A Month and a Half of Pleasure

How´s it going everybody? I apologize for the absence, but I've been abroad, working, and in general acting quite lazy. Where to begin? I´ve wrapped up the first semester, broke up with the secretary, went snowboarding in the Andes, the cat had kittens that are crappping all over the house in hidden and obscure locations (you have to sniff it out), visited the only theme park in Chile, went to Valparaiso and Viña del Mar on the coast, lost my wallet in Buenos Aires, raced dune buggies in Uruguay, the dog Princesa died and I had to bury her, and have been adding a cushion of fat around my waist because I haven't been able to do any form of excercise other than the raising of chocolate bars to my mouth. Coincidentally, I'm broke as a joke and have twelve dollars to last me a month.

The end of the first semester went swimmingly and it was fun to conduct the final orals. Imagine students entering a classroom two at a time to be confronted by two English teachers who decide forty percent of their final grade based upon the students performance. It's a moment of pure terror that completely roots out the students who have been coming to class and those who randomly showed up or did nothing. Vindication! On the other hand, completing all the end of semester grades and other administrative work is a real pain in the ass, one that I'm not looking forward to doing again.

So I broke up with the secretary. It was painful. For her. I have to see her every day and let's just say that she is not the same cauldron of bubbling friendliness that she once was. Civil, yes. Friendly, no.

Snowboarding in the Andes was fantastic! I hadn't slept a wink the night before because of the usual Saturday about town, and was fueled by six or seven cups of Nescafé and a Snickers bar. Altitude sickness played a key role in feeling less than stellar. Nonetheless, tearing up the side of a huge mountain devoid of trees and filled with rocky dropoffs, hitting massive tabletop jumps and kickers, and carving through two feet of powder at high speeds is an experience I won't soon forget. We went to a mountain known as Colorado, which is close by the resort my homestay sister Karen works at, Valle Nevado. Also, my friend Lindsey got her purse stolen right before we went up and couldn't come, which sucked, but we had a good time without her. Sorry Lindsey!

Ramona had kittens. Not all deformed and sick like the first batched that we had to put down, but rather, shining, healthy, playful and exuberant little balls of fluff. Unfortunately, these little balls of fluff have grown to the point where they roam freely around the house and climb up things with their sharp little claws. The couch, cabinets, and my leg all seem to be the preferred climbing surfaces. Also, the little bastards have been pooping in hard to reach locations, which means that the smell lingers for a day or two until you figure out where exactly it's coming from. It's like a horrifying game of hide and seek, or "poop and reek" if you will. All four are males and piss everywhere as well. Adorable they are, but I will be happy to see the departure of at least three of them. I think Inés wants to keep one.

Fantasilandia. That's the name of the theme park in Santiago, the only one in Chile. For those of you accustomed to the wonders of six flags and other such attractions, Fantasilandia would seem like the runt of the runt of amusement parks. It was pretty fun however, and I enjoyed my time spent there. I went with this girl I've been hanging out with, and we took her little brother and his buddy there. Her brother was lacking in the manliness department and was pretty freaked out for a couple of the rides, and didn't want to go on a few of them. I tried to get him to sack up to no avail. There was a pretty funny moment when we were riding this pendulum-like pirate ship and a four year old girl facing us was laughing and screaming and having the time of her life. In contrast, I looked over at José Ignacio, a strapping example of a twelve year old, and burst out laughing. The look of sheer terror on his face said it all. He was white knuckled, gripping his safety harness like a lobster clinging to the side of a boiling pot, trying to avoid a grisly death. I tried to get a picture but he saw me and just got pissier. I hid my camera. I also went on this ride called Wild Mouse, which is like the teacups except on a slow moving rollercoaster. Very entertaining. I had some serious trouble purchasing cotton candy, though. When you buy things in Chile, a lot of time you pay for it first and get a ticket that you take to whomever is handing out the product. It was the same with the cotton candy line. I'd get in line behind six or seven people waiting to buy the cotton candy who then had to move to a different line to recieve the cotton candy, which was like, twenty deep. The lady making the cotton candy was pumping out oodles of candy so I was amazed when it came my turn to buy my ticket and the cashier girl told me their wasn't any more. I looked at the cotton candy maker happily spooling the spun sugar out in huge quantities and was unsure if I had heard correctly. I asked the cashier again and she gave me a nasty look and replied in a bitter voice that I couldn't buy any candy. Angry and dejected, I wandered off gazing longingly at the line of people receiving candy. Half an hour later, I tried again. Same situation, a bunch of people munching down on delicious candy, a few people waiting to buy their tickets. I get in at the back of the line and go through the same routine. Enter the bitter cashier:

"Usted no puede comprar algodon."

"Why the f°#k not!" I asked in Spanish, motioning to the massive line of consumers happily receiving cotton candy.

"No hay algodon."

"Then what the hell is that lady selling?"

"No hay algodon."

"Seriously?"

"No hay algodon."

"Fine, I'll be back when there is. But I know you're lying to me. Don't be playing with me because I'm a gringo."

She rolled her eyes and turned around.

A half an hour later, I noticed no one was buying cotton candy and the lady had a surplus mounted on sticks. I literally raced over to the booth and slapped down my cash. The cashier was just about to say that bastard three word phrase again when she looked over and noticed the plethora of cotton candy pouring out of the tub the other lady was working. She looked at me. I was smiling like a cheshire cat. Two minutes later I was eating sweet, sweet cotton candy.

The weekend after that, I took a weekend trip to Valparaiso and Viña del Mar with some girl I met. Both cities are superhistoric and Valparaiso is one of the oldest port cities in Chile. I saw the sights and ate at some incredibly fancy restaurants. The trip offered a nice comparison to Santiago and let me see a different part of Chile, which was pretty sweet. The only negative part of the trip was my coming down with a wicked sore throat which ended up turning into a three week ordeal with bronchitis and put a wee bit of a hamper on my vacation to Buenos Aires and Uruguay.

That being said, Buenos Aires and Uruguay was fantastic! I went down with my two buddies, Sean and Andy, and we saw as many sights as we could see in a week. Andy and I had stayed out until about five o' clock in the morning for a birthday celebration and woke up an hour and a half late and had to haul ass to the airport to make our flight. Sean was already waiting for us and we nearly missed our flight with about twenty minutes to spare. The view of the Andes from a plane is nearly as breathtaking as being on the side of one of the thousands of giant mountains, and the flight was superfast. At just over two hours, we got into Buenos Aires around 1:30 in the afternoon. Screaming into the city by an energy drink fueled taxi driver was a little nerveracking, and I'm fairly sure that we eclipsed a hundred miles an hour. The city has a completly different feel than Santiago, much more European, with massive buildings rising up everywhere you go. European architecture and European genetics in the people were apparent from the get go. We entered the heart of the city and pulled onto the massive grand boulevard whose name I've forgotten. This is the widest avenue in the world and was pretty impresive. Our driver dropped us off by the obelisk in the center of the city, which is like a miniature Washington monument and we began to look for lodging. Unfortunately, it had been my job to find lodging, which I completely neglected to do prior to arrival. We spent the next two hours wandering around getting rejected by hostel after hostel because they were booked up and had to settle on a second rate hostel where everybody seemed awfully pissy and unfriendly. We made sure to book a room at a different hostel the next night.

The following day, we got up and began our stroll about the city. We hit up the presidential palace known as La Casa Rosada, for its pink stonework and played hackeysack in front of every well known government building, as an homage to our U.S. heritage. There are monuments and statues on what seems like every corner which made for a lot of photo opportunities. Our wanderings took us to Bocas, a tango neighborhood where all the houses are painted different colors and people assail you in the street to try and get you to eat lunch at one of the many fine establishments. We took in some free tango shows and bought a bunch of cool stuff and had a less than active evening, for some strange reason.

The next day we went down to the port and booked our boat trip to Uruguay and then head over to La Recoleta, the cemetary where Evita is buried and snatched a lot of cool photos. La Recoleta would make the perfect place to play a desrespectful game of hide and seek or paintball, due to all the bodies buried in the elaborate crypts. We kicked it there for a while and then went to the National Museum of Buenos Aires. This place was incredible. It had been a while since I'd seen Picasso, Renoir, Matisse, Manet, Monet, Van Gogh and other countless priceless works of art hanging in the same building. The museum also offered some of the best modern art that I've ever seen, and had a special section reserved for Argentinean painters, ancient and modern, that was outstanding. This was definitely a highlight of the trip. After the museum we walked to Palermo and had a massive steak dinner. Most definitely another highlight, because the closest thing I've eaten to steak has been thin slices of what I later learned was liver. Interesting flavor, that liver. Left a little to be desired though. That evening Andy and I went out to some disco and stayed out way too late, getting back to the hostel in time to grab our bags and head down to the port around eight in the morning to head to Uruguay.

I don't remember the boat ride to Colonia, because I was sleeping, but Sean tells me it was delightful. Andy and I came to as we pulled into the port in Colonia, a sleepy colonial town known for its ruins and the beautiful view of the Rio de Plata and the Atlantic from an old lighthouse. We wandered around for a bit and ate lunch at a sandwhich stand by a playground where some kids were playing soccer. The street food in Uruguay blows Chile out of the water, and I ate a sandwhich bigger than my head for about a dollar. The kids playing soccer were quite interested in us, due to Sean's Sri Lankan heritage and my blonde hair. The topic of the hour: cell phones. I pulled out my craptastic nokia with the black and white screen and was emasculated by a twelve year old, who informed his badass Sony Ericcson 391blah blah blah was way better. I informed that I was going for functionality and he informed me that I was a sissy. It's a good thing there was a chainlink fence between us, or who knows what would have happened. Sean got two giant sandwhiches and couldn't eat the other one so he gave it to the kids. Some ten year old girls came up and started calling me pretty, which was flattering, and then they ran off giggling, whilst their prepubescent counterparts scowled in jealousy. After lunch we wandered down into the historic part of the town and ended up renting some sweet dune buggies, despite the fact we didn't have drivers licenses. Money talks, money talks. The rental guy informed us that we couldn't do anything crazy or we'd get in trouble so once out of his sight we promptly went on a street race through the city and found a massive empty lot were we took pictures of us doing donuts and spitting up gravel at high speeds. Another definite highlight of the trip. The lighthouse and ruins were next and were also pretty sweet. In the afternoon we hopped on a bus and hit the road for a two and a half hour ride through the Uruguayan countryside to the capital of Montevideo.

Sean had the foresight to book rooms at a sweet hostel in Ciudad Vieja, the historic downtown area of Montevideo, and ended up sharing a room with an eclectic mix of Brazilian, German, and Icelandic students about to start class at a Montevidean university. Bruno, the Brazilian, was quite the trip and we all went to some bar jam packed with a bunch of the fresh students and some gorgeous Uruguayans. Unfortunately, my conversational skills were garbage because I was heading into the rough seas of bronchitisland.

The next day we went to a couple museums and then the famous market that is basically just restaurants selling nothing but meat. By meat I mean every single part of the cow that is grillable. The restaurants had huge wood burning grills that were about six feet long and three feet wide, every inch covered with meat or meat by products cooking. Sean and I deftly chewed up intestine, blood sausage, and some other unknown parts of cow. Andy did not.

Montevideo is a small capital in a small country, and so we had only planned to spend two days and a night there, and had to catch a bus back to Colonia to return to Argentina. We missed our bus due to miscommunication and had yet another close call getting on the boat. We made it, though, and were in Buenos Aires later that evening. The next day I lost my wallet somewhere in a park.

One can imagine, that, without cash, identification, being incredibly sick, taking no medicine, and being stranded in a more than normally foreign country, life could be a bit rough on one's morale. Not mine! I promptly made Andy my loan shark. My worries were mere trivialities. I made it back into Chile with a minor hassle at immigration and have been living on less than twenty dollars for two weeks now, awaiting the arrival of paychecks and debit cards.

On a sad note, Princesa died a couple days ago and I had to bury her in a shallow grave in our patio and cover her with lime. She was ancient, disgusting, and incredibly gassy, but I shall miss her and the poop she would occasionally leave outside my bedroom door. Rest in peace, Princesa, rest in peace.

That's about all that's gone on in the last month and a half. I'll be heading to the coast again this friday for a weekend retreat celebrating the crossing of the halfway point in Chile. Kind of sad, knowing that my time is getting shorter in this fair country. Enjoy the pictures, you should be able to guess what's what. Also, check out my buddy Sean's blog, which is probably more entertaining and comprehensive than mine, since he's much more organized. http://www.seangoestochile.blogspot.com/