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!