it's definitely been a while since i've blogged anything. things are going well here, although everyone in my house has had a cold since sept18th (fiesta patria de chile, like independence day in the us or canada day). spring makes pollen mix with the smog of santiago and anyone with allergies becomes debilitated for a good period of time. ouch

i arrived almost a month ago now and i´m starting to feel pretty settled in. i´m accustomed to the transit and know where i can find anything i´ll need to find, for example good coffee or the four textbooks (out of about 10 listed in the syllabus) for this weeks finance class.

ana maria arrives on tuesday (2 hours after tuesday begins, 2:00am tuesday, to clarify), but it seems i have a quiz worth 9% in finance next friday morning at 830am. photocopying everything, after that i plan to read everything but fail after i read the minimum required material, because if i read it all that would end up being at least two hundred pages i estimate. in spanish. about finance.

rafting tomorrow is going to cut into my strangely half-appealing finance reading time.

since i´ve been here i´ve read el alquimista by paulo coehlo and el caballero de la armadura oxidada, although i´m unsure who wrote it. theyve been good practice for my spanish, id highly recommend anyone who considers themselves an intermediate or advanced spanish student to read these novels as you´ll learn a good amount of vocabulary without feeling overwhelmed, and the stories are entertaining, if a bit cheesy. today i decided to try out my reading abilities with some more advanced literature, and after a bit of browsing decided on metamorphisis by franz kafka.

text message just in! photocopies ready! chao

From chile

the orientation

the campus central of the UC is impressive! it's a massive old colonial style building, very well kept, in the middle of santiago centro. as soon as you enter (through the entrance i took) you see a lush green garden roofless garden with palms and other regional vegetation. we had most of orientation in a meeting hall that seemed like a chapel mixed with a library; there was stained glass designs in the long and narrow two-story room and the walls were not walls but bookshelves full of important books (they were leather-bound, afterall).

i have until august twenty-something to wander around classes and decide what i want to take. i think i'll end up with typography, finance, spanish, football, and maybe 1 more (mountain climbing?).

la piojera

after the orientation was done a bunch of volunteer students brought us foreigners to a local pub called the piojera, supposedly 'if you go to santiago you HAVE to go to la piojera.' spanish lesson: piojo = lice piojera = place of lice.

the piojera fits about 300 people by my estimate. their signature drink seems to be the 'terremoto' - which is, if i'm not mistaken, a mix of pineapple ice cream, wine, 'fermet', and umm something else. lots of people didn't like it but i went through the following process: this is ok, this is distgusting, this is quite good. my judgement have been somewhat impaired however because the beverage itself is strong.

later i took the metro home and got walked the wrong way down america vespucio (a main street that circles santiago) , then talked to a friendly guard man from the park in the middle of the street (for now use your imagination or google, i'll post photos of the street later) and took the micro (the name of a kind of bus) back to where i live.

hey look i'm kind of on the uc portal page!