first week of class and other adventures

We finally started classes last Monday, not that I am complaining about the time off from school. As of right now I only have classes Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and sometime in the next month I will start an internship on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So far classes seem good though its hard to tell since we've only had each class about twice. Also during this first week of school I witnessed the most interesting tradition I've seen since I've been here: the hazing of ALL of the freshmen students. The first week of school the upperclassmen gather all of the freshmen and cover them in food and other gross stuff and take their shoes and bags. The freshmen then have to walk around begging for money to buy back all of their things and the money goes towards throwing a carrete (party). I guess the end result is fun but its a shock to see all these students at first and I definitely don't think I would want to be part of that tradition!

Over the weekend my host family and I took a day trip to Pomaire and San Antonio. We ate a huge lunch and did a bit of shopping in Pomaire before heading to the port city of San Antonio where we saw tons of pelicans and lobos marinos (sea lions)!! On the drive home I noticed snow on the Andes! Unfortunately I couldn't get a good picture from the car.



A few friends and I spent a lazy Sunday afternoon wandering around Santiago and relaxing in a park. A popular pastime in parks here is to string flat ropes between trees and tight-rope walk across them. The more experienced walkers can jump and do tricks. Esteban (a new chilean friend) and I tried it out and it's much harder than it looks!


We ended the day on the rooftop of an apartment watching the sun go down behind the mountains! It was absolutely beautiful!