I made it to Santiago after spending something like nineteen or twenty hours at airports in Miami, Costa Rica, Peru, and Santiago. Airports suck and I spent a lot of money on beer at the airport lounge, so my initial funds were dwindling when we got to the hostel at four in the morning, deliriously tired yet wide awake.
I wasn't able to get a good impression of the city at night but the next day was able to do some exploring and have seen a fair part of Santiago Centro. Santiago is divided into comunas, or communities, like New York has burroughs. The center of the city is filled with pickpockets because it has a lot of tourists, so you need to watch yourself, The thieves tend to work in gangs too, and hopefully I won't have to deal with any. I've done a lot of walking around and shopping in the open markets, and was able to cook for all my groupmates.
My spanish is definitely improving by the the minute and I've really gotten into using it everwhere. I'm sure I'll be 99% fluent by the time I leave.
Everything is cheap and I've been sweating a lot. It looks like I'll be wearing dirty clothes for a while, or at least clothes that smell like a dirty towel and crotch sweat. We've spent a lot of time sitting around and tomorrow start our teacher training. The hostel is all right but there is some crazy people living in this place and I'll be glad to get situated with my family. Although if I recall, when I lived in Costa Rica I was pretty crazy, so I've been pretty accepting of some serious weird-ass behavior. Ah, people.
You wouldn't believe the crazy hair styles and punk clothing almost every teenager wears and I'll definitely spend my next blog hunting down some shots of the styles and explaining a little bit of the culture.
There are stray dogs everywhere and they're all quite friendly. There's also two types of deadly poisonous spiders, killer bees, and earthquakes. I should be in for some fun. Check out my initial photos, and goodbye for now. I think I'll take a trip to the adult film theater down the street...
The photos are: the Andes, graffiti, view of the Andes from behind a park sculpture at Cerro Santa Lucia, sculpture of a horse in front of the National Museum, me and Caira and Andy, shots of Santiago from the top of Cerro Santa Lucia, fountain at Cerro Santa Lucia, the back of the capitol building La Moneda and then me at the front, Plaza de Armas, Rio Mapocho graffiti.
