Updates & Prep

Hola Amigos!

Time is flying. I have had so much to do, and still continue to have a lot to accomplish and prepare for before I leave on exchange! With the amazing help of my mom I finished my Visa paperwork and turned everything into my travel agent about 2 weeks ago. Now, I have to go to San Francisco to the Chilean Consulate to confirm and hopefully pick up my Visa. So that process has been somewhat stressful! Once I have my passport and my visa back and finished I will be a very, very, happy girl. Another dilemma is that I have to have my visa before I can purchase my plane ticket. When I finally have my plane ticket I will probably be the happiest person on the planet! Besides the Visa process, I have been busy learning more Spanish. I am trying to learn as much Spanish as I can before I arrive in Chile! I have found some helpful apps and websites along with CD's and books that have taught me a lot. I hope that I will be able to communicate well when I arrive! I am just a little worried about understanding the dialect, but I know (and hope) that I will be able to understand everyone soon enough!

Another eventful outing happened on Friday, July 25th. I attended my sponsoring Rotary Club's (The Gig Harbor Morning Club) meeting! We arrived at the meeting at around 7 in the morning and the meeting started at around 7:30! There was so much energy, who knew people could be so lively at that time of day! Various Rotarians spoke, and I briefly told everyone about my soon-to-be life in Chile including where I will live, my first host family, and the school that I will be attending there! I expressed my thanks to everyone because without my club none of this would be possible! Gig Harbor Morning Club-you rock! Shout-out to Mary Grubbs and Mary Gorman (in Mid-day) for being so brilliant, helpful, and thoughtful!

As Rotary Exchange Students, we all wear navy blue blazers to identify ourselves (for example, when we are in airports, people will understand why we look so confused). On these blazers we all put on pins and trade pins with each other to represent who we are, where we are from, or something that represents our host country and memories! As I leave for Chile and am at the SeaTac airport near mid-August, I will have minimal pins! But when I return one year later and one year older, my blazer will be big, beautiful, and bedazzled baby! At least, that is what I am hoping it will look like! I had been hand-making ribbons pins, with a total of about 40 in 4 hours. That was...difficult. I also learned that your fingernail is not hot-glue proof and if you try to prove someone that it doesn't hurt you will be wrong (and in pain). My mom and I went online to an amazing website that makes the pins for you, and you get to design what it will look like! I will post the pictures once my pins arrived! But I made 2 different designs: one has the image of the United States flag in an apple shape, the apple representing my state, with lettering around it saying where I am from. The second design I created was a photo of the iconic Gig Harbor fisherman with the harbor and boats behind him. Ah, the Gig Harbor Waterfront. I love downtown Gig Harbor. Altogether, I ordered 200 of those which make 240 pins plus 10 others I bought at Outbound Orientation. I will post pictures of all of these once they have all arrived. If you are a normal person, you are probably wondering why I would need 250 pins, right? That amount is highly recommended, and I will have to be trading these all with my fellow exchange students!

I am so excited about this news! I found out that a girl from Lyon, France will be going to the same town as I am! She has been really sweet, we met through Facebook! We will hopefully be going to the same school, but we are not sure yet! I have also been messaging a girl from San Diego, who will be living in the same town as me, but going to a different school! We have been practicing Spanish together which has been really helpful!

That sums up all that has recently happened regarding my exchange. I will be posting pictures very soon! Thank you for reading! I am now off to buy a camera that will accompany me during my year in Chile. Yay!

Adios!