A very odd day.

Went out last night with my assigned "intercambio" partner, who actually spent a semester in Utah so he really doesn't need any help from me (whereas I think he got the poor end of the deal since my Spanish probably hurts him terribly). We brought along some classmates and a couple of his friends and had a good time. For some reason the bar was actually packed full of dancing kids at 7pm, which goes against everything I knew about nightlife in Chile. So far every bar I have been to doesn't perk up until 1 or 2- so what's the deal? I asked intercambio Ernesto and he said "these people have probably been here since 3pm! I came here once at 11am and left at 4pm drunk!". I had a test today, really shouldn't have gone out at all, 7pm or not.

So, yeah. You learn something new every day. I also learned today how easy it is to get robbed. Janelle and Tim and I walked over to the Jumbo supermarket from the school to get some random stuff, and we grabbed Sarah on the way out because Janelle and Sarah had plans to go to a teahouse I had found. The plan was, I would show them what bus to take to go to the teahouse. So we get on the bus and Janelle and I pay and sit down. The bus driver is inching along with traffic so Sarah is having trouble standing straight and has her wallet out to pay the driver. A boy steps on to the bus and for a moment looks like he's going to pay and board with us. Then he reaches out smoothly, with a determined and detached look on his face, and snatches Sarah's wallet from her hands. She tugs at it but her grip was just not prepared for a struggle and he takes off with it. I watch the whole thing go down in slow motion, and she takes about 5 seconds to register what just happened and runs off the bus after the guy. We of course hop off the bus and watch her weave in and out of bus traffic after the thief, in a skirt with tights and little ballerina flats. She almost had him, but I guess he disappeared. It was so sad. She had to cancel her debit card, and she had all that adrenaline in her. It was an interesting day indeed.