El terremoto

Today was such a big day! I'm so tired, but I think I really should write tonight and not put it off, right?

I woke up way too early (um, like 9:30) to go to orientation at school. I rode the micro (bus) all by myself! When I got there I realized I really shouldn't have come so early because they were doing something with their student visas and I still don't have mine yet. No worries, though, all in good time.

A little before noon we were waiting outside of the international students office when the ground started to rumble a little. I was really excited because this was the first one I have felt, except for maybe two times in the evening that I wasn't even sure about, despite the fact that they have been happening daily in Vina. A few minutes later, the ground shook again, but we weren't very worried because it really didn't feel like much.

My group leader got up and we followed her, I kinda thought it was just time for us to take the test, but the next thing I knew we were in the stairway with the rest of the students in the building, heading up to the fourth floor "just in case" there was a tsunami. All in all this little excursion was pretty boring because we just sat up there for a little more than an hour before they let us down to e-mail our families that we were okay. I met a few cool people, though.

After sending our e-mails we continued to wait to take our oral exams, but eventually our group leader told us they were cancelled for the day. It was a bit of an overreaction, if you ask me. A bunch of us decided to go to lunch since we had missed it during all the hustle-bustle. But when we returned to the streets of Valparaiso, we found them nearly empty because the majority of the people had literally run to the hills for fear of a tsunami. We thought we would have better luck returning to Vina.

As we approached the bus stop (which is actually just a main road where you flag the bus you want) there was a long crowd of people waiting for the micro. Every single bus that passed us was jammed full, and only took on a few passengers if any. After watching one bus drive away with a person literally hanging out of the rear doors, we realized that we weren't going to have any luck catching a bus if we stayed with the crowd. We headed further up the road, all the time looking out for taxis or anything else that might drive us the 9 km back to Vina.

After a little bit of walking, a lot of flagging and even more waiting, we finally got a driver to take us on, and the seven of us crammed into the aisle where it was standing-room only. People were even passing their bags over to people who had seats in order to conserve room in the center. I don't know if you've ever been to Latin America, but the drivers are crazy, and the road between Valpo and Vina are fast and curvy. The bus driver was whipping us around curves and practically into people's laps. Luckily, one of the guys with us speaks fairly well and fairly fast, and he was able to yell over people's heads when we needed to leave. Three of us squeezed our way out the back door and worked her way through the front, but there were still three of us trying to get out when the bus started to take off. Luckily, it was pretty obvious that we were together, and everyone on the bus yelled for him to stop so we could exit.

The guy who speaks well, Brian, took us into Renaca, which is a middle-upper-class suburb of Vina. After searching in vain for a restaurant that was open, someone actually reopened for us. I had my first Chilean empanadas, and I hate to say it, but they weren't as good as I was expecting. I may have to try different flavors. By the time we ate it was almost 4 and most of us hadn't eaten since that morning, so sitting down to food was a real treat.

Brian's family lives up in the hills in Renaca and he said we could get there with a "short hike." After climbing a huge (I mean, HUGE, bigger than anything I saw in SF) staircase, he admitted to us that his host family is actually his real family. He was born in Vina but is a U.S. citizen, and has only been back once. He has spent the past month in Vina reconnecting with family, and the house we were going to was his aunt's house. We continued to trek up the suburban hills on foot before finally coming to a nice house in a nice neighborhood where we enjoyed a cerveza and a well-deserved siesta. We spent the rest of the day relaxing by the pool, before returning home.

"Hola, Jan-ees, como fue to dia?" Maryte greeted me when I got in.

"Fue bien." I told her.

"Y te asusto el terremoto?" she asked me.

"No, no mucho." I replied.