My first week in Santiago draws to a close.

La Escuela

Mí amigo, Bruno, de Brasil.

With my "home parents," Elena and Daniél Gonzales.

Boris, with his Polola (girlfriend)

(In Chile, novia/novio signifies fiancé instead of girlfriend-boyfriend)

Maria José (an employee of the school) and Alex (from Germany)

on our city tour on Monday. Note the flags!

The Executive Office building of La Presidente and her cabinet.

(That´s right - Chile has a female president!)

As mother used to say, "Travel is broadening!"

Café icecream layered with marangues,

topped with sauces of raspberry and chocolate.

Tomorrow (Friday) will be examination day -- the moment of truth! Having changed campuses mid- session (each level has two weeks of classes, 20 hours per week), as we reached review today, I found that there were a lot of subjects my teacher in Buenos Aires must have covered this week, and that my teacher here covered last week. Nothing like 150 new vocabular words and several new concepts the day before an exam! Ah, well -- there´s nothing for it now other than practicar, practicar, practicar! After "blogging" I will go home and study.

I must say, this is the first and largest frustration I have had in this immersion program. Other than that, things have really gone well. And truly, this is a problem I will be able to address by studying today and tomorrow morning.

Last night a group of us went for salsa dance lessons. First we learned basic moves in a large group, and then we were divided into couples and progressed through a series of moves in pairs. It was fun... but only up to a point. First of all, it truly would be my preference to dance with a man. But this was not a gay club! Second, and this is funny considering my first comment -- my partner (a young woman from Holand) could not follow. Now, it´s not that I have to lead in dancing, heaven knows. I love being dancing with a man who knows what he´s doing, and how to lead! But in this instance, it was required that I be in the lead, and the holanda just couldn´t handle it. I finally quit in frustration and watched for a while. After the event evolved into a Latin version of "The Electric Slide" (a.k.a. "The Hustle", a group dance, now country, dating back to Disco´s hay-day in the 70s), I decided it was time to go. A large group of students concurred with me, and so we walked over to Bellavista, the neighborhood where I live, in search of a Club de Jazz. We found a nice club with a good trio, and listened to live music until 2:30 a.m.

Tonight is another night out, this time to hear traditional Chilean music. We meet at the school at 10:30 p.m., to walk to the venue from there. I´ve signed-up to go, but don´t know if I will. If I don´t feel secure in my studies, I will stay home. We shall see.

OK, enough of this. Time to go and study!

Take care, beloved ones. And know that the next time I see you, I´ll know the words for all of the articles of clothing that you´re wearing, both visible and not visible!

Much, MUCH love!

-- Bill