Q: Como se dice: "My wallet was stolen"?

A: Anoche, en Santiago, Se robaron mi monedero.

So, I start off the weekend meeting Lindsay and we go to Valparaiso. It's great. The hostel we stay at is amazing. We do more exploring around Valparaiso and that city has way more to it than I first suspected. I love it even more now. We walked around to quite a few places like:

Museo al Cielo Abierto

-The "Open air museum." It's not really a museum but more like a section in the hills of Valparaiso with walls covered by paintings. Really interesting part of the city. Since it's Valparaiso, it's not crawling with people so we just walked around pretty unmolested.

Los Cerros de Valparaiso

-Valparaiso is a very hilly city, (like if you were playing in one of the streets with a soccer ball and you lost control of it, it would literally roll down into the ocean-really) Its neighborhoods are named after the cerro (hill) that its located near. I haven't made it to the upper cerros yet where one of Pablo Neruda's houses is but I plan to soon.

We also went around to alot of the gnarly bars that are around here. I seriously have not found a single bar here that wasn't great. Of course, I like dives but all of these bars have a completely unique flavor and are cheap too.

Sunday we tried to go to Horcon to meet some Aussie friends from the program...and thus the horrible end to a beautiful weekend began. Horcon is a small fishing town about 40-45 minutes away from Valpo. We got on the first bus that said "Horcon" and that was it. It soon became evident that the bus was not going straight to Horcon because the driver told us (after already driving for 20 minutes) that it was an hour and a half away. So we acted quick and got off the bus in Con Con instead. It's still nice and is coastal so it has some nice spots to go to. We found a restaurant to eat at. Unfortunately, it took about an hour to eat since the service was slow. Long story short, after getting back to Valparaiso, getting our bags and getting to the bus station in Valparaiso, we missed our bus and had to buy completely new tickets to Santiago...and Santiago ain't close, it's like an hour and a half away. We rush to Santiago, get out of the cab, and, of course, Lindsay misses her flight. I feel terrible about this and offer to pay for her new ticket. I then reach for my wallet and find an empty space where my wallet was. I have no idea what happened...but it's gone. I am then in every cliche story about South America and almost weep like a baby in the middle of the airport. Lucky for me I had my tear ducts surgically removed when I was ten.

Now, it's completely possible (and more probable) that I messed up and dropped my wallet when getting out of the cab. I don't know. All I know is that there was $300 worth of cash in there and all my credit cards and I now have to get home to Villa Alemana with no ticket, no money and no idea what to do. Luckily Lindsay gives me some money, we say goodbye and I bolt out. I got home safe since buses were still running but....now what?

On a serious note...

In case you have been in a cave for the past few days, there was breaking news on Sunday about some Chilean miners that were trapped. I figured that this was newsworthy for Americans because of some of our recent tragedy with mines. However, this story has a happy ending....so far.

For those unaware, there is a gold and copper mine in Copiapo that had a cave in. 33 miners were trapped. They searched for them for a few days with little hope and finally located them. The miners were able to send up a note stating that they were alright (thru a borehole apparently.) However, it will take almost 4 months to drill a hole the size of a person in order to get to the guys which is insane. However, since they are 4.5 miles underground I guess this makes sense? The miners made it to an emergency shelter that has provisions and they were able to send some more food and hydration gels yesterday also.

It was big news around here and has raised concerns about drilling regulations and the lack there of in Chile (seems like a worldwide theme though lately....did they plug that oil hole yet???) Manuel told me that this mine is one of the least prominent in Chile and so it was probably cutting corners on its safety regulations. Big surprise. Countries change but people don't I guess...

Chile: Week 7

I'd like to tell everyone who is worried about me, namely my grandparents and some of my students in Chicago that I am A-OKAY. The weekends here are fun...kind of harrowing at times but fun. I have not been taken advantage of by anyone yet, I have not gotten anymore tattoos of meaningless things, and YES I am still healthy. Albeit about 10 pounds lighter.

My housemate Carolyn left with other people in her program this weekend. I went down to see them off in Santiago and hang out for awhile. We had a good time as usual. I'm gonna miss Carolyn and all of the other crew. Chocolate Milk, Panda, Towel, Audacity and most of all Care-Bear: it was real and I hope to see you soon.

Now that Carolyn is gone I will have to double my efforts to learn Spanish since I will have no one to get me out of linguistic jams. My house parents asked me last week if I was going back to Chicago with my family when they came down to visit in November. I stated that I had told my friends and family that I wasn't leaving Chile until I was atleast partially conversational in Spanish so, no, I was staying for atleast another 6 months. Giovanna responded by laughing in my face and pointing at Manuel who had apparently said "tengo miedo" (I'm scared) I asked "What? You don't think I can learn spanish in that time?" Which they responded to by saying, in essence "Maybe in 6 years of studying, you will be at a kindergarten level"

I hate this country.....

Tranny Party. Location: The Ocean

I went to Viña and Valparaiso again this weekend. This time, we met up with some honest to goodness Chileans that Carolyn and Stacy know. Marcelo and Fabian....really cool dudes. Fabian speaks english..which is good...because when I want to start talking about something really abstract like the Israeli/Palestinian conflict or Astrology, I can switch over to English after I'm out of spanish. The night took place in 4 segments which I'll bulletpoint and then explain:

 1) Family birthday party

2) Bar

3) Dance Party

4) Tranny Party

The birthday party was for Marce's friend Daniella. It was seriously me, two gringas and the two chilenos with this chick and her family in a small apartment. Everyone was super welcoming though, even though we were obviously not invited. Chileans, as a whole, are very nice people and really love to party. Something that you won't see at an intimate white person birthday party is dancing. The traditional dance of Chile is the "Cueca" It's essentially like a man and woman dancing around eachother, with the woman clutching her dress and the man holding up his handkerchief. Kind of a flirtatious, mating call kind of deal but not explicit at all because people don't even touch during the dance. Everyone started doing it at the party and it was fantastic. Little did I know that I'd soon need to know how to dance it....

Afterwards, we left, went to a bar to drink the "sacrificio maya" which is just a shot with tons of different alcohols in it...and that's where the night took a different kind of turn. Stacy, Carolyn's friend, was leaving for good the next day so she paid in  change at the end to get rid of it. The waiter was obviously not pleased and chased us down the street yelling afterward because she apparently didn't leave enough. We took care of it... I think.

We then went to some disco. I danced again and did the Cueca at the end with some real Chilenas...I was definitely pushed from behind at least 5 times by different groups of girls. After looking at the pictures from the club yesterday, I can tell why. I'm elbow level with most of these people and I was obviously head checking them the entire night since there was no space to dance. Well to all of the girls from Club Proa on Saturday night I want to say this....Sorry.

Now, we left at about 4am from this club, me hoping that we were done and the Chileans hoping to find an after party. Well...they found it. We go up these stairs across the street from the ocean to something I'm very sure is going to be a murder/rape scenario. We get into this dirty apartment, completely devoid of any furniture. A makeshift bar was constructed in the middle and they were serving drinks. It soon becomes very obvious that everyone there is a man..and that the women there could definitely beat me in an arm wrestle. Now, I think that many transexuals/transvestites probably do such a good job of being women that I'm not even aware of them when I pass them on the street. However, these trannies were not that kind of breed. It always seems to me that the transexual gene gets passed to some of the most bluntly mannish looking dudes on the planet. Maybe it's god's cruel joke but these guys were tall, had broad shoulders and were not attractive to begin with so they made ugly women.

I'm in the bathroom at one point in mid zip up when all of a sudden the lights go out and I start to feel hands groping..my pants, my shoulders...todos partes. I don't know who turned out the lights but I'm pretty sure why the lights were off and my survival instinct tells me to get the hell out of Dodge. Blindly, I push thru a sea of what I think is at least ten guys, get to the exit of this 20 x 20 foot bathroom finding that the door has a handle..on the other side. I was trapped, very sure that someone was going to make a man of me....multiple times. I'm clawing at the door, seeing a crack of light on the other side but only a sliver, looking for something, ANYTHING that was not of human origin to grab when luckily I grasp a chunk of door, fling it open and run back into the party...and then proceed to almost run over a 6 foot tall man in a blonde wig and white mini skirt. The entire affair probably happened over the space of about 1 minute but in the state I was in, it was an eternity.

Luckily for me, the rest of the party was full of NON creepy gay men (and some straight women) who were really cool. I was able to drag everyone out at what was apparently 7:30 in the morning. I've partied late...but never like this. Old men were already riding the buses out to the park and starting their days when we were getting home. You can't make this kind of stuff up folks....

Viña/Valpo Weekend

Went into Viña this weekend for a long haul weekend. We met up with a few other people from EOD that are in another time schedule. We have multiple programs that are doing differing amounts of time. Carolyn and the rest of the people we met up with are on the 10 week program so they'll be leaving in 3 weeks. We walked around for awhile trying to buy food and then eventually ended up at Carolyn's friend Stacy's house to cook it all. I also met up with a friend from my 5 month program. It was, by far, the largest group of Americans I've ever hung out with since being in Santiago. We took a bus to Valparaiso (which is the next town over) and checked into a hostel for the weekend.

After getting our pisco on at the hostel, we left to dance. Yeah...it's been happening alot here for me. Deal with it...I have. I'd be lying if I said that I haven't started developing a strange affinity for American pop music. I mean it's either that or Reggaeton here in the clubs so you either dance to it or stand in the corner like a weirdo drinking and staring at everyone. Since I've spent plenty of time in the latter camp, I've been making a concerted effort to have a good time here. Carolyn and all her friends are good people. We can appreciate the same things, like inappropriate humor, so it was a good time. I really like Valparaiso..it's kind of sketchy but it has the most character of any Chilean city I've been in thus far so I see myself spending alot of time there..especially since Villa Alemana doesn't have a ton going on.

Taught my first lesson of the day yesterday which was fun. We never quite know when we're going to teach but since we showed up before our host teacher, we kind of just started and he kind of just let us finish it. It's fun and the kids were definitely into it I think? More updates later....