Cuando en Roma

Another day, another adventure. So I met a couple on the airplane when I flew down here, Juan Pablo y Stephania, and Juan Pablo told me to call him when I get a chance. I was going to email him yesterday, and woke up to an email from him, so I emailed him back in Spanish (then wrote out what I meant in English underneath) and sent him a text message saying, "I'm done for the day, want to meet up for a drink, coffee, or dinner?" We were done with CIEE activities for the day around 3:00 and I got a little bored so I walked around the city, got lost for probably 20 minutes, then found my way back to the hotel. On my stroll I bought some peaches and an orange for what I thought would be my dinner. After I got back, around 7:30ish I get a phone call from Juan Pablo, who wanted to know if I wanted a ride to his place because he was having some friends over for drinks. I said sure, ¿Por qué no? (Why not?) Ends up he bought some supplies for his friend when in the USA at PetCo and was giving the ferret food to him last night. We went grocery shopping and picked up supplies for pizzas, and pisco. We get to his house and sat down to make some pizzas and mixed some drinks. Mind you I'm basically Chilean when it comes to meals so putting a home-made pizza in the oven a little after 10:00 didn't bother me. Juan Pablo's best friend from college Rodrigo and his wife were the other guests at his house besides me. I mainly talked with Juan Pablo about 70% Spanish and could accurately describe to the others when they asked me pointed questions, like, "How many other people are in your program, where is everyone teaching, do you like pisco and coke, or pisco and ginger ale better, and why, and some other questions that I don't really remember. Juan Pablo was concerned that I might get ripped off when I go house shopping and he said he'd go with me some afternoon or Saturday to look at places I find. All of us at "dinner" had a good time making fun of US stereotypes and other US things. One funny story Juan Pablo and Rodrigo told was that in Chile, when you're hungry, you eat a pizza becuase that is about the right serving size. The two of them were in the US visiting Juan Pablo's mama and got hungry. They both ordered a pizza. But the pizza was like the size of a pizza from Ian's, or Pizza DeRoma, or where you normally buy one slice. They said they sat down in the pizza shop and each ate the entire pizza. It took them over an hour, and they felt sick afterwards, but they didn't really know what else to do. At the end of the night, I felt a little better with my Spanish, but still I don't feel comfortable because when I was at the grocery store the clerk asked me a question, then repeated, then asked me a question I understood. She asked me if I understand, and that I could reply with a confident, "no, I don't understand you"
The other guys in our group are fun. I think I'll visit them on the weekends because they both have hook-ups with housing on the coast. They're both living in Valpo. The nightlife is different here. People meet up and sit down for dinner around 10:00-11:00 at night. It seems like people sit down and have dinner instead of sitting around and just drinking. I'm not quite sure yet. Also I haven't figured out the meal schedule. Apparently you're suppose to have a light breakfast, a big lunch and a light dinner. But every meal I've had has been large and good. Oh well, I'm still getting it.
This afternoon we start our Chilean Spanish lessons. Should be interesante.