Hoy!

So I'm starting out a little overly ambitious with this blog, we'll see if I can keep it up! Today was a pretty darn good day! I woke up and ran with my friend from UCSD, Gina, for 25 minutes. As short little run, but enough to make a difference. It never ceases to amaze me how much better I feel when I am running! I ventured to the supermercado close to my homestay and bought a 5 liter water bottle. WOOOHOO! Yeah, I'm actually that excited. No joke. I then ventured en micro (bus) to school for the start of ILP.

I was placed into the intermediate level group of spanish (group 1 of 3), which seems to be all stuff I've already learned but I guess serves me right for not really putting enough effort into the diagnostic test we had to take on our own in November. All in all, I think I'm glad I'm in this group because everyone is around my level and no one is far far better than me, which makes me more comfortable when I speak. It seems like it'll be great, because it forces me to speak spanish only for 4 hours a day, and the 4 hours passes without being painstakingly slow because we talk about very interesting things and my teacher is very nice. For instance, today she told us that she lived in Algeria for 11 years because she fled Pinochet. How interesting is that?! She also talked a lot about politics and characteristics of chilean culture. Super interesting!

I walked home from school afterwards because it was a nice temperature and pretty and a friend who lives near me was walking also. Tonight I have to do homework (blah), but not too much. A lot of people are going to a Discoteca tonight in Plaza Ñuñoa, but I had to opt not too because my group for registering out visa has to meet at 8:15 tomorrow morning at a place around 1 hour from my house. Eek, early! And since chilean nightlife starts cerca 1am and goes basically to dawn, I decided going out would be a bad idea. So, I'll stay in and eat with my host family, do homework, post pictures (to come on facebook of my homestay house!), and research Patagonia travels!

That's all for today, now on to interesting little quirks I'd like to share!

1. Chilean spanish has was they refer to as Chilenismos, some of which are absolutely hilarious! For instance, people use the word huevón like people in the states use the word dude. It literally means big testicles. Yeah, strange I know. But can have the connotation of dude or jerk, depending on context. Also: they say only chao and not adios, carreterear is a verb meaning to party, piscolear is a verb meaning to drink pisco, guagua is baby, and soooo much more. It's pretty funny!

2. There are so many plazas and parks! It makes running very pretty, even when in the middle of a smog filled city. The park I ran in this morning also had pretty much a free gym, with workout machines (made out of playground-ish equipment) along the exercise path.

More to come! Chao!