My new name is Shakira

Hola Todos!

First of all, I am so sorry that I have been such a bad blogger and haven't updated this in so long! This has been a crazy past two weeks trying to start school here. Before I came I had heard that the education system works a lot differently, and they're weren't lying! I didn't even get a list of classes offered at the Universidad de Chile until three days before they started. Crazy! And now I am in the process of attending classes that I THINK I may want to take, and next week I have to actually go and register for sure. What no one told us, though, was that half of the classes we have all been going to are full! As of now, though, I have four classes including a Literature class about Chilean narratives, a Psychology class (community psychology), a class about Indiginous America, and then a Chilean culture class. They are all extremely hard just because of the fact that they're in Spanish, but so far I have great professors who will hopefully be patient with me!

Anyway, I just realized that I haven't even updated about my trip up north to La Serena! It ended up being relaxing and really fun. The bus ride wasn't bad (even though on the way back I was about 3cm away from the bathroom...) and we stayed in the cutest, coolest hostel! It had a room with a TV and a computer, and a bar up on the roof with music and couches. I had never stayed in a hostel before, but for $12 a night it was perfect. We ended up meeting people from all over the world- on the Saturday we were there we went out to an area called Barrio Ingles with a girl from Switzerland and her brother, a guy from Germany, and a really nice guy named Ben from London. The only mistake of that night was that we got convinced to enter a discotec, which ended up being an UNDERAGE club with half-naked 17 year old boys dancing on stage with their shirts off! Let's just say we got out of there pretty fast. Even though the beach was a little chilly, it was the perfect trip right before classes started!
(on the beach with Ben)

(Our hostel, Aji Verde)

Last Saturday was also a really tiring but fun day. My program, CIEE, set up me and the other people from the program in groups with "cultural embassadors", which are just students from the university who volunteer to kind of be our mentors while we're here and show us around, etc. On Saturday, my cultural embassador Carlos took me and my group up a huge hill/mountain in Santiago called Cerro San Cristóbal. After a long and hot hike to the top (for some reason my group elected to hike instead of take a trolley) we took a gondola from one side to the other. It was beautiful! And at the very top there is a huge statue of the Virgin Mary that overlooks the entire city- and there were rows and rows of benches, so I'm pretty sure they have mass up there. Unbelievable!(At the top of the Cerro!)

(The statue of the Virgen at the top)

Lately, to ease the stress of school of course, I have been going out a lot on the weekends. Last weekend my friends came with me to where my host dad works to wactch his show! It was a blast, and even my guy friends who went had a great time. This past Thursday night, we all went to this cool discotec called El Tunel where every night they have different music. When we were there is happened to be a kind of electronic/american music night, and I knew it was going to be a fun night when I heard a techno remix of an old Madonna song! The title of this entry actually pertains to something that happened at this place. I was dancing with a chilean who was actually very nice, when he stopeed and told me that I danced like Shakira! Even though this is SO FAR from the truth, it was definitely one of the all-time best compliments I've ever gotten. Although I successfully spilled a full, expensive drink everwhere before even taking a sip, it ended up being a great night. And last night (Friday) my friends and I decided to integrate a bit more into the Chilean culture by going to a warehouse-type bar deep in the middle of the city called Las Tejas. There is a drink here in Chile called a Terrimoto, which quite appropriately translates to "earthquake". In this drink there is beer, a special wine called "fermento", and this weird piña ice cream that you mix in, among a couple other things I think. I don't know what it is about this combination, but literally after ONE (even for the guys), you are absolutely drunk! We all found this out the hard way! Anyway, this bar is famous for it's terrimotos, so we went out and had a couple. After that, we made our way to a techno/electronic discotec called Piso 33. Even though it was tiring and sweaty to dance to techno for three hours, it was so much fun! We'll see if I make it out again tonight for the third night in a row... ah!

(After having our first terrimotos!)

I recently had a quite a humbling experience regarding my spanish. I was waiting for my friends in the metro station, when a middle-aged chilean man approached me and asked me "Que hora es?" which means "what time is it?" For some reason, all I heard was "hora", which I thought was "hola", so I looked right at him and smiled and just said "Hola!". He did not smile back, and said "NO, que HORA es?" Eventully I told him, and we started talking. I told him I was going to school here, when he just stopped, and with all sincerity he said (in spanish), "But all the classes there are in spanish... how will you do that?", sounding genuinely concerned. I was like, um excuse me but I speak spanish!

In other exciting news, Tommy just bought his ticket to come visit me! He will be here from the 10th-21st of April. I am already planning everything I want show him, and I think Vivi and Sergio are as excited as I am. Since there are very good deals on airline tickets around South America right now, we are thinking about taking a little trip to Buenos Aires when he's here. We'll see!

Well I have to go to a museum today for a class, so I best get going! Hope everything is going well in the US... I miss everyone so so much!

Ciao,

Laura