Riot!

(I'm safe, and not in jail)
So today there was a riot in most of Santiago central, that had something to do with labor rights. I asked people, and it was sort of an eclectic mix of leftists, right-wingers, communists, and fascists. Either way, it was people that were unhappy with... something... enough to break a lot of things and get the riot police called out. As on 2 PM, 60 people had been arrested. And it's still going on. Classes were canceled at the University, and so on my way home I definitely took a couple of pictures. (Don't worry, Mom, I was far away from everything) Either way, it was a pretty exciting day.

Travel Plans

So some of my friends from the residence I lived in the first week are planning a trip to Northern Chile (To the driest desert in the world), then across the border to Bolivia, and then to Machu Pichu, in Peru. I almost said no, because the plan involves skipping the week of class before the week we have off, but I decided that I probably won't have the opportunity again for... oh... the rest of my life, so I'm going for it.

The group is 4 Spaniards and one French girl, all of whom are quite fun and pleasant to be around. Also, none of the five speak any English, so it'll be good for my Spanish.

We'll leave the 7th and get back the 23rd... and the week ending the 7th is exam week. I figure that'll be a good time to travel.

Sat., 8-25

It's a little weird to put the date as 8-25, since in Chile it would be 25-8.

I'm starting to figure out the collective taxi system, which is a group of cars that go from the end of the metro lines to certain areas for a fixed price. It's about $2, and a taxi to the area I usually go to (Julio's negihborhood) would probably be $25. So I'd say it's a pretty good deal.

Well, nothing much planned this weekend, but I think the weekend coming up we're going to Vina (a city on the coast) with the roommates who are from there. They all insist that it's a lot nicer than Santiago, so I'm ready to go.

Julio's in town

So last night I went to Julio's (My Peruvian friend whose family lives in Santiago), and had dinner with him and his dad. His dad works in currency trading, and Julio just finished an internship with UBS (a very large bank) and so our conversation was a lot about economics and finance. Since I'm taking accounting here, I've learned enough of the words in that field to be able to talk about most things. At one point, since Julio learned accounting in English and his dad doesn't do much accounting, neither one knew how to say 'earnings per share' in Spanish. I did, though, and preceded the answer with "Now I can teach you both a little bit of Spanish."

It was also quite different than eating pasta or something quick at home with the roommates versus a full meal and a very expensive bottle of wine.

I've got class at 1:30, so I'll probably go to lunch with Julio (and maybe his dad) and then head to class.

Lazy Sunday

So I found out that Jean's middle name is "Pierre," giving him the most French name possible. Although, he's a business student, and doesn't like wine or cheese.

I think I'm going to buy some fruits or something... trying to eat healthier.

Mom would be proud/ Email out

If anyone's sent me any email today, I haven't gotten it, because the email server doesn't seem to want to work.

In other news, the three females are out of town, and the five males left at home tonight... cleaned the kitchen. The fridge smelled pretty bad, so we figured we'd better do something about it. Really- a full clean of the kitchen, about a 2 hour endeavor. I'm quite proud. There are pictures.

El Bulla (my new futbol team) won today 5-2, and we're one point down for the Chilean championship, which will happen in a few months.

Quiz

So I had a quiz at 8:30 this morning, and I could see on the faces of everyone going to campus that early that they were as sorry to be there as I was.

So when they say quiz (control, in Spanish, but the least heavily weighted of the assignments) I was under the very mistaken impression that it would be a 3-4 question, make sure you paid attention 15 minute sheet of paper, turn in, go back to bed. This was a 90-minute behemoth, with multiple-part questions, that I only did well on because I've had 3 other financial accounting classes. The rest of the class was about to cry. I think this quiz was to scare out all the people that don't absolutely have to take the class this semester.

Julio, my Peruvian friend whose family lives in Santiago, gets in tomorrow.

Well, I have nothing planned for the weekend yet, but something always comes up.

Trip to Cerro San Cristobal/ Futbol game #2

So the weather has been completely insane- yesterday was around the low 80s, and today was the low 30s. Fittingly, yesterday I went to a national park with a group of Americans (it was the longest I've spoken in English since I got here) and took a lot of pictures that should be up eventually, and today I did pretty close to nothing.

Yesterday evening I went to another soccer game, and I think the fact that I know the soccer yells and songs probably makes me look like a bit less of a foreigner.

The cold is starting to get me (another 2 weeks or so left in winter) because the heat in the apartment is only a gas stove in the kitchen. No one likes to get out of a warm bed on a cold day, but it's even worse when the temperature in the room is in the upper 50s.

Also, I think everything in Chile is about 2 hours later than the US. The workday (for my information systems and journalist roommates) starts around 9-10 AM, dinner is 9-10 PM, and a typical bed time is 12:30 on weekdays and 5-6 on weekends.

One thing that's interesting for me is that in cafes and restaurants I'll see things like "Salsa Norteamericana" (American sauce) or "Pan Americano" (American bread) and a lot of things "American." Oddly enough, I recognize almost none of it. Salsa Americana is a mix of mayonnaise, ketchup, and something else. Pan Americano is some kind of pastry. The french roommate has the same thing- we were trying to figure out what a "cafe frances" is... and even the waiter didn't know.

We get Wednesday off this week, so it'll be two 2-day weeks.

Dia de ninos, internet

So Sunday was the "Dia de Ninos," which is similar to Mother´s or Father´s day, except it´s quite obvious that the children are being thanked for their contribution toward the Chilean economy. It´s about as obvious as Valentine´s day.

The internet was great for about 4 hours, and the next day it decided that 4 hours was enough for the week. The owner is calling a technician that should come tomorrow.

Also, I´ve been eating "completos," which are hot dogs covered in avocado, mayonnaise, and hot sauce; and lomitos, which are pork sandwiches, for just about every meal. So, I decided I´d better join the gym across the street (or the cardiac hospital down the road). My schedule is nice- I can go in the morning before class pretty much every day. It´s about a 35 second walk from my apartment, so there´s pretty much no reason not to.

Futbol Game

So yesterday afternoon I went with Alejandro, the sports journalist in the apartment, to a Chilean professional soccer game. Since we got there about 15 minutes before the game started, there was a decent line to buy tickets. It seems obvious now, but I didn't figure that whenever the game started, there would be a mad rush to the ticket counter. This happened when I was about 3 people away. I did manage to get my ticket (It's all the practice on the metro), for $6, and went into the stadium. Every team has a few songs, most quite profane, but what I did not know was that they sing literally the entire game. I learned quite a few new Spanish phrases every time the referees made any call. Or any time they were near the goal. I got the in-depth tour of the history of the stadium (the estadio nacional, where we were, was where Pinochet killed a few hundred people weeks after taking power) and the game. I now know a decent amount about futbol, but only in Spanish. The game ended up a tie, with the other team scoring in the final minutes.

Eventually I'll put the pictures up, but blogspot doesn't seem to want to load anything very quickly. Also, I need another transformer for the camera dock, so I'll have to get that.
But, we did get the internet up in the apartment, so it's nice to be able to use the internet from home.

One week of classes down, interesting mishap

In the following story, I promise everyone is completely sober, although you might not believe it.

So I´m at the residence with my mixed group of European friends, and the metro is about to close. So I get up to leave, and everyone tells me, "no, stay, we´re all having a good time." My Argentinian friend (Cata) has a double room but no roommate, so she says it´s no problem at all for me to use her extra bed. So, I accept and we all continue talking. I met an American speech pathologist who had a bunch of interesting travel stories, and he and I traded stories for quite a while. So Cata says she´s going to bed, but no hurry, whenever I was ready to go to sleep just go in, room 407, and the bed closer to the door was mine, and she´ll leave the keys in the door. So an hour or two later, I go up the fourth floor, I see the keys she´s talking about, but they´re in room 404. I was pretty sure she said 407, but there were definitely no keys in room 407. So, I walk in, see my empty bed next to the door, and without turning on the lights see curly hair coming out of the covers on the other bed. Also, she´s a very artsy type, and the wall has artsy film posters and a lot of handmade things that were very fitting for her. So, I go to bed.

I wake up, somewhat blury-eyed from sleeping in my contacts, and see an Italian girl standing at the foot of my bed. She waves, and I look around, and realize I am very much not in Cata´s room. So I very hastily explain what happened, and we both laughed quite a bit at the odds of Cata forgetting to leave the keys in the door, the Italian (Danila, of all names) leaving the keys in the door, and the fact that hers was a double room, with the bed near the door unoccupied. Apparently, when she woke up and yawned, I yawned in reply, and she thought, "oh, that´s my room- wait, I don´t have a roommate!" and then got up, got her keys off her desk (that I had put there) and goes downstairs to eat breakfast. I thanked her for not macing me, and she said she figured that if I were going to rob her, I probably wouldn´t have stayed the night.

What are the odds?

I avoided getting ripped off (mom, if you remember the taxi ride in Greece back to the ship, it should sound familiar) by a taxi driver here: My Chilean roommate (Tomas) and I are coming back to the apartment after a big "fiesta para extranjeros" (literally: foreigner party) and the only cash I´ve got left is about the equivalent of $40US. The ATM decided my accent and look weren´t enough to mark me as a foreigner. So, I know what the taxi driver is going to do, and I say, "I´ve only got a larger bill, do you have change?" He says yes, but decides to try his scam anyways. The cab ride was 2900 pesos, and the bill I had was 20,000. So I give him the 20, and magically there´s a 1,000 in his hand. He says, "it´s 2900." And I say, "I can see that, and I gave you 20,000. So, you owe me about 17,000." He waves the 1000 again, and I say "It´s completely impossible that I gave you a 1000. I only had one large bill, and I told you that." So He says "Oh, yes, this is part of your change. And then gives me the 17,000." I figured I´d let him save face and I just said, "Oh, of course, I misunderstood." Meanwhile, Tomas had no idea what was going on, but after I told him that he was trying to rip me off, he realized how the scam works.

As far as my classes go, it seems like I picked pretty good ones going along with my goal of learning business Spanish. After two classes of accounting and one of ethics, I´ve already got a decent amount of vocabulary in those areas. My other two classes, management and Spanish, haven´t started yet.

The apartment is working out great, but it´s really, really cold.

2 days of school down

Ok, now that I´ve got a decent internet connection, I can write a bit more about my classes and the apartment.
The people I share the apartment with are Alfredo, a sports writer who writes for the main newspaper in Santiago; Tomas, a business major at a different university; Maria, A psychology senior at the same university (mine); Gonzalo, who works for an advertising firm; Sa Hewo, a South Korean who came alone, to Chile, after taking one college semester of Spanish and not speaking much English, and is spending her time travelling around South America; and Nikki, an American from Chicago who´s studying humanities at my university.

My classes are Accounting I, which should be great for learning business Spanish, Management, Ethics, and advanced Spanish. I haven´t been to Ethics yet, but in Management and Accounting I´m the only foreigner.