La Piojera/Cerro San Cristobal/Life in General

Hello friends!

New stuff has been happening everyday, so lately I've been kind of busy to stay updated and put time into a long post. But now I'm back, to write about some of the fun times that have gone down right in Santiago.

Saturday, July 7th:La Piojera a.ka. Santiago's watering hall, to celebrate some people in our EAP group that had birthdays last week. Let me just walk you through the experience, otherwise I'm not doing it justice...

The entrance is a narrow passageway. My friends and I hesitantly made our way through the open doorway where we were immediately greeted by a group of rowdy Chileans shouting "FOTO! FOTO!" So I hopped in a photo with a random group of Chileans. After entering my first impressions were: loud, smoky,and "oh man we kind of stand out here.No we really stand out here."...But another impression was "This place is awesome!" There's something about hole in the wall places that I enjoy. Maybe it's because you have to surrender to the loco-ness and enjoy people watching. And there were plenty of interesting characters to watch. The birthday girl in our group went through several loud choruses of "Cumpleaños Feliz," courtesy of the locals.There was a man passing out toilet paper at the entrance to the bathroom(which by the way, was nasty.I tried my best not to touch anything) At one point a creepy clown walked between tables selling balloons. It was like a real life joke(So this clown walks into a bar....)Upon entering we bought  these drinks called terremotos, which means earthquakes. They're made with fermented white wine and a scoop of pineapple sherbert. They also sold aftershocks(don't remember the name in Spanish), which ended up just being a terremoto in a smaller glass...I mean plastic cup.This place was beyond classy!Our group managed to snag a table, where we were directly in the  foot traffic of many Chileans who struck up a variety of conversations with us.My previous judgement of Chileans being closed off,shy, and unapproachable were disproven. Many of them were open to chatting, mostly in Spanish, although some attempted broken English. All in all it was an eventful time at La Piojera. I never expected I'd have so much fun there! This just proves that so far the best times in Chile have been  the places I would have never guessed. 

This man just went down the line pouring terremotos

Outside shot.Who knew what was within...

The next day, a group of us hiked to Cerro San Cristobal, a giant hill topped with a statue of the Virgin Mary. Even with a layer of smog, Santiago looked beautiful from up there, especially with the dramatic back drop of the snowy Andes. Plus, we got to catch the sunset, which was amazing! We headed back down in the darkness,but it was ok because the city lights kept it from being pitch black. 

The Virgin

Sunsets over Santiago. The best!

Santiago by day...

At the bottom I bought my absolutely wonderful new pair of knit gloves...they're the kind that are gloves, then you flip back the glove part and wallah!My fingers stick out and can wiggle!I brought a hefty pair with me(thanks Dad!),but these are perfect gloves to do stuff in like type and dial phones.Maybe I sound silly going on a paragraph long ode to warm gloves,but it has to be understood how incredibly cold it is here,especially at night. Electricity here is super expensive, because the only natural energy source comes from the rivers down south. That means imported electricity, which is pricey. It also means most Chilean homes don't have a central heating system. My house has one gas powered heater. There's even a gas canister delivery truck for them. So my outfits have basically consisted of leggings under jeans, two pairs of socks, longsleeve, zip up, fleece, and parka. Oh, and I'm pretty sure my scarf is just another body part now. So if you're in California, enjoy the sunny warmth for me!

As opposed to the temperature everything else is great. I'm keeping myself busy exploring with friends, blogging, journaling chatting with my host family, etc....anything  to distract myself from the coldness! Also, I decided to stay with my host family for the duration of the first semester! It's the best situation I could have here and my host mom was  happy to have me stay. Mi casa en Chile=mi casa in the U.S., she told me. Plus I couldn't leave  the nice neighborhood I'm living in, even if it's going to be farther from the campus I'll be taking regular classes in starting August 1st...it's much calmer compared to the rest of Santiago!

Today a few other EAPers and I bought bus tickets to San Pedro de Atacama and La Serena which are the central valley and the northern desert region of Chile, respectively.Chile has an amazing, relatively cheap long distance bus system. And these are the buses with the far reclining seats, not just regular ones thankfully!  Our 9 day trip is after ILP, in about 2 weeks. I can't wait!

That's all for now.Gotta prepare a debate for class tomorrow, then we get to go wine tasting with our cultural group! Cuídate! 

*chilenismo: filo-the equivalent of nevermind, but only to be used with fellow young people(as my host mom kindly pointed out.) As in your trying to explain something, someone is just not getting it,so you say "ah filo..." 

Also, I apologize for the funky formatting on this post. I don't know how to fix the big empty space to the right. Oh well...

and by night...