Brrrrrrr.....

Chile is not chilly. It is cold.

I really underestimated how cold it was going to be. This isn't because the temperature is something different than what I expected, it is because you don't get warm. At home, when it is cold outside, you walk into your house, school, or basically any building and the heat is blasting so you can warm up. Not so in Chile - they don't have central heating or air... so any warm you get inside is from space heaters... which makes it unbearably cold sometimes.

In the cold, we took a placement exam yesterday at the Casa Central (Main Building) after a brief introduction to the University from the International Study Office. After the exam, all forty of us trekked over to the International Studies Abroad Office, which is right across the street from the main building of the university. The rather small office was a mad house with all the new semester students and a lot of the summer students milling around, trying to use the computers and eat their lunches.

After sitting around for a while, we ventured out into the rain and cold to take a tour of downtown Valparaiso. We saw a lot of shops, as well as the Congress building while roaming around the city, trying to get acquainted with the area.

When we got back to the office, we went to "Jumbo," which was described as a 'super Wal-mart.' I found it hard to believe that there would be anything that resembled a super Wal-Mart in Chile, but low and behold, it was! There was clothing, food, electronics, everything. And, it was super cheap. So I bought the necessities I needed, plus a sweater for about six dollars.

Now, if I could only find my camera cable to be able to upload more pictures...