hasta ahora....

Well, I figured I would write a wee since I am procrastinating doing my presentation on a region of Chile that I do in class tomorrow. I'm all moved in as of last Wednesday, and the apartment is freezing. That is the norm in Chile. There are no internal heating systems and this building is made out of concrete. So there are ups and downs: freezing in winter, cool in summer though. Less likely to burn down in a fire, more likely to crumble to pieces in an earthquake. Go figure. I bit the bullet and bought a heater because I can't concentrate on HW when I can see my own breath in front of me in my room. I couldnt find any that blew hot air for less than $40 (and I didn't even want to spend that much), so I just got one of the ones that has hot oil in it that are comon in Europe--it's not big so it's not significant, but it does make my room a little warmer/livable and it was about $25. I can sell it to some meager freezing American who arrives next year...

I've almost got everything I need to live adequately. The light in my room is weaker than a light you'd find in an over, so I bought a desk lamp because I'm always in shadows. Got a cheap one with a good flourescent bulb and after I put the bulb in and turned it on, the bulb exploded. I have no idea what happened, I got the correct wattage and everything. So I went and bought a new stupid bulb and it hasnt exploded on me yet. The girl who was living here before had bought a thick blanket for the bed and a mirror, both items which were lacking from my room and bathroom so she sold them to me and I gladly took them because blankets are expesive (especially like this one, its part wool). Then I can take them with me if I move. My pillow is about 2 inches thick, so my friends and I are on a mission to find a store like ross where we can find cheap stuff, and maybe a frying pan cause the ones in this apartment are destroyed and everything I cook in them sticks--that means my egg yolks always break. I got a little espresso can coffee maker (cheaper than a regular coffee maker) to make coffee with since Chileans mostly just drink instant coffee like in Korea. Interesting. You'd think coffee would be super popular here, well, REAL coffee anyway since huge amounts of coffee beans are grown in Latin America. But not so much. Mostly just Nestcafe is what you get here. There were only two or three brands of real coffee beans or grounds in the grocery store but about 15 types of instant.

I was wrong when I said i had two spanish roommates...I have two french roommates (guys) and then there is one girl from Spain. One of the guys arrived two weeks ago and he's doing a semester at University of Chile. The other french guy just finished studying and he's working for a bit before heading back to france in a month. the girl also works and is going back to spain in a month. They are all pretty cool and easy people to live with.

We have language classes, which are 9 to 12.30 until next thursday. They aren't that bad, I really like our teacher. He's youngish--maybe 30something and really knows the grammar well and explains it well. He doesn't give us busywork HW and is really laidback. We just sit and have conversations about world events and things in Chile for about an hour every day to practice speaking and learn about Chile.

August 3rd we start classes, or as our advisor, Sofia, told us, the class shopping period begins. And class dont really start till August 21st--you just sit in until you find classes you like then registering starts the 10th but lots of teachers don't come. So that 2-3 weeks will be a nice stress-free time of no HW and class work. Yeah. And then classes go until november 25 and the exam perioud is november 25 until december 15 or something. I kind of like that the exam period is spread out, it will lessen the chance of having 2 or 3 or 4 finals all on the same day or two days, which I so often had in SF.

I'm learning how to Salsa dance and I LOVE IT!! It's realllly fun. Maritza and Elvira have both been doin it for years so they're trying to teach me. AND Sofia (the advisor to all the students from CSU, she's realllly nice and super helpful) sent us basically a giant handbook for going to school at PUC or la Católica as it's generally called (my school), and there was a section I was reading about where non-credit courses are offered. They are mostly sports, dance, art, or music classes and cost $22,000chilean pesos (about $45) per semester to enroll in the prgram and take as many of the classes as you want. Basically they are kind of like extracurricular or intramural sports--I'm super stoked. I might take soccer or photography--we'll see. But definitely I want to do the Salsa/merengue class. Two nights a week for 1.5 hours each. A great way to meet people too. Sofia said too that a lot of chileans that do these classes are looking to meet foreign students, which is good becasue aparently chileans are realllly hard to talk to just sitting in class and so you have to seek to talk to them, and generally its going to be a non-studying environment.

Some of the kids may be going up to the Andes this weekend to go snowboarding which sounds pretty epic, but it seems a bit pricy given the fact that all I have is a coat and gloves. Eh, I'll wait and see if there is going to be a group trip through school, which I hear there is, and it's much cheaper.

Well, I suppose I ought to start my HW. It's raining outside and chilly. brrrrr. Hope you are all roasting in California.

Fotos

I posted fotos! Check them out at my picassa gallery link to the right! Read the captions it it's kinda like I blogged...

Ya tengo un piso!

I found a place to live!! Yeah!! It's a rather large flat in an apartment building in the perfect area to live in. It's in the Providencia district, literally across the street from a metro stop with the line that will take me straight to school. After looking for places and knowing that this city is huge, I decided that there are three main things that I have been looking for as far as where to live: location (must be near easy access to the metro or direct bus lines), the people (must be fun, comfortable to talk to, and understanding to my ever-changing spanish), the amount of lighting (some places have small windows and are sort of depressing because the Chileans won't install lots of lights for electricity purposes). The place I found has lots of natural lighting, a perfect place to hang out and it feels safe. It's not on a main street, so not loud, and the Chilean girl I met there are extremely nice. She likes to rent to foreigners, she is very kind and seems like a fun person to hang out with. She's 25 and works in econimic development in poorer parts of the city. The other two, whom I haven;t met, are two guys from Spain. The room I get is painted lime green, as I mentioned before is rather common, and it has a private bathroom attatched to it (yes!!) All amenities included, and lets than $300.

As of late...today was really cold. Huge change from yesterday when it almost hit 70 and today the clouds stuck over the city and it probably didn't go over 53 I'd say and may have been colder than that.

Hmmm...what else. Things I've noticed about Chile/Chileans:

1. Chileans talk like they're running out of breath. That is, they chop the ends of words off and continue to speak really fast without many endings. Most of the spanish world uses the work Pues for "well" but here they say "Po" There you go, they chop it off! and they tend to say Mucha gracia.

2. Chileans like Mayo. A LOT. And there is this food they eat here that they call a vienesa which is basically a hot dog thats stacked tall with avocado, tomatoes, mayo and oregano. And then there is churrasco which is a type of shaved beef with some sort of flavor to it that is pretty good, on a type of burger bun, with the goods: avocado, tomato, oregano, and mayo. They eat lots of bread type things. Or just lots of bread.

3. Fanny packs are the cool thing to have. For girls anyway. I think it's a mix between convenience (it's right there always at hand), safety (close to you, not hanging on the shoulder to be robbed from), and they are kinda fashionable. It's recommended by our advisor to have one cause they are safer as far as keeping things close to you. I might have to get a bright green and yellow one to match my green and blue reebok hightops.

4. In a restaurant, there is no pepper and rarely ketchup. There is salt, mustard, a sauce called ahí---red spicy type stuff, and another red sauce that is more BBQ oriented.

Well, I guess that's all for now...pictures will be up within a week. Chau!

Bienvenidos a Chile

Hola todos...well, I'm in Chile! Yeah! I arrived fine and got to hang out in Mexico City for a few hours with an exchange student friend I met in Germany who is from Mexico. So now I can say I've been to Mexico too! It was nice.

Santiago has been a fun time so far. Since I arrived it's been pretty consistent between meeting up for our orientation and the first day of my language program and finding housing. I've already been able to navigate through the city quite well and comfortably, but have really only seen a couple districts and there is soooooo much more to see. We are staying in a hotel in Providencia, one of the more central districts of the city. It's very hip and trendy and a fun place to wander around and look at. I've checked out a couple places to live and have walked A LOT. I probably did at least five miles yesterday (I mapped one route I did and it was 3.3 miles, and later that day there was much more involved, but too random to map) and a good two or three today. I just decided that if I don't need to be anywhere then there is no point in taking the metro and spending 80 cents when I can walk for 10-30 minutes (or in yesterdays case, over an hour, through a rather run-down portion of town) and see things.

The weather has been beautiful. They said Chile (Santiago) is really really cold. True, it's cold at night, gets to the lower 40s and can go to 30s, but it really warms up in the day...I'd say today it could have hit 68 or so. I was fine with just a tshirt. It is weird how much the temperatures range from night to day, not like that in california in the winter. It's been sunny and quaint.

I've checked out a couple places to live: a family (Grandma, her daughter, and the daughters 6-year old son) who live in a district called Ñuñoa. It's a bit less central and more just a neighborhood with more stray dogs ther than in the city. It's not as nice--i would say it is dangerous but just not as convenient as far as transportion goes. I went to the house with two of the guys in our group who were interested in it as well if I wasn't. I didn't care for it but mostly because of location but I can give you all a good story from this. MOm, you will find this especially interesting. We walked in with the daughter who met us at the metro and somehow got on the topic of what the artwork was in the house, as they had us sit down. She had been collecting books and paraphenialia (i spelled that completely phonetically) of anti-pinochet messages to create a big history type project. Then the grandmother went to get some other notebooks where they had been keeping original papers from the 60s--which they called messages. These messages were all drawn by hand and then reprinted by activist groups that wanted to bring democratic elections to Chile and get rid of Pinochet. Turns out the grandma was very very involved in one of these groups, which had to be kept secret. They would only distribute the little flyers at night on the streets, leaving them out so people could see them in the morning. Ironically, her husband (who we dont know what happened to) would go around after her and pick them up because he supported Pinochet. It was super interesting and the grandma just reminded me of some really tough lady that wouldn't take anything from anyone.

OKee dokee, I'm gonna write more later, hasta luego!!!