They cut the s's off of everything

HAY! tengo sueno! I'm sooo tired. I'm trying to remember what i was going to say. The language here is soo different than the spanish in the classrooms at home. They speak a lot fast and cut the s's off of words.. so quieres is sometimes quiere? I don't really know, but it makes it harder to understand. But I'll get used to it, after all I'll be here until Dec 23rd.

The people here are really nice too. You can ask almost everyone where something is, but whether they know what they are talking about is the real question. My friend Rebecca, who is sadly leaving tomorrow, was showing us around the center of Santiago today. Since the City is so big a lot of people don't know where everything is.. it makes sense, so instead of just saying I don't know they'll tell you where to go. So you have to be careful and ask more than one person sometimes.

But Ayer (yesterday)

Well, it was more last night. Jessica and I went to a bar almost next door to our houses for a drink. It's so weird to order a drink somewhere without getting carded or with out my parents. We got the beer that was on tap...then when we were about to leave Jessica was talking to some boys and they ended up buying us a shot of tequila. We talked for a little bit, but headed home soon after.

El proximo dia (the next day)

Rebecca took Jessica and I to go register our passports with the Government. We took the metro to almost the center of Santiago, and when we finally found the place a guy working there told us it moved. So we had to walk somewhere else. Right now I am so lost with the streets, this place is so big but, I'm sure I'll get a hang of it.

When we were done registering our passports Rebecca was taking us to Centro Artesanal Santa Lucia. It's this little market place where you can buy almost anything. I'll have to go back before I leave. It took us a while to find it though, we ended up walking around Parque Forestal and passing el Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (an art museum). It's one of the only parks in Santiago and is really pretty. (I didn't have my camera with me today because it wouldn't fit in my purse, so I'll have to put pictures up later.)

Rebecca then showed us around Bellavista and where one of Pablo Neruda's houses (there are 3 all together). I'm going to go back and take the tour there. There's also a hill in Santiago where a Zoo is. It's supposed to be really cool. We also ate empanada's from a little tiny resturant. I guess it's one of the cheapest things you can get here.

After we ate we ended up walking up el Cerro Santa Lucia. It's another big steep hill that has all this old ancient buildings on it that you can go in and explore. Don't worry I'll be going back to that. We finally made it To Santa Lucia with plenty of time to spend before our orientation started for La Universida Catolica.

Orientation:
Was really boring, I'm not going to lie, you could barely understand the presenter and everything she was saying was word from word off the power point! and also in the book that they gave us too. We did met another girl there from Seattle. Her name is Sarah and she lives like 4 blocks away on Ave Apoquindo too. She was really nice and spoke spanish really well.

After orientation, Jessica and I headed back to our homes via the metro, and made a stop at burger king. There we met the nicest woman in the world! I'm pretty sure she was a manager, but she was so kind! We then headed home.

Last night was also the first time I have every tried Sushi. Vale and I went to go get some last night. It wasn't with fish though, it had chicken in it and cream cheese and other stuff. It was really good. I also tried Pisco for the first time last night. It's made from distilled grapes. Pisco Sour is another type of liquor down here. It's has a strange taste and I'm going to have to get used to it because it is very popular. I also had Piscola, which is just pisco and coke mixed together. It tastes like rum and coke and I like it much better than the Pisco Sour.

I'm going to have to buy some wine before i return to the states, and also bring back some pisco for people to try. But I'm going to go...maybe try and plan a trip to somewhere next weekend. Right now I only have class 2 a week. on Tuesdays and Thursdays so it will leave me with plenty of time to travel. I just need to budget my money really well.

Hasta
<3 Leslie