I'm back to work, although not as regularly as I'd like to be. I have some morning classes now, and next week some more classes will start up.

Yesterday we had some pretty big aftershock scares here in Chile, with the epicenter in Rancagua, causing tsunami alerts throughout the coast. I, thankfully, was not along the coast- I was in Santiago, dropping Maia off to see her mom and just generally escaping from Viña. I felt a few aftershocks in the 10th floor of the apartment building where Maia's mom lives, and it was pretty different- lots of movement, lots of swaying, and it's a different kind of worry and panic- instead of looking to get outside (like I do here in the house), you know that you CAN'T get outside, and just hope that the building doesn't collapse. Obviously, the building I was in and most buildings survived The Big One, so it's a nice comfort- the entire time it's shaking, you just know that it's not going to be as bad and nothing is going to happen. Still, I didn't realized that it had been such a big aftershock until we got in the metro and noticed that people had evacuated buildings and were standing around outside. We were lucky to meet up with Alvaro and Maia's mom at her work because she was looking to take a taxi back home- after evacuating the building, no one was thinking about work again.

Back here in Viña and Valpo, I've heard that it was a fair amount of chaos as people ran to the hills to escape The Wave, which thankfully never came. I've heard accounts from friends and co-workers, and it seems like the cops came around warning everyone with megaphones and over the radio to run for the hills. People were swarming and trying to run everyone to get away from the coast. Because a lot of the destruction in the south came from the unwarned tsunami, they're extra careful with their alerts now, and people are (rightly so) very scared. I'm glad I wasn't around for the chaos. When we came back later last night (after the tsunami alert was lifted), Viña was a ghost town- there were hardly any stores open (when they're usually all open), and no one was in the streets. It was pretty bizarre. Luckily, we live on a hill (a big one), and even if anything came, we'd be far away from the destruction. We got home safely and watched The Hurt Locker- after the Oscar hub bub, I expected a bit more, but that's another topic.

I hope Chile stops with the shaking, but I guess these aftershocks are expected to last up to a year. Either way, rest safe knowing that I'm probably much safer with earthquakes here than in the U.S.- I read an article comparing the potential damage of a 8.8 earthquake in Portland v. Chile and it's much, much worse in Portland thanks to high levels of earthquake-proof building codes here after the devasting earthquakes in 1960 and 1985. I've heard that buildings have wheels at their bases even to allow them to sway rather than try to resist. Pretty crazy. So don't worry too much about me- I've learned a lot about earthquake safety and thanks to constant hill climbing, I'm all set to brave out a tsunami. Besos to all!