Orientation Weekend!

The pool at the hotel!

Pretty flowers on a vine, possibly called a Trumpet Vine or something...

The sweet water tower next to the even more sweet playground!

PLAYGROUND!!!!

Palms in our lovely hotel!

Oh man lots to write!!! Also, I would have updated this last night but there was a blackout in basically all of Chile but I'll comment on this later!

So Friday all of the students who were already in Viña had to be at el Museo Funck at 7:30am to go to Santiago to pick up the kids from the group flight that were flying in! This was super early as I had to get up at like 6:15am to shower and such. Then when we got to Santiago at like 9:30 or something we had to wait until probably 12:15 for all the other students to get through customs and such. I was not much of a happy camper from this... I mean poor planning on IFSA's part, we totally could have slept in for like a few hours more but nevertheless we left the airport and headed for Olmué that is a little north but mostly east of Viña. Just out of Santiago we stopped at una bomba (the word for bomb but here they say that instead of the normal gasolinera for gas station) and picked up some food for lunch but my wonderful mom had already packed me one! Yay! Also while at the airport which really consisted of white tents, a few people (not including me), went for a drink in one of the white carnival-shaped tents since we had to wait so long. This was quite amusing!

We arrived in Olmué in time for lunch, which turned out to be a fantastic place for orientation because it was calm and not busy, with dirt roads and all. I thought lunch in my house consisted of a lot of food but I was completely wrong! The food at the hotel had like 4 courses and I could have had like 2 and been done but it was all so delicious that I couldn't help but try to eat most of all of it!!! ^_^ After lunch we had a talk about culture shock and what to do in a tsunami and terremoto (earthquake) then there was a class of dancing that I was too tired to go to. Also, if you didn't know I can't move my hips very well so latin dances are kinda out.... haha ^_^ I spent my time sitting in the sun and dark reading "A Clockwork Orange" and relaxing! After we ate dinner, which was also a ton of food. Then, with a large group of people, probably more than 3/4 of the 23 of us, we took a trip to the Unimarc (a grocery store) for the whole group of gringos to look at all the alcohol and be loud and attract attention as most of us proceeded to buy cajas de vino (boxed wine) y ron (rum) y mucho más alcohol (much more alcohol). This lead to a fun evening of talking and kinda partying in the rooms.

The next day we learned more about Chilean spanish, which is almost nothing like the spanish we learned in school, and school stuff. Then we had to take a written spanish test and in the afternoon an oral test to see what level we were in grammar and speaking. We had lunch between these and free time. During the free time I tomé sol (sun bathed) and walked around the town with a new friend named Leah, where we controlled ourselves from buying tons of stuff at the market. Despite this I went back later with some other new friends, Ben and Anna, and bought some delicious sexy, spicy perfume that is cinnamon and orange flavored! *sizzle* It kind of makes me smell like chai tea... it's delicious! The evening went similar to the one before and I got to sleep late again!

All this going to sleep late and waking up early made me reaaally tired but finally on Sunday was our last day. I was also having a great time getting to know all the students who are from like everywhere in the United States and all super nice and fun and different and amazing!!!!! ^_^ Our last day we learned more about Chile, security in the city, and more about classes and the universities. In the late afternoon we left to go back to Viña and meet/reunite with our host families!!!

That evening when I was attempting to pick classes and pick up/arrange my room all the lights went out. Because of this the internet also wasn't working so I basically had nothing to do. I waited for a while, cleaning my room a la luz de una vela (by the light of a candle), and picked out some class choices as sitting next to a battery operated emergency light! We also heard by the radio on our cell phones that basically all of Chile didn't have lights! How crazy is that!!!!!! Pretty crazy! That was when I decided to give up and go to sleep! Though the lights came back on in like an hour!

<3Annie