Movin' On Up

I had such an amazing time with Molly yesterday- going to Spanish class, making friends on the "micro", and meeting her host mom Claudia and her host sister Javi! This morning, we planned one last adventure together before my departure. Our mission: obtain a prepaid cell phone. Unfortunately,even between the two of us, we still have some communication issues, and we ended up at the administrative offices of Movistar (the company that sells the phones) rather than the Movifone store. Oops! Don't worry, Mom. I will get a phone ASAP here in Arica.

La Molly, her host sister Javi, y yo 

Offically, my group was supposed to meet at the airport in Arica, but since almost all of us were on the same flight out of Santiago, there was a lot of unoffical meeting and greeting. It seems like a nice group. There are 25 of us total- 23 chicas, y 2 chicos. What I find interesting is that the majority of us are NOT from the Northeast. Tulane University is well represented, as is the state of Tenessee (shout out to Lindsey here!).


During the flight, I sat next to a "carabinero." If you don't know what that is, Wikipedia it! My carabinero was a very nice man, and apparently was impressed with my Spanish, because he took his laptop down from the overhead bin to show me photos of his wife, three kids and his dog, "una rasa cocker," or a cocker spaniel. 


And now, finally, I am in Arica. We have orientation at a hotel for four days until we meet and move in with out host families. The big news of the day was that I found out my host parents names- Jessica y Iván. I don't know anything else about them, or whether I have host siblings, but there you have it. Jessica y Iván. 

The drive from the airport to the hotel