Thursday, March 26, 2009

Patagonia - Installment the First

Trips to the end of the Earth should probably take a decent amount of planning. Should. There are many reasons why our particular adventure was a success...and there are many more reasons why it should not have been. Should.

Before you start judging... let me just say that we did try and plan. Not at first, or at last, but somewhere in the middle. It all started when... (cue swiggly music and kaleidoscopic special effects)


We had been shooting the breeze for some time, talking about an excursion to Tierra del Fuego, the Land of Fire, when one day someone said, "Hey, let's get together tonight. Bring your guide books and we'll look and see what there is to do down South." Before we knew it, tickets had been purchased and commitments made. We hit a snag immediately. Someone bought their ticket the next morning, and for almost $100 less. Then other group members made attempts to switch flights for the cheaper tickets. In the end, one member's arrival time was close to twelve hours before the rest of the group, two people were heading back to Santiago on Sunday, one Tuesday before the sun rose, three around noon, and the last two Tuesday evening. An effort at another planning party was made a few days later, and we finalized some seemingly-executive decisions about where, and in what order, we were going to spend our time in Patagonia.

The day of the departure, we all planned on meeting at a metro station where a transit bus would take us to the airport. We had a beer at the airport, because when have we ever been able to do that, while waiting for the 8th member of our team and made it all the way to the terminal, but Paco still hadn't shown up. As it would happen, he was too late in arriving, and the airline had already sold his ticket. He would catch the 5:00 am flight in the morning. It was slightly past midnight when we arrived in Punta Arenas, and since Lee had had a much earlier flight that day, we took a taxi to the hostel she had already found. The owners had flutes and a guitar or two out that they let us dabble with. Ryan is an avid and excellent jazz guitar player, and it had been so long since I'd played a flute...but our jam session didn't last long seeing as the flute head didn't fit into the body, almost at all really (i.e. there was no way it would be in tune), and even if Ryan tuned the guitar to my flute (which he did), some of the keys didn't function, so quite a few notes were simply not an option. We, except Lee who would wait for Paco and meet us later, awoke early the following morning, Thursday to be exact, to catch a bus headed for Puerto Natales, a bit farther North. We thought we had planned this fairly well, actually. We heard that it was best to buy tickets around 7:30, but the office didn't even open until 8:00, and in our impatient, or curious, waiting, Ryan and Megana thought it best to find the other bus company in the vicinity and check out their prices. Miraculously their fare was cheaper and they had a bus ready to leave right away. The only problem was that we had to book it (make haste) over to the other station. The only other problem was that Meggie and Ryan had left their backpacks with us. So we donned extra gear and, literally, ran in the direction of the other location. I choose 'direction' because we didn't know the precise address, per se, of the transportation company, so every street we ran across got scoped out, left and right, for anything resembling a bus station. Meg and Ryan had bought our tickets and as soon as we had our belongings below the bus, we were moving. Ideally, upon arrival to Puerto Natales we would have time to eat a refreshing lunch, gather necessary food items and rent camping gear before the next bus would deliver us to Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. When we exited the bus station in PN, a nice, Chilean couple (because as we found, and you will soon find, everyone in Chile is pleasant and helpful and angelic...except the taxi men outside the airport in Santiago...) greeted us and said, "All the public buses to Torres del Paine have left. Do you need transportation?" So we followed them to their office on the other side of town, which was the equivalent of a 5 minute walk in PN, and signed up for the 2:30 bus to the park. It was the last bus of the day, so Paco and Lee would have to wait till the next morning for a bus to the park. Then we ate a refreshing lunch, gathered necessary food stuffs and rented camping gear.

(Punta Arenas is the bottom left bunch of letters and Puerto Natales is the group of letters that stars with a P just above and a tad to the left of PA)



Never have I seen more gorgeous scenery. The drive to the park was awe inspiring, impressive, and I felt like a kid that was told she would get a free ice cream and received seven. I knew it was going to be good, but it was so much more. Patagonia does not disappoint.



(mountain!)


(These photos are nothing. Just wait... )

It took a little longer to get our gear together than it should have (oh, there goes that word again). And it took a little longer still to actually set a pace on the trail. A guanaco (more popularly known as the llama-giraffe-deer-camel in our circle of campers) posed for us, and we took some photos of it and of the mountain. We saw this huge mountain almost the entire second half of the drive, and low-and-behold, it ended up being the very mountain that we would be hiking towards and camping next to. Everyone was so excited and elated to finally be at the park that it didn't matter how heavy our packpacks were (yes, I said packpack), even if the two smallest girls in the group had to carry the tents and one of them (ahem...) already had the largest packpack of the group, we were ready for the challenges that lay ahead and ready to become one with Patagonia. We traded gear a little ways in (an excellent trade on my part particularly, a sleeping mat for the tent).







Darkness had started to creep in when we made it to the campsite, two hours later. We walked the wrong way and had to ford a river, Oregon Trail style. And by ford I mean walk across a 2x4, and by river I mean small stream. Finding the first open camping area, we began to set up the tents. Of course, the tent I had chosen to assist in pitching was completely ridiculous. For some unknown reason, and I'm sure God doesn't even know why, the poles were supposed to be ran through the rain tarp and the tent clipped on underneath. So of course we had already detached the tarp from the tent and were attempting to raise the tent until we discovered our mistake when we found nothing for the poles to run through. By now it was significantly darker, although not completely nightfall, and reattaching the tent to the tarp proved to be near impossible, but we did it. And as the last rays of sunlight hovered over the campsite, we found ourselves threading poles through what should have been tent, but was indeed, ridiculously, tarp. It was at this moment that the wind picked up. And by picked up, I mean increased approximately ten fold. We couldn't stake the corners into the ground, poles were coming undone, and we discovered another special secret to our precious tent: the holes that stakes were to be staked through were connected to the corners of the rain tarp and to each other by fabric that was not attached to either the sides of the tent or the rain tarp, so we had straps of fabric flowing free and consequently could easily get caught between the staking, threading and attaching of tent to tarp. The wind was blowing so hard now that it seemed literally impossible to pitch the thing where we had made, or were trying to make, camp. Hoisting the tent from its failed location, we transported it to a more secluded place where the wind would not be such a factor. However, in complete darkness, and with a previously unidentified, serious lack of flashlights, it didn't seem possible to construct a secure, functioning shelter in the given conditions.

And this is where our angel of Las Torres made her way into our story. She spoke miracle words that ears were not capable of comprehending; one can only understand the language of miracle words by recognizing that the being who speaks them is other-worldly and brings gifts of unimaginable convenience. "We have six free tents already set up that you can use for tonight." ...You don't believe it. That's okay. It happened. When word got round to all of us, the ruins of tents were scooped up and discarded into one of the six (!) extra (!) tents, which we affectionately called the "supply tent." Food went into another, becoming the "kitchen," and the six of us split into groups of two to complete a 4 "bedroom" "house," complete with garage/shed/supply area, what have you... Dinner was a feast of hotdogs and pancito (bread), followed by a hearty helping of Pisco, the hard liquor of choice for Chileans and Peruvians alike (but don't discuss the matter of its origin with either party, for the rivalry between Peru and Chile over the proper ancestry of the drink is more dangerous than that between the Capulets and the Montegues, Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier, Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump, UT and A&M, Biggie and TuPac...). Everyone slept beautifully and sound in the magical, mysterious, miracle tents in preparation for a full, eventful and equally unimaginable day the next morning.


And here is where I pause. Be sure to catch the next episode, where our group reunites with the stragglers and conquers the Towers, Don Quixote style. Don't miss the action, the suspense, the photographs...tomorrow, same time, same place.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

A Thought on Thinking

Yesterday was my second anniversary of being in Santiago for a week. I didn't do anything special for it, unless you count napping for 3 hours. I only intended to nap for 40 minutes, 30 because that is supposed to be the golden amount of time one needs in order to feel refreshed without feeling drowsy, and 10 just in case it took me a little longer than expected to fall asleep. Indeed, it did not. I woke up to my alarm 40 minutes later and decided, really without my own knowing it because I'm pretty sure that the state I was in could still qualify as being asleep, that I needed 30 more minutes. Since I was starting from sleep, the extra 10 would have been unnecessary this time. And I can only assume reason told me that 30 was not sufficient either because when I awoke two hours later, someone had turned my alarm off completely.

I did, however, go to Santa Lucia again. After class we ended up passing by it and although it was a smoggy day and you couldn't see the mountains from street level, which meant you couldn't see them much better from Santa Lucia level, it was breezy and the sun was somewhere between its highest point and sunset. The stairs and inclined switchbacks seemed much more difficult this time than that day my host dad took me up, but once we reached the top it was all worth it. The breeze felt better than I had imagined it would, and although the mountains were not clearly visible, it was still a view in its own right. When you can see all the mountains all the time you come to have expectations of them, but when you throw in an opacifier like smog, you realize that to see the Andes is not a right, and you will be more appreciative of a clear view on the next smog-less or fog-less day.

Santa Lucia is a perfect place for thinking, except for the fact that the very top, the reason you come to Santa Lucia, is an area with a radius of 4 to 5 feet. It gets a little crowded, and when one is thinking, one needs a little more personal space than normal. Sometimes you can fudge that personal space by escaping into your own head, like on the metro or in a classroom. But when you go to a specific location, because of its location, you simply can't go into mind exile because that would negate the very stimuli you walked up so many stairs to get to. The trick is to prethink what you want to ponder and get a jump start on the process of meditation and contemplation; don't waste your time. You skip right to the good part, the meat of your musing, and before you can become annoyed with the dozens of lovesick couples and loud tourists, you have wrapped up your rumination and can be on your way.



I've said this before, and I'll probably say it again: it feels like I've been here for more than two weeks. I'm not sure what that means yet, whether its a comfort level or a very good fit or that this is actually a very long, realistic dream, but 5 months feels like years away. I know its not. I know that once classes really start and my Spanish picks up, time is going to fly. I am very lucky to be here and I want to take in as much as I can because there is so much to see and experience. Ok, well I think that's probablyenough for today. :) Chao todos.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

And I STILL Haven't Started Classes Yet

Busy, busy week! Ok, so here's the update.


Tuesday

Had orientation at the University of Chile. Really long and really boring. I'm surprised more people didn't fall asleep. But when it was over a dance group performed for us. It was really interesting, and then they had doughnuts. After everyone napped we all met up again at a bar in Provedencia; we had it all to ourselves. We had taken a bus to the area but we still had to walk some blocks and we ended up being accompanied by two stray dogs. I don't know what it is about our group but dogs always feel the need to join our pack. It has happened like 4 times. They cross streets with us and once, when another group of people passed us at a cross walk, the dogs stopped and watched the other people to make sure they kept walking away.



Wednesday

We had a campus tour, so Lee and Ansel and I walked there, but we had trouble finding the place and missed the first few minutes of the tour. There was so much graffiti everywhere, but most of it was really interesting. After the tour some of us went for lunch at a Pizza Hut. Ana and Ansel brought their lunch, so they ate that while Ben and I had pizza. I went over with Ana to her place, which is on the same street, but about 20 minutes away. We watched the last bit of Spanglish, Ana fell asleep and then we took the metro to my place to go swimming. I forgot that the pool wasn't clean so we just sat by the steps with our feet in. Ansel came over and we hung out for another hour or so. Ana taught us some ridiculous yoga poses and then I walked them back to the metro station. Slow night; we had dinner and watched Eastern Promises.


Thursday

This was one of those days where one thing after another just kept going wrong. I woke up late, had to take a cold shower, and I couldn't find the building I needed to be in. I knew the address, but there were multiple buildings when I walked through the entrance gate. I asked someone which building, but when I get up to the 17th floor, the office I needed wasn't there. And the elevator I used only opened at every third floor, but it didn't even open on all the floors it was supposed to work on. So I went back outside to call the office but I didn't have any minutes on my phone. I tried to text Ana, but I hadn't used text yet and it was a lot more complicated to navigate in Spanish. I went to another building and finally found the office, but by that time I was so frustrated with myself...I think it was just a culmination of things. I was also upset because I had had a hard time asking for directions. So I had my meeting and Ana and I began to leave the building. As hard as I tried I couldn't get over this frustration though and I started crying when we got into the elevator. A lot of the people on this trip speak Spanish much better than I do. I just felt that I was behind. Some of them speak it in their house and others grew up around the language, but it was still enough to upset me. I calmed down enough on the metro back, but once I got through the door the tears started pouring. My host mom asked me what was wrong and I talked to her for a little while. We decided that I need to be practicing my Spanish more at home and that she would speak less English to me.

I needed to look at classes for a little while since this coming week I have to start signing up for them. We had planned on meeting up at the plaza around 730, so I left at 7. I hadn't walked there from my house before, only from Ana's, but it was easy and a nice walk at that. Ansel called me when I was about 5 minutes from his place to tell me that we pushed the time back to 830. I needed to put more minutes on my phone and take out some more cash, so I headed to the Lider (grocery) nearby. By the time I got to Ansel's it was 815. I sat down with him and his mom at the kitchen table and they asked me how my day had been. Before I knew it there were tears again, which only upset me more because I was so embarrassed to be crying in front of people I had only known for a week.

Anyway, fast forward. We met Ana in the park and then waited for the others to show up so we could go to the sushi place. The sushi was awesome. We ordered a huge platter and shared it between 8 people. I had never had sashimi before and I loved it. Freaking loved it. We all met up with another friend at his place and headed together to a big party for all the international students. It was crazy. There were multiple djs and probably thousands of people. We danced for hours. Didn't really meet any of the other international students though. We came as such a big group so there were already plenty of people to hang out with.


Friday

Woke up early because I had to go apply for some visa identification card. Waited in line for about an hour. They took my photo, fingerprinted me, etc... Napped when I got home. Apparently everyone else that I talked to did as well. We had our last orientation at Universidad de Diego Portales today (we are able to take classes from 3 universities here in Santiago, that's why we've had so many orientations) so I met up with the group, but half of our people were missing. They all showed up after the orientation started though. There were fabulous snacks afterwards however. Empanadas, cake, juice, coke... I love when they feed us. Then I asked Ana if she wanted to go shopping a little, so we talked to our friend Alex who has visited Chile 4 times now and knows his way around pretty well. Then a few others tagged along and half the group ended up joining our excursion. The shopping area had streets of cheap stores and after an hour we were tired and decided to call it quits. I wasn't home for long when I showered and headed back out again. I called a radiotaxi and picked Ana up on the way to Plaza Nunoa. We picked up some beer and wine and had a little chill, music session at Ansel's. Lots of jazz and r&b, some 90's too. Then we saw the moon set over the mountains. I had been watching it move down the sky all night and we all took in the view until it was only a small glow behind the andes.


There are some really interesting individuals in our group. I have to remind myself that I haven't even been here two weeks because it feels like some of us know each other so well already. Its odd to get to know so many people this well all at one time. First semester of Southwestern is the only thing I can compare it to. But at the same time, we are all also getting to know Santiago and Chilean culture, so I like the web that is forming right now I guess.

I've been mostly just giving quick how-my-day went catch ups. I think its because I've been so busy I don't really get into what I think about this trip. This is going to change. One, because classes are starting and we'll have a little less time on our hands; my days won't be so all over the place. Two, I'm getting tired of just stating the facts; I think you might be too. Three, I haven't done an online journal in years so I had to get a feeling for it again. Ok, so with that said, I have one more day to catch you guys up on and then I'll post some photos of my house.


Saturday

Woke up late this morning, according to our plans. According to Chile, I was on time. We were supposed to meet at a certain metro at 10. I left at 9:50. I threw in my backpack my swimsuit and an extra change of clothes, sunglasses, my camera, and my wallet. I hailed a cab to my metro, which I usually walk to, and hauled butt to meet everyone else, who was already there and waiting. We bought tickets for a bus to Vina del Mar and I bought an empanada for the ride. Today was beach day.

I read a little from Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It. I found it in the Dallas at the Half Price Bookstore while looking for a travel memoir about Chile. It wasn't about Chile, but it sounded entertaining. And entertaining it is. It was a gorgeous view, driving down the mountain sides into Vina. I didn't take any photos. I wanted to just experience it first. I figured it wouldn't be the last time we went to the beach there, so I could snap some shots another time.

Walked a ways till we got near the beach and had lunch. A bunch of Americans eating lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Chile. The beach itself was really windy, which was nice because it was so hot, but the water was soooo cold. We set up towels and I believe only about 4 of us (group of 8) got in the water. I only ran in twice. The first time knocked me over, the waves were so strong. I really wasn't anticipating such intense power. Apparently there are better beaches farther north, but we were happy where we ended up. Another time maybe we'll check them out because one must take more public transportation to get to them. It was nice to get away from the city for a day though. And it was a perfect day to do so because it was so hot.

After catching buses home (some of us missed our bus and had to get on the next one 10 minutes later) we all showered and headed to a friend of someones host brother for a BBQ. Ana and I took a taxi to the corner nearest the party and saw some friends on the other side of the street. And I guess another part of our group had just been dropped off as well because they walked right into us from around the street corner. It was the last weekend in town for Diego's (the host brother) before he left for school so they smoked sausages, chicken and steak while everyone danced to Latin music. Meringue, salsa and other dances whose names I keep forgetting. After a day in the sun, stomachs full of food and dancing for hours, I almost fell asleep in the cab back to my house.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Navigating the City

P.S. (Pre Script) I added to last time's post. There is now a Sunday update.


Bueno. I got up on time, got ready, made breakfast and instant coffee and left for the metro. I figured that if must have taken Arturo and me 45 minutes to get to the school yesterday, so I should leave at 8:15 if I wanted to be there at 8:45. I left at 8:25. I got there at 9:10. But I ran into two fellow IFSA-ers headed the wrong way, so maybe I was supposed to be late so I could catch them and show them the way. Or perhaps divine power sent them the wrong way so that I wouldn't show up late by myself. Either way, the meeting didn't even start until almost 9:30. I love Chilean time. Oh, and I followed a dog almost the whole way to the metro. I swear the dogs here know street crossing safety rules. And there are soooo many of them. Connor, if we lived in Santiago instead of Duncanville, we would come home with like, multiple dogs a day.

We discussed some of the courses and class adding procedure in the orientation at Universidad Catolica and then had snack. There were lots of other schools from the US and other programs also. When we returned they had set the room up into different sections of classes, like education, math, science, philosophy....etc. and we were supposed to go ask current students questions about possible classes and such. I was following along with the answers to my questions pretty well, until I realized that I was following along so well, at which point I so impressed myself with my own ability to keep up with the student's fast spanish that I distracted myself, and my ability to translate stumbled, crashed and burned. So I pretended that I had got all I wanted from her and found other people from my group that were done as well.

And and I needed money and went on our way to find a bank that would exchange travel checks. So we walked for a while until we came to a bank and went in. They told us that we couldn't do that at this specific bank and pointed us in the direction of somewhere else. We walked in that direction for a while until we saw a street with like 4 banks. We picked one and entered. Couldn't do it there either, however. Wrong bank. Down the street was the place that we figured was bound to be the bank that we kept getting closer and closer to. It was not, and we were redirected once again. So we followed the street a little more until it came to a plaza with like, 6 banks. No joke. Picked one that looked good and tried to exchange. Finally found the place that would exchange them, but said we had to have our passports on us, which we obviously didn't. Ticked off and getting hot, we decided to just go have lunch somewhere and figure out our next plan of action.

We went back to the metro in the direction of Ana's to get swim suits, and then we walked for about 20 minutes to Ansel and Lee's apartment building. Water was ice cold. So there wasn't much swimming. But we hung around the pool for a while anyway. We decided that one really slows oneself down when in Chile. Walking everywhere, being late for things, eating for hours at a time. It is a very enjoyable lifestyle. Instead of getting a taxi to their apartment building, we had a really great walk. We passed parks, ate watermelon and had various metaphysical discussions. People really should walk more.

We left their building a few hours later to make it back to Ana's before sunset. After so long outside in the sun and walking so far, we were starving. Her host mom served us each spaghetti that was fabulous and could probably have fed at least two people. But I almost finished it. We planned on showering and hanging out with some people, but I fell asleep while Ana was getting ready and then she decided that she was tired too. So I called a radio taxi and got home around 11. Pretty much it. I have to be at the school at 8 tomorrow so its bed time.

<3

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Orientation Week

Today is my second day with my host family. We spent Wednesday through Saturday morning at the hotel.


Thursday:

We woke up for breakfast and then took a placement test for the spanish class we will be in. Not fun. Then we all took turns doing oral interviews with ladies from Butler, I think. Maybe they were from the University... I fell asleep in the hallway while everyone else was taking their turn because I was last. Another meeting after the interviews - safety. Then we had lunch in the hotel again and were sent out to do an orientation exercise to get us familiar with the city. In groups of 2 or 3 we were sent out with a specific question about the city to answer. Ana and I had an address that were had to visit and tell what was there. It was the library and the tourist office. We finished our question in like 15 minutes so we had some hours to kill just seeing more of the city. We found a little bar/restaurant that looked nice and shaded so we just hung out there for a while. Two more guys from our group showed up and then we looked around at some bookstores and jewelry shops that were in the vicinity. We ran into a few other groups while we were out and we were all trying to speak only in Spanish. It didn't last long with Ana and me. The Phone Box Cafe was the name of the place we were at, and the patio had a really awesome terrace with grape vines and even a bunch of grapes. We just sat and people watched.


We presented what we found once we returned to the hotel and then we all got ready for dinner with our host families. Margarita y Arturo picked me up at 8 and we drove to their house, about 10 minutes away. Really nice place. They have a pool and a really nice garden, a dog (bassett hound) and my room here is bigger than my room at home. I was so nervous at first... I wasn't even understanding basic spanish. And Chileans speak so fast, so many words just trail off or the end sounds are non existant. But they speak really decent english so when I was just drawing blanks they spoke to me in english. I brought a set of dominos with texas and the state flag on them so after dinner we played a little. I had to be back at midnight, so we left around 1150. Most people got back at the same time and so we decided that we wanted to go out again.

Set out for an Irish Pub, but when we got there at 130, the owner said that they were closing. But he asked if we were familiar with a certain sushi bar. Obviously, we were not. So he walked us there. It was like 5 minutes away and he walked us all the way to the door. Very cool. People in the US don't do that. There were not many people in the bar and we found a lounge where we could all sit comfortably. Our group was a little smaller than the night before, so it was easier for the six of us to hold a single conversation, whereas Wed night there were like 3 or 4 going on at one time. We took the bus back to the hotel around 3 or 330 and decided we weren't ready for bed. So we all went swimming. :)






Friday:

Breakfast was supposed to be at 9, with our first meeting of the day at 930. Ana and I got a wake up call at 935. And so began a very long day of orientation meetings... We had like four of them, almost in a row. There were coffee breaks and a lunch between some of them, but it was still really boring.

After they were all done, around 3, we had some free time before our last . Ana went to buy a cell and I tried to organize what had become a mountain of clothes in my suitcase, since we were leaving in the morning. Then Ana napped while I blogged a little bit and afterwards we swam in the pool for 30 minutes or so.

I had a meeting with one of the IFSA directors out in the garden about what classes I wanted to take. While we were doing out meeting the hotel people were setting up for a wedding. And since there was to be a ceremony and reception, we all went out for dinner instead of eating at the hotel. We ate at a place called Dona Tina. Classy. I'm so impressed with the formality of meals here. At the hotel, the restaurant and at the host house the meal always begins with an appetizer, then the meal comes, and we always have dessert.

When we returned to the hotel Manquehue, we asked the receptionist where a good place to go dancing was. So we called cabs and went to Las Urracas.
1. It was expensive. Ladies were free but it cost 13 for guys. Oh, but they got one "free" drink....
2. It was old. There were men that were balding. Balding!
3. It was crowded. There was almost no room at all to do any dancing. There was a room with techno that was near empty, so we sucked it up and tried to make the best of it. I mean, there were 13 of us; we were a club in ourselves.

Once we had enough techno, some of us went across the street to a bar, just to sit down and be able to hear one another. There were some Chileans near us and before long our groups had merged. It was really great to be able to hold conversations. Many of them knew a little english so they could correct us when we didn't know a phrase or a difficult word, but we were all getting along pretty well, spanish-wise. Back at the hotel, the wedding party was just leaving so we crashed it for a few minutes, but most people had already left and it wasn't very impressive.


Saturday:

Woke up late. Again. Ana swears that she set our alarm before we even went out the night before, but we got that wake up call again... and STILL had to finish packing all our stuff up. One more meeting and then we all waited for host families to arrive. When I got to my host house, I unpacked, had lunch, showered and played with Martina, my host...niece? Anyway, then I tried to skype, but fell asleep. Five hour long power nap. Much needed. When I woke up it was dinner time and I successfully talked with family (but had just missed Connor), Spenser and Ana. We decided to hang out at the neighborhood plaza, so I took a RadioTaxi to her place and we met up with some other people who lived nearby. Some of them had host brothers that were our age and we got to practicing our spanish again. Then we moved inside to somewhere else to eat since it was getting cold outside. I forget what its called, but we had this entire plate of french fries, covered in sausage and beef, topped with two eggs. Soooo good. Then we all went our separate ways, but when my Taxi driver dropped me off, he drove to my street, but at the wrong side, since it was a one-way. So I had to walk like, half a block to my house, but I realized that at night I might not recognize it. I knew the address so I just looked at the house numbers. But then the numbers passed the one I needed and I freaked for like, 2 seconds and realized my house was on the other side of the street. Felt pretty dumb. But there were no meetings the next morning, so I could FINALLY sleep as long as I wanted to.


Sunday:

Slept as long as I wanted to, which was about 12:15. Respectable, yes mother? So I woke up, really needed to shower... which was unsuccessful once again. I thought I had the temperature right when it started to get reall really freaking hot. So I turned the cold water more, and yes, I'm sure it was the cold water, but it didn't do anything. So I turned it more and more and more until it finally started to get less scalding. But then it got cold. Anyway, unsuccessful.

I blogged for a little while and Martina, the baby in the house (2), played with balloons and colored. I took longer to blog because I played with her a bit. She finds my juggling abilities very impressive. I feel like many would not.

Lunch was at 2:30 and we planned on going to around 4 or 4:30. We left around 5:20. Arturo wanted to take me to the metro and show me the subway system that I would need to take for my meeting on Monday with the program people. It wasn't too hard and after we got to the University, we kept walking and he showed me Santa Lucia, some kind of old fort from .... a long time ago. Arturo climbed almost to the top and I went the rest of the way up to take some photos. We walked around a little with some cokes and decided we had had almost enough exercise for the day. To make sure I could find my way back, he made me lead. We got home safely and had once (on-seh. spanish for eleven), which is like tea time. We had once at eight. Some of Arturo's sisters were vistiting so we all had a cute chat.




Pretty uneventful rest of the night. We watched a secrets of magic show, had a dinner of left-overs and I skyped a little before bed.