June and things

June 1st – I had been having some problems with my eyes over the past couple weeks, and I’d noticed that they were itchy and sometimes I was having problems with sensitivity to light. I thought that it was just allergies or some sort of thing in my house, but I woke up this day and was not able to open my eyes. I clearly had an eye infection, and it was almost impossible to open my eyes except for a short glimpse. I wasn’t able to get an appointment at the clinic until the afternoon, and until then Nicole led me around to keep me from bumping into things. The opthamolagist said that I probably had a viral infection, but I think it was probably bacterial because it had been getting worse for a couple weeks, however, I’m no professional. Regardless, she gave me steroid drops for the inflammation and anti-biotic drops in case it was bacterial. The drops helped very quickly, and by the next day I was able to open my eyes and walk around. Needless to say, it wasn’t very pleasant, but I did get out of going to class, and I got an extension on one of my papers.


My new Spanish word for the day.

June 2nd – I wasn’t feeling 100%, but definitely better enough to go out. Nicole and I ended up going to the National Botanical Gardens, and it we had the place pretty much to ourselves. Nicole is continuing to add Chilean birds to her list, and we had a great time. It’s so great to have her around, and we’re really enjoying spending a significant amount of time together. It’s been a year and a half since we’ve been together for more than a week, so this is fantastic. I slept during the afternoon, and then we went to bed at the normal Chilean time around 12:00.


Nicole couldn't even wait to get to the Botanical Garden before finding flowers.


Us at the botanical gardens.

June 3rd – I was able to go to a couple classes today, and Nicole and I got to know a little more of Valparaíso. By this time many of the exchange students had been missing American food, and after classes we went out with the other Messiah students to Ruby Tuesday’s for dinner. We mostly all got burgers, and there were many content faces after dinner. We walked around Viña a little bit, and got to sleep at a reasonable hour.


This was one of the logos on the cargo boxes stacked up in the port in Valparaiso.

June 4th – So far we missed seeing one of the birds that Nicole wanted to see, the elusive Many-colored Rush Tyrant (its Spanish name is Siete Colores), so today we went to Concón once again to search for it. Fortunately we were successful, and we got some great looks at it. However, it’s not necessarily a good poser for pictures, and I’ve posted the best one I got bellow. After getting back home, we went out to the house of Vanessa (the ex-girlfriend of my host brother Felipe) for dinner and good conversation. We had a great time, and ended up spending about four hours there talking with her and her family.


After seeing the Many-colored Rush Tyrant!