orientacion

Hola!!!
So I have survived now 2.5 days in Chile!! (though really the first day doesn't count since I slept pretty much the whole time...) yesterday we met up with the group and everything. I lied in my last post. I said there were 5 people from DU, but there are actually 4 in my program. there is one girl who goes to George washington University but is from Colorado and then another guy who goes to CC. so out of 15 there are 6 of us with colorado ties. CRAZY!! in the hosteria lobby they keep playing some english songs... like buttercup and then old macdonald had a farm and just now i heard the barney intro song...hahahahaha. Last night we went to the local pub (all the bars are called pubs) and it was kareoke night and there was already a group of people in there when we got there (a group of lawyers actually) so we tried to sing along with them and then they tried to sing along with some english songs. Its interesting to see what american songs they have, the first song they played for us (thinking wed all know the words...) was Frank Sinatra, then Michael Jackson... so popular songs, but no one knew all the words. hahahaha so that was funny.
Today we went on a walk aroudn a national park close to where we are staying. It was really neat, we had a guide who would tell us all about the flora and the history of the area. It was in a valley sort of and one mountain was more tropical and the other was much more arid and desert like because the sun shines on it all the time and then the valley was a river bed. And all three areas were different temperatures! It was crazy. Then we went into an old closed mine which was interesting because they showed us what the common metal (?) (mineral?? no se) is. I will upload pictures later. It was scary because we had two head lamps, one for the guide in front and one for the guide in back, and thats it! It wasn't very far but still scary! hahaha reminded me of the movie the descent! hahahah
The water is safe to drink, but it contains more minerals then Americans are used to or something so we aren't allowed to drink the tap water yet. We have to start off by putting ice cubes in a drink then a week later we can try to drink one small glass of water with a meal a day and then go from there. Of course I didn't know that so I just went right ahead and filled a nalgene and was drinking that. I haven't really had any problems other than feeling kinda gassy... sooo we'll see. hahahaha (they said if you dont get the runs within a few hours you're fine...) hahahaha
We have been trying to learn how to dance... yesterday they taught us salsa and merengue... hahahahaha thats quite the experience but then last night some of the people got up and tried out some of their moves and the locals were giving them some pointers and stuff. it was pretty neat! we've got another dance class in about a half hour.
Tomorrow we meet our host family. AHHH! im so nervous!!! I think they will be fun and everything will be fine, its just the whole speaking thing that Im really nervous for.
I will update again when I can. there is already so much to talk about!! and im starting to think in spanish...
adios!!!