valpo

Did you know that the primary difference between Valparaíso and Valparaiso is the use of the accent in the former? Also that one is a beautiful port city an hour and change from Santiago and the other is a college in Philadelphia. But the main difference is the accent. We went to the city today, about ten other COPA kids, Katty and Valeria, and me, and took a shit ton of pictures because it is a very photogenic place, especially on a gorgeous day like today. I haven't uploaded those yet, but there are a lot and some of them are very nice. Only drawback was the early wakeup, which I barely made because my alarm clock failed me. Thank god for having to pee. But despite my continuing inability to fall asleep on or in anything that moves, the fresh air and great views energized me and I was awake for the day. We took a little foray in a tour boat out to the middle of the harbor and back, which was nice if oddly directionless and unexplained, and then walked around various parts of the city. We ate in a weird restaurant with big picture-window views of the ocean (one neat thing about Valpo is that you can see the ocean from EVERYWHERE, because there's a law against buildings being built on the hills that block the view of the buildings behind, that is, higher up. There are 45 hills, all named, and they serve like little mini-cities. Each has its own feria and stores and firemen and when you ask someone here where they're from, they name their hill. Also, it's a working port, so there a few big ships in the harbor and big loading and unloading cranes and containers from all over the world. It used to be a lot more important, but then came the Panama Canal and, well, why go around Cape Horn when you can save thousands of miles worth of fuel and time and risk? Still, there's definitely activity and we got to see the huge dry-dock in the middle of the water, where they float ships in and then raise the platform in order to clean and do repairs and whatnot. There were also three or four navy ships on a special long dock, and sea lions on a little platform, which barked at another sea lion that was trying to join them and smelled horrible.

Anyhow, then we came home and I ate dinner and talked to Gabby for a while, which was nice. It had been a little bit since we talked and he's leaving for Paris on Tuesday, so it was good to talk to him. The fam tried to call but somehow failed (I'm still not sure what happened exactly...), but will try again tomorrow, so that's all right. Lincoln leaves Sept 6 for RISD...exciting! But we've gotta get a conversation in before then cause after that it'll be hard. Less so if Mom and Dad and Jack get Skype (cough cough) at home and Lincoln does at school, but still, harder than when they're all together. I wrote a Spanish essay and now have to do some reading for class tomorrow, which probably won't take very long, and watch some TV because on top of all the activity of the day I have been preoccupied with something vague and strange for the past 4 hours or so and need to veg out and stop thinking about anything. Take care, my peoples. 'Night.