The first 3 weeks in La Serena

Well, to begin where I left off, the first week (mon9-fri13), I attended as many classes as possible of the ones that I had chosen in advance. Especially one of them was just a waste of time, though. It was bacisally 1 ½ hour of soliloquy by the professor, who, by the way, speaks really fast with a lot of “slang”/chilean spanish words that I don’t understand...:-S So by the end of the week, I hadn’t gotten a lot closer to a final descicion about the courses. On Monday the 9th, most of the other people who live at my “hospedaje” moved in. But no one ever really cooks in the kitchen (they often eat at the canteen at uni), and since we all have separate rooms with tv, there’s not much going on there, to be honest.. Also the owners have told us that we can’t have parties..:( A bit disappointing. But I’ve met some nice people at uni and the days pass by so fast!
The first week ended with a get-together with the exchange-students. We went to the 2 australian girls’ house, and afterwards we went off to Coquimbo (the neighbour-city, apparently THE place to go out) to go to a reggae/hip hop-concert. But that turned out to be a disappointment – the crowd wasn’t even dancing.. But I had good company, so it turned out to be a fun evening anywayJ
On Sunday, the 15th, I went on a day-trip with Lasse, Melanie and Beck (two exchange students) to Isla Damas (Dame Island, or something like that). We tool off from La Serena at 8:15 on a tourbus with 8 other “tourists”. After driving north along the coast for 2 ½ hours through landscaping that is predominated by desert, we arrived to the small village Punta de Choros. There, they have a small museum about the Reserva Nacional Pinguino de Humboldt. The cold Humboldt current passes by Chile from the south and cools down the warm winds from the Pacific, and that is actually the reason why there are no tornadoes on this side of South America (I apologize for my lacking knowledge about weather conditions, but I think that is how it works). We went on a small boat for 12 people and sailed out towards the Isla Choros (where you find the Reserva). At first we didn’t really see any animals (apart from the birds, that is), but then suddenly we saw what we came for; the dolfins!! They showed up in groups, and at some point there were probably around 15 dolfins in different groups! It was great fun to see how playful and curious they are; they got up really close to the boat, and (from a distance) we also saw some dolfins jumping up from the water! At the Isla Choros we also saw sea lions and small Humboldt penguins – they are soo cuteJ! After that, we sailed to the Isla Damas and got off the boat for 1 hour. The reason why it’s called Isla Damas is that when you see it from a distance, the rocks on the hill look like an old woman’s face in profile. It’s not a big island – around 0.6km2 (60,3 Ha), but it still has camping spots (without running water, though). We only saw 2 tents, though, and really – there’s not a lot to do. We went for a walk around the island and went up to the lighthouse. It had a beautiful view, so we shot some pics, and at 14 o’clock we went back to the mainland for a big lunch – fresh fish, uhm! When we got back around 18 o’clock, we were all tired – probably from the fresh air:-)

On Monday the 16th, the professor from uni had arranged a lunch for us in the big canteen, and all of us (the exchange students) go together with him, his two assistants (one of them had helped Lasse and me by showing us the different campus’on our first week here) some other students and another proffesor. I think it was meant to be a “welcome to La Serena/let’s get to know each other”-lunch, but since we had all met each other it was just an ordinary, nice lunch.
On Tuesday, nothing exciting happened, but it was St. Paddy's day (not a big thing in Chile), so Lasse and I went out for a beer with Tahlia and Lyndall, the two auzzies. On our way there, Lasse was stalked (he has a stalker/fan!) by a homeless guy who was tamping the pavement and then he laughed at Lasse. It's so strange - we've seen him a couple of times now, and he always laughs - I don't know if he finds tall, blond guys funny, but dude, YOU're the freaky one..!
On Wednesday, I finally bought a bike! I had spent the whole time since we got here looking for a second hand bike, and finally got one! I paied 40.000 chilean pesos for it (400 DKR), and the guy who sold it to me said that he will buy it back from me when I go home to DK, so that’s good! It’s a mountainbike, and I have never had a mountainbike, so I have to get used to it, haha. I have already had one crash, but it was Lasse’s fault (;-)!) and nothing really happened to me.
In the evening we went to see "Cuentos que no son cuento" - in Spanish! So Lasse, Beck (also from australia) and I got to practice even more Spanish. Behind us sat the cutest little 6-year-old boy, so you couldn't help but laugh when ever he laughed:-)
Thursday.. well.. the weather was great for once, so I enjoyed a bit of sun in my garden:-)
Friday we went to a big party to celebrate that uni has started. The first week of April is called SemanaPapayo (Papayo Week), so this friday (the 20th) was pre-papayo-party at one of the campus. There was an 2000 pesos entrance fee, and when you got in, everybody was dancing there was a DJ and well - everybody was happy:-) We all (the exchange students) had gotten together at my place before going to the big party (that's how I found out that the owners are NOT fond of parties where I live..), and we all danced the night away untill it closed already at 4 in the morning!! :-)
Well, I wanted to go surfing on saturday anyway, so after getting about 3-4 hours sleep, I was up again getting ready to head the beach at 11 o'clock! I thought that the uni-surfing classes were starting that saturday, but it turned out they didn't... But I asked around near the surfing school, and some guys from the school who were going surfing anyway gave me a 10-15 min. lesson, and then I was off surfing on my own with the other guys! It was so cool!!!:-D The weather wasn't too good for surfing, they said, but what do I know?! I have never surfed before, and I don't think it would have made a big difference for me what the waves were like.. Either way I swallowed around 37 litres of (very) salty water, and probaby only stayed with my feet on the board for 20 seconds out of the 1 hour and 45 mins. I surfed - but it was amazing!!!:-D Love it! Now, I´m sooo surfing the coast of La Serena!

Tomorrow, I have to finally decide the courses that I'm gonna do. Our professor from DK told us that we only have to pass 3 exams and not 4, so that's great!! So I'm gonna to 4 courses, and I think I have finally settled on 4 - maybe... I don't know... Still deciding..

Anyway, this Friday (the 27th), Lasse, Beck, Melanie and I are going on a semi-spontaneous trip to the south of Chile; to Patagonia, and also "The end of the World" in Argentina; Ushuaia:-) We will be gone for about 2 weeks (we're back on the 12th of april), and I will tell you all about it when I get back (HOPEFULLY by then my portable computer has gone through customs in Santiago, grrr:-(!!).