Monday, May 10

Today has been a very busy day and it is not over yet. We went to the University of Santa Maria this morning on a public buse and heard very interesting lectures on the the history and literature of Chile, the music of Chile and the recent earthquake. The speaker was Jose Luis Cortes (Mimo). At lunch we all at at the casino (student/staff cafeteria). It is amazingly efficient give the huge number of people who want to eat at the same time. In the afternoon Mimo took us on a tour of Valparaiso and then the beach at Renaca. We finished the tour with seafood empanadas in another beach town of Con Con. We stopped for a break at the hotel but are about to go back to the university for a dance lesson. Given that we are in the southern hemisphere, it was dark by 6 and is cold and damp.