Viña de nuevo

I got back from Viña Del Mar yesterday and I must say, it was a very enjoyable 3 day excursion. On Sunday afternoon, Matthew and I took the train to Curicó to stay with two other exchange students for the night. When we got there, we walked around the city for awhile and met up with a couple other kids from there. We stayed out until about eleven and then Elizabeth and I stayed up for about 3 more hours eating ice-cream and trying to illegally watch Mean Girls online before we passed out. The next day we all took the bus to Santiago and from Santiago to Viña. We stayed in Cabins right on the water that were like part Naval Cabins. That first day we didn't really do much at first. We explored the cabins, went swimming in our clothes, subimos la mierda/esa wea (hahahahhha), and at night we went into town and walked around and went to the movies. We saw Bastardos Sin Gloria. It was soooo good. When we got back we hung out in our cabins and tried to watch Mean Girls again. That failed so we called Chloe on Skype to wish her a Happy Birthday, which I would like to inform you all was on Tuesday, November 10 - not the eleventh as I may have previously accidentally written). So de nuevo, Feliz Cumpleaños a Chlo! 

Tuesday we unwillingly woke up and got ready to leave for a day in Valparaiso, but we ended up not going because Anna was really sick and so Ernesto and his wife took her to the Hospital. However, it was extremely sunny out so Elizabeth and I went and laid in the sun for 2 hours. Horrible idea in retrospect. We went back content with our faint tan lines, only to find half an hour later that our bodies were similar to those of lobsters. So that kind of sucked, to say the least. But we put some clothes on and left to Valparaiso to go to the Congreso Nacional de Chile. It was rather lame compared to the Congress in the United States, in terms of aesthetics, but we got to sit in on a vote and some lady was randomly singing and all the people were cheering, so it seemed a bit more relaxed and lively... We went back to the cabins after a bit of walking around and had an asado. Right before bed, Elizabeth put a pita bread in the microwave and forgot about it (the microwave was broken...apparently) and three minutes later our cabin was full of smoke and she was writing her name with charcoal on the pavement outside.

Wednesday was our last day, so we woke up and cleaned and packed and left for Valparaiso again. This time we went to the port and took a boat around the bay to see the city. It was a bit boring for me because I had done the same thing barely a month before with my family, but it was still pretty. After that we went to lunch and then back to the bus station. Before we boarded, Sara got sick with almost the same thing that Anna had. Booo. When we were on the train, I was waiting for the bathroom and one of the conductor guys started talking to me and then Matt and Elizabeth and I asked if we could go into the Conductor's room thing up front in the train and after promising that we weren't going to kill him, we got to go up and take pictures. I felt like such a little kid, but it was definitely cool.

When I was at Elizabeth's house on Sunday, I weighed myself. Definitely a little bit more than I was when I got here... Today I told my friends and one of my better friends told me that she noticed that my face got fatter. And I was talking to my Matias earlier and he told me that when I first got here my cheeks were more skinnier and skeletal-like. Daily bike rides, 8 minute abs, and no eating out of boredom will be incorporated into my daily routine from now on, I believe. 

Anddd, today I had a really good talk with Miriam and she hugged me for the first time.


P.S. No school tomorrow. Possibly Santo Domingo on Saturday. Thanksgiving next week!