Santiago: Semana 2

Hola! Everything is super-bueno in Santiago. I think the longer time I spend in the city, the more I like it. I am in a new class this week with a new teacher and he is the first teacher that I am kinda not liking as much. He is just a little too woçeird for me or something, but he is still nice. After school I went to Santa Lucia which is a similar hill to san cristobal where I went over the weekend. It was nice, just another touristy thing to do though. On the way home I saw a yoga studio and picked up a schedule. SO the next day, I was determined to try yoga. So I went, and paid for my ticket and they immediately talked to me in english cuz they could tell my accent and asked me if I knew enough spanish to follow along. I said sure I can handle it I think. I went and this place was jam packed (might I add it was only $2 to go! so cheap) but I really had no clue what she was saying. I could understand inhala y exhala since it was the closest thing to english. The more things I do in this country, the more I feel like I do not know since there is so much vocabulary that I just don´t have. But, yoga was fun, a little slow since I think it might have been a beginners class but I am definitely going to go back. At dinner that night my host mom went off about how she thinks that Bush is the worst president ever and does not understand who in the united states likes him. I think I have talked more about US politics on this trip than I ever have in my life since every one around the world is so interested in it. They know more than I do so I just kinda try to steer away from the topic.

Wednesday night was lotsss of fun. We heard about this after office party in a castle on the hill of Santa Lucia where I had been on Monday. People go there with their work friends straight from work, so the only criteria is that we dressed up. They had this funny little trolley thing taking people up to the castle. We got there and they said we were going to have to pay but then i guess since we were 4 foreigners in cute dresses, this one guy decided to give us free passes. We went in and at first everyone was pretty much just hanging out with their work friends sitting, but then people got out on the dance floor later that night. They played alll american songs, mostly Madonna since she is having a concert here soon. We went out with one of the girls house moms which was afun cuz it made us all speak in spanish the whole night since she was there too. Thursday I did not quite make it to class on time, but I went for the second half. My teacher teaches us about really weird things and one thing we learned today is a ¨viejo verde¨which is a guy who likes young girls. Verde meaning green and not quite ripe yet. lol. I went to the cemetary with the school today which was really similar to the cemetary in BA. ALl graves above ground and it is like a little village for dead people. There is this one 6 story building with just caskets. I thought it was going to be creepy but it was actually really nice since each had nice tombstones and what not. I finally got my cell phone to work at lunch since I got my friend who had a charger to charge it for me and I hadn´t had it forever. As I put tape on it that afternoon since it was falling apart I said, ¨well at least no one will want to steal this thing!¨I jinxed myself. I went on the metro and I had just looked at the time, two minutes later I tried to text and it was gone. I remember some guys bumping into me on the metro and I am sure they grabbed it at the same time. Oh well. Later that night, I went on my first south american date! I met him at the castle party the night before and we were planning on meeting at the metro and he was like 10 minutes late and I was really thinking he wasnt going to show. But he did and it looked like he had been running or something. In his accent he told me he had a few problems. First he locked himself out of the house and had to get back in to get his keys. Then, he was going to make sushi but forgot that he lent his tools to his friend. So he bought sushi for us from his favorite restaurant. He was really fun...he really likes everything american and loves 50 cent and eminem and all american tv so he was asking me all these questions about what does this mean and that. Then i learned some chilean slang as well...so overall a good first date. I am off to attempt yoga again.

Friday night we went to a previa at my chilean's friend's apartment. Previa is their word for pre-party I found out. It was fun, but everyone spoke english to us, so it was not like we were getting any spanish practice, but at least we were hanging out with the locals! We went to a club with them and my plans were to go home early since we were going to vina del mar the next day and that didn´t happen. So Josi and I went on the later trip to vina del mar. First we had a completo though which was about the best day after drinking food I have had yet. Then we had some ice cream. We were waiting for my chilean friend to get done with work cuz he was going to vina as well and he could drive us, but he didnt end up going so we still had to take the bus. We got there, had dinner with the rest of the group and then went to the casino! I played blackjack and craps. But I lost around $30 but it was entertaining to try it in spanish. And they definitely do not serve drinks for free in casinos here so it was very mellow. Anddd Chile closes everything one day a year on voting day so we had to leave at midnight. I have never been in a casino that has closed before. The next day we got up and we wanted to go to this beach called Con Con. Sooo we went to the bus stop and this bus driver was like hop on hop on so we did and then it was going in the opposite direction that we needed. So then we told him where we wanted to go and he found us a bus and told the bus to stop for us and then we hopped on the other bus. It was funny how it all worked out but we managed to get there in a bout an hour longer than it should have taken, but still it was a good tour of all the city. We wanted to have crab empanadas since that is what they are known for, but again everything was closed for voting day. But this one restaurant was kinda open...he tried to make us sit upstairs but there were flies and we were like no we actually want to sit downstairs. So he let us but we had to sit in the back because it was technically illegal for the restaurant to be open. The empanadas were nothing special but good enough. We spent the rest of the day lying on the beach then we went back to Santiago. A good weekend, but would have been better if things were actually open!!