Week of Journaling: Day 3

Ohh the frustration. I just found out that I am one of 50 finalists (out of 700 applicants) for the National Geographic Glimpse Correspondents program, but I didn't make it through the LAST round! They chose 10 of the 700. I was so close!!! How sad. It's a confidence booster to know that I made it that far, but I also kind of wish I didn't know because it makes it all the more frustrating to have been so close. Ah well.

Apart from that little discovery, today has been great. My environmental seminar was cancelled today, so the only class I had was Spanish at 4:30. I slept late, and spent much of the morning lounging around and doing nothing, which was wonderful. Of course, an hour before my class I realized I had forgotten to do a part of my Spanish homework, but thanks to the long commute I managed to finish it!

After Spanish class, Rebecca, Megan and I headed over to Nuestra Casa. Wednesdays are going to be the days that we spend with the men in the house, organizing some kind of activity each week, but this week we just went to hang out and get to know them. It was so much fun! All of the guys are really quirky and interesting- one is a little crazy and really reminds me of Johnny Depp in "Edward Scissorhands." He spent much of the night listing off all of the types of fruits and vegetables that he sells in the market, and told me he would bring me an "atuna" tomorrow, which I think is some sort of green spiny fruit.

Three hours at the house flew by. Halfway through, we went with Jonathan, another one of the residents, to get "vienesas italianas" at the little shop next door. A vienesa italiana is a hot dog in a bun, covered in a thick layer of fresh mashed up avocados and chopped up tomatoes, with a large amount of creamy homemade mayo on top. They are very typical Chilean food, and one of the reasons I feel that I might end up returning to the US a couple hundred pounds heavier than when I left. In this particular shop, the woman made everything fresh on the spot, and Becca, Jonathan and I sat and talked for a while there. At the end of our time at Nuestra Casa, two nice guys (Paco and __ ) walked us to the metro stop. Paco is an old man from Spain, who wears a little woolen hat and knows Italian. He tried to teach me some Italian on the way there, and I promised to help him with his English in return. He is really sweet and grandfatherly, and I want to be his friend.

(Photo above is of a typical street near the house I work at- a little old and run down but quite beautiful.)