Hola!

This whole blog thing is new to me, so I'll just dive right in. This Fall semester I am studying abroad in Viña del Mar, Chile, a city about the size of St. Paul, MN. I arrived August 2nd at the house I'm living in until the end of November. I'll be attending the Universidad Adolfo Ibañez (from now on, UAI) here in Viña with an admittedly loose academic schedule with an emphasis on cultural exposure and overall fun to be had (their slogan, word for word I swear).

During past adventures, traveling, family vacations etc. my siblings and I were all encouraged to keep journals, diaries or what have you in order to not only remember our experiences but to possibly return to those places and both repeat fond memories and create new ones. Now, I'm not entirely sure to which degree of diligence my siblings maintained in their record keeping, but speaking cordially for myself, my own was all but a crapshoot. I found that jotting down everything from what I ate to every little detail of each day never helped later when I would go back through what I wrote.

So for this here blog thingamawhatsit, each week I instead intend to expound upon some interesting event, person, place, or cultural custom that is important to my life here in Viña. Examples of some topics that already come to mind include my chilean house, my host family, the mall, and UAI. My hope in doing this is to not only make this a more interesting and concentrated read, but to also make it easier on myself and anyone else reading this after my journey is over. It will also be easier and much more enjoyable to write and therefore read something much more interesting once a week rather than force myself to eke out a few thoughts each day, some of which are bound to be somewhat monotonous and unhelpful in understanding life down here in Chile. Another thing I hope will prove to be advantageous is that the timing of these blogs (although I hope to write consistently once a week) will most likely not be produced chronologically i.e. something that happens one night this week might get written about for another week or two. This will further relieve pressure on both writer and reader in this situation.

But I think the manual for this blog has gone on long enough. If you come back to read each week you're either very very  bored or actually give a hoot about me/my travels, although it's more likely to a combination of the two. So happy reading, and I'll see you all in December!

Adios!

Jota Jota