Planes, go-go boots, and Yali.

¡Estamos en Santiago! Katie and I got into the airport this morning at 930am (630am CST). It´s absolutely beautiful outside ' its the type of day where you want to nap by an open window and let the breeze sing lullabies to you... we´re going to go and walk around soon and perhaps go dancing tonight... !

Highlights from the flights:
From Chicago to Atlanta, both flight attendents wore go-go boots and had funny names like ¨Jo W.¨ I wanted to introduce myself as Meg B. Also, 17 of George Bush´s ¨additional 20'000 troops¨were on the plane. The sun was a fiery red as it set. And, true to my nature, I looked like I had everything together, but didn´t realize I had an assigned seat, so when the true holder of my chosen seat came on board, everyone knew I didn´t really have anything together and had to walk to the back of the plane... haha.

I met Katie in Atlanta. We flew out at 10.00pm. At 1130, they served us dinner, and with white wine, we toasted the idealism of Che and enjoyed our five minutes of communism as we flew over Cuba. We also made a toast to ¨freedom and adventure¨but we made it quietly so we wouldn´t look too silly. We giggled and got really excited about everything, and the man next to us kept looking at us with a smile -- he knew we were new to Chile. We woke early to watch the sunrise and oo´d and ah´d as we flew over the coast and Andes mountains into Santiago.

Mariclaire´s (student from Loyola we met in Santiago) host mom Yali is incredible. She sent her friend Arturo with Mariclaire to the airport to meet us. We received our first Chilean greeting (aka kiss on the cheek) from him, and he drove us to meet Yali. She made us an excellent lunch, taught us our first Chilean words (she said the first word we MUST know is ¨carrete¨, which means party, because ¨chile is full of parties¨) and gives us a lot of hugs. Katie and I have already started praying that our host families in Buenos Aires are as fun as Yali, but I don´t know if it´s possible.

More to come...