it is not down in any map; true places never are: My host dad asked if I had "más libres"

Which basically mean it's confirmed ... I will not be fitting into my clothes by the time I leave Chile.
Perhaps the nice weather and days at the beach will spur an ... eating less Chilean sweets occurance, but I won't get them once I leave Chile so it's going to be a tough call.

Soo delicious. sweet pastry filled with kind of a carmel substance which is called "manjar" ...
basically Patty buys a whole roll of this weekly, and then serves it to me with breakfast ... ahhh!

Ok, let's see ... news, news & news.

I'm going to a Chile vs. Peru fútbol (soccer) match next week, which is exciting/makes me a little nervous ... but it should be a lot of fun and a really interesting experience.

This weekend I'm taking Patty to see a musical!! I'm soo excited!! It's at the local Theater and when I went to buy tickets not a single seat was occupied so I got a great pair of seats : ) We are seeing Don Quijote, and the adaptation should be interesting considering the story is over 1,000 pages. Also, with Patty in school now we don't really go out together so I thought this would be a fun thing we could do together .... and it guarantees she can help me understand the plot when I get lost : )

It is finally starting to feel as if it is spring here, and actually almost like summer! Yesterday I spent the day at the beach with my friend Eliza and just layed out basking in the sunshine. It was about 75 degrees and just a perfect day, which of course included no homework ... the same homework I'm putting off to write this of course!

Speaking of ... I thought maybe I'd expand on how my classes are going/have been.

Spanish class is definitely my favorite, as frustrating as it can sometimes be ... there are only 5 people in my class so it's the most I am ever able to talk in a class and our professor is really great. It of course gives me the most amount of homework, usually an essay over the stories we are assigned and group projects exploring the city. Because we have so few people in our class it means that we do twice as much as the other classes that have at least 10 people, but I guess we have an advantage this way.

On to my least favorite class ... Economic Development ... it's full of first year Chilean students, and having a class with mostly Chileans is good because I'm really being pushed to their level and the professor can't slow down for exchange students but ... wow, I don't know if it is because they don't leave home to go away to school but these first year students might as well be freshman in high school. My most recent project was with three Chileans and one girl from Georgetown, a presentation on the production of Chocolate in the world and it's relevance to our class. Basically we got together the week of to figure out the presentation, decided that it would be sent out via e-mail ... I never saw it before the day of the presentation ... luckily the professor didn't show up that day (not surprising) and we didn't present but ... once I saw what they had made, I seriously would have been embarassed to stand in front of a class with it (i.e. a presentation on slave labor in Africa with pink and purple font and backgrounds ...yikes) Needless to say, it was fixed before we presented this week and they were good about talking and explaining our points ... so no harm, no foul. It has been a big frustrating with our professor in that class as well ... he's come to class 40+ minutes late twice, hasn't shown up at all twice which I think means he's been on time once. Something to get used to I guess, basically it just means that the students aren't ever on time either.

Ecology of Chile - good, learning quite a lot ... I have my first exam tomorrow, so maybe I should be writing this faster and studying : )

Art and Society in Chile Prehispanico - This class only meets once a week and it's completely lecture based. It was neat when we went north because a lot of what we had learned we saw for ourselves - the oldest mummies in the world, geoglyphs etc. The only problem is that all semester all we have is one exam ... not a bad thing but kind of scary to go into an exam knowing that it is basically 80% of your grade (attendance counts for the other %)

Sociology - really good, maybe a little too easy ... almost entirely foreign exchange students. I'm working on a project now with two german students which has been fun. The professor is very relaxed and for a 4 credit class we are supposed to meet twice but only one time so far this semester has he asked us to come twice. Also, he said we could present in english if we wanted ... I'm not sure how that would help us with bettering our spanish (our group is presenting in spanish) but I suppose it's a nice gesture.

Plans for more travel are going well. I'll be in Mendoza, Argentina in two weeks where I'll be stocking up on cheap delicious food and maybe even a day at the spa! I also just bought my plane ticket between Punta Arenas (far south of Chile - end of the world!) and Santiago for December, when I'll be exploring the lake district and Patagonia!! Very excited about this but I cannot believe how little time I have between now and then. We have about 7 weeks of school left ... and I'll be back in the states in about 10 weeks!! Yikes!