Don't Pinch Me, I want to Keep Dreaming

34 hours until I leave my house.
38 hours until my plane departs for Miami.
4 days until I arrive in Santiago.
This is so surreal.
I can't quite seem to grasp the fact that I'm not going to wake up in my bed Thursday morning.
Waiting for exchange has become such a big part of my life that I'm actually going to miss it. My suitcase is officially packed (yes, it's purple), and I can't imagine what I could possibly think of to do tomorrow. I want to do something special, something that brings this chapter of my life to a close with resounding finality, but in all likelihood, tomorrow will be like any other day, just filled with more anxiety and excitement than usual.
I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about leaving everything I know behind, actually, petrified may be a more accurate description of how I feel. I'm really going to miss knowing what to expect, but that's the fun of it, it's an adventure. I'm going to be living a year that I just cannot imagine, and that's an incredibly exciting thing.
Even though I am nervous, there are so many things I'm looking forward to. I cannot wait to meet the other Americans going to Chile in Miami, and I can't wait to meet exchange students from all over the world in Santiago (maybe somebody else going to Copiapo?), but I think I'm the most excited about meeting my host-family! On the other hand, I'm more nervous about meeting them than anything else (ok, maybe my first day of school). I heard from my host-mom again, and I have a 12 year old host-brother named Alvaro and a 13 year old host-sister named Elizabeth! They seem like they're a lot of fun, and I think we could get along really well, but I'll meet them soon and all of the speculation will finally be over.

Host-Family

After waiting impatiently for my host-family placement, I finally got it at the end of June. My host-family lives in Copiapo, Chile, a city in the Atacama desert! Maybe I'll finally have a chance to dry out after three years of living in Upstate New York. But back to my family: I haven't gotten their application yet, so there are still a lot of blanks, but I have been e-mailing with my host-mom. She seems really nice, and last I heard, she was preparing my room! It seems like every piece of information I get makes this seem more real. Speaking of information, I recently got my flight info and my orientation starts in Miami on the 28th. I'm incredibly excited to meet some of the other people going to Chile, and we'll have a ton of time to get to know each-other on the nine hour flight to Santiago that gets in the morning of the 30th. On the other hand, maybe I'll actually end up sleeping since it's overnight. After my Santiago orientation, I'll be traveling 600 some miles north where I'll be met by the coordinator of AFS in Copiapo since my host family will be on vacation in Canada until the 2nd of August. This also gives me a chance to recover from my 10 to 15 hour bus trip. So far besides e-mailing with my host-mom, I've also talked briefly with my two host siblings on Facebook. I'm really excited about having host-siblings despite the fact that we won't be going to the same school as me. I will be attending the Colegio de San Augustin de Atacama, which, from what I hear, is a bit further from our house than the school my host brother and sister go to. I'm excepting more information about my host-family soon, but in the mean time, I'm going to NYC to get my visa on the 14th, and I'm starting to compile a packing list because yes, I need a full 17 days to pack.