Crab Empanadas

Took a "micro" for the first time yesterday morning! All the college students/people going to work seemed pretty pissed that we were messing up their bus space, but I know I'd feel the same in their position.
We got to la Universidad de Santa Maria pretty early, so there weren't many people there. The campus is absolutely gorgeous. We all think that the Cathedral of Learning at Pitt looks like something from Harry Potter, but USM's entire campus looks like that.



There's Daniela, one of our student guides, in front of the Industrias building where all of our lectures were.

We had lectures on Chilean history, literature, earthquakes, and music/dance for the first half of the day. It was interesting to see how much effort our welcomers/lecturers put in to making us feel comfortable and getting to know us before getting to the point of why we were with them at any time.

The class where are lectures were was set up a lot like our Plus3 classroom in Mervis at Pitt! Weirdddd.
We had to have lunch in the cafeteria. Apparently it's a big deal because we had to get prepped beforehand to make sure we didn't mess up the system and make the Chilean students mad. We all survived, despite the awkwardness. I hear we have to do it again today, which makes me a little scared, but maybe we'll be pros at eating lunch this time around.
Our lecturer of the day, "Mimo" (it means "mime" in Spanish), took us on a walking/bus tour of Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, Beñaca, and Con Con. Lots of vendors selling little trinkets, ocean, and empanada restaurants. I actually talked to this one guy sitting at a little booth with things for sale. First full conversation with a native Spanish speaker in my life! Well, not counting all the Spanish teachers of the past. They made things too easy.
We all got our first taste of empanadas for dinner. I split one with Jessica, so we each had half of a crab & cheese empanada and half of a tomato, oregano, and cheese empanada. They were ABSOLUTELY delicious! It makes sense that the place was called Las Deliciosas.
Our salsa classes were amazing. Our teacher didn't speak English, but you could tell he knew what he was doing, and it was a whooooole lot of fun. We have another one tonight!
It seems that I've gone on too long, as usual, and breakfast is in a few minutes and I'm not dressed, so that's my cue to stop talking! ¡Adios!