some Photos

here are some photos...

el ascensor

un gato

sunset

(one of) my schools!

"seawolf"

Address

My address for this semester is:


Roxy Pierson

c/o SIT Study Abroad

Bellavista #1263, Recreo

Casilla Postal 8009, Viña 2 

Viña del Mar 

Chile

I'm not sure if this means that it will go to a PO box or the street address because I was kinda tuned out when Danko explained it but this is what they put in our handbook.  Cards/packages would be super fun to get and I'll try to write some post cards too!

Valpo and Vina

Just thought I'd let you know how things are going...  Orientation is fun so far but VERY thorough, I think we're all kinda wishing that we could be a little more independent and start a "normal" schedule.  Still I guess it's good to help us out and create a support network.  We've been staying in Vina del Mar at a neat little hotel pretty close to the downtown area.  Yesterday we went into Valparaiso for the first time and we took a boat tour through the harbor which was an awesome way to orient ourselves to the two cities.  

Valpo and Vina are much closer together than I thought they would be the dividing line is relatively ambiguous and la Casa SIT is right on the 'border' between the two which will be nice.  While I haven't met my host family yet I got the address and it looks like I'm living about 4 blocks from the beach in Vina, pretty close to where we've been spending our time during orientation.  It's a little disappointing not to be in Valpo, especially now that we've seen Valpo because Vina is definitely more modern and not anywhere near as pretty, but getting back and forth seems like it will be easy enough and they split the group pretty evenly between the two cities so it's not like I'm alone.

Today we had a drop off which was basically an assignment where we had to go and learn about a place, a food and a couple chilean words that they gave us.  We were split up into groups of two and I got to go with Laura (who is also my roommate for this first weeks which was fun).

We found the place really easily it was the Ascensor El Peral which is actually a funicular like the ones in Barcelona, only older. We got to ride it up to the top for 100 pesos which is about 20 cents which is really great because we got to feel totally touristy for almost no money.  Valpo is known for its Acensores (there are 15, but only 8 are currently in operation) and it's neat because they are definitely used for transportation as well as tourism. Some have been in operation since the beginning of the century and they still use basically the same technology although they run on electricity instead of being powered by animals. Valpo/Vina del Mar has a really good public transportation system and I'm excited to get more familiar with it. 

Chile? Chile!!

I made it to Chile!!! The flight went great, I love flying when there aren't any problems.  A ton of people were wearing masks in the Atlanta airport which was a bit surreal to see though.  Also, there was this one guy on my flight who was super ridiculous he was the most obnoxious OCDer I've seen in a while.  As I'm waiting to get to my seat someone goes to put a bag in the overhead and he's all... WATCH THE COAT MAN and I'm like seriously it's not even that cool and who do you think you are some posh dresser hello, you're flying coach buddy. He proceeded to drink lots of red wine and stay up really late laughing loudly at the movie 17 Again (definitely a super cool gentleman).

Anyways so now I'm in Chile, I met up with the group first thing this morning off of my redeye flight into Santiago, soooo tired. We drove from Santiago to Vina del Mar and the rest of the day was a mixture of trying to meet everyone, wandering around, and sleeping. The city is great but totally overwhelming. I'm hoping that after we finish orientation and settle into our homestays I'll start to feel a bit more confident about the whole living in a city thing, until then I get to feel like a fish out of water with a bunch of city folk for classmates. Good news though, my spanish isn't as bad as I previously thought and I might actually get better, also there are a couple of other people who have expressed interest in going SKIING!!!! not that that is what I'm here for but I figure when else will I get the chance to go skiing in August (ok so maybe it's possible in Colorado but I've never don it...) It's dinner time now and I'm still not sure how I feel about this whole blog thing so that's all for now, maybe next time I'll post pictures?!