End Up September....Yey

Alright, so in 10 minutes it will be October and I have to post this before then! LoL Actually I’m going to cheat a little I hope you all don't mind! Time has been flying. My life is flying by but I’m faster! Next month I’ll be 24 years old! That is crazy to think.....Just the other day I remember when I got my driving learns permit in Morgantown, WV because my sister was in a hospital! And that was 9 years ago. :( I have so much more I want to do with my life that I don't think I will get it all in with just one lifetime. But heck I’m going to try.

Chile has been amazing. I really love every moment down here and I'm already sad about having to go home. But maybe I can find some kind of excuse to come back. If I do not get to come back to Chile I at least want to go somewhere else in South America. After that I need to make it across the ocean. I was reading up on the situation in the Philippines and I think in December or January I’m going to try to go over there and volunteer for a month. I've always wanted to go do relief work for a place that was hit by a natural disaster. I know that’s a horrible thing to want to do but then again there is always natural disaster. And right now I’m scared of natural disasters for some reason so I need to confront my fears.

I just noticed I never went back and corrected some of my other blog post. I should get my dad to do that. He's really good at proof reading and stuff like that. I certainly didn't get that skill from him and it's defiantly one that I am not going to work on. With things like spell check and F7 I am set for life. However, you don't ever want to get something from me that was hand written. You wouldn't be able to decipher that jumble of letters I like to call writing. I've decided I’m going to start playing music more/again. I use to play a lot in high school and I wasn't good but I wasn't terrible! (Like the way I worded that) I have some of the best teachers and people to learn from in my life and I really need to take advantage of that. I love music and the always have so now it’s time..... (ahhhh got to post this)

See look cheating! I posted before midnight and now this post is in the month of September! But I did just notice that the time that the post says it was posted is like 3 hours off. That is retarded and makes me sad.

Most things in Chile I find I can accept. I'm in a different country. The culture is different. Their norms are different. People are different. Bluh Bluh Bluh right! But today I had to go to a bank to deposit money into an account that is setup for a road race this coming weekend. After that I then had to go online to register for the race and hope that registration was still open. Talk about being a pain....do they not have paypal? That was fine; I was able to deal with that. What really got me flustered was the bank! Now I’ve walked by a few banks and always noticed that the lines are usually kind of long but never really thought much of it. I just figured a lot of people banking today. No! I would never bank in Chile!

It went like this. I walk in and get stopped by the security officer that was an extreme prick. I think mainly because I was American. Next there were 3 lines and 4 windows! One line was for the general public with one window. One line was for clients of the bank with two windows. And another line was for professional transactions with the last window. At first I was like wow what a good idea. Then 45 minutes later when I was still standing in line I felt like cursing! At Everyone! In the 55 minutes I spent inside only 3 people were helped by the professional transaction window. Around 10 minutes into wait a lady in the general public line thought she should open a bank account. General public window helped her until I left. The first window for clients of the bank window started taking general public people after 35 minutes. Maybe some of you don't see my complaint... Why are they dividing up the incoming clients? The people who had to wait the longest were the ones that were actual clients of the bank. In general most people that don't have an account with them won't actually come to that bank to do a transaction. Why are the people doing professional transactions more important and can just waltz right up to a window that hasn't helped anyone in the last ten minutes. It might be convenient for that client but you are wasting your money with that employee. Stupid! And when can someone open a bank account at a teller window? WTF There was 4 side offices with people in them doing only god knows what. Two of the offices look like they were meeting with customers. One was on the phone a lot and talked loud enough for us to hear him. And the last one stood by his office door talking with the jerk ball security officer.

How I would fix this! First I would have only one line! All teller windows are equal. If you’re opening an account you go to the office that has the moron talking to the security officer. If you need "professional transactions" you go to the person that talked too much on his phone. I am sure he can help you! First in is First out. Maybe I'm wrong but it was extremely annoying. Cuando en Chile! Viva Chile!

One more thing I cannot come to stand is that the Micro buses pull up as close as possible to the Micro bus in front of them to let someone off. But then when they want to get around the bus in front they honk their horn constantly. While not stop five feet from the Micro in front. And then when you want to pull around you don't have to honk your horn like a complete lunatic. Just Saying....Think About It!

Ok that is my end of the month rant! This coming Friday I’m going wine tasting for my friend’s birthday. I'll be drunk! I am going to try to make a video but it might turn out bad. October has a lot of birthdays... If you do a little subtraction we all know what our parents were doing for February! Yeah February! LoL Thanks Dad! Thanks Mom!

I'm off to bed. In the morning I have to go to a volunteer thing for little kids! Yey But before that I want to get a run in. So I'll be talking to you all in two days.

Hope you have a good rest of the week.

Check this Video Out!

She's either cute or a good singer! Maybe both!

Stra10

Friday Night Update

This might be super quick! I am waiting on a friend to give me a shout before we head out for some food and a night on the town. I think we are gonna got some Chinese food! LoL I find it funny that the Chinese people here speak Spanish. I always feel like they should speak broken English. But I love the food so I'm not complaining. I've had two productive days of studying! Wooohooo... I mean I should probably be saying i've had two productive months of studying but that just isn't the case.

Right this second I'm drinking this coffee/milk/chocolate thing that my host family loves. And well I absolutely love it but it gives me such a headache it's not funny. I'm not sure if it's because the amount of sugar in it or the chemicals that make it taste so damn good but I think i'm addicted. I'm gonna have to smuggle some of this stuff into the United States. I hope they don't catch me running across the border.

Anyway it looks like the Chinese was scraped and now it's gonna be pizza time! I love that when I chat with people online I imagine that I am actually hearing them talk to me! Is that weird? Let me know!

Stra10

PS: I'll try to make it longer next time! (ha thats what she said)

Two Months Down Under

Well it's been two months since I left the states for Chile and I must say that the time has been flying by. I'm gonna be back home before I know it. :( TEAR! I've started to love this place. The people. The culture. And even the food, sometimes!

Last week I didn't do a Friday Night Update because I was in Rancagua, Chile for the celebration of Fiestas Patrias which roughly means Patriotic Holidays. This is for the celebration of Chile's independence from Spain. I spent four days there with my one Chilean friend Christian and my friend Logan from Wisconsin. Christian took us to his grandmothers pension (spelled wrong) where I think about 14 other people live. The entire weekend/week was a blast. Christian and his friends took us to all kinds of things. We went to the national tennis match between Chile and Austria! Eight hours of tennis in a day is almost a little to much for me. They have these things called Fundas for their Fiestas Patrias which I would compare to a county fair but they have hundreds of them. Last week I went to 6 of them in total. They have food, dancing, rides, games, stores, and drinking! You could buy a triple shoot for 300 pesos. (roughly 60 cents) Talk about being a cheap drunk! Oh and I don't think they close and if they do they close sometime after 6am! In the four days I spent in Rancagua I slept at most 21 hours. The day was spent eating and meeting new people and the night (night = sometime after 1:30am) was spent drinking with them. The food I had over the last four days has been some of the best I've had since I have arrived here. We had steak, pork, chicken, hot dogs, sausage, fish, and other stuff I never got the name of. We also went horse back riding and spent the day in the country. The Andes mountains are amazing! Overall it was amazing and I kind of want to do it again.

I have a lot more I want to write but I have go home and study for a test tomorrow that I will probably fail. Thats me being optimistic too. It's ok though I've not been the most amazing student here. I blame myself! (i was gonna say facebook and the chilean culture....)

This weekend I'll upload photos and try to make some more post.

Chau,

Stra10

Sick In Chile

So I could be doing my homework or bettering my Spanish but I'd rather Blog instead. I've actually spent most of the day in bed watching videos on YouTube and reading articles on America's Healthcare Reform. Youtube was fun and the Healthcare was just infuriating. Oh well...

Anyone that knows me, knows i'm not a "Big Ole Cuddly Bear" when i'm sick. Typically i'm pretty miserable and usually cry until someone brings me chicken noddle soup and a box of Kleenex. Speaking of Kleenex I bought some yesterday. I was only trying to buy one box of them but somehow bought 24 mini-packages of the kind you carry in your pocket. It only cost $4 american dollars so I'm not complaining.

I keep getting asked what is it like down there?!?! It's a lot the same and yet still very different. I mean Chile doesn't equal the stone age like a few of you seem to think. Yes they do have electricity and running water. People drive cars and buildings have elevators. Teenagers play video games and watch porn. They have washers and dryers but don't use the dryer much to save on electric. The biggest difference I have found in General is peoples obsession with America (a.k.a. The United Sates for those annoying smart asses that say South America is still America too! ReTARDs). Overall I would call that a bad thing. Example: Sarah Palin continues to be a hot topic down here. Boring!

Oh so I've been here for a tad bit more than a month. My Spanish has improved a lot. But I still can't come close to holding a full conversation even if I was only talking to a piece of cheese. For awhile there I was scared I wasn't going to learn a thing and just waste a couple grand on a really long vacation in South America.

Quick tip on learning new words in another language. You want to translate a word from English to Spanish. So you want to learn that word English to Spanish. Like this!
Knife - El Cuchillo
You also want to do the same for phrases!
How was your day? - ¿Cómo fue tu día?
Since I started studying words and phrases like that I have been able to recall the words a lot easier. Anyway thats my two cents on that....

Overall it's been a good month! I'll try to do these a little bit more often. And I'll try to give some better examples on whats really different about Chile. Also keep an eye out on youtube for some of my new videos that i've made down here! Till Next Time!

Stra10

An Interesting End to a Night!

Ok let us take a moment to blog! It’s been two weeks and three days. How is my Spanish? Terrible! Why? Because I speak to too many American students in a day and I’ve only had three days of class. However, my everyday absolutely need to know Spanish is improving. I also understand almost everything that people say to me directly. But it’s about impossible to understand what random people are saying to one another.

Some of you might be wondering about an incident I had mentioned on facebook and twitter about a super bitchy Chilean woman saving my life. (I like to refer to her as Chilean Bitch) Well in Chile it’s more likely that you will get robbed than anything. Anyway here is how the story goes, the clubs where closing and it was time to go home. I live on the north end of Vina del Mar so I have to take a different bus than everyone else. I figured hey it won’t be bad to go alone I haven’t had any trouble since I’ve been here and heck what could possibly happen on a bus. I bet you can guess how this ended. So I get on a bus that is standing room only and in the back of the bus is a group of six Chilean guys just being insane. They were being loud, hitting on girls, and trying to start fights though the window. If I was them I probably would have been doing the same thing. Right before the bus pulled out a street fight broke out. The fight quickly surrounded the whole bus and everyone inside the bus went nuts. The guys in the back of the bus were hanging out the tiny windows swing at anyone they could. One guy outside got pined up against the rear bus door and one guy inside started kicking him in the back through the door while another one was beating him upside the head by hanging out the window. Just pure chaos! I have never seen anything like that. Also girls were out there slugging it out. It was probably a good 45 seconds of pure madness and intensity. In the end it left 3 guys knocked out bleeding on the ground. One of them looked really badly injured. He was bleeding from the ears and didn’t look like he was going to regain consciousness anytime soon. And then the bus pulls out almost running over one of the guys that was knocked out.

So there I was the only “Gringo” on a bus full of Chileans that just witnessed a massacre. The excitement of the fight rolled around the bus for awhile. The guys in the back kept trying to talk to me asking if I was having a good time and if the fight was amazing. I figured it was best if I just ignored them. After a bit the Chilean next to me asked me where I was from and I figured oh what the heck is wrong with a little small talk. So I told him and quickly the guys in the back became fascinated. (Right now the bus is about quarter way to where I want to get off. Also the bus ride is a good 25 to 30 minutes) Between my ability to understand Spanish and their knowledge of English an interesting exchange of fragmented sentences turned into a conversation. They first asked me about Michael Jackson and if I went to his funeral. No! They also told me that Brittany Spears and Sarah Palin are hot and that they all would have sex with them. Then they asked if I liked sex. They love Obama and think George W. Bush is Satan. I couldn’t understand their reasons for saying that but I don’t think it could have been for any intelligent reasons. As this level of kindergarden conversation countined I caught one of the guys slipping his hand into my jacket pocket. Hey responded with “disculpa.” Which in spanish means oh sorry I didn’t mean to do that.

Now I’m kind of on guard and I’m only halfway home. Some people get off the bus and a seat opens up and I figured if I sit down I’m less likely to get pick pocketed. As I’m sitting there the same guy that had his hand in my pocket also kept feeling my jacket and telling everyone how much he liked it and that he wanted it. I’m not scared just really pissed off that there is a huge likely hood I’m going to lose my jacket to these ass holes. Now they start telling me that I have to pay the bus driver again. I think they thought I was retarded. Next they tried asking me for my cell phone number. Which I lied and told them I didn’t have one. Then they wanted to take a picture with me but none of them had a camera and they kept telling me to use mine. Which this time I told them the truth that I didn’t have one. Ijust left out the minor detail at least not on me. Then they wanted to know what time it was. Now thankfully my watch had moved halfway up my forearm sometime during the night, so I easily tricked them into thinking I wasn’t actually wearing one. They seemed disappointed I didn’t have a cell phone, camera, or a watch on me but I was wearing a nice jacket.

With a little over 13 blocks to my stop a large horrid of people from downtown Vina del Mar get on the bus. In this horrid of people was the one of the bitchiest Chilean girls I have seen. She would have been one of the girls slugging it out in the street fight and would have walked away un-scratched. Oh and she was hot! But anyway, she got on in the back so she was a bit of a distraction while the guys figured they could maybe get lucky with her. She quickly put them all in their place slapped one and yelled at another something so intense and loud in Spanish that the whole bus went quite for about 3 seconds. Quickly the attention was back on me and instead of just the guys in the back wanting whatever was mine the whole bus seemed to want whatever was mine. Bitchy Chilean girl quickly took my defense but not without insulting me first in both Spanish and perfect English telling me that I was an idiot for being on there alone not knowing Spanish and finished with the fact that these guys were going to steal my jacket. I told her I knew that much. She told me not to be an ass.

Two quick side notes! First, there was a Chilean old man sitting in front of me and right before I got pushed off the bus by Chilean Bitch he turns around and says to me, “you don’t look scared! But you should be!” I really had the urge to punch him. Second Chilean Bitch had two friends with her. Both of them were really nice and kept trying to talk to me while Chilean Bitch was going on a rampage defending me in a fury of Spanglish that I couldn’t understand. The two friends kept trying to figure out how to make more small talk with me in English among themselves in Spanish so I would just answer them before they ever got around to figuring out how to ask me in English. Confusing! But they were nice…

Ok back to the story. So Chilean Bitch asked me where I was getting off. I really was hesitant to tell her where. So I figured I’d lie and tell her the wrong block in case any of those guys were going to get off too. In my premature level of Spanish I actually told her the truth which I didn’t realize until I was pushed off the bus! So Chilean Bitch stopped the bus for me and told me to run if the guys in the back followed me off the bus. When I stood up a few things happened. First male hands grabbed my ass. This was not to feel me up but to steal my wallet. Thankfully it was in my front pocket and there was nothing in it either. Second the bus roared with ramblings of “Gringo.” Third Chilean Bitch pushed, no wait threw, me off the bus. Fourth while I was being thrown out into the street I somehow inadvertently dodged three swing for my head. One from inside the bus. Another from a guy sitting in front of the door. The last was from the guy who first wanted my jacket. He was hanging out the small window in the back of the bus. Luckily all I felt was a nice breeze from knocks on my hair.

Overall I’m pretty happy at the outcome of this situation. I kept my jacket, watch, phone, and wallet all while avoiding any injury. Well maybe a hair or two suffered a little knocked rash. I have to thank Chilean Bitch for saving my life though. If it wasn't for her I think things might have ended a bit worse. So Chilean Bitch if you ever read this, Thank You! I also learned a few lessons. Don’t wear anything nice. Don’t wear your $10 dollar watch. Always deny having a cell phone. Don’t talk to strangers (oh wait that sound familiar) at night. Always travel with at least one other Gringo.

That turned into a lot longer story than I thought it would! Overall Chile is amazing! The night life is too. But like any place one must be careful. Viva la Chile!


Stra10