y altiro comienza la aventura.....

Ok. So it has really all began.

Yesterday I spent the day with my Australian buddies, hanging around Santiago. Well first I played translator and bought me and then bus tickets and they were very appreciative. I was the nerd of the group and the only one that cared about seeing historical buildings, or any sights at all. I dragged two of them with me on our educational tour, but one got bored after my first lecture. Adam toughed it out with me as we saw the Palacio de la Moneda (the place where Salvadore Allende died and Pinochet bombed on Sept 11th 1973), a minature and extremely lame version of Palacio de la Alambra (a palace built in Granada that the three of us happened to have all seen in Spain), the Plaza de las Armas (sort of a city center), el Mercado Central (a market where we bought cheap, delicious cherries), and toured Bellavista (the cool neighborhood that our hostel was in with great graffitti everywhere). Adam and I shared my first emapanada - the chilean equivalent of a falafel, as my dad might say. By the time we had finished all that it was about 5:00 and I had tired Adam out. Our other Australian friend and I went to lunch, and then I headed up the finiculare to Cerro San Cristobal, a big hill right behind our hostel. At the top is a big statue of the Virgin Mary and lots of great jesus stuff to accompany it (yáll know how i love jesus...). Then we had a not-so-tearful goodbye and promised to talk on facebook.

After a long viaje to Osorno (where i slept on a luxurious semi-cama and kept waking up with a child on my lap), I arrived this morning at like 10:30. Samantha, my lovely organizer, picked me up a the bus station and dropped me off in my new home. I was smelly, sore, and extremely overwhelmed. After a nice cold shower (apparently the heat will be back tomorrow) and some breakfast I was a little more calm. Basically my homestay is going to be fabulous, but Ill write a little more later when I´m less exhausted and overwhelmed, and know more about them. My new family consists of:
Adrianna: the mother who will surely make me fat by force feeding me all the time. She insisted that her house was simple, but it was full of friendship and love. She is beyond adorable.
Eli: her 28 year old daughter who is beautiful, friendly, funny, and I hope will be my new best friend.
Sofia: Eli´s daughter who is almost 5 years old. She is also beautiful and charming and keeps calling me niña (girl) becuase Sarice is too awkward to say. I think Cereza is going to have to make a come back. Eli already started calling me that.
Victor: Better known as gordito, or little fat one, is a university student who has been living with the family for 4 years. He seems quiet and strange, but i´m sure he´ll grown on me.
El padre: i dont remember his name but hes less talkative than his wife, and extremely difficult to understand. he gave me a politics of osorno talk at lunch and i think we will be great friends.
Javier is Sofia´s father who also lives in the house, but i havent met him yet. Sergio and Camilla are portuguese and french respectively and they have been living here for 6 months i beleive. they are on vacation and i haven{t met them yet. They speak to each other in english, which sofia insists is chinese, and it sounds like their spanish is weak.

Tomorrow at 9am I start three days of training for my job (training that the whole office is doing together). Its going to be insanely overwhelming, but hopefully ill be able to follow whats going on.