back in santiago

sorry for not writing for those of you so kind as to complain - i was in the town of Olmue for orientation and did not have any access to a computer. now, i am back in my host family´s apartment in Santiago, using their computer on their cable modem. hopefully i´ll figure out how to properly configure my computer so i can use the internet connection.
orientation was nice, though it didn´t feel very much like chile. yes, the food was different (but very good) and the people in the hotel and from the program spoke spanish, and we had to with them, but among ourselves, we stuck mostly to english, despite my desire to do otherwise. it´s just so easy to slip into english when you run into difficulty. the weather was nice, but colder than expected. fortunatly the nicest day was the one on which we went to la viña sauce, a vineyard that produces wonderful organic wine.  the port was amazingly good.  we also watched some chilean movies, the best being the independtly-funded el chacocero sentimental, which i would have easily paid money to see.  a groundbreaking chilean film.
i only have a book of couses i can take from one of the universities, but there are some interesting classes.  hopefully i´ll get to take bridge - if no one at school wants to play, i´ll go to the end of the world to find people who will.  tomorrow i get to be oriented again, and maybe attend some classes i might take.  also i get to figure out how to get from this apartment to school - it will involve a micro (bus) and the metro (subway).  we´ll see how it goes.
for now, i´m going to take advantage of my location and watch the final match of the copa america on tv.

chao.