first day

So we´re here in Santiago. We arrived this morning and are at our hostel - Hostel Atacama. It´s a nice little place - lots of travelers. And internet! Santiago is much more like a big city in Europe than I expected, and I like that. It´s also very warm down here - I don´t like that as much. But it´s not as humid as NC which is nice. I´ve already been using my Spanish a lot, and it´s reassuring to know that I can, indeed, communicate! Yay! As we were flying in we couldn´t help but fly by the incredible mountains! They´re gorgeous. Very different than the Appalachians, that´s for sure. They´re enormous and mostly rock, not as much vegetation. At least not that I could see from the plane. We´re taking part in the cook out tonight at the Hostel so that should be fun. We´ll get to know some other people who are staying in the Hostel. Although we won´t be here long. We leave very early tomorrow morning for Osorno. It should take at least 10 hours to get there. That begins our long treck down to Punta Arenas, where it will be cooler than here in Santiago. I think I´m experiencing a combination of being exhausted and culture-shocked and a little homesick, but I expected all of those things. I´ll be okay in a few days once we´ve been here a few days. Otherwise it´s amazing! Until the next time I have internet ...

Chao!
Adrianne