Weather and travel!

I was just eating my once (3rd meal of the day…like breakfast at night, sans eggs and pancakes, plus bread) and watching the news when the weather came on. Now, I’ve lived here for more than seven weeks now, and I’ve seen the weather report plenty of times. However, tonight I noticed the background music for the first time. It’s like the kind of soft, pretty, classical music they play at Steininger’s (a wonderful little restaurant in small-town Salem, NY). The greatest thing about this music, though, is not that it plays during the weather, but that it has played during the weather for a long time, something like the past forty years (when I commented on the music tonight, my host mom enlightened me with this fun fact)! Here’s a link to a youtube video of a TVN weather report, just in case you want to hear the music for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKZuCevZz-U

Anyway, I’m off now to finish an essay, write a weekly internship report, research Chilean politicians, and figure out where I’ll be sleeping this weekend…I’m taking a bus tomorrow night to Viña del Mar, Chile, a city about 8 hours north of here, about an hour from Santiago. Viña is very close to Valparaíso, a well-known port city, and between the two cities I’ll be seeing a number of good friends who are living there for the semester. I’m traveling with another gringa, named Julie, who is a student from North Carolina. We’re working on a geography project together about tourism, so we figured there was no better type of research than actually going to be tourists in the place we want to learn about, right? I’m psyched. It will be nice to see a new place and some friendly faces.

My next report will be made after I have survived two overnight bus rides, and will hopefully be adorned with lots of photos…I’ve been told Valparaíso is a really interesting city.

Love,

Tiernan