Dia 7, 4 de Marzo del 2008

Well yesterday and today were so eventful I really didn’t get a chance to post it here. I was able to send e-mails to the family and talk online, Sarah and I tried to talk today and I could hear her but she couldn’t hear me.
Anyway, Monday was my orientation with 1/3 of all the other foreign exchange students. I decided to go into the center of the city early just to explore a little and I wanted to add time in case I had trouble navigating the metro. I went in then went to Cerro San Lucia, a hill in the middle of the city with hidden paths, gardens, and steps cut right into the rock face. At the top is a beautiful view of the City, not quite as spectacular as the view from Cerro San Cristobal but it was still lovely.
After wandering aimlessly for a while (and having to catch my breath once or twice after some excited exploring) I decided to head to the Casa Central, where the orientation was. I was the first person there as it was still about 50 minutes until the orientation began but I couldn’t think of anything else to do where I would be back intime/wouldn’t get lost in the city.
As others arrived we said preliminary “holas” and the first 9 of us were all from different countries, Ireland, Germany, England, Australia, Iceland, Brazil, Sweden, Canada, and I represented the good ol’ USA. After the preliminary “de donde eres” y etc it was quite awkward although there were a couple of nice people I hope to see again, one guy even gave me his old Spanish/English dictionary cause I had left mine. However, on a campus of 18,000 it might be hard to find people. I just really hope to find a group soon because being the only foreigner/student in these 5 blocks is kinda lonely.
Today, since I had nothing else to do I went to the San Juaquin Campus to check out where I’d be studying. I brought my laptop in hopes of accessing the wifi network but unfortunately apparently it takes 24-48 hours after registration for the computer to receive wifi on campus. That means there is hope for tomorrow at least. Additionally, I also had fun trying to figure out the South American keyboard, particularly how to make the @ symbol, something with “alt” and “Q” was what I figured out.
I also went by a mall about 2 metro stops from the campus cause I was told there would be a casa de cambias (where I could exchange $ for pesos) there. Santiago is EXPENSIVE! I had heard that but I didn’t realize that basics such as shampoo, batteries, and clothes would be twice the price as at home. Food, Metro, and Internet seem to be the cheapest things here, which is good cause I need all three =). There were some interesting things to check out but I only bought sunscreen and bodywash cuase that’s what I needed, I’ll look for sales on summer stuff later when its cheap here but I can use it back home. At least that’s the plan.
I hopefully will have a cell phone tomorrow and even though it’s the first day of classes, none of the classes I hope to take meet on Wednesday. I’ll still go in for a tour of the campus and to see if there’s a job as an English tutor I can take up on Wednesdays to maybe make a little dinero for excursions on the weekends since I cant find any appealing class that meets on Mondays…