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!
No comments:
Post a Comment