Arrival day!

We finally arrived in Chile this morning after a long night on the airplane last night.  We left the Pittsburgh Airport at 5:15 P.M. for Miami.  Our plane was extremely small, but I slept for most of the trip which was nice.  The flight was about three hours long and we arrived in Miami around 8:15.  We left for Chile from Miami around 11:30 P.M. Luckily, this airplane was much bigger than the last.  Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep well at all on the ride, making the eight hour flight seem so much longer.  The view from the  plane was gorgeous in the morning.  You could see the sun rising over the Andes Mountains while the sky was orange and pink and blue.  We landed around 7:30 in the morning, but didn't get to leave the airport for another couple of hours.  When paying our reciprocity fees, many of our bills weren't accepted by employees because of small tears or markings on them.  They wanted crisp, new bills.   After this fiasco was solved, we found our luggage and met Jorge, the program director, and a student from Colegio Santa María who would help us get back to the hotel.

The ride from the airport to our hotel in Vina del Mar was about an hour and a half.  Our hotel, Hotel America, is very different than any other hotel I have been.  Its set up isn't very convenient and our triple room is very small.  We barely even have room to put our suitcases, but since I don't plan on spending much time in the hotel, this doesn't bother me.  
After settling into our hotel, we went out to eat as a group at the Tiki Taco.  I had lomo a lo pobre, which is steak with grilled onions and  two sunny side up eggs and a side of french fries.  It was pretty good, but nothing too special.  After lunch we went to a local soccer game.  We walked for about half an hour to get to the stadium, but it was well worth it.  On the way we made friends with a stray dog- he followed us all the way to the stadium.  There are so many stray dogs just roaming the streets here.  Typically, if a dog is owned by someone it is wearing a t-shirt or sweater to differentiate it from the stray.  The home team, Everton, played San Marco.  The stadium wasn't very big, but the atmosphere was great.  All of the fans had so much loyalty to their team.  All of the fans for Everton chanted in unison the whole entire time, even when they were down 2-0.  The game was pretty rough, there were three red cards and a handful of yellow cards.  However, Everton ended up winning the game 3-2 with a late goal.
We are getting dinner later and I plan on getting plenty of sleep tonight for our first day at the university and salsa lessons.