Well today was my second day with the family I will be staying with for the next 5 weeks. So far things are going well minus the language barrier...no biggie. My mom's name is Gloria and she is very kind and patient with me, this is her first time hosting a student so I think we are both equally nervous. Gloria has one son whose name is Bruno, he is 4, and she has a daughter named Alissia (spelling?), she is 2 1/2. They are both great and very high energy. I can actually have pretty good conversations with them but Gloria has to remind Bruno to talk slower a lot of the time. Gloria keeps saying that her kids seem very happy and seem to be liking me so everything seems to be going well. Gloria is divorced, which only became legal here in Chile 4 years ago, but is dating a very nice man whose name I never quite catch. He also has three children but they spend most of their time with their mom. Gloria has a lot to handle with two kids under the age of 4 at home all day and also maintaining her job as an architect. It will be interesting to see how things un-fold in the future.
Tomorrow I will take a test to figure out which level of Spanish I should be placed in for our month long intensive spanish class, I am not very nervous, but that is probably not a good thing.
After the test we are going to be doing what SIT likes to call a DROP-OFF, yes it sounds just like it is, me and one other student will be dropped off somewhere in Santiago and will need to find our way back to CASA SIT (the nickname for our school). We won't have a map, we are just supposed to dive right in and ask as many people as possible for directions. It should be quite the experience. Tomorrow will also be the first day that I will use transantiago (public buses and metros in santiago) so that should be interesting as well.
All in all things are going well here. There are moments when I am extremely overwhelmed but there are also times when I forget that I have only been her for 4 days! Sometimes finding the right word to say is easy but sometimes it is hard...I am happy to be here and homesick all at the same time. And exhaustion and are have become very close friends!
Missing everyone back home. Sending lots of love.
I can't wait to hear about your dropoff adventure! It's so fun :) Also, I cannot imagine having all my classes all my classes in spanish! Although, you are a spanish expert so you will rock and roll.
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