Giant empanadas and three-legged pigs...

Hello! 

I'm about to go to class, but I just wanted to drop in with a quick update...

Today marks the beginning of our third week of classes, and we're officially PAST the one month mark! Crazy that our time here is over 1/5 of the way done. That makes it feel so short. Ab and I have finalized our schedules, and we're taking 3 out of our 4 classes together, and we have the same schedule! It worked out so well! Class is still pretty fun, but we're starting to realize that we actually do have to do the work. Bummer.

Our new goal is to make more Chilean friends. We love hanging out with everyone from our program, but Chileans are just so cool! So we're working on that. It's hard to make friends on campus because we tend to stick together in a pack of gringos, but we have two new places where I think we're going to make some great new amigos: 

1. We've been going for the past 3 weeks to a little PCA church really near my house, called Cristo Rey. It's so sweet to go there and feel like part of that community a little bit. Also, I've realized that I love hearing scripture and singing worship songs in Spanish, because it makes all the words and their meanings sound totally new. Cool. Sometimes when we're singing a song, Ab and I look at each other and say "what does this meeeean?", but that only happens sometimes, and that's what dictionaries are for, right? So yesterday at church, we met some awesome Chileans, and talked to them for a while, and I think we just might be best friends sometime soon.

Our church... I borrowed this picture from their website...

 2. The American girl who stayed with Abby's host family last semester told her about a college ministry in Santiago called el Oasis. So we went to that last Thursday night, and they fed us dinner, and then it was basically a lot like Young Life club...silly skits, singing, and a talk. I'm excited to go back and get to know some of the people there!

This past Saturday, we went with about 8 girls from our program to visit a little town called Pomaire, about an hour away by bus. Pomaire is known for the impressive amount of ceramics produced there, and it's also known as the home of the world's biggest emanada. So we had to go check it out! We never actually found the giant empanada, but we ate some great normal-sized empanadas for lunch, along with more juice and pastel de choclo, which is a weird but wonderful combination of corn and meat and vegetables...And we definitely saw some ceramics:

  

Here's cute Allison with one of the famous Pomaire ceramic three-legged pigs. If you give one to someone, it's supposed to be lucky:

As you can maybe see from the pictures (ok maybe not), it's been getting warmer! Springtime is just around the corner. And belieeeve me, we'll be ready. It's going to change so much about our daily lives here once it warms up-- no more estufas, no more sleeping in 12.5 layers, no more consuming tea all the time just to be warm. And plus, the smog will probably clear out a good amount when the cold goes away!

Random thought: I've been trying to think of a productive way to spend the two-ish hours every day on the metro/ bus. I thought maybe I could write in my journal? Wrong. If you try to journal on the metro, 1) you will not be able to read a word of it, and 2) you will get lots of strange looks as you pull out your floral journal from your backpack. Especially if you happen to be wearing a floral blouse. So much for blending in... Any thoughts on metro activities would be much appreciated.

Wow this was a long one. Lo siento. Have the best day!