January 9, 2008
I finally got my act together and cleaned up the apartment so that it would look acceptable in pictures. Get ready for a long post with way too many photos 
I had to use my fisheye because I don’t own any other kind of wide angle lens. Needless to say, the fisheye lens really distorts things (and makes everything look way bigger than it is). The place is a one bedroom, it’s about 35 square meters. We thought about renting two bedrooms but didn’t end up finding a two bedroom we liked, and I’m so glad! When we moved into this place we realized we don’t even have enough stuff to fill up a one bedroom. Half our kitchen cabinets are empty, and in the bedroom, the only furniture we have is a bed. Neither of us are pack rats either so every time we consider buying a night stand or another dresser, we both just kind of shrug it off, like why bother when we don’t really need it.
First off, the little details that I love:
The remote control holder in the armrest of the futon is so convenient:
Here’s the actual futon itself, which was an incredibly generous gift from my in-laws (we picked it out and they paid for it).
The light fixtures move and can be pointed in any which way, so it makes for some dramatic lighting.
We paid extra just to get our glorious fridge in silver rather than white.
Our patio is just big enough to fit two chairs, where we sit and talk in the evenings when S. gets home from work.
I’m kind of obsessed with this wine holder. It’s so cool!
There’s a tiny little alcove that is supposed to hold a microwave but I’d rather use it to display spices. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve loved different spices. Also, I like the silverware thing that we got. It’s fun to have forks and knives out hanging as part of the deco, rather than hidden away in a drawer!
Here is poor S.’s tiny little closet.
And here’s my giant closet…MWAHAHAHA! As you can tell, we’re both extremely neat and organized people 
Both the bedroom and the living room open onto the little patio.
The bar serves as a kitchen table and a work desk for me 
The furniture we brought from our old house conveniently matches the floors and countertops perfectly! You can see the paintings that we haven’t hung up yet, mostly because we don’t want to put holes in the wall.
Bedroom:
Bathroom:
Bird’s eye view of the bathroom:
(and right after this photo was taken, if you were in the apartment you would’ve heard my shrieking “OH MY GOD MY HAIR IS ON FIRE!!!” at the top of my lungs. The light bulbs in our bathroom create some serious heat. Good to know.)
Here’s what things look like when you first walk in.
And here’s from the other side, looking in from outside on the patio.
One last view of the kitchen and then we’re done.
January 7, 2008
A few weeks ago my camera was broken and I was desperate to get it fixed in time for our trip down to Pucon to climb the volcano. I mean, why would I climb a stinkin’ volcano if I don’t have my camera?!? So as soon as my camera broke, I ran down (literally) to the Canon repair store, which is conveniently located just a 20 minute jog from my new apartment. The guy at the front desk told me that unfortunately it takes two weeks just for them to give you appraisal and then another two weeks to actually fix the camera. This information had been previously confirmed to me by a friend who had taken his camera in a few months before. Even though I was sweaty and disgusting since I had jogged there at around high noon, I could tell the guy giving me the information was sort of checking me out so I batted my eyes a few times and asked him if there was any way he could put it in rush, because I was taking a big trip down South and that would just be such a sweet thing for him to do for a poor little gringa. He acquiesced and said he would be it on rush order at no extra cost. And just in case I needed anything else, his name is Jose Araya, and I should feel free to call him if I need ANYTHING AT ALL. I got my camera back within a week.
About 10 years ago, I arrived in Chile as an exchange student for the first time. I went to live with a family of humble beginnings in the neighborhood Puente Alto of Santiago, and attended colegio (high school) every day with my host sister, Natalia. She was nice but we didn’t have very much in common and I actually ended up getting along better with her friends. When I left Chile we were on good terms though. Her family planned to send her to the U.S. on her summer vacation, just as I had come to Chile on mine. Natalia’s aunt and uncle were actually the ones who were going to pay for her flight and everything. She arrived in the U.S. and even though she was supposed to stay for 2 or 3 months, she never unpacked. She refused to speak English at all. And I totally understand that for a few days. Arriving in a foreign country is intimidating and even more so if you don’t feel comfortable speaking in a language that you have had very little practice with. But, after the first week she still didn’t want to try. I took her to school with me one day. She was supposed to come every day. But she didn’t want to. Instead she stayed home and would call my mom every day to have her order a pizza to be delivered. I can’t remember how long she lasted, but she didn’t stay with us for very long. I’m really not sure why she hated everything so much. But she went back to Chile a few months earlier than she was supposed to and after that I never heard from her again.
Now you’re probably wondering about the significance of the above two stories. Really there is no significance, just that I learned interesting things about both these people recently.
The first guy, Jose Araya, is on a new reality show down here called Amor Ciego. It’s a dating program, sort of like the Bachelor, except it’s one super hot ex-model girl trying to find a date in a group of normal looking men. Not one of them is super-hot. Not even the Canon guy. I hope he wins!
And my old host-sister is now engaged to the President, Michelle Bachelet’s son. They’re getting married in March and she’s having his baby in August. I found out a long time ago that they were dating. It’s a funny story, actually. Flipping through channels one night, I happened across the tail end of a program showing Natalia playing paintball and I was like HOLY SHIT I KNOW THAT GIRL!!! I was freaking out, but I only caught the last two seconds of the show so I figured they were doing a story on paintball and she just happened to be a player. Or something like that. Then, like a month later, I was rolling up old newspapers at the beach house to start a fire. They were REALLY old, like from last year. One fell to the floor and I saw her picture again! I was so surprised, so I salvaged the newspaper from the fire and read the story on her only to find out she’s dating the son of the most important woman in the whole country.
Pretty random, right?
January 3, 2008
I’ll be the first to admit it. S. and I are kind of boring when it comes to partying. The last 3 New Year’s Eves we have spent eating dinner with S.’s family, on a plane, and eating dinner with S.’s family respectively.
This was our first New Year’s Eve alone!
I know it’s a Chilean tradition to cook a big meal and eat it really late so you’re just about finishing right around midnight. S.’s mom always cooks a FEAST.
S. and I wanted to continue the tradition so we bought a loaf of bread, toasted it in our new toaster (which is a HUGE deal in this country. Chileans tend to toast their bread right over the stove), and ate the bread with some cream cheese. It wasn’t even light cream cheese…we were feeling really crazy!
Around 10pm S. conked out. I woke him up at 11 to assure that he wouldn’t spend N.Y.E. sleeping, although I’m sure he would not have minded in the least.
Then…
I received a mysterious facebook message. Alright, so it wasn’t really mysterious, but it was unexpected. When we first moved in, I met a gringa up at our building’s rooftop pool. She facebooked me and mentioned that her Chilean husband’s family was coming over and they were going up to watch fireworks on the roof. We were invited.
And all of a sudden N.Y.E. plans materialized right before my very eyes. Around 11:30 we headed up to her apartment on the 17th floor. We were in the elevator with a big group of people also going to the 17th floor…also going to the same apartment. They were my gringa friend’s Chilean husband’s family. They were really old but shockingly hilarious and fun, as well as ridiculously nice. We all went up to the rooftop together and the show began.
I was mesmerized by fireworks for a good half hour, and then no sooner had the first display finished but another started, this time coming from a different Santiago neighborhood.
The fireworks ended and the younger relatives headed out to party while the older relatives went home and to bed I presume. Or maybe they went out to party too, what do I know?
My gringa friend and her husband (We’ll call them A. and O., respectively) were staying in because they have a kid. Well, the kid is actually the husband and his ex-girlfriend’s daughter, but she lives with her dad part of the time and happened to be staying with him on N.Y.E.
S. and I were staying in because we have a kid too. HA! JK. We were staying in because we’re boring. Actually, no. I didn’t want to go out exclusively because I don’t like driving places on N.Y.E. There are too many stupids on the road. My grandpa was killed by a drunk driver. I was paranoid about drunk driving even before that, but after the incident in which my grandfather’s van was hit head on by a car that flipped over, bounced over the median of the highway and smashed into him at 70 mmph, now I’m a paranoid FREAK.
We ended up staying at A. and O.’s apartment just talking and drinking wine with them until 4 in the morning. It was much more laid back and our style than any big party would’ve been and I think we had just as much fun, if not more, than if we would’ve went out. Hanging with people who totally get the cross-cultural differences that make being in a Chilean/U.S. relationship hard is truly amazing. We chatted about anything and everything for 3 hours.
Some of the topics touched upon-
*Chilean women are like Jesus-they can take a loaf of bread and feed massive amounts of people. Seriously, my MIL spends half as much on groceries as I do, and makes better and more filling meals for 3 times the amount of people.
*Why Chileans don’t sell pants big enough to fit gringo asses. Seriously, the Chileans have an obesity rate just as high as we do. So why is a size 8 often the largest that a store carries? During my second semester here I gained weight and I was up to a size 10. Whenever I would ask sales people at the stores for a size 10 they would look at me in utter disbelief as if I were asking them, “Excuse me, do you possibly have a pair of jeans large enough to fit the Jolly Green Giant?”
*People in Santiago are unbelievably rude and mean. But it’s not because they’re Chilean, like many people seem to think, it’s because they live in a big city. For example, A. told us about her New Yorker cousin who basically left them behind on the subway when they couldn’t keep up because they were loaded down with suitcases after just getting off a flight from Chile. See, it’s not Chileans that are evil, it’s Big City’ans who are evil.
It was so fun. I’m really happy we rang in 2008 doing something besides sitting on our new futon picking our noses and yawning. Thanks A. and O.!
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