After a relatively painless flight, and many minor panic attacks triggered by that little voice in my head screaming "What the hell are you doing?!" I arrived at my hostel in Santiago de Chile at 8:30 this morning.
It turns out that there are 70 volunteers in my session who all happen to be staying at the hostel at the same time, so we have virtually taken this place over.
To give you all a visual, Santiago is smack dab in the center of the long country that is Chile. The temperature is warm during the day (60-70 degrees) and gets pretty cold at night (low 50s/high 40s). But with the lack of central heat in the hostel (and for all of the buildings for that matter) it's feeling MUCH colder as I'm sitting here writing this.
Anyways, I show up at the hostel at 8:30am with just enough time to put my suitcases in my room and grab a coffee before I left and was on the move for my first big adventure in Chile. I met 5 other volunteers during my morning coffee who invited me to come with them to Valpariso for the day, so before I even had time to process the fact that I was in Santiago, I was on a 1 1/2 hour bus ride out of the city and headed toward the coast.But boy was it worth it!! Valpariso is an absolutely drop dead gorgeous city, filled with beautiful historical buildings that are all painted with an assortment of every color you can think of. No wall in the city is left without either a bright color or a creative wall mural and/or graffiti works of art. The entire city is build on mountains so you're constantly either walking up or down alongside buildings and houses that are literally build into the rolling hills. Oh, and did I mention it was right on the coast and has an absolutely beautiful harbor?! Mom- you would have LOVEDDDDD it!
Needless to say, I passed out as soon as I got back to the hostel and woke up at 7:30 am for orientation.
The Ministry of Education building (where orientation was held) is a nice 30 min walk from the hostel... but please just imagine 70 foreigners walking down the street amongst all of the busy chilenos on their way to work. HILARIOUS.
Oh, and pretty much all of the people in charge of the volunteer program are young past volunteers that loved it so much they stayed year after year until being offered an official job with the Ministry or MINEDUC. So its kind of cool... they all know exactly what we're going through, which is incredibly relieving.
Its amazing the type of people I'm meeting here that are ALSO volunteering with the program. Everyone is so unique, of all different ages (22+) and are from all different countries. We have everywhere in the EU represented, the US (obviously), Colombia, India, Indonesia, South Africa and New Zealand!!! All of whom speak English fluently. Its so cool to hear everyone's stories and the different circumstances as to what brought them here. I've met so many individuals in their mid-late 20s who up and left their real-person job to come down here and try something new. SO inspiring. There are a BUNCH of people here just out of college like me who graduated but are not ready to go to grad school or get a job yet. Like me, they want to travel, volunteer and have a new and exciting cultural experience. So ultimately I'm surrounded by people who completely understand me and don't look at my like I have 5 heads when I tell them my situation. How refreshing.
On one final note, I went on a great run today after orientation got out and I got the opportunity to finally begin exploring Santiago. However, I still have SOOOO much more to see so stay tuned!
Some final pictures of Valpariso to leave you all with...
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