"Weón po."

This week has been pretty routine. (Ha! Routine, in Chile, weird.) I've really just been going to class and walking around with Lucy and Mathias. One day it rained, which is supposed to be a disaster in Chile because everything floods and no one can do anything. I didn't notice any flash floods but it was so cold I came home from class and laid in bed all day. Can't win 'em all.

Last night was fun though!!!!! Mathias' host brother Ramiro is out of town for the week but his friend Felipe had people over for tacos and beer. It was supposed to be an "asado" (BBQ) but the grill was too wet apparently so there was a change of plans. Felipe is so much fun! He reminds me of some of my friends in St. Paul. (Except he was surprised that I have both kinds of soccer shoes - cleats and flats. Please.)

Mathias has told him a little bit about our spanish class, in which we spend the majority of our time talking about vocab and expressions that are specific to Chile. So we were joking all night about our "Chilenismos 101" class. Some of the things they say that are unique to chile are "weón," which basically translates to "man" or "dude"; "po" which is really just a space-filler as far as I can tell. I think it comes from "pues." There are a million more. Everyone jokes with us about coming to Chile to learn Spanish. They say that if we can understand this spanish we'll be fine anywhere else in the world. Ha!

Got a pre-pay phone today. I'm such a noob, I'm afraid to use it. I'm all like, "gotta keep all calls under a minute! No texts unless absolutely necessary!" Yikes mcgikes.

Plans for this weekend? Mathias, Lucy and I are talking about heading up north to Ovalle and maybe la Serena to do some sightseeing and some hiking. We wanted to stay relatively close for our first trip. Our profesora told us today about this phenomenon that happens rarely in the Atacama desert called "desierto florida" where the desert is wetter than usual and so little flowers pop up everywhere. She says its gorgeous. So we're saving the Atacama for another time.

Finally took some good pictures of the Andes!!!!!! These I took from the roof of my apartment building (where there is a pool... that will be filled in November I guess. BACÁN.)