Thursday September 8th was my first day of school. School here starts at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 2:30 p.m. The first day was a little nerve-wrecking and stressful. I was the "new kid" at a school with about 1,500-ish students, in a foreign country, everyone speaks a different language, and I only knew two people there. One being my host sister Ana and the other being my host mother Marta, who happens to be a teacher there. The school is k-12. Most of the younger students knew who I was because Marta told them about me. Marta is a 6th grade teacher. But, none of the older kids knew who I was. Right when we got to school, a bunch of younger kids started waving and shouting "Hola Brian! Que tal?" But, I just got looks from the older kids. Marta introduced me to the principal and other teachers. One of the teachers, who happens to be my counselor, took me to my first class where she was the teacher. After the class was over, a group of 3 girls came up to me and introduced themselves, offered to show me around, and asked me some questions like how old I am, where I'm from, etc. At the end of the day when school let out and I was talking with Marta in the school yard, the same girls came up to me with one of their friends and asked me to hang out with them the next day during the break in the school day. Here there isn't a lunch break because here we eat lunch at around 3 p.m. There is just a half hour break to go outside. Some people sit and talk and have a snack, others play soccer or basketball. The next day, I went with the girls during the break. We sat and talked with some of their friends and had a snack. They also introduced me to all the boys in the class. Once the ice was broken, and everyone knew that I was an exchange student from the United States, I was surrounded by people asking me a million different questions. Once they found out that I was from New York, oh man they went wild! There were questions left and right, in english and spanish, "What is it like there? What do people do for fun there? Do you have a job there? Do you drive? What about your family? Is it exciting?" and so on and so forth. Later in the day, one of the teachers was taking attendance and I wasn't on the list. The teacher asked "Who are you?" and there was a unanimous "Brian from New York" (with the Bronx accent) Hahaha! After school let out, I talked with a group of about 8 kids for around 10 minutes then met up with Marta and Ana and headed home. I'm glad that I started to meet some more people!
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