Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Where did the time go?

Wow, I have been slack. I really do want to write about every event that happens here but to sit down and do it is easier said than done for some reason. So I am going to retrace my steps back till the beginning of May and then do separate entries for my few trips. But in this entry I am just going to do the stuff going around Valparaiso and Vina.


So as you know my school has been on strike. But did I tell you about the students taking over the buildings? In spanish its called a Toma. So my interpretation of a toma is students sleep and stay in the building and not let anyone in to make sure classes are not going on. Its pretty absurd and a mess for us foreign exchange students who are still having our classes. I have 4 classes, 3 of them only have foreign students in them so those have still been taking place. Anyways back to the "toma"... A couple of weeks ago the students took over the main building of the university, there was supposed to be an agreement that the students would never take that building. They did not keep their agreement I suppose I should say. I had to use a back entrance and go up some staircase I never knew about to get into the Study Abroad office which is like my home base. Each day I had to wonder around the streets to find an entrance to find my relocated class. Also I went into the main building and I had to give them my student id and then stand in line to get it back when I left. The students were running this whole things, telling me to stand in line up against the wall. I was quite offended thinking they could speak to me like this as I would like to be seen as their peer. Anyways its all over now, thank goodness! Everything is back to normal, or as normal Chile can be. It has been raining since yesterday afternoon and there are gigantic puddles everywhere. They do not have a very efficient drain system so parts of the streets and the dips (there are many) in the sidewalks are flooded. My feet remain cold and wet for the rest of the day. Tomorrow I plan on investing in rain boots...


PS- Don't forget to check out the links to see all of my pictures.

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