Santiago
There’s a competiton in the metro here: “Write 100 words about Santiago, win 2 tickets to the Beijing Olympics” Unfortunately for y’all it is unlikely anyone is going to give me two tickets to the Beijing Olympics if I keep this under 100 words- so I won’t even attempt.
However, if I had to describe Santiago in ONE word, it would be this: “full.” Full of people, full of life, full of smells, full of noise, full of dogs, full of pidgeons, full of street food, and also full of tiny little surprises (!) However, I suspect my impression is slightly skewed by the fact that I’ve never lived in a city before: for example, I’ve never seem things like subway pushers (whose job it is to shove everyone into the subway so that they can close the doors) or people at traffic lights who sell chocolate, drinks or towels (?) to people stopped at the lights, actors /clowns /ventriloquists/ deaf people who get on the busses and do a little amusing creative act for the people riding the bus for money, homeless people pooing in the nature strips or spreading their mattresses and/or cardboard boxes out on the sidewalk or ques that go for 2 blocks and of course millions of street performers, street food, people people people ….anyway, suffice it to say it’s a city, and all you city people are probably laughing at me, but this is all new and exciting and wow!
I’m getting to know my little neighbourhood quite well, though. There are the three corner stores, a supermarket four blocks away complete with mattress/tent setup of whovever happens to be squatting there at the moment (I think they get kicked out every once in a while so that’s why it keeps on changing) the hotel on the corner whose special is 2 hours for $8, the female prostitutes round the corner who must be quite successful because I see them rarely, the cross-dressing male prostitute on Vicuna Makenna and Diagonal Paraguay who must be broke because he’s there all the time and, most importantly, the panaderia that sells GREAT baked goods. Then there’s the unidentified men in white cars and walkie-talkies that always park on my street, the social club for old sport players next door (sound suspicious to you?) the omnipresent chinese takeaway (!) the aikido place, where, when I get my act together I will start learning to beat people up, the gym, complete with big grunting men, the windup organman who makes the occasional visit and stands outside my window and winds his organ, the gas men who come by and bang sticks against the gas containers as a sign for everyone to come running out and buy gas- oh, here’s a funny story about gas:
Water here is heated by the calefont, which you have to light every morning before you take your shower and is not entirely reliable. The shower varies from cold to lukewarm to very very hot (rarely), so if I happen to have a nice warm shower, I consider it to be a good omen for the day. However, the fun part about having a cold shower is that you can blame it on the Argentinians! You see, my flatmates are convinced that the calefont gas system is great, the problem is that we have inferior gas- and why do we have inferior gas? Well, pretty much all the gas in Chile comes from Argentina, who is having a particularly cold winter this year. Consequently, Argentina keeps all the “good” gas, and sends all the “inferior quality’ gas to Chile, and that’s why we have cold showers. QED, therefore we should hate all Argentinians. That and they stole half of Chile from us about 100 years ago. This is the gospel according to the brothers Saez, whom I live with.
Ah yes, I should say, I live with three brothers from Valdivia who study law, law and medicine. They also happen to be musicians, and they’ve brought me along to their orchestra, which is great. Also, their mother sends them lots of homemade baked goods, so I get to eat really yummy homemade empanadas, honey bread, rolls and a kind of trifle. They’re great. (both the baked goods and the flatmates!)
Anyway, I may or may not have a maths exam in two days, depending on the severity of the strikes that are being organized, but either way, I should start studying. Much love to all, will write more later (I have a lot of exams this week, which means I will spend a lot of time trying to find something else to do!)
MICA
