all right. okay. all right. all right. okay. okay. all right. okay. i'll update my blog!

man how long as it been? 2 weeks since i wrote in this? wow. i have no concept of chronology but i'm going to attempt to do my best here.

last time you heard from me, it was good friday. well it turns out that Santiago turns into a GHOST TOWN on a long weekend. i'm talking like, everyone leaves and all stores close either entirely or for 90% of the day. so food was scarce and there wasn't a whole lot to do. but Alice and I managed to venture up Cerro San Cristobal once again. only this time we walked down. it was a long journey but pretty beautiful. there were a lot of places that had amazing views and also a lot of areas where the walkway would go from walking on the road to taking a more rustic path into the woods. i was a huge fan of the latter. there was also a small japanese garden at one point. after about 2 hours of walking, we finally made it to the bottom. hooraaaay. overall it was cool but next time i definitely want more nature trails.

alice and i also ventured towards Las Condes which is the area of Santiago to the West of Providencia. I really like Las Condes. it's more suburban and has lots of shops and malls and stuff. it also just seems friendlier. i can't describe it. i just think the further west you go in Santiago, the more it gets like this. at any rate, during this ghost town weekend we had, we went to a MALL in Las Condes. not a shopping center. not some kiosk. not a mini-mall. a MALL. i'm talking like, it had 4 floors, a food court, a movie theater and many many many many places to eat that you would typically find in the states such as KFC, Benihanas, McDonald's and amazingly... even Taco Bell. that's right. I found a Taco Bell. i think the main reason i liked going to the mall so much was because it was like a small piece of the states that i was familiar with and felt somewhat at home. i haven't felt that way since i've been here.. granted i've felt a lot of other amazing emotions that you only feel when you travel to another country but still... it was cool. i am so going back there when i'm in need of Taco Bell. while we were there, alice and I went halfsies on a Spanish version of Monopoly. the cards are made of like, laminated paper or something instead of cardboard. it's the crappiest monopoly set ever but it has properties like "Santiago" which makes it awesome.

at some point on the ghost town weekend, Alice, Alessandro and I went and saw Milk. i really liked it a lot. personally, i don't think any movie will ever be able to tell an audience how it feels to be gay in society but that one did a pretty good job. also, i can't believe it's a true story. we all liked it.

on monday everything opened again and the city was bustling like crazy. i lost one of my classes. but the good news is, it was the class that was only once a week for one hour. apparently that hour didn't work for them so there was no way it would have worked at all. oh well. Polyglot-Mitford told me that more classes would open up in Mayo so i'm going to pester them like crazy starting May 1st. classes continue to go swell. my students struggle with some concepts but who doesn't? english is tough any ways so godspeed to them for trying.

during that week, Alessandro and I went to "Tiramisu", which actually didn't have Tiramisu at all. it was a really upscale pizza place in Las Condes. while there, i got a 4 cheese pizza. it was gigantic and delicious. apparently that place is pretty poppin during the day. as we were leaving there was a line out the door.

the following weekend, Alice and I went to Valparaiso. we've been to Valpo before but when we went before we only saw it in passing as we were really visiting Vina Del Mar. This time we devoted a whole day to Valpo. we ended up doing several things.

first we took an ascensor up the hill of valparaiso. see, this town has an area on the hill and an area in the valley much like rowe. on the hill, we walked around the neighborhoods and quickly became exhausted. but we ended up finding one of Pablo Neruda's houses called "La Sebastiana" and we did a small tour of it. man. it had a nice view but it's really cramped. i kind of hate that. this house is pretty small and honestly kind of unexciting. overall, i liked La Chascona better. but i can't wait to see the one at Isle Negra. it's supposed to be the best one. it's happening some time. any ways, after our visit there, we went to a small park and took some fotos with some more esculturas while we were in silly poses. we kind of love doing that. we also ran into two people in Alice's program and they gave us advice on things to check out. we chatted for about 15 minutes. it was fun.

since we took the ascensor up the hill, we decided to walk down. on our way, we found a lot of artwork on the sides of people's houses in graffiti. it was really cool. we also found a lot of dog poop. it was really not cool. once we made our way to the bottom, we hit a main road and decided to go left. we were on our way to a specific part of Valparaiso but we ended up randomly seeing this reggae concert. it turns out it was a celebration of the 76th anniversary of the socialist party. how random and awesome. by then it was getting dark and cold so we decided to venture in the opposite direction we were walking toward the bus station. and that's when we found J Cruz.

my god. J Cruz has to be one of the coolest little restaurants ever. that is if you're in the mood for their main dish, the Chorillana. This thing is a beast. it's basically just fries with eggs, onions and chopped up pork on top. but DAMN is it tasty! it happens to be the signature dish of Valparaiso and this place is the best place to get it. it's also gigantic. too big for one but just enough for two. delicious. the way we found J Cruz was that it was down this very tiny alleyway. once you walked inside there were TONS of little trinkets everywhere. this place puts Applebees and Chilis to shame with its random crap on the walls. it's like they spare no empty space with their small glass sculptures and intricate looking silverware. it's like looking at a where's waldo book except all the people are replaced by random objects and they're everywhere you look. also, once we started eating, this guy came out and started playing guitar for everyone there! he had a big grin on his face and he was singing about Valparaiso. while in this restaurant, I got an incredibly good vibe. i felt totally comfortable and happy. maybe it was the pile of grease i had just shoved into my digestive track, but I loved J Cruz. loved it loved it loved it.

after that we took a small detour to a carnival. we didn't go in because most of the activities were for kids (even though that didn't stop us at the museo de sciencia y technologica! but more on that in a second). we just sat by the carnival and chatted using incredibly vulgar language while Spanish children were happily playing about 10 feet from us. whatever though. they don't speak English. we kept laughing every time we sweared though. it was great.

so then we took a very dark bus ride back to Santiago and thus ended our day in Valpo. overall, i like Valparaiso. but nowhere near enough to live in it. there are way too many hills for me there. also, the artwork is cool but there's just not much to do there. i think i like Vina more. call me a spring break college frat boy for it or whatever you want but Vina is just more my area.

the following day, we went to the Museo De Sciencia y Technologica. that was cool. they had a lot of little sciencey things you could interact with there like a room with tons of infinite mirrors and that thing where the metal balls hang from strings and you pull one and it hits all the other ones and it makes the ball on the other end bounce back and it goes on forever. y'know. stuff like that. it felt like it was meant for little kids but it was also fun at the same time. Since this Museo happened to be in Quinta Normal, Alice and I decided to try (emphasis on "try") to take out one of the little boats they had into the pond. dude, ROWING BOATS IS HARD. i don't care what you say but rowing a boat solo without crashing into things is difficult. i distinctly remember our boat slowly careening towards another family's boat and i heard one of the kids scream "no crashio!". unfortunately, we did crashio... but there was no damage to either boat. so yeah. it's hard to be romantic while 99% of your brain is focusing on controlling the boat but... like i said... we tried.

During the week, more classes. more chilling out. more of the same. except on Tuesday. on that day, Alice, Alessandro, Ari, Ari's girlfriend Kat and I all went out to dinner because Kat was leaving Chile soon and we wanted to have a night out together. we ended up going to this place that i forget the name of. it was this old barber shop in centro that had been converted into a restaurant. there were little barber chairs everywhere and a bunch of cool things on the walls like shavers and pictures of random artwork. also, for some reason. no two tables were the same there. every single table was different, which i thought was kind of cool. i ate a crepe with crab meat in it. it was pretty tasty but my stomach tends to hate seafood and i paid for it later. that's all i'm sayin about that. all in all, a fun night.

to continue this "Kat is leaving so let's all have fun" trend, I ate dinner with Ari, Kat and Ari's family on Wednesday night. Kat made chicken and veggies in some kind of sauce. it was delish. Ari's family are the nicest bunch of people. his parents remind me of mine in that they're really respectful, smart and funny. i offered everybody some ice cream that i had bought for myself since Ari and Kat were so kind to feed me and people took some. it was a nice dinner.

and with that, i have successfully updated my blog (cue fanfare). what's coming in the next few weeks? well next weekend is a long weekend and since i don't feel like hanging out in the ghost town that is Santiago, i've decided to go to... (drumrolllll) MENDOZA, ARGENTINA! despite the fact that all i can think of when i hear "mendoza" is McBain screaming, i am also very excited to visit this town. i've heard the carne there is delicious and the bus ride through the mountains is beauuuutiful. alice is going too. we're staying all weekend. also i get paid soon!!! very exciting!!!

and that is all for now. until next time, hasta!

grood friday

AT LAST SOME FREE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

or rather, some time where i'm sitting around doing nothing and i actually have the energy to do a blog update or blupdate. terribly sorry for the lack of updates lately but i've been a busy bee.

when we last left, i was doing pretty good. i am doing slightly better than before. i'm up to four classes per week and 9.5 hours per week. i get paid in pesos which is great. i also get taxed but i have no earthly idea how it works. with these hours currently i should be getting about $524 per month. that's about 262,000 chilean pesos. i definitely need more hours but my current cash flow pays for my rent completely and leaves me with 97,000 pesos for food and stuff which is about $200 american. so i'm well on my way to having a good little life here. i'm not scraping the bottom of the barrel yet by any means. i still have a hefty amount of cash i've saved to sustain me for a while. life is grood.

so yeah, i've started teaching more classes! one is incredibly far away. at first it was a 2 hour commute with public transportation but i spoke with the agency i'm employed with and they agreed to let me take a faster form of public transportation and pay for it. namely, this transportation is a collectivo. it's like a taxi but 4 random people share it, there's a set fee and there are preset destinations for all taxis. so like, for example, a collectivo in boston would be going to nashua, NH by taking 93 and if you need to get to a town that's directly off of 93, it would drop you off on its way. sort of like a mini bus that's slightly more expensive and way faster because it only makes 4 stops. it's great. the only problem is when you're waiting for 4 people to go where you're going or there's a TON of people going to where you're going and there are no collectivos available so you have to wait for them to make their rounds and come back. the class itself is all right. the guy is a basic level english student so there's a lot to teach. on the upside, he gives me a ride home from his work on wednesdays and fridays so instead of a 90 minute to 2 hour commute using public transportation, it only takes about 45 minutes for me to get home when he drives me. so that's GREAT.

the other 2 classes i picked up are really close to me. they're in this CHilean bank's office. one of the classes is just this one guy who's super advanced in english so the class is sort of conversational and we primarily discuss business ethics and stuff like that. but in order to not die of boredom, i try to work other things into the conversation periodically such as favorite bands and movies and stuff. the other class at the bank starts next tuesday. it goes from monday to friday in the evenings but i only teach it one day a week and another guy teaches it 4 times per week. so he basically tells me what to do in that class and i comply. i'm totally fine with that.

in terms of siteseeing, i'm still doing that. alice and I were trying to find a market at one point but we ended up walking in the wrong direction. since we were in the area of Santa Lucia, I decided to show her that. we did a quick one hour trip there walking up and seeing the city from the tower and checking out pathways and stuff. it was fun fun. alice was particularly proud of herself for conquering the very steep steps that were there (pictured).

i took yet another trip to a museo and saw the Chilean Natural History Museum at Quinta Normal (the amazing park that actually had clean water). there were a lot of kids there but it was cool. they had dinosaur bones and chilean artifacts from indian tribes and stuff. oh and speaking of stuff, there were tons of stuffed animals there too. not stuffed like cute and cuddly but stuffed like taxidermy (wow... this paragraph has a lot of stuff in it). but yeah y'know... it was cool... and stuff.

alice's birthday was this past tuesday and we celebrated by doing various things. we got up early and went to Parque De Esculturas (a sculpture park close to where she lives). there were a lot of abstract sculptures there and naturally we brought a camera to do ridiculous poses around them. there was also this indoor exhibit that had like... turtle shells and indian masks. oh and lots of couple were making out there. the park itself was pretty fun though, and not bad at all for free!

then later i treated alice to this peruvian restaurant for dinner and it was SO DELICIOUS. alice got chilean seabass which included shrimp and some sauce. i had a bite and it was pretty tasty. I got steak and rice in this absolutely delicious sauce. it was like, yellow peppers, cream, peanuts and something else i can't remember put all together in liquid form. when i was done with the steak (which was juicy and amazing), i mixed the rice with the sauce and it tasted fantastic.

so after that glorious dinner, alice and i went out with like 10 people from alice's program and my room mate alessandro as well to get drinks. i was rocking the agua, per usual. that ended up being fun. they got her a card and some chocolates. our waitor was hilarious. he didn't talk much but he was just one of those guys that had this subtle humor that worked really well with the group of people there. overall, alice said she had a great birthday.

last night i went to a jewish seder!! my jewish/chilean room mate ari invited alice and i to his parents' house for seder dinner because it was passover. i never thought Chile would be the first place i experience this type of traditional dinner. apparently they skipped a lot of the text but i got to wear one of those little hats (yamacas?) and do the little salt water tears and drop a drop of wine (or in my case grape juice) for each of the plagues and sing a bunch of songs! and it was in english AND spanish because Ari's family speaks both languages! it was so awesome. i felt so cultured afterward. matzoh balls are amazing. there was also delicious salad with olive oil and salt used as dressing (a chilean thing. very good, actually). tasty gelfite fish. tons of other foods that i didn't know the name of but were good. so much food.

oh speaking of food, yesterday at a restaurant in Chile i had a completo (hot dog) with about an inch of guacamole and cut up tomatoes on it. also a Chilean thing. also delicious.

and yeah. it's good friday. which means that this is an extra long weekend which means i don't really have to work and neither does alice. in theory, we could have chosen this weekend to go somewhere exotic for a few days. but a) we don't want to spend a lot of money and b) we have been SO BUSY with classes and sightseeing that we haven't even had time to consider it. so we are choosing this weekend to veg in Santiago while everyone else has decided to take a vacation. a lot of stores are closed but the movie theater is still open and we're all thinking of going and seeing "Milk" which is playing now. also, there's a bowling alley in Santiago and i am making it my business to bowl there. that may or may not happen this weekend. the market may happen soon too. and since we're here, we might just go to another museo for free on sunday. we shall see.

but like i said, i've been a busy bee. i have no idea if i'll be able to still update once a week but i'm gonna try my damndest to do it. until next time, hasta!