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!

Well here we are with another blog update. Things have been going pretty smoothly lately.

My class is going well. my student is a very nice guy and he's really excited to learn English. I gave him a quiz today. I had to create it on my own (the first time i've ever done that!). i made the first 3 sections pretty easy but the last one was a little bit more difficult. despite this, he managed to get an 88 on it! So I'm glad he's actually learning. I have another class starting tomorrow. The guy is apparently really basic and doesn't understand a lot of English. I have a feeling it will be a bit more difficult. it's also way north in Santiago. i think it'll take about an hour and 15 minutes total to get there on the metro and the bus. they're paying me extra for it though so it's all good. also, i JUST got word (like 15 minutes ago) that they may have another class to offer me when i go into their office today so we'll see where that goes.

still walking around a little bit. there's a pretty neat little street called "Pocuro" right near where i live. there's 2 pathways on it. one is for bikes and the other for walking/running. it's a long street and i went to one end of it where there's a tiny park. in this park, there are free exercise machines. i'll try to get pictures of them later but they're pretty basic little machines. the area where they are looks like a little playground for adults.

i went and saw one of the three houses Pablo Neruda has in Chile. the whole house was very cozy and the interior was set up to resemble the inside of a boat. i couldn't take any picture inside but this picture gives you a general idea of how artsy fartsy he was. he liked to hang little eyes from things around his house. i think he had some weird fascination with being watched constantly by people or something. or maybe he just wanted people to watch their head on low ceilings and branches. overall it was a cool house but i've heard fantastic things about the other houses he has. Alice and I want to take a trip to Isle Negra to see his house there. we shall see.

i'm continuing to cook delicious things. i made more burritos 2 nights ago. also, i would recommend putting thousand island dressing on a burrito you may make yourself in the future because i did and it was delicious. yesterday morning i cooked a fantastic breakfast that had eggs, toast and bacon. it was my first time making bacon and it came out good. bacon's actually pretty easy. the only thing is that i think next time i'm buying a different kind of bacon because it was really salty.

the new guy moved into the apartment saturday. he's from new york and very much an American. he speaks English to me and Spanish to Ari (which is kind of weird). he's really nice and friendly. oh! and his name is Alessandro! while he's not the same person as Alejandro, i think it's funny that i move to Chile and meet someone with such a similar name.

Alessandro, Alice and I went to a museo on Sunday called the Museo De Arte Contemporaneo. it was a lot like Mass MoCA in the sense that it was a bunch of weird, awesome contemporary art. for example, when we walked in, the first thing we saw was this paper mache sculpture of two life-size people with a leash and on the end of that leash was another person on all fours. the entire sculpture was paper mache and newspapers. oh and two of the people in the sculptures were vomiting. this was a typical thing we saw there. it was great. also, the park that this museo was in was called Quinta Normal and it was beauuuuutiful. tere was a body of water in there that didn't have sludge everywhere! you could also rent rowboats and row around in them! so cool! i think Alice and I are gonna go back there and do that. also, there's a couple other neat museos in that area that we may check out on our Sunday Museo adventures.

Ari just bought a new tv for the apartment and i've periodically been watching things in Spanish here. mostly American shows dubbed over but pretty hilarious. also i've been watching some other shows that are specific to Chile. I've been following the Futbol statistics. Chile played Sunday night against... i forget who. but tehy won. and if they win tomorrow night against Uruguay, they have a really good shot at going to the world cup, which is really exciting. people in Chile loooooove their soccer. i really want to try to go to a match while i'm here.

and really there's not much else happening. probably going to check out more parks in the future. probably going to hit up another museo. probably going to start some more classes soon. making money. things are churning right along here in Santiago. i don't really have much else to report so until next time, hasta!

I am sitting in my apartment eating Chile's version of Doritos, some cookies that are actually called "Kukis", and an incredibly burnt grilled cheese sandwich. an old episode of Friends is on the TV in the background with Spanish subtitles. seems like an appropriate time to update the blog.

my demonstration lesson for polyglot mitford went really well and I have started working for them. I currently have one class on Mondays and Thursdays from 5-6pm. Thursday was my first class. i was really nervous about it because it was one-on-one private tutoring and i didn't really know what to expect. it takes me about an hour to get there it was also a weird class because it was one of those "here's the syllabus, here's the class rules, etc..." classes. very weird. the guy i'm tutoring is cool though. he works as an HR rep for a pharmaceutical company. he's in his 30s and seems like he really wants to learn the material. he's really smart and picks up on stuff very quickly. makes it a breeze to teach. the second class (that i had yesterday) was way easier. i got to actually do a lesson on past tense and he learned the material very easily. i think this class will be fun and it makes me want to teach more. i will possibly be getting more hours soon. we'll see. hopefully working through two companies will help with that.

this past weekend i went to Cerro San Cristobal. it's this mountain in the center of Santiago that overlooks the whole city. there's a creepy statue of the virgin mary at the top that gets lit up at night. it's like, the most popular tourist attraction here. there are a lot of ways to get to the top. you could hike, drive, bike or take this thing called a Funicular. it's basically a little train that goes all the way up the hill. however, it makes a pit stop halfway up the hill at a Zoo. of course i did that.

I don't know if it's just Chilean zoos that are different from American ones or this zoo... but the cages the animals were being held in were very close to the public. if you wanted to, you could probably reach out and pet ostriches, giraffes and other things. this was especially cool because i could get a lot of really cool close up shots of the animals. but it kind of wasn't cool in certain situations like when these little 8 year old boys kept poking an Emu that was chillin near the front of the gate. overall though, it was a pretty sweet zoo. my pics are all on facebook if you're curious about which animals i saw.

after the zoo, i took the Funicular all the way to the top and saw all of Santiago during sunset which was pretty damn beautiful. i thought Santa Lucia was cool but it doesn't have crap on San Cristobal. i saw everything. i'm pretty sure i could point out my apartment if i really wanted to. it started to get cold though so alice and i took the funicular back down. it was really cool because on our way up and down, this dude was playing guitar and singing in Spanish for us. i don't think he was homeless either because the Funicular waited for him o finish his song before it took us down. we are definitely going back to san cristobal to walk down the mountain pathways. we just didn't have 4 hours to do that this time around.

yesterday we hit up another museo. we're trying to do one every sunday because most of them are free. this one was called the Museo De Arte Contemporaneo. it was basically one floor of paintings that were abstract and colorful. it took about 20 minutes to see everything. but still, not bad for free.

someone new will be moving into mi departmento on saturday. he's from New York City but his name is "Alessandro". it makes me wonder if he'll speak more Spanish or English while he's here. I really need to regularly speak Spanish while i'm here (or at least try to). Alice's room mates are good for that but i'd really like someone i live with to speak Spanish with me. my room mate Ari got a new tv for the living room. the old one was... well... old. this one is a flat screen but i don't think it's HD. it's like 24". i'm currently watching Chilean Futbol on it. i think there's a way to hook up my computer to it but i'm not positive. at any rate, i'm watching a lot more television in Spanish. or at least, it's on in the background. The Simpsons Spanish dubbing is hilarious here.

and yeah. not much else is going on. next weekend will probably be pretty casual because i heard that there are a lot of violent riots in Santiago on March 28th and i definitely want to stay indoors away from those. i forget why exactly but i think it's because it's the anniversary of someone's death. i'm not too worried because providencia is a pretty safe part of Santiago, but i think in Centro De Santiago there's way more rioting. so yeah. def gonna stay away from that.

until next time, hasta!

Zeroing In

Hola!

When we last left, i had just come back from my adventure to see Vina del Mar. that was a week ago and honestly, not too much has been going on. because i can't remember anything, i'm going to go in an insanely out of order.... order.

i'll talk a little bit about my time in la reina first. la reina is the section of Santiago south of Providencia. i went in search of a park that was supposed to be out there. i walked and walked and walked and walked and walked for about 4 hours but i couldn't find it. i even got a kind of terrible sun burn on my neck/face. this sun is brutal out here. it was an incredibly long and unproductive walk. La Reina looks a lot like suburban florida. nothing picture worthy but still kind of cool.

last wednesday i went for an interview with Sam Marsalli. i have heard terrible things about them online but i decided to hear them out for myself. after that first interview i got the impression that although it was an incredibly low salary, i could see myself working there. especially for a part time shift monday through friday 6-10. if that was all i could work, i would be very fine with that. also, as i was leaving the interview i said "i'm sorry, i didn't get your name" to the guy interviewing me. he matter-of-factly just said "i'm Sam Marsalli" which i thought was kind of hilarious that i never picked up on. any way, i showed up to interview #2 a few days later and this time around they had me wait around for an hour. AN HOUR. it was so boring. i watched an entire episode of a Spanish soap opera and then a show similar to MXC but with spanish women that looked like supermodels. when I went in for the 2nd interview Sam asked me if i had any questions. i asked a few and then casually mentioned that getting a work visa would really benefit me to which he interrupted me by saying "i'm not sure if you can work part time and get a work visa here. i'll have to check on that" and then the interview pretty much ended there. he told me to call back on monday. it was a little weird. they are a little weird. i waited around all weekend only to finally call Sam Marsalli back on Monday and have them tell me that they've "hired everyone they're looking for right now". all that work and anticipation for nothing.

So after that business with Sam Marsalli yesterday, I went to this institute in Providencia called "Polyglot" for an interview. it's very similar to Burford in that it also does private tutoring. the main difference is that it's a little bit more prestigious and pays slightly more. that interview went well. i have a demonstration lesson on wednesday on "greetings" and then they're going to tell me whether or not they want to hire me.

and then it hit me. i realized how I wanted to work. all this time i feel like i've been zeroing in and getting closer to choosing a job. in that interview with polyglot, it just felt right. it's like a temp agency back home but instead of any job, it's always going to be private tutoring teaching english. this is what i want to do. ideally, it'd be great if i could do both polyglot and burford. it would definitely increase my chances of finding work faster and getting more hours more quickly. but if things don't go well with the demo i do for polyglot, then i'd be fine with doing burford.

so i have made the choice to be one of the apparently many english teachers that work on a tourist visa and take the bus to argentina every 3 months. but apparently it's a really cool bus ride through the andes and the town they drop you off in has a lot of cool shops and stuff in it. plus i could say i've been to argentina. how cool is that? so really, i think this choice i've made for myself is ideal. in a SUPER ideal world, i'd have no morning classes and still get lots of hours. but we'll see about that.

so that ends the "work" portion of this blog. during the week days this past week, i've just been lounging and seeing alice pretty frequently. the real fun was in this past weekend.

Friday I ended up going out with Alice and hanging out with a lot of people from her program. They were eating at a restaurant and there were about 20 or so people total. it was brief and fun.

on Saturday we did trip 2 to Vina Del Mar because our first trip only allowed for about 2 hours of beach time. we made sure we left super early and got to do a lot of walking around the city. we spent about 4 or 5 hours at the beach this time. the waves were massive again and despite it being hotter this time (92 degrees!) the water was muy frio. i thought i was pretty good with the sunscreen but i ended up burning several parts of my body that NEVER get sunburned ever! these include:

- feet
- a random patch on my back near my left armpit
- legs! including behind my knees! that has NEVER happened!
- my right side (so random)
- under my left eye
and - a line of red directly under my hair

so random. but still way worth it. after our beach experience, we went down this boardwalk area to this place called "tiki tacos" and ate some DELICIOUS tacos there. mine was con vaca and alice's was con vaca y con pollo. both with guacamole and cheese and really really delicious onions. that's right. i actually really liked the onions. i never thought that would happen with any food because i hate onions. we also saw quite possibly the cutest stray dog we've seen thus far. it wouldn't leave us alone but it wouldn't beg for food or eat it when we offered it. it was so cute but eventually it left us.

after that we pretty much took the bus right back and that was beautiful as always.

Sunday we went to the Museo De Bellas Artes. since it was Sunday, it was free so that rocked pretty hard. there were cool sculptures and really awesome paintings from France, Spain and Chile. they dealt with abstract art, religion, censorship and traditional stuff you usually see in museums. it was a blast. we even got a little creative with the sculptures there:




yesterday was the whole business with Sam Marsalli, Polyglot and Burford but after THAT i went to Alice's place and spent about 2 hours sitting around and talking to her 2 room mates and their 3 friends. all in Chilean Spanish! it was so cool! i didn't even feel stupid because i didn't know the language that well or anything. i even made the room erupt in laughter twice while only speaking Spanish. they even taught us phrases that were specific to Chile which were kind of cool. some of them were really offensive and they were like "don't ever say this to anyone unless you want to get beat up". i also taught them the phrase "party foul" when someone spills a drink at a party. overall, it was fun. her room mates are really cool guys.

Other than that, not much else has been going on. I bought a Spanish to English dictionary. OH! i successfully made myself some spaghetti con carne as well as a concoction i created that tasted so good that i may have it for lunch shortly. It was basically just a quesadilla but i cut up an entire avocado and just spread it all over the top. it was absolutely delicious. i'm cooking delicious things! that makes me happy.

and that's really all I got for now. i plan on checking out a park that's like a 5 minute walk from my apartment and also seeing San Cristobal which will involve taking a gondola up to the top of a hill, seeing a giant statue and walking down a floral pathway. did i mention that there's also talks of going to a zoo and a fun shopping area in las condes? all will be reported later. until then... hasta!

Viva La Vina

shortly after i had written the last blog entry, i had decided that i wanted to do some solo exploring. i took the train from Providencia to Centro De Santiago and just walked around. I did a good hour or two of solid walking and found some small parks including skate parks. mostly though it was just the same old Centro. lots of colorful buildings, lots of sketchy areas, a lot of random shops (i think i hit the "hardware" district of centro. excitement). i was about ready to give up when i looked at a map and saw this pretty big park on there called Santa Lucia. it wasn't too far from where i was so i decided to head that way.

and boy am i glad i didn't end my trek there. Santa Lucia is essentially a really big park that is also a hill. it's very beautiful and full of inclines and stairways that lead higher and higher on top of this mountain until you reach this tower at the top that includes a 360 degree panoramic view of all of Santiago. i swear some of the trails there look like they're straight out of narnia. there's also this sweet fountain out front with a statue of neptune. i took a massive amount of pictures and a video of the view from the top. it was seriously awesome and i definitely plan on bringing some other people there. after that i got an empanada (my current obsession here) and headed back to the apt.

That night i went out to a bar with some people in Alice's program. the 10 or so of us got a private room and it was kinda cool. that night i also learned that chileans, although quiet normally, get really loud when they get drunk. looks like they're more similar to Americans than previously heard of. we didn't stay too long but it was a notable experience.

after i wrote the last blog entry, i was quivering in fear about finding a movie theater in Santiago that not only was playing Watchmen, but was hopefully playing it with English audio and Spanish subtitles. i am proud to say that i did in fact do that. alice and i went to a theater that was about 3 METRO stops away from where i live currently. i write it in caps because i keep calling it "the train" which is incorrect. Watchmen was satisfying. it did not live up to the insanely ridiculous hype it had which is kind of unfortunate, but then again there's not a lot that can live up to that amount of hype besides the dark knight. that's really all i want to say about that here. i plan on writing a detailed review of this movie on facebook's "Flixster" application (which is the bomb, if you haven't started using it yet).

ANY WAYS.

Friday night was going to tentatively be the day where Alice and I went to Vina del Mar to meet up with some friends of her's there. they decided to move their trip to saturday so I had a random free night. I was going to make dinner for myself but Ari and Kat (the couple I live with) said they would make me dinner! it was really delicious. it was like bell peppers and beef with rice and this AMAZING sauce that included soy sauce, balsemic vinagrette, garlic, and this chilean spice that isn't too spicy but just right for me :). after that delicious meal, i met up with Alice at her place and we tried to go out with some friends of mine. Alice and I ended up walking a half hour to Bellavista only to elarn that our friends wanted to go to a club right near where we had started walking. we decided that we'd go if they paid for our cab ride to the origin of our walk. after much deliberation on the phone, we finally met up with them. instead of going to the club right away, they decided to sit down and have drinks so we chilled with them while they did that. unfortunately, by the time they were actually ready to go into the club, it was like 2am. and since Alice and I were going to the beach the next day, we decided to peace out. fine by me. saves money. plus, there'll be plenty of other nights to do stuff like that. and now i know of a club that's close to where i live sorta!

We spent the bulk of Saturday actually getting ready to go to and going to Vina Del Mar. The bus ride there was very short and had absolutely amazing views of the Andes everywhere you looked. we also saw horses and lot of farms, including a pretty massive one where i'm pretty sure they were growing grapes for wine. also, on some of the mountainsides, there would be like random patches of one or two palm trees. it was interesting. overall, the Chilean countryside is both plain and beautiful. the bus pulled into Vina Del mar by going down a few winding roads. Vina itself is a very pretty town. it reminds me of Orlando, Florida in that you sort of get the sense that you're about to enter an amusement park no matter where you go. there's lots of nice restaurants and parks as well as plenty of fun little sights to see. it's a cute area.

we didn't have much time on the beach but we made the most of it. we lathered on sunscreen due to the giant hole in the o-zone layer directly above us. the water was freezing but you got used to it after a while. Alice waded about 15 feet in and that was enough for her but not for me. the waves were particularly gigantic and kind of swept people into the shore if you went far enough out and tried to jump it. this was what kind of drew me to the ocean. i went out there and was jumping waves like crazy it was a LOT of fun! i could have done that all day and been set. but i came back and decided to relax in the sun for a bit with Alice and her group. there were dudes walking around the beach like hot dog vendors selling ice cream and stuff. overall, it was about 2 hours at the beach but it was a blast.

after the beach, we all walked to this Mexican themed restaurant and had a Chilean style 3 or 4 hour dinner with a bunch of people in Alice's group and some Chileans. there was about 10 of us. i tried to order a Chimichanga (basically because the name sounds funny) but they ended up giving me an Enchalada explaining that it was basically the same thing? i wasn't really sure due to my lack of Spanish but whatever. the Enchalada was delish. the people we were with were pretty cool too. as we ate outside the restaurant, we saw two... performers(?) across the street pretending to be statues. once was a gold cowboy and the other was death. it was an interesting thing to ssee while eating mexican food. there was a drunk guy passed out by himself at a table. after everyone wasw done eating, several of the people in Alice's group (and some waiters) did the classic thumbs up smiling pose behind this drunk guy. it was hilarious.

Alice and I followed 3 of the people in Alice's program to a hostel that we planned on staying at. unfortunately, one of Alice's friends had some heat exhaustion that evening. instead of going out, Alice and I stayed in and ended up playing War and Rummy with her. it actually ended up being a lot of fun. and once again, the hostel these people in Alice's program got hooked up with was really nice. the three of us stayed in a room that had two beds and a balcony that overlooked part of Vina.

the Sunday after our overnight, I joined Alice as well as her friends Julia and Danielle for a short tour of Vina. we got Empanadas (nice nice) and just saw the small city life of this beach town that was clearly a town for the beach. lots of small shops and generally very relaxed. we took it upon ourselves to take a very cheap (like 80 cents) bus to Valparaiso. it took like 10 minutes to get from one to the other. Valpo is basically a town on a mountainside with colorful houses that also sort of has a beach but not really. it's an interesting place to visit but i wouldn't want to live there. we took this kind of rickety old gondola to the top of the hill and walked down the hill through the various streets. again, a cute area but not really an ideal living situation. after Valpo, Alice and I went back to Vina for some solo beach time. unfortunately, the weather in Vina/Valpo was ridiculous that day meaning while we were in Valpo, it was really sunny, then an hour later back in Vina it was overcast/windy/cold, then an hour after we decided it was too cold at the beach the sun came out as we were getting on our bus to leave. so stupid.

but hey, it's motivation to go back there, definitely. it's so insanely cheap to go there. like, you can either get a meal at mcdonald's, or you can take the bus to Vina Del Mar. it's a great deal. also, i've heard there's this other beach south of Vina that's really cool so I may head that way some time soon or something.

I stayed at Alice's last night and now i'm here updating my blog. I plan on getting groceries today while i eagerly anticipate a phone call or e-mail from Sam Marsalli. I'm in this mentality now that i've been relaxing and enjoying my freedom for the past few days and now it's time to kick it into high gear working on getting a job again. we'll see how it goes this week. until then... hasta.

A series of eventful days

Before I say anything, check this out:

So when we last left, I was on my way to check out a museum in Centro De Santiago. It included poetry, sculptures and paintings. The latter of the three was what interested Alice, her friend Julia and I. We checked out artwork by Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera. Frida suffered a pretty hard life and as a result, her artwork is incredibly violent and has a lot of self portraits of herself being stabbed and what not. it was kind of disturbing but also kind of cool. her husband Diego's artwork was not as violent and was generally more appealing. i couldn't get any pics of the artwork, but i got one shot of the inside of the museum. it was a super cheap and fun way to kill a few hours.

after that, we decided to be really cool and walk around Centro. we got a little lost but ended up walking down a really nice street with lots of trees and fountains. something that centro is definitely lacking. so that was kind of refreshing. there was also a lot of really cool looking grafitti. something that centro is definitely NOT lacking. there's grafitti everywhere. it rules. not to mention, there were a lot of really cool old buildings like a gigantic church and stuff.

Friday morning I moved into my new apartment! it's pretty nice. it's pretty furnished and the kitchen functions pretty normally, i'd say. the bathroom is a little small and their choice of tablecloth is slightly questionable but overall, i like it. I currently live with 2 other people (a couple). one is a 27 year old Chilean guy and one is a 32 year old Estonian girl. then there's me and a spare room that someone will live in eventually. apparently a German girl is coming to live in that room in a few days but she won't be staying long. I figured out a way to play all my music on shuffle in the dining room while I cook food and that has RULED. i had a moment of euphoria when "get it shawty" came on my shuffler. i just had a moment of clarity that was like "even though i don't have a really solid job right now, i have an apartment and i can just dance". so i did. i danced like crazy to "get it shawty" and it was great.

unfortunately, i have yet to cook a delicious meal. shopping in the grocery store for food was interesting. unbeknownst to me, but knownst to the rest of the world, i was in the lame-o discount grocery store that had lame versions of the food that was in the BETTER grocery store a few blocks down the street. so i currently only have food from that place. but ah well. it's still not too shabby. you know what's weird though? jars of things are like, nonexistant down here. ketchup, mayo, mustard, spaghetti sauce etc.. are all in GIANT packets! like... pretend you have a packet of mayonaise at burger king but it's big enough to hold an entire jar's worth of mayonaise. it's so weird. i'm still getting used to it. so i made spaghetti my first night there and it ended up being not that great because i had the discount sauce (which just sounds awful out of context). whatever though. it wasn't terrible. it was just okay.

Also Friday I dropped off two resumes. One was at the Fischer English Institute and one was at Instituto Chileno Norteamericano. Fischer seems desperate for teachers and not really all that together with their interviewing. at least, that was the impression i got from them. Norteamericano is a big big school that's pretty well known and teaches all ages. the only thing is that they require you to work weekends. I'm not so sure about that but i figured i'd try to apply there any ways. I also followed up with Burford and they said that they may have some private tutoring set up for me on Wednesday and Thursday (actual work! kind of cool!). so i plan on calling them today to see what's up with that.

That night i went back to centro and met up with my friend Eric from the hostel. the really cute dog was there. there were a bunch of people over his place having a barbeque which included some French girls and some dudes from Finland. they made steak and corn and all kinds of other stuff. one of these delicacies was straight up just a slice of toast with cream cheese on it and a single slice of pineapple. it was like a delicious version of a poor man's Hawaiian pizza. I highly suggest you try it. I had already eaten my spaghetti so I was kind of full but I had some of the steak (delicious) and the toast (also delicious). once Eric was done eating dinner (at 11:30pm!!!) we decided to go out because it was Friday and why not, y'know?

after an unneccessarily long cab ride, we met up with some people Eric knew in Bellavista. after trying to go to several different clubs, a lot of people left the group because they were tired or something (lame). but Eric, his friend Sarah and I ended up at a reggaeton (reggaetone?) discoteca. once again i was unimpressed with the DJ there as reggaeton is one of the easiest styles of music to mix together next to dancehall and house. it was fun for the first hour or so but it was one of those situations where there were so many dirty, sweaty, smoking people around me that i just felt like i needed a shower immediately. so we left. i got home at around 3am. it was a pretty eventful night and i was satisfied with it.

Saturday i ended up going to the hospital. i had heard about this weird spider in Chile that causes your skin to fall off and i thought i had a rash that was the beginning stages of this spider bite. but of course i was completely wrong. the doctor was just like "there's no way that's a spider bite". so i basically wasted time and money doing that and from now on, will not seek medical attention unless my skin is actually falling off or something. it was a life lesson and it's done. that's all. just felt like it was worth mentioning.

that night Alice and I watched some Scrubs and Spaced while chilling at her hostel. for the record, we actually do plan on exploring this city and country but we're waiting until we have more time and ALSO more money to do so. but it will happen. Sunday was a really relaxing day where i organized my music collection and put all my music on my Zune and just generally managed computer stuff. I also made hot dogs. they were taking forever to boil so i had this brilliant idea to put the lid back onto the boiling pot and within 2 minutes, the hot dogs erupted open. it ended up working but it wasn't as delicious as it could have been. oh well. 0 for 2 but we'll see how it goes in the future.

yesterday i e-mailed my resume to a school i had never heard of before. they're called "Polyglot" (i know. attractive name, right?). i know nothing about them but it's another resume out there. I also tried to go back to English First to get an interview. This was the school i had to cancel twice for in order to interview for Duoc. English First was basically like "no matter what the situation was, we've already hired everyone we need. sorry". it really sucks that i missed out completely on my #2 school... but i'm still waiting to hear from my #1... Sam Marsalli. I e-mailed them today and called them saying I'm still interested. they said they haven't started the interview or hiring process yet so they told me I was still in good shape. i'm crossing my fingers so much for that job. i really hope i get it.

also... some exciting news yesterday... Alice found an apartment! it's right in the middle of Providencia. there's shops everywhere. she has an amazing view of the Andes. her room is pretty big with lots of closet space. her bathroom is huge. i'm actually a little jealous. but mainly because my bathroom and bed are both smaller than the ones she got hooked up with. but whatever. overall, i think she got an apartment that suits her really well and i got one that suits myself really well. her's is right in the middle of the city and mine is far away enough so that it's quiet but it's close enough to the action where i don't feel secluded. if we ever need a break from the settings we're in, we can just visit each other and get a different feel for the environment of Providencia. i'm really happy for her.

the rest of that night consisted of going out to eat with two people from Alice's program and playing a game of rummy that ended up being kind of close. for dinner i had an italiano wrap that was a little questionable. i've gotten into the habit of ordering stuff and not knowing what it is on the menu but just eating it any ways. i really like diving into the unknown here in terms of food. i also feel it's necessary to point out that yesterday i actually said the phrase "how do you say jalapeno in Spanish?". i know. i'm so smart. everyone had a good laugh. the late dinners here really tend to make the evening go by quickly. i'm still getting used to it (clearly from the jalapeno question i'm getting used to a lot of things).

Despite not being in the states, i've tried to keep up with movies and television i want to keep up with. i found a movie theater that will be playing Watchmen on Thursday and I plan on seeing it then. I just hope the theater has subtitles and isn't dubbed. that would suck a lot of ass. I also just downloaded the new Futurama movie that came out so i'll watch that. and I've been downloading and watching Lost every week since i left. 24, heroes, office and 30 rock are pretty meh. but Lost is one of those shows i definitely need to see each week. and once south park premiers, i may need to watch that as well.

and that's about all for now! i will end this blog post with a few pictures of the Andes on a (sort of) clear day from my apartment. hasta!