Hannah Kelley’s Blog

This is an update e-mail I sent to my family last night:

Mom, Family and Friends,

I am on a different keyboard, so forgive me if i make a million mistakes.!
I arrived today, Pablo picked me up from the airport and we took a bus directly to Viña del Mar. We spent some time with his relatives, his grandma, his great aunts and uncles that live in the area,
and then went to my university with his cousin, Diego.
Diego showed me how to grab the “micro” which is tantamount to a local bus which runs between Viña and Valparaiso.
It costs about 80 cents, or less with a student ID, which I should get tomorrow.
(I missed the orientation in the morning because  of my flight….it started at 9:30am and I wasn’t even off of the plane until 10am)

After I spent several hours in the university seeing what I had missed in the morning, Pablo and I went and got something to eat, and then I went with Isabel (Loretos sister) to her house. I am in an internet cafe at the moment, near Isabel’s house. Tomorrow I have to be in the University at 10am to finish up more paperwork. also tomorrow i have to figure out a cellular phone plan, a bank account, somewhere to live longer term, register my visa with the police, etc. 

My Spanish seems to be doing fine, except I hear from many people that I sound Mexican. This doesn’t surprise me much, since I perpetually say “mande” (the equivalent of “excuse me”) in order to hear things correctly, pass by others in the street, ask questions, and I cannot seem to shake this mark of mexicanness–it is, however, just my first day!

Today there was a large fire between Santiago and Viña, covering some 17,000 hectares. The entire city is covered with a tinge of smoke and ashes have been falling lightly over us the whole day! It is a very strange occurrence, even for the locals. I took a video earlier of the smoke rising over the city from afar.

I am trying to type relatively fast, as well as cover a lot of material, in addition I am extremely tired. I want you to know that I am doing very well, I am optimistic for my classes and that everything will turn out alright. My classes actually start next Monday, so this week is just orientation. I will have this entire weekend to orient myself and figure out a place to live.

I cant wait to live somewhere with WiFi internet access so that i can start posting on my blog and showing everyone pictures.
in time…

besos y abrazos,

Hannah

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