si po

It´s amazing how quickly time is flying by... I keep putting off blogging because I think "oh, I just updated the other day..." Well, that was a week ago.

Here´s a brief update on what we´ve been doing since I last wrote:
We ended up putting off the trip to Santiago for this coming weekend so that another friend would be able to join us, and instead Molly and I took advantage of the weekend to carretear. Thursday night we tried for the second time to go to El Huevo, the biggest discoteque and most well known, but Molly forgot her ID and they wouldn´t let us in. Why you need an ID i´m still not sure, since the age thing really isn´t so much an issue here. Anyhow, we made friends with some people on the bus and ended up going out to get drinks and dance in some smaller establishments with them. Friday I met up with Jorge, a new friend from Mexico who I met in my Italian class, and we bought some food and he came to my house to cook delicious mexican food for my host mom and me. It was fantastic, and I´m pretty sure we´re going to make a regular habit out of cooking together -- i mean, him making me Mexican food.
I had heard that there was going to be some kind of free concert put on by our university, and since we didn´t have any plans until way later that night, Molly and I mozied on over to the open-air ampitheatre where the concert was to take place, stopping for a brief while to watch a band of break dancers practicing and teaching each other new moves in the main plaza. We wandered around and randomly picked a seat, which happened to be just in front of a guy I had met my first week of classes at the University. He speaks english really well and had helped me figure out where the heck I was supposed to be. So, fate brought us together again and we enjoyed absolutely amazing music and comfortable, friendly conversation. I am so glad we went to this concert -- it was amazing. A symphony from a university in Germany had come for a week to exchange music with the music students here at La Catolica. In this concert both the german and chilean symphonies played together, filling the starry night with such music that i felt it must have been coming up from the furthest depths of the earth rather than from human bodies. After this group performed, they had a quick break and then the PUCV jazz band took over, playing jazzed-up classic chilean ballads, which the audience responded to enthusiastically, often bursting out singing the chorus.
The concert ended, leaving just enough time to walk home, eat dinner, and change clothes to go out with our friends David and Benjamin. It is common practice for universities to throw parties for its students in a club or discoteque, and Benjamin´s university was doing just that at a discoteque literally just 2 blocks from where Molly and i live. So, we got in free and danced the night away. I feel like it was a big break through for Molly and I both to be able to really appreciate "going out" in all its glory. I think it was mostly because we went with friends -- I don´t know what we would do without David. He tells us the good places to go, dances with us in a completely non-sketchy way, and kept an eye on us when people we didn´t know tried to dance with us -- like a protective brother. When we finally left around 4am he and Benjamin walked us each home.
Saturday we slept in, mozied around Valpo a bit, and spent the evening being lazy.
Sunday was the ultimate in lazy days -- I got up for church, but afterwards I got directly back in my pajamas and stayed in bed for almost the entire rest of the day -- including when Molly came over to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas on my laptop and later when my host mom served us dinner in bed on trays, including brownies.

So, that was the weekend. This week is Semana Novata, which is kind of like a welcome week for freshmen. All classes after 2:00 are cancelled (and aparently several before that time, too) every day this week, and there are live music performances, parties, movies, exhibits, and so forth going on at all hours all week. Yesterday I came out of the main building to find a funk band performing on a stage set up in the middle of the street. Most of the international students are gone traveling this week, which means we only have each other and our chilean friends to hang out with -- which is great. Today Molly and i are going to an asado (bar-b-q) at a friend´s apartment, and Friday we´re finally going to Santiago to visit friends there, see the city a little bit, and then spend the day Saturday in Fantasilandia.

I fully intended for the what i´ve been up to part to be much shorter, and to spend more time on descriptions and less concrete things, but it´s alredy time for me to go to class again. Or, try to go to class, that is. I have a sneaking suspicion that this class might not actually happen -- like the other one I tried to go to this morning.

Oh, latin america.

Also, I´m serious about the comments. If you are reading these words right now, then you should comment. Just say "hi" or something, just so I know I´m not only writing for my mom (not that I wouldn´t still write even if it were just for my mom).

Chau chau!