Orientation... continued

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The rest of orientation was pretty fun, and here are some more pictures... as promised! Some of them are of the Cueca dancers they brought in as a surprise for us, which was really fun. It was a little sad leaving because a lot of us started to get close- I think it’s a shared experience sort of thing that makes you get attached so quickly... we were all sort of alone together I guess.

At the end of Orientation we headed back into Santiago for some of us to meet our host families (those who lived in or around Santiago). It was really really cool to watch, as we sat there on opposite sides of the room, waiting for names to be called so that the families and students could get up and meet in the middle. Watching people meet who are going to spend the next six months to a year of their lives living together as a family was pretty intense. My favorite was when one of the german girls got up to meet her family and they had a little two or three year old daughter who ran over and hugged her, and then asked to be picked up. It was so cute watching this german girl pick up the little chilean kid and sit down with her new chilean family!

so anyway, enough babble... go look at the pictures!

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Photos

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this is the room where we met every day for most of the day for the orientation stuff.

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evidently we werent aloud to have picnics...

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this is the little tiny center of town in Olmue

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this is the little store i helped one of the other students buy a toothbrush at

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observe the exchange students in their natural habitat...

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two of my roomies... Louisa and Yasmin

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little area with pingpong and stuff where we hung out

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unfortunately it was far too cold to swim...

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this is the supermarket in Olmue... a couple cute little street dogs were hanging out outside it.

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this was a suuuuuper sweet street dog near the supermarket

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heres some more of the exchange students in the main room.

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these are the dancers they brought in.

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thats one of the volunteers explaning the cueca to us

caution: exchange students dancing
Sonja and Felippe trying to dance the cueca!

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Thats Flavia cueca-ing

Talent show!
Maya was really shy, but she was a really good puppeteer so she put on a show for us!

Comments

[anonymous]

I have resolved to comment on every single one of your entries... because i love you. :D so did you meet YOUR family yet?? whats the 411?

[TamiC]

yes i have!
my family is wonderful, and ive started school as well... but unfortunately the bits i´ve written for the blog and my pictures are all on my laptop and its having trouble with getting internet.... so hopefully a full update soon though!