Everyone in Santiago has the same car alarm. These alarms go off ALL THE TIME. They are either really sensitive, or lots of people are breaking into cars, especially in the wee hours of the morning directly outside our window.

It sounds like this:

• ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow
• wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow
• oooeee oooeee oooeee oooeee
• ooooooooooop ooooooooooop
• meh meh meh meh meh meh meh meh
• pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew
• repeat above

We have been walking pretty much everywhere as is there is so much to look at (buildings, mountains, parks, people). However we have found that we aren't able to take in all of the beauty as we are giving preference to scanning the pavement for canine excrement. All the stray dogs are quite fat, suggesting they get fed a lot which we are sure doesn't help the situation.

Regardless, we are really enjoying our time in Santiago and learning Spanish.

We are amused by what would usually be simple tasks like grocery shopping. As soon as we start to think we are beginning to understand some spanish, the checkout lady asks us what is probably a really basic question like "would you like your meat is a separate bag?" and we quickly realise how far we have to go. At least once we learn a few more words we should be able to string them together in the correct order.

To ensure we get the most out of our lessons and finish up with some language skills, we spend most of our time outside of class revising and doing homework. Though we did manage to get out on the weekend and catch part of the Santiago marathon, as well as wander around Parque O'Higgins which we hadn't been able to do previously as it was the venue for Lollapalooza.

In the middle of the park there is a dome stadium. As we approached we noticed a crowd of people, bearing banners and signs, congregating outside. We wondered if it was a protest of some description but as we drew nearer we noticed the crowd was made up almost entirely of 16 year old girls, and a few 16 year old boys, performing coordinated dance steps and blaring horrible pop music. Their signs and T-shirts were emblazoned with "SHINee", apparently a hugely popular boy band. Ever heard of them? Neither have we.

We missed the big local futbol match between Universidad de Chile and Colo Colo (the victors) but caught some of the fans on the way to the game! Aparently you get a windowless bending bus and hang out chanting something or other yielding planks of wood (no photos unfortunately).

Thats it for now, brains are fried from studying.

LAPFWT