Sunday, Nov. 18
I arrived at the Santiago airport after a very long flight that wasn't too bad thanks to my trusty sleeping pills. The line at immigration was really long, but eventually I made my way out and met up with Rose. We went to her house to hang out for a while. She lives with her boyfriend, Andres, and his parents who all seem very nice. Their house is just outside of Santiago in the mountains. It's very pretty, but I didn't take any pictures :-P After a while we got a hold of Tess, the girl who was staying in the other room of the apartment that I rented for the week, and headed in to town to get me "moved in." The plan was actually to rent a different room in a different apartment, but it wasn't going to be ready until the following Saturday. I was not impressed with the first apartment. It was dirty, the kitchen was gross, there was no internet, and the area was noisy and full of bars. But, it was just for a week and Tess turned out to be very nice, so I survived. By the way, it was even noisy into the night on the night I moved in. Which was a Sunday.
Monday, Nov. 19
I got up and did my usual yoga/bellydance/turbo jam workout session, before heading outside to try and find some food. I stopped at the first restaurant I saw and my waiter happened to speak English--a nice surprise. I ordered this:
It's a seafood-stuffed avocado, with octopus and clams inside, drizzled with some olive oil. It was muy delicioso! There seems to be lots of seafood here, making for a happy Erica.
Later that afternoon I met up with Rosie and she took me by Bridge, where she works. It turned out that her company needed teachers, even though the summer vacation is coming up soon, because many of theirs had gone home in time for the holidays. So, Erica to the rescue! I had a little talk with her boss, David, and got scheduled to come in to start training the very next day! The rest of the night was just for relaxing, and I watched some Game of Thrones with Tess.
Tuesday, Nov. 20
On Tuesday I went in for job training in the afternoon and just learned about their English-teaching methods and some about the company. Nothing too exciting there.
That evening Rosie, Andres, Tess, and Rosie's friend Libby, and I all met up and went for Peruvian food:
The first is a pisco sour, which is (traditionally) made with pisco (a fermented grape liquor), lemon juice, egg whites, and sugar. It's a Chilean drink, but Rosie claims they're better at Peruvian restaurants. I've only had one other one at a bar, but judging by that one, I would have to agree. The bottom picture was my amazingly delicious dinner called Corvina a lo Macho. It's corvina (a kind of fish) in a sauce with shrimp, squid, octopus, clams, and white wine. It was excellent.
On the way home Tess taught me how to ask for a bottle of beer at the botelleria, which is what the liquor stores here are called. They have bars (like...jail bars) in the front so you can't go inside and you have to order what you want and the guy will go get it for you. It was a delicious evening.
Wednesday, Nov. 21
As part of my training at Bridge, I had to do a 15-minute demo class with 2 students which one of my trainers observed. I was a little nervous, even though I've taught English for over two years. It's a bit different with adults. It went fine though, and afterwards we did more training, during which they tried to shove a wealth of procedural information into my head. It was swimming by the end. AND they already set me up with a class for the following morning! However, it ended up being cancelled that very evening, but not until after the late cancellation cut-off, which means...I didn't even have to go to my first class and I still got paid for it. Oh yeah, I'm good. After that training day I was content to just relax at home for the evening.
Thursday, Nov. 22
On Thursday I didn't have to do any training, but I met up with Rose and we walked around a couple of the malls for a while. I didn't buy anything.
Later that night we did Thanksgiving dinner at Rose and Andres' house:
There are our sweet potato and green bean casseroles. There was fun with some exploding marshmallows, but it ended up ok in the end. We couldn't find french-fried onions, so we used crackers, and we couldn't find sweet potatoes, so we used zapallo, a type of South American squash. I made some deviled eggs, which weren't up to my standards as there wasn't any mustard, so I added a lot of vinegar, but everyone else thought they were awesome and they all got eaten. I don't think Andres' mom had had them before, but she really enjoyed them. Dinner wasn't even ready until about 9.30 (I guess that's what happens when you have to make it after work) so I spent the night.
Friday, Nov. 23
I got up early to catch a ride to town with Rose and Andres and their ways to work. After working out I decided that I had time to go check out the National Zoo before going in for my last day of training. It wasn't very big, so it only took me about 2 hours, but they had some animals that I hadn't gotten to see before, like the pudu and the jaguar. Here are some pics (for a better look, click on the picture):
On my way to the metro to go to training, I took some more random pictures of the city:
Rio Mapocho runs through the city. It is very dirty.
After that, I made my way over to Bridge to finish up my training and sign my contract.
That evening, Tess and I headed to another nearby part of the city and just got a couple of beers. They're Kuntsmann with honey flavor and blueberry flavor. They were really, good--I liked the blueberry!
Saturday, Nov. 24
In the morning, Rosie came over to get me and we walked over to La Vega, which is a huge marketplace. There were tons of vegetable, fruit, and raw meat stands. I got a passion fruit juice (freshly squeezed), some olives, zucchini, and strawberries. Later, I got to move into my new apartment. I was happy to see that it was much nicer. It's cleaner and in a better neighborhood, there is even a nice courtyard with grass and palm trees outside. There are lots of sushi places around, which I'm sure will put a dent in my wallet. I'll also have to check out some of the many Chinese places and try to get as much Chilean food as I can while I'm here. Did you know that Chileans don't like spicy food? Yeah, I didn't either, but I was sad to hear it.
Later that evening, we went out for Rosie's birthday (which was the next day). I went with Libby, one of my flatmates who also works at Bridge (that's how Rosie knew about the room to rent) to a bar for one of her friends' going away parties before heading out to a club to meet up with Rose, Andres, and Andres' aunt and uncle. The music wasn't my favorite (you remember those 90's cd infomercials?) but it looked like Rosie was having a good time dancing, so that was great! I ended up going to another club later with some of Libby's friends. The music was better, but it was expensive. Really expensive. I probably won't be hitting any more clubs for this visit.
Sunday, Nov. 25
I was supposed to get picked up by Rose to head to her place for a little family get-together for her birthday in the late afternoon, but I felt too tired to go and she was too tired to come get me, so we called it off. Well, I'm sure they still got together, but I spent my evening napping and preparing for my first class the next morning. Boy, THAT was much more of an adventure than I was expecting! However, I've decided I'm only writing this blog week-by-week, so you'll have to tune in next time to find out what kind of crazy shenanigans happened there. I think this post is long enough anyway! Ciao!
