I´M LIVING IN SNOW

yes, you read correctly, it is currently snowing outside of the window of my new home. i guess this isn´t normal for this area, but of course it´d be snowing my first day here, right??? i´m trying to be bright and cheery, but come on now people, it´s snow and i´m gayle. the two are like polar opposites. plus they told me it´d never be below 40, so i have to go buy a winter coat tomorrow. luckily, the daughter is 22 and let me borrow her hand-made wool sweater and a parka. so, no bitching, i´ll be fine, but let me just say that it is damn cold here and there is no heating in the school i´ll be teaching at or the house i´m living in.
ok, positivity is the name of the game right now. the 5 of us that are dispersed all around the countryside left the hostel this morning around 9. we took a 2 hour bus ride from santiago to a small town called san felipe, where we had to wait for an hour for the directors to show up. then they took us to lunch, where the host families and even the mayor of the town slowly showed up. my host dad, don leopoldo, came and i was so cold that he took me home and got me a sweater and jacket from his daughter. we had a coffee, then went back for lunch with the rest of the group. lunch was awesome but the spanish is definitely in need of improvement. no one, not even the english teacher i´m going to be working with, can say a complete and correct sentence in english. and the other volunteers are all half an hour or so from me, except for lindsay, but i don´t know where she lives yet. after a 2 hour lunch, we all parted ways and i finally got to unpack my suitcase :) then don leopoldo took me to the school where i´ll teach, like 5 blocks from my house, and i met the principal and a lot of the teachers. they were all super enthusiastic and excited to see me. there were a few students still trickling out of school and they all looked pretty excited too. i will be helping teach english 4 or 5 days a week to the 5th-8th graders.
i can see my breath right now fyi. haha okay, so i think i am going to go and bundle up and watch a movie with my new host sister. she´s watching a really old movie called brazil, but its in english (con subtitulos)...so maybe i´ll start paying attention.
everyone send me warm thoughts and love :)
peace
g