Last weekend I took a 6 hour bus ride to Santiago. On the way, I consumed some good old horse jerky, you know, like the kind mom used to make? The flavor of it doesn't really resemble horse meat at all (more like dirt on a farm) and it saps all of the spit out of your mouth before you can say, "This really sucks!"
Upon arriving at the Santiago Bus Terminal at 10:30 P.M. we decided to take a taxi to where we going to stay. Along the way, I saw some uncultured juvenile delinquents of about 12-14 years standing on the back bumper of a moving metro bus (like Metro Transit size) pounding on the back window. When we passed by, they were nice enough to recognize the photographic opportunity they presented by giving us rude gestures.
Santiago is a really fun place. It has cool graffiti, places to buy Ash Ketch'em and Misty Blue masks, a nut stand called "Nuts4Nuts," statues of naked people, smog, and mixed vegetable pizza. I visited a zoo that had giraffes that you can look at, touch, and get licked by. I also went to a sports bar, ate a bacon cheeseburger and watched the Vikings game with fellow United States citizens. It was a great cultural experience!
The commuter train in Santiago is actually surprisingly clean and the stations have everything from extremely detailed escalator instructions (a bullet list of 8 warnings of how to safely ride an escalator; one of them is, "Do not go on the elevator with anything you have trouble holding") to people who wear big signs on their back that say, "You can buy minutes for your phone from me."
We stayed in the Andes Hostel in the BellaVista neighborhood of Santiago. Hostels are really fun places to stay. The ones I've stayed at are nothing at all like their namesake movies (neither 1 nor 2). If you're young, not boring and haven't stayed in a hostel before I would recommend staying in one. It's a great place to meet people from different countries and laugh at the way they talk. Last weekend, I met an Irishman who said, "I have to retire right now," but he wasn't talking about his job--he actually meant that he had to go pee! What a crazy bloke!
Santiago nightlife is also something I would recommend if you enjoy any of the following:
- Dancing
- Drinking
- Drinking on streets
- Budging in lines
I went to a club where everyone in the place danced their heart out to "The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats. The DJ had her hands in the air like she was actually playing a cool song! Another club called "Aliens" seemed promising at first because a) it sounds like the type of place where a foreigner would fit in and b) you'd assume it would have semi-decent barbecued ribs and an arcade. Unfortunately, it was just a normal dance club with a cover charge and expensive drinks.
On a completely different subject, the University of Concepcion was the site of much turmoil this past week. Case in point: For the past few weeks I have been waiting for a package of t-shirts and other assorted tasty treats from my lovely mother. I pick them up in the Arts and Humanities Building on campus. Unfortunately, some disgruntled students decided to have a sit-in on Monday in that same building. Apparently, arts and humanities students pull this card every year to protest high tuition. One time they tried to stage a sit-in in the library and the engineering, law, and medical students beat the hell out of them. I ended up getting my package on Thursday, as the building was open for a little bit. Unfortunately, the future teachers of Chile sat-in again Thursday night. I guess they had a party in there--I was cool enough to get invited! Unfortunately, the cops were on there way so it was a bad idea to go.
I've been watching a lot of music videos today. One artist I'd highly recommend is Miguelito, the badass Latino thug answer to Hannah Montana. He's a ten year-old Puerto Rican reggaeton artist that is famous for such hits as "Backpack of Love," "Boom Boom," and "The School." This is the video for "Boom Boom."
After watching it, don't you feel your childhood was missing something?
American clothing of the week:
"Vodka. Connecting People."
"Bristol City Police Department."
That's all folks! As they say in Chile, "Pass it well!"
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