Today after breakfast we started out with a goals/expectations meeting where we did the typical "3 goals for the semester," then Brady had a question and answer session about what to expect. Realistic expectations were things like "seeing whales", unrealistic would be "touching whales" since they're hard to get close to. It really just became a general q/a session. Then we had a short break to get ready for our swimming test. Since the water around the point is really polluted we're not allowed to swim there, so we had to go for maybe a 15-20 minute boat ride to a different beach surrounded by mangroves. The boats are simple speedboats, the ride was bumpy and something short of pleasant. They anchored the boats maybe 100m away from each other and you had to swim back and forth, three times if you wore a wetsuit, twice if not. Swimming in the ocean in a wetsuit was harder than I expected, I felt fairly ridiculous that it took me so long. Once you had done your laps you had to tread water for 1:30 minutes. Then we got back in the boats and headed back.

Once we got back we had some time for a break, during which a bunch of people took quick showers and rinsed out their wetsuits. Then we had lunch, which was some kind of a mixed veggie/shellfish (chocolate clams-not actually chocolate!) and rice, plus crabs. After that we had a site cleanup-everyone has a different chore every week that they have to do. This week mine's kitchen trash/recycling, where I have to make sure both are emptied and the recycling is sorted correctly. That was pretty quick, so I went to help Will sweep the patio and museum. It rained so much yesterday that the museum was pretty much flooded so he spent most of the time squeeging water out while Laura, Elia, Vero and I swept sand off the patio.

After site cleanup we went on a walking tour of town with Brady. We saw a bunch of the shops and Brady pointed out the ones with really friendly shop owners, as well as the ones who speak English. We stopped to go in a few stores like the grocery store, a gift shop and a convenience store. I took a bunch of pictures...and my camera deleted them, as well as all the pictures I took of the site. So once we got back I wandered around some more, taking the same pictures I'd taken yesterday and this morning. After that I played (or something like it) soccer with Elia, Jose and Antonio (an intern) on the sand lot they made earlier today.

When we got back we realized that our cabin's power was out. Gustavo (the center director) and Carlos (the repairman) fixed it by flipping our breaker. It went out again and we think it was the light that's outside our door, so we're leaving that off for awhile. We got our first reading assignments from AJ, a small chapter in a book and some online reading, so everyone's doing that right now.

I'm trying to upload photos right now, but it's taking forever. Our internet is fairly mercurial and is totally dependent on how many people are trying to use the server at once.