First day of classes

Well, almost. Yesterday was supposed to be my first real class. Economic Problems in Latin America. Exciting, no? I had gone to the San Joaquin campus yesterday to make absolutely sure I knew where the class was. I left lunch early so that I wouldn't be at all late. I hurried in, sat down, and got out my stuff. After all, I'm representing the United States here, I can't give some kind of slackass performance on the first day. So I wait. And I wait. And I wait. No professor, and the more I look around, the more I notice that every student in this classroom is a foreign exchange student. I talk to some nice brits for a little, then half an hour after the class was supposed to start we finally give up and leave.

Now I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I'm not angry or upset in any way shape or form. I think that giving the foreign exchange students a book full of classes that don't exist is one of the funniest jokes I've ever heard of. I just don't want to fall behind is all.

85 and sunny at the beach. How was your weekend?

Put down what you're doing. Leave the kids with your sister. Decide now to skip all those classes you were going to skip anyway. Quit your day job. Come to Viña del Mar right now. My camera wasn't working for half the trip, so pictures might not cover everything that well, but trust me, March here is better than March there.

Viña has two parts divided by an inlet of water, but if you hop over a fence and climb down the ladder someone has left there, you can have this sandbar to yourself (well, along with dogs, birds, and shady looking teenagers dressed like Will Cumming drinking beer in the corner).



The pelicans are also chillaxing. This seems to be a theme.

Coastline.

A little up the coast there is a castle, you know, for pirates and stuff. My camera was only focusing for one out of every 10 pictures at the time, so I didn't get much, but I did get the glass floor over top of water crashing into the rocks:


And also this guy:

I don't know who he is, or why blogger can't put pictures the right way, but you know, that's life. Once you're done with the beach and the castles, you can head over to the casino (didn't get to go cause the other guys in the program suck) or to one of the many bars where you can hear American music from 10 years ago. Limp Bizkit: gone but not forgotten.

Oh yeah, here's one for pops:

I don't know what is especially godfathery about this liquor store. Maybe they are trying to advertise that they are run by the mafia.

There's only one thing to complain about in Viña. You know that hole in the ozone layer that you heard so much about? Yeah, they weren't fucking around. That spray on spf 33 you bought isn't going to work unless you lather it on, and you WILL get burned through your shirt

Anyway, once you're done with Viña, just grab a bus or train for a 2 minute ride to Valparaiso, a city built directly upwards.

There's lots of cool stuff in Valpo, but my main objective was La Sebastiana, smallest of Pablo Neruda's 3 houses, and just a short walk up Cerro Bellavista, right?

Well not exactly, first I had to find the Acensor Spiritu Sanctu, a little 5 person car that climbs up a pretty steep hill face. The acensors were built at the beginning of the 20th century and refurbished......never. The creaking and shaking doesn't inspire confidence. Here is the view down:
So I survived the trip up the Espiritu Sanctu, should be right there, right? Well no, that just gets you onto Cerro Bellavista (Cerro meaning big hill or small mountain) La Sebastiana is at the top, so get walking.


Finally I get there, see some weird artwork, look out over Valpo:

and realize that I am ridiculously exhausted, so back to Santiago. Another day, another trip.

Chapter 1. Yo he llegado

After a quick flight north, a few hours in Canada, an angry Argentinian being arrested, a faulty valve being replaced, frost being cleaned off the wings, and somebody spilling red wine all over me while I tried to sleep, I finally arrived in Chile. I've been busy or exhausted every second of every day since, so this probably won't be especially long or poetic, but it is an excuse to post pictures. First thing I noticed when I got off the plane is that being dressed for Toronto is not the same as being dressed for Santiago. It's downright hot down here. I spent the next few days learning a little bit about the city with the other two guys in the program. This was the view from our hotel window.

This isn't an especially great view since it was pretty hazy, but those mountains are BIG. I'll never turn my back on the blue ridge, but those are freakin mountains.

The next day we went up to a park on top of one of the smallest mountains with an awesome view of the city. It was waaay to big for me to get everything in the picture, but heres a little sample.


This is one of the very developed parts of the city, which they call San Hatten. There's some parts especially on the edges that are pretty rough, but for Latin America it is very developed and very clean city

Immediately behind that picture is the giant statue of the Virgin that overlooks the city.

It shouldn't be sideways, but blogger is stupid. Save it and turn it the other way. I couldn't think of a better metaphor for Santiago than a 50 foot statue of the Virgin Mary with 20 cell phone towers right behind it. While walking around I saw that there were 3 couples making out behind the statue. It seemed a little disrespectful until I realized that its the only place in the city where Mary can't watch you.

This is one of the many street dogs in Santiago who spend the day chillaxing, or as they say in Spanish, chillaxando

This is a monument to the beginning of aviation in Chile in 1911. It is surrounded by dozens of couples making out near pornographically, as is the standard in every park in Chile
That's all I've got right now. More stuff later