Diary/Diario

  March:

  Week 1 

Tuesday – 3-1

      I finally am fully matriculated to the university.  Fully accepted.  Mary and I went to see Enrique pena.  He gave us good and bad news.  Classes don’t start until next Monday was the good new of course.  The bad was he wanted us to come back tomorrow to enroll in classes.  I don’t know why, but its not a big deal as we have a week now.  Also I have more time to adjust to the language and I’d like to go back to Niebla.  The buses here are so cheap.  It costs one dollar to go to the sea and back.  My sister Carola left today for Santiago and I missed her leaving, but my aunt said she’d call sometime which will be nice.  She was the main source for practicing my Spanish, but her sisters Sol and Rocio will be here by the end of the week.  Rocio is my age exactly(24) and Sol is 16.  Neither of them really like sports such as soccer, but I’m sure we’ll go out and do things in Valdivia.  Also Rocio goes to my college and can probably help me out.  I know I’ll have to use my camera to record the classes(it has a sound record function).  Thank god I bought that thing b/c its more useful than I thought it would be.  Which reminds me, electronics are so darn expensive here.  A mini calculator costs like 10 bucks.  Insane.  I might be able to sell my computer here before I leave  but I don’t know….I kinda like it and it was cheap so I might now.   A ver……….we’ll see. 

Wednesday – 3-2

       Let’s see.  I ran in the morning to the university and around the botanical garden.  Hopefully I will be able to go there with my camera. (Jill, That tree I was talking about is a pino parana. Hopefully you have a better idea to what that is than I do cuz you know Portuguese).  I went to the university with Mary to find Enrique Pena.  He’s the guy that is supposed to enroll us into our classes.  When we got to his office he wasn’t there.  So we went into town to get our school ID’s.  We walked around trying to find the corner of france street and picarte.  We found Picarte but it was the wrong one and by the time we figured that out it was almost 5 o’clock.  We found the police station on the map on the correct street and found how far away it was from us, so we’re going to take a taxi to it tomorrow.  Or maybe aunt ligia will take me.  She seems to like to take me places as we’ve gone to the market more than 3 times together.  I hope to be enrolled at least by tomorrow and hopefully I will get my ID by Friday b/c I need it for various things on campus such as the library.  I also found out that students do not buy books.   They loan them from the library.  I’m quite relived that I don’t have to buy books. 

Thursday - 3-3

      I went to the city police station and waited for 30 minutes in line to find out that, guess what….we need more of those stupid photos.  NOTE:  if anyone is going abroad in chile to study or probably anywhere….they will need at least 10 small photos of themselves with their name and passport number.  DO THIS BEFORE YOU LEAVE SO YOU DON’T WASTE TIME DOING THAT HERE.  Yeah I’m a little steamed.  So I still don’t have an ID that I need for classes next week.  Soooo since we couldn’t do that we decided to go to the university to get our classes.   Mary got all of hers without a problem. I on the otherhand have only one class so I have to go back tomorrow and see what else I can take.  I almost think that the profesors at CMU should talk directly to the profesors here to get us signed up since they know what class counts here counts for what class we would take at CMU.  I just want to get my classes and ID so I can be ready for class next week.  Arrrrrrggggg.    

Friday – 3-4

  Well I now am talking two classes.  One is of the mapuche and huilliche culture and the other is a beginners literature class.  I just need to hear back from my advisor to get the final class set up.  I tested my camera to see how well it records...it's ok, but i think i'll need to sit up near the front to get a good recording.  Anyway, I went to the police office to get registered, but to get my valdivia ID i have to go to the university i think.  hmmmmm they love to make you run around here.  I've done as much walking as I did in Italy I think.  After gettting that done, it was such a nice day Mary and I decided to go back to niebla to take more pictures...better than than foggy dark ones I have allready put up on here.  So I took about 100 photos, but I"m only putting up about 20.  They turned out really nice, and I have to say that anyone who studies here has to go to nieble because for students it only cost 200 pesos to go there and back.  I believe that is only 35 cents.  I sure did get burned on my neck even though I put on sun tan lotion.  Its not that bad.  School starts on monday and I'm getting nervous now.  I'm understanding spanish a lot more and am able to have better conversations....so I suppose I'm improving.  My aunt says in 2 months I'll be speaking really well.  I sure hope so.  Also I was figuring out that all the services I get here such as room and board are 3-4 times less than what they would be in the states.  Its a great opportunity, and i can see why no one wants to go back to the states.  They don't do laundry, clean dishes nor rooms nor bathrooms....  :).  I hope I don't get too lazy.      

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