In Which I Wear Little Red Booties

The only stressful thing in the past few days has been the “toma de ramos,” where we sign up for classes we’re interested in. There was an academic fair with student representatives from all the different faculties, and we went around asking questions about specific courses and signing up. I actually didn’t have any problems that day—but the next day Claudio, our academic advisor, sent out an email with the start dates of all the classes that are primarily for international students—and all but one of the classes I had chosen were on the list! Which was an unhappy coincidence that I wasn’t expecting. So I’m still not sure exactly which combo of classes to take now, because I want to be with Chilean students; that’s one of the reasons I chose this program. Frustrating, but it will work out.

One of the classes I know I’m taking is with Chileans at the school of journalism: Periodismo Televisivo. I get to learn how to use the cameras and the little studio they have there, I think. Exciting! I’m also taking a mandatory Spanish grammar class with the Americans from my program, probably a poetry class and probably a course on Valparaíso history—that’s one of the classes primarily for extranjeros, but I really want to take it. I also might take a course on international politics with all Chilean students, but it looks really difficult…we get to visit first and see if the class is for us, so I can decide later.

Other than that, we’ve just been walking around Viña, sitting on the rocks by the beach, and visiting different sites. Yesterday my friend Elizabeth and I went to Palacio Riojas (photo), which is a 1907 mansion located a few blocks from my house. It was kind of an absurd experience. We paid $300 pesos (about 75 cents) to get in, and the one person working there had us sit down and put red booties over our shoes so we wouldn’t hurt the floor. So we shuffled around in our booties for about 10 minutes, and then we had seen everything there was to see and took off our booties and left. The guy seemed really happy to have someone come visit!

After that we went to the Parque Quinta Vergara because we wanted to go the art museum there (photo) but it was closed. THEN, someone tried to steal my camera: he asked if we wanted him to take a picture of us—during orientation we were told that they’ll do that and make off with your camera (before taking the picutre, I suppose). I said “No, gracias.” I was pretty excited to have thrwarted a thief.

When that happened, Elizabeth and I were taking each other’s photo in front of this tree in the Park. It has a poem on it, told from the point of view of a tree. I heard before coming that this is a country of poets, and I think it’s true. Poetry has appeared unexpectly a couple of times already, like here and elsewhere in the park, and in La Campana, the national park where we went during orientation, there was a sign with a poem along one of the mountain trails. I like it; I’m looking forward to taking poetry here.