Well I'm almost done with my oreintation and I move into San Fran tomorrow!! The week has been a crazy flood of information...along with almost everything in Spanish, so I'm exhausted already. But I can tell that my Spanish is improving already. The first thing I'm going to do once I move in is put a label on EVERYTHING to help with my vocab. I'm really just so excited to finally move in, unpack and meet the girls and the rest of the staff, or as they call them here tias and tios (aunts and uncles...soon I will be Tia Anna!). To see where I will be living and what I will be doing for the next five months of my life. I have so many ideas for activites and projects to do with the girls at the hogar. There are about 30 volunteers in VE at the moment (12 of us newbies), and I already feel like I know most of them, so I have this great support base of information, ideas and energy to work off of. Also all the information that has been shoved into our heads in the last week has been really useful information...like Chilean slang, where to find everything we need, how VE is run, how the social system works here, Chilean history, culture, politics, socioeconomic structure, etc. We've also had fun doing silly games, putting together skits and dances for a talent show, exploring Santiago, having big potlucks, etc. We just got back from a night out on the town, celebrating the start of our March 2007 class, which actually ended at my first gay club...so that was very interesting. =) Well, off to get some much needed rest...more details later. love - anna