Orientation and Bars

The past two days I've had orientation for foreign exchange students, los extranjeros, at UBB. During this time I have discovered how much I appreciate having all my classes online with full descriptions at UIUC. Here in Chile, or maybe it's just UBB, there aren't course descriptions because once a students chooses their major (which they have to do before they enroll in university) every student in the major takes the exact same classes in the same order. This is fine for the students, but extremely difficult for exchange students as the asignatura "termodinámica" in the civil mechanical engineering is different from the "termodinámica" in industrial engineering. Therefore, if you are planning on studying in Chile, make sure to ask the jefes de carrera, of heads of the majors to tell you what's covered in a class before you take it.

On a more fun note, I went out with a friend from the US who has been here a semester already and her amigos. We went out to a bar around 11 or so (unlike UIUC where everyone goes out at 9 and is back at 1, in Conce people go out at 11 and get back anywhere between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m.). The bar was really fun. I had some really good, really dark beer and listened to some great renditions of Bob Dylan. The most entertaining part of the evening was the table next to us at which two guys were sitting and once they had consumed a little too much alcohol decided it would be a good idea to start taking pictures of the Americans. We finally left at 3, at which point I learned that everyone in Conce drives drunk, and apparently that's quite all right. Just make sure to buckle up!