I first came to Chile when I was 17 in July 2001. My family had hosted a chilean foreign exchange student, J. I was headed down to Chile with him after his year in the U.S. had ended to have my own type of exchange. When the plane landed in Santiago, over a hundred teenage chilean exchange students yelled "CHI CHI CHI LE LE LE VIVA CHILE!" Somehow I thought this was the normal thing that chileans said upon landing in Chile(I later learned on other visits that it is not. I simple "ya llegamos a Chile" is sufficient). J. and I then got off the plan to proceed through customs and immigration (and of course before hand having to pay the $65 entrance fee for U.S. Americans---sheesh I hadn't even touched Chilean soil yet and they're charging me?!?!). We were greeted by pretty much ALL J.'s family (extended family included) and I had no idea who all these people were that were hugging and kissing me.
After the airport, we all headed to Viña del Mar, where J.'s extended family lived. I was so overwhelmed by all the spanish that I didn't speak and a lot of people thought I was really shy and/or didn't know how to speak spanish. After a nap for a few hours, they soon learned that I was quite the chatterbox in my limited spanish. We had an asado that night where I very quickly developed a love for choripan and jote (a mix of wine and coke).
A few days later, we went to Copiapó, where J. and his immediate family lived. Copiapó was quite different from Viña del Mar- no ocean, large city that rises up a hill/mountain that is breathtaking at night. Just a dusty, dirty desert city that more resembled a town. The family lived just outside the city in a town called Paipote.
I went to school with J., his sister (M.) and their foreign exchange student from New Zealand (S.). All their classmates and teachers were soooo nice and talkative. Often during breaks they would always ask me questions about myself and the United Stated and of course if I liked Chile. I thought Chile was FULL of great people and soon fell in love.
As far as the language was concerned, I was reveling in how many words were different than what I had learned up through Spanish 4 (palta/aguacate, frutilla/fresa, durazno/melocotón, autobus/micro...the list goes on). I was keeping a mental check list of all the different words to remember to use in my AP Spanish 5 class that fall to show off where I had been. Mish.
Also, with being 17, I though it was pretty cool to go out on the weekends and drink. Mmmmm piscola and jote. I was officially cool like all the kids back home that smoked up marijuana during lunch and now had some street cred.
These were all just my initial impression of when I came at the age of 17. Obviously when I came back when I was 23, I had some different impressions such as Why aren't people as nice as they are in the north? The sucki-ness that is Transsantiago, people's impatience when driving and how much chileans love 80's music.
