corre! corre!

When I was in town today with Miriam I got the hiccups and everyone was laughing at me. Miriam and I bonded every time my body unexpectedly jumped. It was good....

At 2 pm I went with Matias "para entrenar" (track). He said we wouldn't be back until about 8 pm so I was a little nervous about what that would entail. I thought we would be running and running and running for six horas. But no. For about three hours we helped out at the Universidad de Talca in the gym. There were like 80 kids there and we just had to keep them in groups. Of course, this was practically impossible for me because, well, I don't speak their language. I basically just stoood there and acted like I was being useful. It was kiiiiiind of fun. So then all the kids left and we were just there with 2 other kids and all the coaches, which freaked me out because I was thinking that it would be like intense, personal training or something. Matias wouldn't tell me what was going on. So we walked down to the field and they all put on their special running gear such and got out their hurdles and foot holder things and I just, again, awkwardly stood there. We started to run around the track and from the very beginning I made myself take deep breaths and make sure I didn't look toooo tired from running so little. Ah, I love being out of shape. And then! After two laps, they stopped. No more running. They talked for like twenty minutes, stretched a little, talked more, made fun of me stretching, talked, talked, stretched, talked....Pretty much, no running. I was so confused! Not to mention they started talking to me in fast, slang Chilean Spanish so I had no idea what to do. They kept asking me what I wanted to do, and my only answer was that I wanted to run, which for some reason they couldn't understand. So finally I just started running and left them and ran like two or three miles. All the while, they talked. It was sooo weird. What kind of track people don't run??

Today was good though. Even though it was kind of weird/boring with the kids, I'm glad I went because at least I wasn't sitting at the house on my computer avoiding Spanish. I got to ride the bus and I ate the bessst apple ever. Product of Chile, of course. It was also AMAZING to be around kids my age. Thank god for Matias and his friends. I'm soooo excited to start school on Monday. I need friends!

Tomorrow, it will have been one week. I'm not even sure how I feel about that....