well... it's 21 days later. exactly three weeks. wow. first of all let me say that it's kind of a fluke that i am able to actually update now because i was supposed to be giving an English Assessment Test today to some new students but it got canceled. so now i have the whole afternoon free to do whatever i want. what have i chosen to do? why, update my blog, of course! i'll be honest, the further into the past we go, the hazier my memory is but i will do my best. let's get into it, shall we?

approximately 3 weekends ago, a friend of mine from camp named Aaron stayed with me. in exchange for letting him crash at my place, he and his friend Nate paid for various food items which was much appreciated. they were coming from mendoza and on their way to another part of Chile so they stopped by for a few days.

Friday night we all went to Subterraneo, which is a discoteca in Providencia that apparently everyone in pro-diggety has been to but Alice and I. we went with my room mate and the 2 previously mentioned folks. Subterraneo reminded me a lot of clubs in the U.S. because there was a lot of mainstream hip hop and dance played that you'd typically hear in the states. it was kind of lame but at the same time i got to shake my booty to great songs like "SexyBack" and "Kiss" so in the end it was a little refreshing in that sense. it was somewhat of a late night but not too late. overall i'd give Subterraneo a C+.

on the Saturday of that weekend, the same crew minus my room mate went to a flea market in Bio Bio. it happens every weekend and there are TONS of things you can buy ranging from furniture to clothing to video games. that's right. video games. and old school systems too! sega genesis, super nintendo, n64... and i think i also saw a gamecube there. at any rate, while we were there, we ended up playing with some puppies that were being sold literally in a box in the middle of the street. oh and Alice bought a desk. totally productive day.

on that Sunday Alice and I went to the Museo De Arte Procolumbino. it had a lot of pottery and statues and even some mummies. in fact, the mummies in this museum predate egyptian mummies. so WHAT NOW, OTHER MUSEUMS? ahem. at any rate, that was pretty cool. and once again, free :).

by the end of that weekend Aaron and Nate left. it's really interesting to see how people from the United States interact in a Chilean environment. Chileans are really relaxed and quiet. they're funny but they're usually pretty chill. people from the U.S. are kind of... well... not haha. so it was kind of interesting to see that after not seeing it for a few months and i was also surprised by it a little bit. i guess i'm just getting used to being in Chile.

the next weekend i ended up seeing Star Trek with Eric. i liked it a lot. the general thing i've been hearing about this movie is that you will enjoy it even if you've never seen Star Trek before, and that's totally true. still pretty sci fi though. if you're not a fan of the sci fi, then steer clear. but like i said, i really enjoyed it. quite entertaining.

the Sunday of THAT weekend I went to Isla Negra with Alice and 2 people from her program. mainly I went there to see Pablo neruda's third house. i've heard it's supposed to be the best house. it was a cloudy day but hey, that's how Chile rolls in the winter. slightly colder and way more cloudy. i'd take that weather over New England winter weather any day. but any way, PN's house was cool. he collected a lot of different pieces of boats and had a barn for a fake horse. also, it was by the beach. it was way cooler than any of the other houses we'd seen previously of his. unfortunately, Isla Negra doesn't really have much else to offer besides this attraction so we all pretty much vamoosed after seeing it. oh well. now i can say i've done the Pablo Neruda house hat trick. woohooo!

this past weekend was extra long because Chileans had a national holiday last Thursday called "Navy Day". as a result, a lot of people didn't have work on that Friday and what not. Alice and I took this opportunity to visit La Serena. this is a beach town that attracts a lot of tourists and is located about six hours north of Santiago. we ended up bringing our own food because we didn't want to spend too much money there. all we really did while we were there was walk around. we saw a few cool cathedrals and plazas. also, i had a churro for the first time ever while in la Serena. it's kind of like this stick of dough that tastes a little bit like cinnamon and is filled with manjar (which is like a creamier version of caramel). it was delicious to say the least. Also, we ended up going to a Japanese Garden in la Serena. it was kind of cool but you could definitely tell that it was way better looking in the Summer season when everything is in bloom. but still. they had some cool structures and stuff. Near the beach, we saw this gigantic lighthouse that is supposedly iconic in La Serena. we couldn't go inside but it was pretty cool regardless.

on that Saturday, Alice and I decided we would go on one of the excursions that our hostel offered. it was a van ride to an observatory in Vicuna. the actual van ride was about 50 miles per hour uphill through a mountain that had extremely curvy dirt roads. it was incredibly unpleasant. the observatory itself though was awesome. our guide had a laser pointer that points for like 3 miles or something and he kept pointing to constellations in the sky with it. there were soooo many stars. you could actually see the milky way. we saw Saturn, too. it's a view of the sky that i hadn't seen since coming here as a result of being in the city, so that was cool. then we had an equally, if not more excruciating, van ride back to our hostel. lots of curves and bumps. i legit thought i was going to throw up. i haven't felt that way in a while. despite that van ride though, the actual observatory was pretty cool.

we continued the Sunday Museo ritual that weekend in La Serena at their own Precolumbino museo. this one could NOT hold a candle to the one in Santiago. sure it had all the same stuff: mummies, statues, pottery and weapons. but it had way less of it. we did the entire museo in about 10 minutes. it was kind of lame. the one cool thing they had there though was one of those gigantic head statue things from Easter Island. other than that it was meh-tastic.

this past Monday, Alice and i went to another market called La Vega. this one mainly had food such as fruits, vegetables, cereal, meats, dog/cat food etc... for INCREDIBLY cheap. i bought a kilo of apples, a red pepper, a green pepper and a quarter kilo of black olives for about 1,500 pesos which is about 3 U.S. dollars. score. oh and yeah i like green and red peppers now. who would have ever thought? but yeah. totally buying all fruit and veggies there from now on.

yesterday was my birthday. i had a class and my student took me out to lunch. i had a completo italiano (standard hot dog for Chile). it was delicious. after that, i came home and opened 2 packages i received from my mom, dad, sister and aunts. i got quite an awesome array of things, including:

-a banner that says "happy 21st birthday" even though i'm 26.
-a birthday card with a 10 second sped up version of "happy birthday" in Polish sung by my mom, dad and sister. so awesome.
-a cook book with 365 easy recipies.
-A CRIBBAGE BOARD!!!
-a gigantic bag of Doritos
-a huge thing of the little coffee dunker cookie things from Trader Joe's
-a t-shirt
-2 mix cds from my aunts
-and more.

it was really awesome getting all of those things on my birthday. after that i decided that i immediately wanted to go to Alice's and open her gift to me. and guess what it was...


A SUPER NINTENDO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

that's right. Alice was a ninja and secretly went back to Bio Bio one weekend to buy me a Super Nintendo, 2 controllers, and Donkey Kong Country. apparently she also sat with the woman for a while to get a combination of all cords and controllers so the whole thing would actually work. the funny thing is that i was kind of secretly hoping that she would get me this for my birthday (even though i never said i wanted that specific thing) and she ended up doing it. i was smiling for a long time after i opened that present. it was great. i am so going back to Bio Bio probably this weekend to pick up some games for it. i am stoked.

after that, i began my birthday evening. Alice and I went to Tiramisu in Las Condes for an absolutely delicious pizza dinner. we had a pretty standard pizza with mozerella, fresh tomatoes, garlic oil and basil. it was totally delicious. after Tiramisu we went back to my apartment and fired up the SNES (of course) to play some Donkey Kong Country. everything works fine. once Alessandro and Ari got home, we all went back to Las Condes to go cosmic bowling. but unfortunately on Tuesdays the bowling alley closes for a tournament. sooooo we didn't end up going cosmic bowling. i was pretty dissappointed but whatever. i think there is talk of having bowling happen this coming weekend or something. also, i was promised a return trip to Club Miel (the best discoteca i've been to so far) so as long as one or both of those things happen with some peeps, i'd be cool with it. after getting rejected from bowling we talked about going to a few places afterward but ultimately ended up back at the apartment. Ari joined Alice and I for some cribbage which was awesome to play for the first time in a few months. All in all, i had a pretty awesome birthday that will be even more awesome if bowling and clubbing happen soon.

May was a short month. this combined with the fact that i've had like 6 cancelled classes in May means i will be getting a smaller check. boo. but on the upside, i got some money for my birthday that i think will be sufficient enough to allow me to travel to Buenos Aires in 2 months. so THAT'S pretty awesome. all i need is for someone to go with me since Alice will be busy chilling with her parents and traveling around during her month long break she gets from her job. another upside is that i picked up another class which brings my total to 4. i also opened up three of my mornings. hopefully i will be making more money soon. we shall see.

that's all from South America for now. phew. sorry for the hiatus. i'll try to update this thing more regularly. although because of money, i'm not traveling anywhere for the month of June so it may not be as exciting. but i'll try to make it exciting. until next time, hasta!

MENDOZZAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

Well it's a week later. have i done exciting things? to put it simply, yes.

last wednesday was my friend Jordan's birthday. we decided to go out for some drinks and then to a discoteca in Parque Bustamante called "Club Miel" ("Miel" means "Honey"). i met two of Jordan's friends. one of which was his girlfriend. they were extremely friendly and funny and just generally cool people. this was the type of crew i wanted for a late night. it was great.

now, so far i have gone to three discotecas while here. let's review the stats quickly, shall we?

1. Jammin' - this is a reggaeton discoteca that has all the qualities it should. tons of sweaty, smelly gross people dancing to music that shares those same qualities. it was a fun experience but i dunno if i'd want to go back there unless i have a bigger group.

2. Amnesia - this discoteca was 2 floors and was basically a bar with dancing space. if i jumped, i could probably touch the ceiling. as for the music, it was reggaeton for the first half hour i was there, then switched to jock jams type techno for about a half hour, then chilean pop punk (which they loved) for another half hour, and right before i left the last two songs i heard were "sweet chile o' mine" and "man i feel like a woman". it gets some serious points from me for the diversity of the music there. kind of cramped though.

and now #3... Club Miel.

This is the discoteca experience i've been wanting since i left the united states. this place was HUGE. it was kind of like a giant dance hall. it had projectors and tons of lights and it even had dancers at one point. everyone was really spread out. at that discoteca, i heard a wide range of stuff from techno to reggaeton to pop music. not so much rock but everything had a beat so it was all good. one of my favorite moments of the night was freaking out like a madman to "One More Time" by Daft Punk. we ended up staying there until the place closed at 4am. it was so cold outside that you could see the steam rising from people's bodies. it was understandable for me since i ended up dancing for about 3 hours straight, which is a huge deal for me. i usually don't like going to clubs or dancing a lot or anything. but there's something about the selection of music in Chile both in discotecas and on the radio. it's like they have no concept of recent music and they just shuffle between random songs from the 90s and today. example: on the radio you will hear things like "love fool" by the cardigans and in discotecas you will hear things like Jock Jams. it's like the 90s never died here. i love it. and Club Miel can definitely attest to that. the next day i told my room mate ari that i went out to that discoteca and he was just like "oh yeah. that's a really gay area", which i thought was funny. but who the fuck cares? so far Miel is the best discoteca i've been to here and i'm definitely making my way back there.

this past weekend i went to Mendoza, Argentina. but before i get into that, lemmie talk a little about the bus ride. the first half of this ride consists of a quite curvy and equally beautiful venture through the Andes mountains. this journey is not for the easily motion sick. we took a double decker bus on the way there and sat on the top (natch). the mountains were absolutely gorgeous. i ended up taking about 70 pictures of them total (because i'm a maniac with my camera when i go to another country). also, for part of the ride we were entertained by a pretty mediocre movie if i do say so myself (Marley & Me). halfway through our trip, we stopped at this little station in the mountains to go through Argentina customs. it took about an hour to get two stamps on my passport (one saying i'm leaving Chile and one saying i'm entering Argentina) and have everyone's bags searched. then we were on our way to the second half of the bus ride. we saw a little bit more of the mountains and some giant lakes/rivers making our way to the super flat terrain on our last 2 hour leg of the journey. totally awesome bus ride. 6 hours seems so much shorter when the area is beautiful.

once we arrived in mendoza, we checked into our hostel. Chimbas Hostel is really nice. our private room was basically a hotel room. the common areas like the kitchen and such were also excellent and homely. loved it there. staying there again if i go back to Mendoza. at any rate, after much discussion, alice and i decided to leave a deposit to go paragliding the next morning. it was pretty late but we were hungry so we hit the main strip of Mendoza to get some food. after some searching, we ended up at a pizza place and got a pizza with spinach, pesto and eggs on it. man was it good. unfortunately, the restaurant did not accept debit/credit cards and because we left a deposit for the paragliding, we didn't have any cash on us to pay for the meal. alice ended up staying at the restaurant while i went to a nearby ATM to withdraw enough cash to pay for the meal.

it turns out that only a few places in Mendoza take credit/debit cards. so to all travelers out there heading this way, make sure you have CASH. we did not know this. most of my cash was gone and Alice only had her credit card because her debit card is M.I.A.. so i ended up having to withdraw money all weekend to cover our expenses and she paid me back in the end. so yeah, BRING CASH or else you will be screwed in Mendoza.

that aside, we ended up getting up early on Saturday to go paragliding. a jeep picked us up from our hostel and drove us out of Mendoza and up one of the super rocky roaded mountains there. the drive was on a dirt road. at one point, we saw four dogs in the field and one had (legit) a leg in its mouth. probably from a dead deer or something. it was one of the more graphic things i'd seen in my life. part of me was also like "that is so metal". but anyways, back to paragliding (what this paragraph is REALLY about). once we got to the top of the mountain, we suited up and prepared for takeoff. we were extremely nervous and excited and ready.... annnnnnd then we waited. and waited. and waited and waited and waited. seriously. we waited forever before taking off. it turns out that while paragliding, it doesn't matter what the wind is like. but for takeoff, you have to wait for a specific kind of wind. we ended up parawaiting for about an hour. at one point, Alice was getting ready to takeoff so i decided to try filming it. she took off and i pressed record. suddenly my guide was like "ok let's go now!" and i was like "what??!?" frantically putting away my camera so i could focus on properly taking off and not dying and then suddenly i was jerked into the air by the wind.

paragliding is one of the coolest experiences i've ever had. i mean, how could it not be, really? you're as high up as one of the mountains just floating in the quiet breeze overlooking a beautiful area (that's me to the left there in that photo). at one point, my guide said "mind if we do some tricks?" and i was like "go for it!" he tilted the thing sideways back and forth. it was awesome. i thought we were going to be upside down at one point. we were pretty damn close. there was some motion sickness throughout so if you're prone to that, then watch out. also, alice can attest to this, but the landing was one of the most hilarious parts of this whole experience. you see, i was supposed to just keep walking and ended up sort of flailing my arms like a muppet when i walked on the ground. the video alice has of it is very funny. maybe it'll end up on facebook or youtube or something. but yeah. if you end up in Mendoza, i highly (get it?) recommend paragliding. not only is it awesome, it's cheap if you have U.S. currency.

in fact, most of the stuff in Argentina is cheap if you have U.S. currency. that night, Alice and I went out to eat some steak which we heard was really delicious in Argentina. oh my god. seriously. you guys don't understand. you really don't understand. this was...


THE. BEST. STEAK. I'VE. EVER. HAD. IN. MY. LIFE.

perfect seasoning and melt-in-your-mouth-god-like consistency. also, not only did we get the two best steaks ever, we got fries to split between us and 2 sodas. guess how much this meal cost? 20 dollars. the steaks were 6 dollars a piece. and this was a kind of nice place! we sat down and were waited on, we ate outside, the napkins were fancy cloth... 20 dollars. also, our pizza the night before with 2 sodas? 10 dollars. also a fancy restaurant. i'm telling you, if you want to feel like a king, come to Mendoza with U.S. dollars. you won't be sorry. we took advantage of this by shopping a little. i bought some sunglasses and Alice got a shawl. both necessities for us.

the next day we got up early and had our 3rd night in a row with 6 hours of sleep. we were exhausted but desperately wanted to walk around the town more. Mendoza is pretty small. you could probably walk around the entire periphery in about 3 or 4 hours. lots of parks though. with awesome esculturas and fountains. we kept our sunday tradition and went to a Museo in Mendoza for free (score). it was full of crazy contemporary artwork. lots of abstract stuff. very cool.

then it was time for us to head back to Santiago. for the bus ride back, we took what we thought was a cheaper bus but was actually the same price and not as nice. i guess from now on i'm taking the double decker bus. the bus ride back was pretty much the same thing in reverse. the only difference was that the customs going from Argentina to Chile were a lot faster and more on top of their stuff. we were outta there in like a half hour. perfecto.

overall, i LOVED Mendoza and can't wait to go back there to get my gringo tourist visa restamped for another 3 months. although, in July/August i may have a problem because i heard the roads get very cold and they close the bus lines if it snows and gets icy on the mountains. but whatever. i guess i'll just have to fly to another country or maybe the same one (Buenos Aires?). we shall see.

in terms of money and the job sitch. i'm doing okay. not ideal but ok. right now i can afford to pay my rent each month but i can't afford food. if i pick up two more classes, i should be all set financially. i'm going to start feverishly pushing for this. there's a chance i may pick up a few more classes through polyglot but i won't know about it for another week or so... :\ i may have to pick up another job. we'll see how it goes.

on the upside, i received some winter clothes in the mail today from my folks. THANK GOD. nobody told me Santiago would get almost as cold as New England during the winter. also, for some reason nobody has central heat in their apartments in Chile so you just kind of have to use thousands of covers and dress in some serious layers. but now that i have my red coat, 5 hoodies and my fleece pants, i'm gonna be all set here forever. so SUCK IT, winter!

and that has been my week in a long-winded nutshell. life is good for now and i will touch base here once more next week maybe. until then, hasta muchachos.