I’ve seen ads for this organization at bus stops for months now, and I kept forgetting to take a photo of it to show you. I don’t know anything about the group, but it looks like a South American version of Habitat for Humanity. They even have a website showing all the South American countries they work in (http://www.untechoparamipais.org/) and a YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/untechoparamipais). Looks like they do good work for all I know. Anyway, the reason I wanted to post this, aside from hopefully driving traffic to their website and maybe helping them in some small way, was to bring you this punch line:

Apparently a Chilean’s desperately impoverished shack is a West Virginian’s entrepreneurial aspiration…

November 16th, 2008 | Category: Economy, In Chile, Photos | Comments (2)

Buildings are going up all over Santiago with little sign of slowing (hopefully I’ll get a photo of this soon), although I have insider information confirming that most projects that haven’t already been started are being put on hold until the global economy clears up.

Regardless, Santiago will soon enjoy two massive new skyscrapers. One of them would have been the tallest building in Santiago (as I understand it), but it will be eclipsed by the Torre Gran Costanera which will be the tallest in all of South America, and almost the tallest in the Southern Hemisphere.

Speaking of which, have you ever wanted to see a 3D fly over of Santiago? I thought so. Well, now your dream has come true. Just follow this link to indulge: http://www.cencosudshopping.cl/costaneracenter/index.php?ident=17

October 23rd, 2008 | Tags: Santiago, Torre Gran Costanera | Category: Economy, In Chile, Photos | Leave a comment

Check out more photos on Flickr (http://flickr.com/photos/viajechileno/)

Also, check out blog posts I’ve made which include photos: http://viajechileno.com/?cat=12

October 13th, 2008 | Category: Photos | Leave a comment

Everything is turning green in Santiago

Most likely where ever you’re reading this from, things are staring to cool down. Being on the underbelly of the world, things are the opposite here, and last night was very pleasant. Cool enough for just a light jacket, and the air is full of the smell of flowers and blossoming plants. As you can see from the photo, the trees are all turning bright green as well.

October 11th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

I came to Concepcion for a birthday party (really I´m in Talcahuano, but that´s like saying “I´m in NYC, well, really it´s the Bronx”). It´s a six hour bus ride from Santiago, so I jumped at the chance to take in the six hours from the front of the bus on the second floor. Nice view. Unfortunately, I was next to a slightly neurotic fat guy who started snoring about three seconds after the bus started up. He also had a strange twitch.

View of rooftops in Talcahuano

Anyway, the view was still nice, and much of the way down reminded me of Tuscany even though I´ve never been there. Vineyards are everywhere, green hills surrounded by mountains make up an exceptional landscape. A lot of it looked like paradise (sorry, I have no photos to back that up, you´ll just have to trust me). Of course that was interrupted time and again by unorganized towns and cities that are anything but.

October 1st, 2008 | Category: In Chile, Photos | Leave a comment

I’d like to move to Carolina. It’s in a nice neighborhood (can’t you see the sunshine?).

I was riding the micro (bus) the other day, and was surprised to see Texas St, then Wisconsin, then Indiana St, so I thought I’d look it up on a map. It’s little America!

But how does Cleveland get equal weight with Texas? Someone needs to talk to the mayor…

View Larger Map

September 25th, 2008 | Category: In Chile | Comments (3)

Of all the challenges Spanish presents as a second language, three elements have stood out to me above all others during my first seven months here.

1. Jokes

To understand when someone is joking, you have to understand how what they’re saying is abnormal, and to understand what is abnormal, you have to have a firm grip on what is normal. So all those word games you play every day make it really hard on us foreigners to keep up, so no more jokes people. Ever.

2. Large Groups

One on one, anyone can communicate. You can communicate with your hands if you don’t speak each other’s language. Every person added to the conversation makes it exponentially more difficult to keep up. One reason is because as more people who speak the same language are added to the conversation, you get left out because it’s just easier to talk to people who are native speakers, so gradually the conversation trends away from you. Another reason, is that you’re probably the newcomer, and even if you spoke their language, you’d be left out of a majority of the conversation. Finally, people talk much more quickly, and with much more slang when in a group. They use many more expressions, and gestures. Therefore, no more getting together in large groups!

3. After learning Spanish, you have to learn Chilean

This may sound like a joke, and in part, it is, but the every day expressions that make up so much of a language, such as, “Hi, how are you?” “seriously?” “obviously,” “in a second,” and “right” just to name five, have their own Chilean versions in addition to hundreds or thousands of other words Chileans have found fit to re-invent. So you can throw out the Spanish you learned in high-school, or at least get out a pen, and start scratching out the translations in your pocket dictionary.

September 19th, 2008 | Category: In Chile | Comments (1)

Typical State-Fair-like Celebrations

It’s a four day weekend in Chile!

Independence day is the 18th which falls on Thursday, and nobody’s going back to work tomorrow, so everyone headed to the far corners of Chile to spend time with massive family get-togethers, cookouts, dancing the country’s national dance (Cueca), and consuming massive amounts of alcohol which they will regret Monday morning (the drinking won’t stop until Monday, which allows you to cut out three mornings of regret, and replace it with inebriation, and questionable behavior).

If you haven’t already stocked up on your asado (cookout) necessities, it’s too late. Things are closed up here tighter than Christmas Day. What’s worse, is that my new Chilean roommates (I just moved here a week ago), didn’t know/forgot that everything would be closed today! It’s the same every year, and we’d been planning to do a cookout the last few days. Now it looks like we’ll be having egg, cream cheese, and mayonnaise sandwiches…until the bread runs out. Then we’ll just be drinking the wine that was fortuitously purchased in advance, and sit in silence while we wish we were enjoying a cookout instead.

Matter of fact, everything closed yesterday early, there were very few buses (I had to wait half an hour each way just for a bus to pull up to the bus stop yesterday), and the only people out and about in the city were those in supermarket lines.

I was a little hungry yesterday in the evening, so I thought I’d pop into a super for an empanada or something quick, and I walked into the equivalent of a Super BiLo thinking they would be well equipped for the lines. Not so! Think of the lines before Christmas. It was pandemonium! There must have been at least 20 check out lines, and people were lined up all the way to the back of the first isle of goods. I mean, they filled the check-out lines, and were extending through the entire first isle of food stuffs waiting to check out! I decided I wasn’t so hungry. Besides, with all the cookouts pending for this weekend, it will be a month till I hold a favorable view towards food again.

No word yet on the number of accidents from holiday goers, but hopefully they are less than last year when, police estimates of roughly 50 deaths related to the holiday were off by about 15 with a total of 35 holiday related deaths just hours before the holiday ended.

PS: It’s raining, cold, and grey.

September 18th, 2008 | Tags: 18, asado, Cueca, dieciocho, independence day | Category: Food, In Chile | Comments (3)

http://www.basicbar.net/

Basic Bar is like mixing the American embassy with Chuck E Cheese. It’s an enclave of American culture, but without the formality of official government offices. Not only does the sign outside advertise “Comido Gringo,” (American food) but it’s appropriately spelled wrong further announcing to any native walking by that this bastion of American culture is the real deal.

The food was quality, the location could be better (it’s a long way from many places in Santiago, but still not that hard to get to), and the atmosphere was great (everyone is suddenly your best friend). I found it to be one of the more odd experiences in my life. I’ve been here in Chile for nearly seven months now, and the most I’ve spoken in English is during phone calls to my family. The rest of the time, my experience has been exclusively Chilean, so walking into that bar felt like I took a 15 minute metro ride to Chicago from Santiago. It was nice to talk for 4 hours without having to think about what I was trying to say.

Along with the Bud, MGD, pizza, and burgers, the main attraction is the full range of US sports feeds projected onto a large wall. (Ironically, both Budweiser and Miller are listed as American beers while neither are American anymore). We’re talking MLB, NFL, and NCAA sports. Saturday football, Sunday football, Monday Night Football, Thursday Night Football; you get the picture. So if you find yourself struggling to accept Colo Colo as a substitute for your favorite football team, you now know where to go.

Best of all, I now have a way to talk about football on my blog. I can simply say, “On Saturday, I went down to Basic Bar on Irarrázaval, where they were showing the game between…etc” Also, I will now know what people are talking about when they say someone’s knee was blown out like Charlie Weis’. That was just disgusting. Or that a team was blown out like UCLA. Worst defeat since 1929? Against BYU? I’m still having trouble getting my head around that one.

September 15th, 2008 | Tags: Basic Bar, NCAA, NFL | Category: In Chile, Tourist Tips | Comments (8)