School and other things

This week we have been having orientation at the University. The first couple days we just learned about the school, and met some of the staff. Yesterday we took a tour of the campuses. There are about 10 different buildings that belong to the university, and each one has classes of different areas (art, history, sciences etc). The buildings are so spread out between Valparaiso and the neighboring town, Viña del Mar. I don´t see how students make it from place to place in time for their classes! I registered for my classes and luckily they are all in two buildings that happen to be side by side. I registered for quite a few classes and will go to all of them the first few days, then choose which ones I like the best. I signed up for Human Anatomy (to learn all the body parts to possibly translate in a hospital one day), a class that teaches both French and Portuguese, a class in Chilean Dialect, a class in Translation, and a few more. I´ll let you know how it all turns out! After I registered for classes I also signed up for an Intercambio, where they pair you up with a Chilean student. You meet as often as you can for an hour, and spend half of the time speaking in Spanish and half of the time in English. It improves both of your language skills. I am excited to see who I will be paired with!

I have met a few people during orientation and hopefully will be able to travel with them and do thins on the weekends. My family is wonderful though so I want to spend as much time here as I can. Dinner is always the highlight of my day. The family sits down to eat and it always turns into game time, initiated by the seven year old, Ángel. We have played I spy and telephone which is so much fun in Spanish! I was surprised how quickly the language came back to me once I got here. Chileans definitely talk different than any spanish i´ve heard and I am still getting used to it but I think I will learn so much while I´m here!