I'm slightly embarrassed to say that despite being in Santiago for several days I really haven't seen much off the city. When I arrived I was fairly tired and since then I've had orientation which lasts for most of the day. So I've spent most of my time so far in the enclave of the hostel fairly separated from the Chilean world. I think the hostel is relatively nice with great murals on its walls and edible food in its kitchen but other more traveled program participants say that this hostel pales in comparison to other hostels. I very glad that when I flew here I decided to take my laptop in my carry-on, because one person in the program packed there laptop in there suitcase and then had it disappear during their flight. My first observations of Santiago is that it seems like a fairly nice ordinary city that wouldn't be too out of place in the United States except that everyone speaks Spanish. There is not the overwhelming sense of people everywhere that I felt in India and there seems less poverty then in the parts of Mexico I saw. It has also been a lot greener then the parts of Mexico I saw, but that maybe because what I saw of Mexico was located in a desert.
Here are some pictures of Santiago I took:
http://picasaweb.google.com/paulspicturesfromabroad/Chileweekone#
Some quick observations about Chile
They have great fruit juice
They have horrible coffee. Throughout our day we have coffee breaks and the only thing they can give us is instant
Some of the guide books warned of the smog but that hasn't been that bad with mostly clear skies. However, today I had a slight cough and sinus pressure which Imight be able to blame on the Chilean air.
I have had lentils for the last two days and they were decent.
I've also been told that the school I'll be teaching in won the English Debates last year in Chile. As part of my time at my school, I am expected to help out with this year's debate team. I'm excited to brush off some of my debate skills that I put away after college.
Adios Muchachos
oh snap...debate....thats funny. so i take it you are posting via the laptop? when you venture out the hostel, take pics of the tennis court. vamos!
ReplyDeleteYea, the hostel has wi-fi so I just take my laptop downstairs and I just post away. Probably the best thing about the hostel. the worst thing was the first day and finding out I was on the fourth floor and that the hostel had no elevator, so I had to lug everything up 4 stories. (I believe I was talking about my packing with erin before I left and said that everything would be alright so long as I didn't have to face many stairs. Fortunately I felt comfortable enough to leave one bag downstairs while I carried the other one upstairs ... slightly academic because I don't think I could of carried both upstairs at the same time.) I actually packed my bags just about right, i watched the weight scale when checking my bags in at the airline and the heavy one was 47 pounds and the light one 43 pounds.
ReplyDeleteWe were driving around somewhere and I saw a whole array of tennis courts, an acre at least at some gym club. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera around to take a picture of them.
also MJ you know the poster of the two girls kissing you had on your wall freshmen sophomore year of college, I saw it on the wall of a bathroom at a bar in Chile tonight.
ReplyDeletehahahha. thats awesome. you better go back and check out the courts.
ReplyDelete