Santiago

My view right now : )


Well my trip to Santiago early this morning was actually pretty fun. I even enjoyed being able to be in a sleepy bad mood on the bus on the way there, with no one to ask me a million questions about how I slept and what I want to eat each meal of the day...heh. Its quite a beautiful drive, and I saw lots of different neighborhoods including some very poor ones, where they put garbage in huge piles in the street because no one comes to collect it. The drive also takes you through the coastal mountain range. Anyways when I got to the metro station this girl who works for CIEE was waiting for me. She's actually an american who did this program, fell in love with Chile, and then managed to get a job as the extra-curricular programs manager for CIEE. Anyways we went to the Immigration department and waded through the bureaucratic bs. As it turns out, I have to go back to the same place tomorrow morning. Hopefully it will be ready by then.
Taking the bus made me appreciate just how cheap, comfortable, and organized buses are here. Tonight I'm going to read about different trips from here. Its exciting thinking about doing that kind of stuff. There are so many beautiful towns and great national parks around here.

My day to day life has been uneventful. I'm looking forward to school starting so that I have more structure, because as it is I feel a little strange sitting around the house while Erika goes to school and cooks and cleans frenetically and while Christian frantically tries to finish his mechanical engineering thesis. I'm not bored, because I can always entertain myself by going wandering around town, but at this same time I'll admit that its a bit awkward attempting to LIVE here ( a far different thing than being a tourist) without any particular "life" except for a handful of american friends and a house I live in. So I need things to fill it up: trips, classes, harp, chilean friends, maybe volunteering.

Haha...Christian just started blasting Manu Chao : )