Excitement

Well, I've been in Santiago, Chile for 5 days now, and already managed to miss my first earthquake/tremor. How sad am I?!? At about 4 pm today a pretty significant tremor shook the city for about 15 seconds (the second in a week) and I totally misssed it. I NEVER FELT A THING. I am REALLY disappointed. However, don't feel bad for me just yet, not only are these things fairly common but with recent evidence and past history, the Chileans believe that this may be the year of their next truly significant and devastating quake. As much as I want to experience one of mother natures greates displays of her power, I don't know that I'm ready to experience one where the Earth literally opens up and swallows everything around it. OR am I really ready or looking forward to the Tsunami that could possibly follow, and seeing as I am due to be living very very near to the ocean....this could be a very very bad thing!

OK, enough of natural disasters. The first four days were exhausting and I spent most of Sunday (Our ONLY free day) resting, doing some casual walking on streets that today felt very much like Barcelona with the rows of street vendors and antique booths and street performers, eating ice cream ( a chilean favorite), reading a much deserved book and listening to music. Each day of orientation is about 12-13 hours long Monday - Saturday including plenty of walking and hardly any interesting or nutritous food. I have managed to opt out of every late night group outing (ok, i'm not the ONLY one) because I am completely drained by the time we finish our late dinner and daily wrap up. So I usually do a little chatting on the phone with my boyfriend, write a few e-mails and some reading then around 11 pm I crawl into bed and pass out. I could go out, but I don't see how staying out till 2 or 3 am will make waking up at 6 or 7 the next day and doing another grueling 12-13 hours of orientation could make my life any easier....

Speaking of, it's looking beautiful outside so i think i will do some more of that casual walking with my favorite music.