The university & my house

Week one is in the books with 19 more to go! I'm working on loading the photos to Kodak slowly but surely. I'll have them up soon, I promise!

So lets start where I left off last time which I believe was last Tuesday. Ximena and I went to the local mall to do some window shopping. Most of the stores were open, along with the theatre and food court, but the bowling alley was still closed and under construction from the quake. And I got to try what they consider the BEST hamburger in Chile from a place called Rich. I have to say, it was pretty tasty!! Although it still doesn't beat a Lolita burger ;)

Tuesday was the first night without a curfew in the city. They had it in place for a month because of people looting during the night and wanted people to be safe. So that night Ximena and I got an invitation to our neighbors house to watch a movie with a couple of friends...we watched "Up" (in english with spanish subtitles), haha. After that we took a drive around the city to look at some of the damage without all the crazy traffic around! There are so many buildings waiting to be demolished, it's insane.

Wednesday I decided to take a walk down to campus...I wanted to see how long it would take me verses paying for a colectivo (shared taxi) every time. The walk wasn't bad, only about 20-25 mins, and although the day started out gloomy, it turned out to be a beautiful and full of sunshine! I met up with Nicolas and Daniel, fellow classmates of mine who gave me a tour of the campus. There are only 2 buildings that had structural damage during the quake. The main one is the chemical engineering building. It caught fire and exploded,not just once, but twice, due to the contents of the building. The building attached to it was damaged as well. The library had no structural damage but is closed off because pretty much every book that used to be on a shelf, is now on the floor! The campus in general is beautiful. The college is famous for the medical arc and for the clock tower(which also happens to be the mascot). There is a superstition at the university too. Under the medical arc the school emblem on created in tile on the ground. As you watch people walk thru, you notice no one evers walks over that emblem. They say that if you do, you will not finish your degree...better safe than sorry I say! Click on the photo. It's a link to pictures of the campus.


In an effort to keep this blog from being ridiculously long I'm going to end it here and will write about my trip to Temuco & Pucon in a day or so. There is one more set of pics to go with this blog. Click the photo to see the rest of the house I'm living in!!