"back to school" excitment in March?

Nothing exceptionally huge has happened since my last post, but I am having a great time and learning more and more each day. This weekend was pretty crazy, lots of dancing and late night adventures. Saturday night we celebrated Jon´s 21st birthday--quite fun. Sunday afternoon was cool because my dad took me exploring some more in Valpo--that is what the new pics are from. I rode my first ascensor (elevators that take you to the tops of the hills) and went to an open air museum on Cerro Bellavista. He also took me to several amazing "miradors" -- view points from which you can see the whole city and the ocean. Also sweet is the Paseo de los Sueños, a public art plaza made entirely of mosaics. Perhaps the most special however, was that he took me to neighborhood in which he grew up. His old house no longer exists, but he showed me the empty lot and the places he used to play as a kid.
Indeed, I did start classes this week as well. I am taking two classes specifically for exchange students, one is a class on globalization required by our program, and the other is a spanish gramar class. As always with the begining of the semester, some of my schedule is still up in the air, but so far, so good. This morning I attended meterology, which I think could be cool, but I did have a hard time understanding this professor´s accent. During the next week I will also start/try out classes on development, history through film, and a community service class. I will keep you all posted as I learn more about those courses and which ones I want to stick with. I am certainly still struggling with spanish but it does get better every day. My ability to communicate almost entirely depends on how tired I am and the subject matter. Honestly, the wierdest thing is how I have begun to mix Spanish and English. I often type spanish words when I write emails, or say spanish cognates when I speak in English. My host sister and I have a bad habit of speaking spanglish to one another!
One last note...last night, I had an extremely interesting and rather intense converstation with my mom here. She told me about her life during the dictatorship--this woman is amazing. While she told me many stories, the most incredible story of hers is that for years she risked her life sneaking people out of the country, disguising them, falsifying documents etc...At the time she was working as a journalist and was able to maintain a politically neutral public appearance, but behind the scenes did absolutely incredible things for people.