Arrived around lunch time in Santiago yesterday but unfortunately my luggage didn't!  All due to the fact that I left Melbourne on one of the coldest mornings all year.  Ice on the plane wings delayed take-off for nearly two hours until the sun came out so when we finally arrived in Sydney I ran the length of the airport and cleared customs all in the record time of 20 minutes from when my Melbourne flight landed to when I boarded my flight to Auckland.  Unfortunately 20 minutes wasn't long enough for my luggage to change planes!  Great start to my year here in Chile.  I arrived with a cold, no luggage, and a realisation that my Spanish was appalling - it took ten minutes to try and describe my missing bags at the lost luggage counter!  The worst part was having to shop for new jeans in the clothes I'd been wearing for twenty hours on the plane.  Not pleasant for anyone.  Santiago has been a shock to the system too as it is a very modern, busy city of over 5 million people.  Very dirty, smoggy and grey - grey streets, grey buildings, grey clouds and grey smog.  It’s freezing cold too.  The buildings are mostly very plain looking.  I spent my first two nights in an area called Barrio Brasil sleeping off my jetlag and my cold so I didn't go out much - apart from the clothes shopping.  I’m very much looking forward to moving on to my host family - and getting my luggage back!