en chile

Wednesday, my first full day in Chile. I arrived in Concepción yesterday a bit after noon. The flight from Miami was long, but very pleasant. There were lots of movie options and wine was served with dinner at no charge. I would recommend LAN to anyone doing air travel. I was greeted at the airport by my host Rotary counselor Eduardo and his wife Paola who took me to their house. We went around Conce to help me get oriented and to look for a place to live. We met up with Lindsay, another Rotary scholar for empanadas. I was introduced to Mónica, a Rotarian, and Alex, president of the local Rotary. We walked through the University campus, which is large and quite beautiful. Lindsay went to a class while Eduardo, Alex and I went out to eat. Once home, I busted out the autoharp and sang a couple songs with Eduardo, who has a wonderful singing voice.

Today I got up and went to the University to meet with the program director of the department where I will be taking my classes. She seems like a very cool person. I will be taking a class on Computer Assisted Language Learning with her on Tuesdays, a class on Bilingualism on Wednesdays and a class on Morphosyntaxis on Thursdays. This week, the department welcomes a visiting professor from the Autonomous University of Madrid who is doing a week long course, which I am going to audit. I got my cell phone and a notebook and some pens.

Today in Oldham County was the first day of school. I hope all my teacher friends and students are making the adjustment smoothly. I am in the midst of my own adjustment process here, but it is a pleasant one. I am enjoying having the opportunity to speak Spanish all the time and to get to know new people and a new place.