Time + Chile = nonexistant

Time. In Chile. Is so different than time in the United States. Everything goes late. Everything starts late. Everyone is late. Sometimes teachers show up 20 minutes late to class, sometimes they dont show up at all. Dinner is often served at 10:00pm and lunch at 2:00pm. Kids go dancing until 7:00am. Then sleep till 5:00pm. And all this is not jsut expected, but normal.

Certain things I have encountered here have been quite inefficient adding to the lack of time here. It seems like time has no meaning anymore. I say ill be somewhere in an hour but if it takes me 2 hours I dont worry. Life is relaxed here, and I never feel the need to check the time. Its quite an odd feeling and I also can't believe I have been here for 4 weeks. On one hand it feels like its been no time at all, and on the other I feel like I have been here forever.

Good news: I FINALLY have all my classes. Im taking 3 classes with chileans (and extranjeros- foreign people) and 2 classes for only extranjeros. Im getting credit for 5 classes and most importantly: im graduating ON TIME!! Im taking Procesos de Integracion en America Latina (Processes of integration in Latin AMerica) which is supposed to be really hard, but I love the teacher: shes fun and smart and the class is very interesting. Im also taking Chilean Folklore, the teacher is a little boring but the material seems interesting and the class looks easy. My extranjero classes are Spanish grammar and chilean culture (which hasnt started yet : ). They both seem like busy work classes. I am also taking Digital photography!! In Spanish!! It seems like it may be my favorite class. All my classes except photo are in Campus San Joaquin, but photo is in Campus Oriente (which is so beautiful, it used to be a nunnery adn it looks like a really old castle).

Speaking of inneficiencies the last time I went to Campus Oriente, Jenn and I got on a bus and told the bus driver we were going to campus oriente of la catolica (my university) and he said oh of course!! Ill take you right there! But then we passed the street the school was on and I said wait isnt it here? And Mr. Friendly busdriver said no no im going around so that I can drop you off closer. Well then he dropped us off about half an hour away from the school, makeing me 20 minutes late to my class. We had to somehow find our way back too...its a little funny...but also made me really annoyed : ). The bus drivers here dont ever like to admit that they are wrong...so they pretend they know what they are doing...something to keep in mind next time im lost haha.

I am really happy to finally know what classes im taking since it is the third week of classes. We celebrated by goign to the beach again yesterday (at Viña del Mar). It turned out to be really cloudy, but of course I love it when its cloudy so it was perfect for me. We walked around and looked at all the artisans wares. Here is a picture of me in front of all the pretty scarves. There is definately always something fun to do here!

Weekends!

Just wanted to give you all an update: Lately I have been spending half of my time trying to find classes that I can take here that will transfer to USC and the other half just enjoying myself. Just to make it clear its a lie that its easy to go abroad and find classes that work for USC...and I may graduate in Dec of 2010. Wow, great things to look forward to. On the bright side, last week I attended 3 potential classes at La Catolica, San Joaquin campus, and none of the teachers came. So I have been getting a lot of free passes. Classes start more officially on Monday, but I still dont knwo what classes USC is allowing me to take so I may have to somehow try to go to extra classes just in case, or I may just not go at all...I may boycott school. Ill keep you posted.

On Friday Jennifer, Kate and I had a great day. We went to Las Condes to have an American breakfast which was the best breakfast Ive had here! Steph Chow it made me miss our weekly brunches, I think you would really like this restaurant too (its called Cafe Melba) maybe sometime you can come here and we can have brunch there : ). Then we went to the mall Parque Arucano...we shopped a bit and saw Simplemente no te quiere (Hes just not that into you). It was a fantastic friday! For dinner Leif and I went out for sushi...who would think you could find cheap and tasty sushi in Santiago? We ended the day at another great party hosted by our friends Matt and Pedro. Yesterday we had a pool day at Jennifer's apartment...the water was too cold to go into though. Essentially we are just having a great time!! Later today we are having a Ping Pong tournament at Jennifers house.

In summary, even if I never graduate I know Ill be having fun while not graduating : )

MAS FOTOS

The Best Trip I have EVER been on...

This week we had a few says off for vacations and I decided to plan a trip to the South of Chile, Patagonia. I went with Jennifer, Kate, Matt, Leif, and Beth. I did most of the planning which was both hard and fun, and I'm really proud of how the trip turned out. We only had from Wednesday to Sunday to make the trip so we weren't able to fit in everything we wanted. I had two important attractions that HAD to be seen: the Penguins and Torres del Paine. So we took the four hour flight down to Punta Arenas where we could go see the Pinguinos (Penguins)!! We found a local bar (La Madera) on Wednesday night and we danced salsa with all the locals (or at least tried to).

On Thursday we cought a big boat from Punta Arenas to Isla Magdalena. It was a two hour boat ride then we got to hang out with the Penguins on Isla Magdalena (which is in the Strait of Magellan) for a whole hour. There were thousands of penguins and i got so close to one that we were almost touching!

Friday we took an early bus to Puerto Natales (three hours away). You can only access Torres del Paine from Puerto Natales. Puerto Natales is anther port city that has brightly colored houses and tin roofs. We had lunch at a great pizza place then took another two hour bus ride to one of the entrances to Torres del Paine (called Laguna Amarga). We had encountered a little problem in planning where we were going to stay at Torres del Paine. We thought we could stay at a refugio (hostel) on the mountain but we went and asked the information serivces in Punta Arenas and they informed us that we could only stay at this hotel called Las Torres. And she informed us that for 3 twin beds it would cost $300 dollars. So we had decided to cheat the system, we made a reservation for 3 people but we decided that all 6 of us would stay there. We were really upset that that was our only option but we knew we had come too far to turn back. We took a transfer (small bus) from the entrance to the park (Laguna Amarga) to Las Torres (the hotel next to which the trail that we wanted to take started). The transfer was a really long bus that was super narrow. We drove half an hour over a dirt road and over a tiny bridge that barely had enough clearance widthwise.

We arrived at the hotel Las Torres and half of us checked in while the other half of us snuck in. Lo and Behold...the super expensive hotel only had 3 twin beds!! So we decided it is what it is. Then we saw a refugio down the road, and we were really angry that the tourism lady had blatently lied to us. We decided to take a short hike and then have dinner. The area is like a storybook land- the most beautiful place I have EVER seen in my life. We hiked around for a few hours and we found some horses and a stream. We went back to the hotel and went to the ONLY restaurant in the area (its quite secluded!). It was a very fancy hotel where they were appaled when we asked for tap water and they referred to us as Jovenes (young people). Quite an interesting experience...

Our next problem that we encountered was that to hike to the viewpoint to see the Torres (for which Torres del Paine is famous) was supposed to be a 9 hour hike round trip. Also the only bus back from Laguna Amarga on Saturday left at 2:30. You can do the math...its impossible. So I decided that NOTHING is immpossible and we would wake up at 5:30 and see how far we could get hiking as fast as we could. The girls had to each share a twin bed and one of the boys camped out on the floor as an extreme stormed raged outside (I thought well guess we wont be hiking tomorrow if this continues). When I woke up the next morning at 5:30 ready to round up the troops I realized that it was still dark outside. So I let everyone sleep in until 6:30 and then we were able to get out of the hotel by 7:00. Just in time to start hiking as the sun rose over the mountains. We had made PB&J sandwiches the night before and had decieded to only take two small backpacks with us so we could hike as fast as possible. One was mine, in which I put my big camera (very heavy haha) and the other held our food. We didn't end up starting the trail until 7:30 but it started out absolutely beautiful! After about 20 mins we realized that we were essentially hiking straight up a mountain in the mud (from the rain). It was the hardest hike I had ever done, and also the most beautiful. We had two people in our group who hadn't ever hiked before and although I worried about them I knew that our only chance to see the Torres was to keep up a fast pace. We kept going and going even admist much dismay and mutiny, but we were able to keep the group together. We ent up the mountain, through a valley, accross a windy drop off, over many simple bridges and FINALLY made it to a lookout where we could see the torres. It rained a bit throughout the hike but mostly only drizziling. At the lookout we admired the Torres which were covered in mist and then we ate our PB&J's and prepared for the trek back. We kapt up a good pace back the way we had come and we arrived back at the hotel at 12:30...we did a 9 hour hike in 5 hours!! I was so proud of everyone...especially our non-hikers!!!

We got back in time for the free transfer that left our hotel at one to take us back to Laguna Amarga. Luckily there were 6 seats left. We walked up and the snooty transfer driver told us we couldn't take the bus becasue we didn't stay at the hotel (ageism). WE told him indeed we did stay at the hotel and he told us no this is private (while the other guest were telling him to let us on). We argued and argued and finally he let us on. We went to Laguna Amarga where we caught our next 2 hour bus back to Puerto Natales. In Puerto Natales we cought our 3 hour bus back to Punta Arena. We arrived back at Punta Arenas around 8 and returned to our first hostel (Hostal Fitz-Roy...as suggested by K&A...great place!). We went out to a nice seafood dinner for Beth's 21st birthday!! WE had the BEST seafood Ive ever had in Punta Arenas. After dinner we trudged over to a dancing club where they played 80's music and music videos. Then at the club Beth and I participated in a salsa lesson, until it turned into a competition and we ran away. We were every tired so we didn't stay long. Then we woke up the next day at 8 so we could get on our plane back to Santiago.

A very tiring, fast-paced, and succesful vacation!!!

Viña Del Mar y Futboooooooollll

I forgot to tell you about last weekend! I went with about nine other students from the CIEE program to Viña del Mar. We were able to take the metro to the bus station and then a bus to Viña. Viña is a little coast town a few hours from Santiago. Everyone goes there for vacations on the beach. We arrived and then walked quite a few blocks to the beach, but it was worth it! The beach was pakced with Chileans and fun little tents and kiosks selling different wares. I only went into the water up to my calves because it was really cold, but some of the Chileans were swimming all the way. We spent the day enjoying ourselves and relaxing and then we went home in time for dinner.
After dinner Jennifer and her host family invited me to go to a soccer game. They had fancy VIP parking and seating for the Colo-Colo V Audax Italiano game. The Colo-Colo team is the "team of teh people" so its fans are known for being wild and violent. Our seats were seperate from the dangerous seating. We were actually sitting in front of the entire family of the best player from Audax Italiano (which is the team for the Italian people living in Santiago). His son was playing cars right behind me. I decided that I liked the Audax Italiano team better because they seemed nicer and more civil. The Colo-Colo team and fans were really crazy, which made the game exciting and fun. They only sold about half of the tickets for the game and had policemen everywhere becuase Colo-Colo and Audax Italiano are such big rivals that they were afraid of too much violence. It was a really exciting and good game, and Audax Italiano ended up winning by one in the end.

We walked out of the stadium and noticed that all the players were walking out the same way! We got to meet and take a picture with the best player on the Colo-Colo team, Lucas Barrio. It was so much fun and Jennifer and I were very excited to meet a star futbol player!!