YESTERDAY

I saw Paul McCartney in concert! One of the best nights of my life....

... sort of a strange week, since I spent the first few days in bed with food poisoning, then went to the ER, then saw a Beatle in concert...

How Mature...

but at least they are insulting each other in English!

Seen on the board and the remains of a Jeopardy! review game.

Famous Person

I was on my way to class today, and saw this person on her way into La Moneda - lots of press, and reporters asking who it was... I have to ask a Chilean!

Another post about gender

So, in Chile, gender norms are much more strongly defended and maintained. For example, I have gotten in trouble for using the men´s bathroom in a Starbucks, even though the women´s was out of order, because it was too extremely out of bounds. I have bought men´s socks and athletic shoes, and been warned not to every time by Chileans who were shocked that I would even consider it, even though my feet are size 40-41, and women´s sizes only go to 40 in Chile. This is something I´ve done countless times in the states, with no one blinking an eye.

A lot of the time, to (especially older) Chileans, it is inconceiveable that anyone would go outside the unwritten boundaries gender gives us.

Which is why I appreciated the fact that, when I went to buy hiking boots, the assistants in the store asked what size I was, and whether I had wide feet, and immediately recommended buying a men´s boot, not a narrow women´s boot. Score one for comfort and sense and gender neutrality!

I could write a book on how gender roles and gender norms and sexism in Chile drive me nuts and negatively affect how nearly every interaction I have goes, but here was a bright point, sad that it takes so little to give me hope!

To add to that, I now have boots to wear while hiking Torres del Paine with Joan!

Will and Kate on the Santiago Metro

My morning commute today.

Job Application Break

I was in a cafe, applying for job after job, and this girl comes in and just starts singing.

Not only is she great, but her English is amazing! (As you see at the end, she´s Chilean.)

These cafes are pretty neat - they have free internet, and all the big newspapers and magazines are free to read here, just for the asking. And you don´t even have to buy anything to drink or eat to study there! There is a whole system of them throughout the city, which is an excellent public service.

How to refill your cell phone minutes

...Find one of these teenagers on the street, give them a few mil, and your phone company and number. Tada!

Rengo

The holiday´s not over yet, but this is where I spent last night:

¿...lindo, no?

Sopaipilla

Imagine a cold fall day (or a cool summer night, or a rainy day), and you are walking along, and work up an appetite. Now, all of the sudden appears a lady with a grocery store cart filled with a pot of oil over a gas heater, and a pile of these, soft and hot and waiting for you.

Now imagine that this amazingly delicious fried dough cost just 100 pesos, or 0.40 USD.

Now imagine it, just with spicy aji sauce or pebre piled on it, and just a hint of mayonnaise to balance out the spice.

Irresistible!

Matricula

This is what I do when I do office work - sit in a tiny dark room, waiting for students to come and have oral evaluations or computer tests.

One More Reason Not to Use Google Translate

¨Cervical¨ means ¨of the neck¨ in Spanish. It´s not a pillow for your cervix.

Maratón de Santiago

Tomorrow´s the day! 21k!

Here we are excited to pick up our shirts and chips!

Then Shander had us shake hands and promise to be friends afterward.

More later!

My Student´s Typical Day!

IMG_0977, a photo by chalupa1631 on Flickr.

This is from last semester, but I thought it was cute, and a little different from life in the US. They were all about 14 or 15 years old, and I gave them the line, markers, and five minutes, and they gave me this!

The Diaspora Begins...

Today I had a final coffee with Kate, who´s headed back to the States - we´re all hitting that two-year mark and doing some serious thinking, and some even more serious American food craving.

My first memory of Kate is that she was the one who spoke up when the US embassy workers were very blasé about telling us that Chile was due for a huge epic earthquake, and asking more questions at the Duoc introductions. As we all know, that did come to pass, along with a whole lot more events! It´ll be sad to see her go, but we´ll once more be in the same country in June!

Here´s a shot of us in a place that somehow does not look like Santiago!

Maratón de Santiago

For those of you who don´t know, I´m training for the half-marathon on April 3rd. This is a big event in the city - it closes all the main roads, and goes past a great deal of the city landmarks.

I´m feeling pretty good about the training - so far, I´m up to 18.8 kilometers without getting overtired, and the half marathon is 21. I can make it!

Incidentally, this is one of my favorite bus routes - always takes me places!

Most exciting entry yet!

My fridge. Many apologies, I have spent today in the depto studying, not out doing cool things to take pictures of.

The socialism postcard is Ricardo´s, the painting is Nati´s, the sushi magnets and the conversions magnet are mine! I do not know where Evita came from, she just showed up this week.

The cat is our household pet, bought for me because the depto is too small for a real one.

Obama in Chile!

Today was an exciting day - the Obama family came to Chile! He came to confer with Piñera, and Michelle Obama and the girls went to Renca and saw some dancing. We went a few hours before their plane even landed, and waited in the Plaza de Constitución to see them!

Overall, the crowd was very friendly, not very intense, just curious. The was one woman who shouted ¨Go home, yankee!¨ over and over, but a lot of others shouted her down, or just mumbled that they wished that she´d quiet down. Two men next to me rem

arked that it was a sign that a democracy was present that people could shout whatever they wanted, even at the president of the United States.

I made a poster, and Ludette and I showed it, and I wore Ricardo´s ¨Hope¨ shirt, so we were interviewed by Tele13, TVN, CNN Chile, Telemundo, Television UC, LUN, MEGA, and la Tercera, which was fun but awkward - if I panic in front of a microphone in English, just think how much I freeze in Spanish!

Obama and family arrive at La Moneda!

Barack and Michelle

And the girls.

Ludette and I on the other side of La Moneda after!

On a side note, I have never felt so gringa in Chile as I did today walking around in an Obama shirt on a day when he was visiting the city. I have a great advantage for a gringa here, that I can blend in in a crowd, which is very appreciated on many occasions, as it makes me much less of a target in many ways, and I can fly under the radar when out and about, rather than sticking out merely for the way I look.

San Borjas

This is a park I love that is across the street from my old apartment. Lizzy, Shander, and I took advantage of today´s beautiful sunny weather to lie in the sun.

Shown: Shander in foreground, roller derby girls, older people watching the derby, a few couples doing what Chileans tend to do in parks...

Costanera Center

Of course it´ll be reassuring to have the tallest building in South America, and the second-tallest in the Southern Hemisphere in one of the most enormous-earthquake susceptible areas of the world.

...is what I think, every time is see Costanera Center. I can´t go into a building without wondering what I´d do if there were an earthquake, and wondering how much the building will sway or shake enters my mind when ever I go up more than a few stories.

On the other hand, what a wonder of modern engineering that it´s even possible!

Pi Day!

Here is the spread of pies from pi day:

There was: deep-dish Chicago pizza, apple crumble, peach crumble, mini quiches, fritatta, sweet potato pie, Ecuadorian fried green bananas, and a no-bake peanut butter pie thing!

¡Que rico!

Spanish and Gender

You could write a book (or read one that´s already written) on gender in language, and how it affects society and interpersonal interaction. Here´s a sign that demonstrates a teensy bit of that: in English, this movie was The Tourist, with a title that had no gender, and a movie poster that didn´t reveal which of the two stars was the aformentioned tourist. In Spanish, the title needs a gender: El turista, a title which reveals Johnny Depp, not Angelina Jolie, as ¨the tourist¨.

Basically, gendered language leads you to draw conclusions about something based on just the word used to describe it, before even seeing it - something that´s very dangerous to do with gender and people, and has much further reaching effects than just a movie title.

Gringo Cake!

I´d feel somewhat guilty, or at least deceptive, posting old pictures to a blog. Yet I haven´t taken new pictures a lot this last week. So here it is - Jessie just returned from a visit home, during which she bought funfetti cake mix and icing to bring back to Chile, then made the laziest three-layer cake ever. I had three pieces, and it tasted like home!

Incendio

I´ve never seen a building burn before, but today I was walking on Alameda through Parque Forestal, and a church was smoking. I stopped to look, and the smoke grew and grew and more people stopped to watch. It was really terrible and sad - it was a beautiful old convent that acted as a retirement home, and the entire building got consumed. It was hot enough that you could feel the heat from across the street, about thirty meters away.

Story

Photos

Another Bus Purchase

People sell everything on the buses in Santiago. Yesterday, I was dorky enough to be excited to buy this all for 100 pesos (20 cents):

Concert

Last night I went with a new friend, Gustavo, his polola Nathy, Caitlin, and Ludette and saw a hip hop jazz fusion concert!

I was very happy to understand a lot more of the lyrics than I´d been expecting to.

Two Signs

Two signs you wouldn´t see in the US:

Ïf you have a car, you get noticed.¨ Obviously, this is a culture where cars aren´t exactly the norm.

And signs that are directly across from the toilet in my fancy work place, telling you over and over to put the toilet paper in the toilet, not the trash! Only in South America...

New Year´s in Valparaiso

Terrible shot of the fireworks - I had my camera on the fireworks setting, but didn´t realize that that meant a long exposure, about a second, which is really hard to do!

My Room!

So this is my room - photos of friends and family on the wall, a map of Gaithersburg, and my hat from diez y ocho!