loving life today (viernes, 20 agosto)

So the blood test at the medical clinic wasn´t that bad and took no more than five minutes. For the life of me I could not fall back asleep when I got back home, so I sat in front of the computer for a while studying Spanish and then read some more of my book. Around noon I gave up on the idea of getting any more sleep so I decided to go on a run. As usual, I didn´t really get into running mode until I was almost done. There are only so many kilometros of beach to run along, and soon I´ll have to start turning around and repeating the route.

After nearly a week of not running I decided I wasn´t up to the marathon I´d wanted to do a week from tomorrow. When I got back to the house I went online and searched for other marathons I could do instead. Fortunately, on December 5th there is Maratón del Pacífico in Viña del Mar, which is only two hours away from Santiago. And conveniently I will be in Santiago during that week for the BULATS test and closing ceremony of the EOD program. Part of the route for this marathon is along the Pacific, and I´m definitely going to sign up for it.

After I got back I accompanied my host parents downtown to drop off my host mom at work. Then my host dad and I walked around downtown, through Plaza Prat and along Avenida Tarapacá. Fortunately we were getting along really well, the sun was shining, and I felt a lot better. I stopped inside one of the seemingly millions of Cruz Verdes (drugstores) in Iquique to buy more contact solution. Cruz Verde is kind of like Starbucks in Chicago...you can find one on almost every street corner of the city. The guy working there was super nice. He told me my Spanish was really good and asked where I was from. Then we walked around some more and I bought some warm, honey-roasted peanuts one of the street vendors was selling.

Once at home I read a little more and took a short nap since a few friends and I were planning on going salsa dancing later that night. However, by 10pm everyone but me and Andrew had backed out. Instead of going to the salsoteca, I took a colectivo to Plaza Prat and then walked to Rombos, a bar on Baquedano where we met for happy hour (which they don´t translate at all, so you hear all these words in Spanish with ´happy hour´thrown in there somewhere. It´s kind of funny actually. And here happy hour always means you can buy two drinks for the price of one). It was a lot of fun and we had some interesting conversations / friendly arguments about different cultures, countries, politics, and ethics. We disagreed about a lot of things but I really love talking to people like him who have their own opinions and good reasons for them, and who aren´t closed-minded about everything.

At the end of the night I took a colectivo back to the house. I´m definitely starting to get used to using public transportation here. It´s so cheap compared to in the US, and taking colectivos gives me some good opportunities to practice speaking Spanish. It´s also nice because I´m getting more confident at speaking Spanish, and the drivers haven´t tried to rip me off as much:)

Anyway, it was nice to get out and see more of the town today. Now since I´m feeling a lot better, I´ve started liking it here much more:)

written by

Sara Florecita on August 20, 2010 from Iquique, Chile

from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)

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