Let me start by saying: 4 day weekends are LONG! It will actually be great to go to class tomorrow!After Eric's birthday party on Friday which was so much fun, we woke up early on Saturday and headed on a half group trip to Pomaire with our program. Pomaire is a small little village in the countryside about 1 hour southwest of Santiago closer to the coast. It is a big tourist town, known for it artesian clay work; basically the whole town is centered around clay and clay selling clay products. It's a place that many people vacationing to Chile often visit so I was really excited to get to see it, especially since it was very empty of tourists since many people have been afraid to go there since the earthquake, thinking that it was far more damaged than it was. Since it was basically leveled entirely as town in an earthquake in the 1980s (if I remember correctly), all of the structures had been recently rebuilt and withstood this quake fine, regardless of it's proximity to the quake. Lets face it, our program would not have taken us to an unsafe town by any means. The lack of tourists was great for us though!
We had a really awesome day led by a family who fed us both breakfast and lunch in their incredible home in the hills above the city. In the morning, we split up into two groups and went first to a place where we learned a little bit about clay and then got to play with it ourselves making smaller figures such as piggy banks, turtles, and anything we wanted. After that, we went on to a bigger scale location where they showed us how they actually make the clay that is used from the extracted earth of a nearby mountain and then we got to make pots on the spinning wheel (way harder than it looks!). After lunch, we got to wander the city (which was very cheap!) and I bought several gifts before returning back to Santiago.Once we got back to town Gina, Lindsey, and I went over to Lindsey's apartment and hung out for a while before taking advantage of the $4 movies that last until March 24th. I guess the movies are this cheap right now because a lot of people are still scared of going into dark places after the earthquake, so they cheapened movie prices to try and help ease people into going into dark places again. At any rate, we saw Un Sueño Posible (The Blind Side) that night and it was very very very good!
On Sunday, we slept in a bit before going for a 75 minute run (long run number 2 of 3 that will be done before the half marathon on April 11th, we'll see about this. . .) that actually felt better than I expected it would but I am definitely sore from today. Then we had a chill afternoon of Starbucks and talking, lots of skyping, and then went to Pizza Libre (all you can eat pizza aka why I'm getting fat) and ice cream for our friend Lauren's 21st birthday which is today.
Today, I went to campus even though I didn't have class and somewhat successfully conquered the horrid photocopies of readings process (not fully since I still need to pick them up tomorrow morning) before heading to Plaza de Armas to browse the shops, have a few sketchy experiences in nearby markets we will not be returning to, and wandered Parque Forestal to the very cool comuna of Bellas Artes before returning to my homestay to watch a movie and skype a bit.
This week I will really start classes, meaning I will actually have readings to do and I will do them and I also have a meeting set up for Wednesday morning for my internship! I have a lot to figure out as far as summer and so much more and have felt a little bit off due to some news I received yesterday, but I'm really excited to actually feel like I'm in school again as well as commit myself to training as well as I can for the next 3 weeks for this half marathon!
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