer, as well as trying to take in all of the city that was around me. Since we had the night to ourselves I decided to go with a friend and find somewhere to have dinner, we settled on a pizzaria that was suggested to us by our ISA staff. This was also my first real encounter with the people of Chile and the language... and as I soon found out my spanish is a bit lacking. I don't think that I have ever felt that akward and confused ordering a slice of pizza and a beer. Part of that however was due to the fact that I let myself get intimidated when I was speaking, and that I ordered the nightly special and the waitress thought I knew a lot more spanish then I did. However, in the end I got my pizza and beer and there were no more problems. A little later in the night after I visted the local super market which was basically just a spanish version of target (and for my mother, the sell everything that you would normally buy in the states).  Following a brief rest me and my friend decided that we wanted to go out and find a bar to hang out in... but somehow we seemed to miss all of them and walked around for about 30 min before we came to an outdoor plaza that had a happy hour going on (this was at about 11 at night). And I have to say it wasn't that happy... not in a bad way but the drink prices were much higher than any happy hour in the states, but since we found what we were looking for we stayed and had a great Chilean night sitting in the plaza having a few beers and just talking. 

My day today started out by getting a wake up call from the front desk that I wasn't expecting (it was set up by the ISA), and I was woken up about 30 minutes before I wanted to be up. After getting up and having basically a continetal breakfast I had an orentation meeting with the ISA where they went over all the ways to keep for geting pick pocketed and better things such as living with a host family and a little about the city where I am going to be living and going to school (Vina del Mar). Following this meeting my group went to the main plaza of down town Santiago where we were able to walk around and into an amazing catherdral. Following a lunch down town we then took both the metro (subway) and walked to the home of the poet Pablo Neruda. This is probably one of the coolest things that I have seen so far as well as the Nobel prize he had won that was inside. And that brings us to now, where I am just sitting in my room writting this post. I'm sure tomorrow will be just as pakced as today was, but I get to visit a vineyard so one of my goals to become a wine expert may start to come true. I am also slowly (very) starting to feel my spanish skills get better so that is a good sign. I will keep anyone who is reading updated on my night and what tomorrow brings. So as the Chileans say, Hasta luego!