I'm still alive!

Apologies for not having written a word in three weeks…but be sure that it’s not because I don’t want to, or even less that I have nothing to write about; rather, it’s a byproduct of the working life and the simple fact that I spend every weekday staring at a computer screen (a huge 20-incher) from 9 to 6 with limited interruptions, making touching my laptop the absolute last thing I want to do when I get home.Well, that was a long sentence, wasn’t it. Despite the aforementioned, though, I will do my best to find time to write in the future, as there is always something to write about.

At the moment, I am getting ready to begin my first long weekend, in celebration of Chile’s fiestas patrias, or el 18, the country’s Independence Day. However, instead of celebrating just the 18th, the festivities begin the day before (today) and continue through the whole weekend until Monday. Sounds good to me!

After spending close to two months in Santiago and leaving the city only one and a half times, I’m taking this opportunity to go to about 3 hours south west to Pichilemu, a small beach town well known to surfers worldwide (not that I really care about that) and also apparently a hot spot during these holidays. I’m going with two friends from the office, a whole bunch of their friends that I’ll meet soon, and Ale.

Pictures coming soon, I promise!

Empanadas of Doom

If I were to live in Chile permanently, I would change my career ambitions and become a dentist.

The reason for this lies in the deliciously scrumptious, yet deceiving empanada, a crispy stuffed bread, and one of the most common foods found in Chile.

Usually they’re filled with pino: ground beef, onions, hard boiled eggs, and, last but not least, a couple malicious black olives.

Imagine the situation: you’re hungry, and you want the most readily available, inexpensive, and satisfying food around. At this point there’s really no questioning it, you’re getting an empanada.

The old lady (its always an old lady) hands you a steaming, crispy and, (if you’re lucky) fresh one. You bite into it with gusto. Invariably, around bite number 3 or 4, you’re met with a nasty surprise: the olives always still have their pit, so you’re lucky if your teeth are left in one piece.

Some say that the dentists have a deal with all the empanadarías in the country. Must be good business…because if you eat an empanada while hungry, or very drunk…the next phone call you make will be to your dentist.

Moneys

Generally speaking, I was expecting prices for the average basket of goods in Chile to be lower than in California. Of course, it was to be expected that imported things, especially electronics, would be more expensive, and that domestic goods, especially labor intensive ones, would be cheaper.

However, some of what I have found has been surprising. Here are a few examples of relative prices for an array of goods and services:

• Food:
• Fast food in Chile, the details of which will be the subject of another post, is very cheap, yet of higher quality than that of the US, due in most part to the fact that fast food here is not dominated by a penny-pinching oligopoly of franchises. Instead, it consists of thousands of essentially identical independently run panaderias. It is entirely possible to eat dinner in this way for just around US$2.
  
• Apart from fast food, there are many decent restaurants in Santiago, which are cheaper than their US counterparts, though not significantly. It also helps that the customary tip here is only 10%. 
  
• Fruits and vegetables might as well be free, that’s how cheap they are. 
  
• I don’t think there exists a bottle of bad wine here, no matter the price. Thus, unlike in the States, neither I nor anyone else ever has any problems picking out the cheapest bottles in the botillería. 
  
• The beer is cheap, yet dissatisfactory. The two main national beers are called Crystal and Escudo, the latter being the cheapest and most popular. The problem is that living in Germany has spoiled me in terms of beer, and nothing in this country, which is known for its wine as opposed to its beer, will ever be truly satisfying. 
  
• I’ve noticed that you can buy large plastic bottles of Paulaner (an excellent German beer) very cheaply in supermarkets, whereas in the States, given that you are lucky enough to find some, you’d have to pay top dollar. Though I have yet to buy some, there’s something about buying beer as good as Paulaner in plastic bottles that strikes me as morally reprehensible in a way.. 
  
• Aside on beer: close to my house, in the neighborhood of Bellavista, are places where everyone goes at night, every night of the week, to sit outside in the freezing cold, and drink liters of cold Escudo. And by everyone, I mean everyone. I guess you have no choice when a liter only sets you back 2 bucks..
  
• Towels: A towel, which is what you use to dry yourself after a shower, for instance, was one of the first things I had to buy here, and I was fully expecting them to be very cheap, seeing as how they are a very simple and labor intensive product to manufacture. However, I was quite disappointed when I had to pay around US$14 for two towels…$7 each, which seems like a steep price to pay for disappointingly slow drying towels.

• Electronics: Out of curiosity, I wanted to check the price here for the same MacBook Pro that I bought before the trip (what!? I know). Though apparently this particular model isn’t available here, I found a very similar one with the same specs but that isn’t a Pro, for about US$500 more than what I paid. Sucks for them, I guess.

• Gymnasiums: Before I left the States, I was going to the gym about 4 or 5 days a week. I wanted to take that habit with me, but that hasn’t happened because the gyms here, of which there are many, are just as expensive if not more so than the ones back home. In a place where people earn significantly less, I don’t really understand why or how they get away with charging that much for memberships.
  

• University Education: This is perhaps the most shocking of prices in Chile (second only to towels). Prices for public universities, which are considered the best in the country, such as Pontificia Universidad Católica and Universidad de Chile, are just as high if not higher than prices in the US, which are already extremely high even with average US salaries. Add to this almost no government aid, and you’ve got a population where only 10% can afford to go to public universities. This creates a large opportunity to profit from the disadvantaged majority, which is why Chile has no shortage of private colleges, which in contrast to the US are cheaper, and often of worse quality (than public ones).

Weekend in Valparaíso

After a long night out on the town on Friday with some friends from UCSD who are on vacation, we met up to take a short 1:30 bus ride to the ocean-side city of Valparaíso – Chile’s 3rd largest – for the weekend.

Valpo, as it’s called by Chileans, is a beautiful city with a lot of charm and character – quite different from the massive metropolis that is Santiago. The city’s port is the second largest in the country, and in its day served as a vital stopover for ships crossing the Straits of Magellan. This status was a bit short lived though, as the city suffered a massive blow economically with the opening of the Panama canal in 1914. Nevertheless, it has seen a revitalization in the past years, housing the National Congress, and serving as an important cultural center in the region.

Valparaíso is a very lively city, whose many hills are dotted by colorful little houses, one of which was another of Pablo Neruda’s homes, this one called La Sebastiana. To facilitate life on steep hills (in the 19^th century the city was called Little San Francisco) there are a number of funiculars (highly inclined cable cars), the first of which was built in the eighteen-hundreds, and is therefore slightly unnerving to take, to say the least. In 2003 the city was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, which comes as no surprise given its labyrinth of cobblestone streets, which slowly wind down the hills like rain drops on glass. Many buildings are covered with artists’ paintings, which make exploring the city on foot an endlessly entertaining affair. Also interesting is that the city was never built to a plan, so everything is extremely random (2 ft. tall sidewalks, for example), adding to the city’s unique appeal.

I’ll most definitely be coming back here many times in the coming months. You can be sure we’ll go to Valpo if you come to visit!

Note on the bus drivers: they are absolutely crazy. Driving entirely too fast on treacherously windy roads, they do not hesitate for a second to look down to count your money and give you change, while you stand there, slowly soiling your pants.

First of all, notice the newly added email subscription text field to the right. I encourage everyone to subscribe so you get notified each time there’s a new post. Efficiency..I think that’s what they call it.

Sunset from El Cerro Santa Lucía

On to other things. In the runup to this trip, I was nervous that I’d forget my German again, the German that I tried so hard to resucitate from certain death a few years ago, an effort that in the end proved to be largely successful. Luckily, though, I no longer have to worry about losing it again because it turns out that I speak German here every single day.

This is due to the relatively overwhelming amount of Germans and Swiss peoples in my Spanish language school, the vast majority of which are only just starting to learn Spanish*, so more often than not we end up speaking German amongst ourselves. This, however, creates a venerable clusterfuck in my head, due to the fact that German and Spanish occupy the same place in the language section of my brain, that of auxiliary language. In the beginning I had a terrible time switching back and forth between the two, with the waitress asking me what we wanted to order, and the Germans asking me what in the world she was saying. Though at first it led to a massive headache, the two tongues are slowly beginning to reconcile and find their own place in my head, so I’m pretty sure that my German skills are safe, for the next few months at least..

sometimes I can't tell if I'm in Santiago or Berlin..

As for Spanish, I’ve surprised even myself with how quickly it’s coming along. I don’t want to get into the details, but I’m fairly confident when I say that when I leave here in [ostensibly] five months, I’ll be pretty damn fluent. Por lo menos, ya he superado el nivel que tenía en el colegio.

As for my impressions of Chileans thus far, besides that they’re pleasant people, one thing is that society here is pretty homogeneous. Despite a large and quite visible gap between the low, middle, and high class, it’s fair to say that most people I see on the street look pretty similar. This is also in contrast to the relatively high amount of immigration that took place here historically, but it is so nonetheless.

There is an unbelievable amount of stray dogs here.

What’s even harder to believe is that there used to be even more a few years back. Walking through a park on my way to play a game of fútbol with Edmundo, an old friend of my dad’s, I saw a well-clothed, non-homeless-looking man in full embrace with his dog, both sound asleep on the ground. Never have I regretted not having my camera more.

As always, there’s still a lot more to write about, but I wanted to at least write something for now. More to follow soon.

* everyone knows that immersion is the best way to learn a language. However, coming to the country in question to begin learning a language doesn't make sense to me, since native speakers, no matter the language, almost always speak too quickly as well as with many omissions, contractions, and slang, so that the beginner is completely incapable of comprehension. On the other hand, being immersed in the culture once having at least somewhat of a grasp of the language is a completely different story.

Look for a new post tonight. what what.

The Hood

Saying it's cold here would be an understatement. It's pretty much freezing, not literally, but it certainly feels like it, having come from the relatively sweltering 100+ temperatures that make San Ramon so wonderfully unbearable in the summer months. What makes matters worse is that apparently all apartments in Santiago, apart from the expensive ones, have absolutely 0 insulation. In fact, it actually feels like negative insulation, because my room is always considerably colder than it is outside, because at least out on the street there's sunlight.

That's alright though, because I really like the place I'm living in. It's a 6 bedroom flat (again) but it couldn't be more different than the Cove house in La Jolla. From what I understand it functions as a hostel in the summer, and houses students and peoples like me during the rest of the year. And that makes a lot of sense, because it's definitely very hostel-like, which I like because it creates a very social environment.

Es la casa. My flat occupies the first floor, my window is the far right one

The inhabitants are as follows: an Uruguayan in his late 20's, a 44 year old Chilean (interesting addition), a young married couple from New Zealand, a 20 year old Parisian, a Chilean stoner-type dude around my age, and me.

What really makes this place a good place to live though is its location. It's right in the middle of barrio Bellavista, a bohemian area filled to the brim with old bright colored buildings, restaurants, bars, and young people. It's where Pablo Neruda chose to build his main house, La Chascona, but more on that later. What makes it better is that it's extremely central; I can basically walk anywhere in minutes, including the office, the language school (class starts on Monday), and anywhere else I might want to go.


Above is the view directly from my window. Rather ironic, I must say. Behind the church is Cerro San Cristóbal, a huge hill, which I intend to climb on a clear day. The pictures from the top ought to be great!

Anyone recognize this fancy automobile of immeasurable luxury?