Been Pretty Busy

Hey readers, I sort of forgot I had a blog. Sorry for not posting for so long. I guess you could say I've been juggling my time among a 20 page essay, a 10 page essay, and my girlfriend. I'll try and recap what I've been doing for the last month or so.

September 11th has a much different significance here than in the United States. It marks the day when Pinochet enacted a coup d'etat (golpe de estado) and Allende killed himself in the capitol building. Because most of our military friends are pro-Pinochet, it's also celebrated as the day Pinochet saved the country from Socialism. That's the attitude with which we were celebrating. I could give you another account of how I got really drunk and did some stupid stuff, but I really don't want to be viewed as an alcoholic by y'all.

The next week, a delegation of cadets from Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Germany, France, and Mexico arrived. Naturally, we were the representatives for the United States. Needless to say, it was a pretty interesting experience. The Germans only spoke German and English. The Brazilians didn't speak Spanish very well and nobody else from the delegation spoke Portuguese. The French (Amaury) speaks French, English, and Spanish. He'll actually be living with us until December. I actually had to help translate a conversation between a Chilean cadet and one of the Germans who was trying to get with her.

The week was filled with various activities to show us around Chile. First we went to the vineyard at Concha y Toro where we got to do some wine tasting and learn about wine. I'm now an expert on wine so don't be serving me cheap wine. I'll know. The next day we went up to a ski slope. We didn't ski though, we just all threw snowballs at the French guy and everyone laughed at him. I'm fairly certain that the next day was the Chilean Day of Independence, September 18th. For this we went to a rodeo and, as was customary during that week, we ate free steak and drank free wine. Then we went to a park for this grand party. As usual, we drank a bunch. The Mexican lieutenant kept wanting to take pictures with Chilean girls, so we obliged him. The next day was the military parade for which all the cadets had been preparing for weeks. So we threw on our fanciest uniforms and headed over to Parque O'Higgins to watch the parade. It started with a speech by President Piñera who talked about varioius nonsense. He also gave a shout-out to the 33 miners who were still trapped underground at that time. Then the parade started and never ended. Unit after unit streamed by without end. There were tanks and commandos and bridge-building trucks and motorcycle brigades and thousands of soldiers, sailors, and airmen. There were a frew fly-bys, which was pretty cool. After about 3 or 4 hours, we left to go drink some more free wine. Ate some more free steak. Some presents were exchanged and then we went back to the school to sleep.

As the delegation began going their seperate aways, we exchanged some uniform items and said our goodbyes. All in all, it was a very interesting experience. I got to play soccer with people from all over South America and Europe(playing is much more fun than being a referee, with which I've had experience). Needless to say, the Americans were the worst guys out there.

That's all I've got to say for now. I'm pretty hungry, so I'm going to peace out.

Just Broing It Up With Generals

I'll start off by apologizing to my blogochochillas for not posting anything in a while. I've been sort of busy, because apparently my professors actually want me to work on this 20 page essay. I'm not sure when this event happened, except that it was a random Tuesday night some weeks ago. Antonio, my fellow West Pointer, Jordan, our ROTC amigo, and I were told that we needed to be at the main auditorium for a concert that night. This might strike you as odd, but these random pieces of entertainment are quite common here. The other day we had one that was a sort of literary quiz bowl between the six cadet companies. We also got to see one of our Chilean friends prance about dressed as none other than Bernado O'Higgins, the liberator of Chile. But I digress.

We arrived at the concert, Antonio and I wearing our formal West Point uniforms and Jordan wearing his Class As. So there we were, waiting for the concert to begin, when this Chilean officer approaches us and casually tells us that there will be a three star general there who wants to talk with us. Now, I generally like to have at least a heads up about this thing before I leave my room. This would give me time to shave again, shine my shoes, and whatnot. This time, I didn't have the opportunity to do that, so my friends and I just looked each other for anything to fix before we went to meet this general. At that point, we realized that there wasn't just going to be one general, but that there was going to be a whole slew of military officer. The concert was entertainment for a conference of Pacific nations like Japan, New Zealand, Chile, America, and others. So we tried to enjoy the concert and not think about meeting this entire delegation of officers.

Once the concert was over, the school presented an award to the three star general who we were going to meet. He accepted the award and as he was walking off the stage, he saw us sitting in the front row and pointed to us as he left. There would be no avoiding this interaction. We headed to the area behind the auditorium where all the officers were relaxing, drinking cocktails and whatnot. A bunch of officers started talking to us, but it wasn't long before some West Point grads grabbed us and had us take a picture with a West Point two star general. In doing this, they exiled Jordan to talk to some foreign officers and second lieutenants. So we talked to them for a while and we all got some generals coins. Everybody was actually pretty laid back and nobody pointed out anything wrong with our uniforms or haircuts, which is always good. They were passing around Pisco Sour and all manner of snacks, but I decided it would be best not to drink around a bunch of generals, coronels, and Special Forces officers, of which there were quite a few. I guess I still have a problem with drinking around officers. Hopefully, it's just a phase.

Everyone we talked to was pretty intent on making sure were understood how important it was to make connections in the school so we could "climb the ladder". They kept mentioning how the people we were living with in the school would be the leaders of the army and how that would help us "climb the ladder". One guy mentioned how if we joined Special Forces we would be able to "climb the ladder" to some "really fun places". Alright, they might not have said the phrase "climb the ladder" that much, but the overall impression I got was that they were career oriented people, which would explain why they were all Foreign Area Officers and embassy people. We also talked to a guy from the Canadian army and a woman from Australia. At the end of the night, they staggered off to their bus drunk. I guess you could say it was a really interactive, cultural experience.

Normally, I'm just content to drink Pisco.

Viña del Mar

The next day we woke up for our trip to the coast and the city of Viña del Mar. Antonio, Jaña, his cousin, and I jumped in a car and made the hour long journey to the sea. When we got there, we found the apartment of another one of our friends where we were going to spend the night and dropped of our bags. After eating some pizza, we walked along the beach, which mind you is freezing this time of year. We checked out some sand sculptures and walked through the mall. As it started to get dark, we stopped by a supermarket and bought pisco, coke, and rum. Doing all of this involved climbing millions of stone steps up from the area near the beach. We got back to the apartment and once again began imbibing Pisco.

We drank for a while, talking about subjects of no great importance. In all honesty, I didn't really understand what we were talking about, but I was getting my slant on, so it was alright. We ordered another pizza so that we wouldn't die out there at the disco. After rapidly consuming the pizza, we headed out to the combat.

We rolled on up to The Huevo, a club that featured multiple floors and two different dance floors with two different types of music on each floor. Unfortunately for us, the earthquake caused all but two of the floors to be closed. Anyway, we paid the 8 or 9 dollars to get into the club, which left me broke. It didn't take long before we found a group of girls to dance with. Viña del Mar and Rancagua differ from Santiago in that most of the girls in those places actually want to dance with dudes.

I don't have a whole lot to say about my experiences in the disco. I spent the entirety of the night dancing with one girl, a History major who actually lives in Santiago and bears a passing resemblance to Owen Wilson, which is generally unfortunate. At one point, we went down to a level where they were playing Bohemian Rhapsody. When she tried to sing in English, it sounded like the ends of broken bones rubbing together. Other than those small details, we had fun dancing and talking. Eventually she left, and shortly thereafter, we left.

Apparently the entire population of Viña was trying to eat at McDonald's, so we had to look for one that wasn't too crowded. In a moment of hubris, Antonio suggested that we get Double Quarter-pounders, and such was our hunger that we consented. So we ate our hamburgers looking out towards the moonlit water of the Pacific Ocean, no longer drunk on account of not having enough money to buy more alcohol. We finished eating, made it back to the apartment and went to sleep.

I think it was about an hour later that I awoke with the sensation of being way too full. For about 10 minutes, I struggled between trying not to soil myself or vomit. I brought strong sack and managed to keep either thing from happening, and then went to sleep, cursing the Double Quarter-pounders the entire time.

Thursday Night in Rancagua

Alright, I'm going to try and wrap up this whole Rancagua trip series of posts, considering it's been two or three weeks since we were even there.

So there I was. Rancagua. Thursday Night. I had been told that this would be the big night of "combat". And it was. We started off by heading to Jañà's cousins house to pick him up. I assumed that we were going back to Jaña's place on account of it being about 4 in the afternoon, but I was completely wrong (this happens often). All of a sudden, we're parking in front of the disco. This confuses me because it's now about 5 o'clock and we haven't eaten dinner yet. This doesn't matter to the people of Rancagua though, because when we get into the disco, it's packed. We meet up with the girls that we had met previously and we get some Cristal or Escudo (the beer so bad that everyone mixes it with Fanta).

We seemingly danced for hours, or maybe we actually danced for hours, I'm not really sure. I didn't really look at my watch a whole lot and ended up keeping my eyes closed for alot of the time that we were dancing. Fill in the blanks, dear reader. Point being, an awesome time was being had by all. Then, the girls left and we entered the down phase of the night. I was starting to get hungry and Antonio and I were lobbying for a trip to McDonald's. We ordered some fries. It took roughly 30 minutes to make and it was no Cuarto de Libra (Quarter Pounder). So we continued to hang around, talking to some mean girls. We finally left, taking the mean girls with us (not with us, as in Antonio and I). So, after traveling with 6 people in a 5 seater car for a little bit, we picked up another car and set off to God-knows-where. You can see that there's this recurring theme of me being in cars with unknown destinations. So after passing up all the McDonald's in Chile, we bought some Pisco and Coke (just what I needed right then) and set off for a park.

So there we were, being sketchy, freezing, drinking in a park, and making friends with canine passers-by. As I consumed Piscola, I thought less about my hunger and more about nothing. After finishing off the bottle of Pisco, we hopped back in our cars and drove off to the next adventure. We arrived at the Punta del Este (East Point) and walked in. We purchased another bottle of Pisco and began drinking, as we watched people singing karaoke. Now, generally, when karaoke is present, you should slow your drinking down. However, I did not. At some point, I was thrust forward by my friends, and Jaña's cousin and I asked the karaoke operators to find us an English song for me to sing. A small man in the back of my mind was screaming about how bad of an idea this was, but he was violently ignored. We returned to our friends, continued drinking and moving about until finally, the karaoke operator signaled us forward. We grabbed the microphones, looked at the screen, and began singing. Much to my dismay, the lyrics were not in English and did not belong to an English song. As the DJ realized what was happening, I saw him approach us with a look on his face that said, "You are not a good singer. Furthermore, you do not speak Spanish." He asked me where I was from, and I said, with great pride and directly into the microphone "Los Estados Unidos". He the took the microphones away from us and walked back on to the stage.

You'd think that I would have been hurt by this. Far in the back of my head, that small man, drowned in Pisco, said something about being embarassed. He was ignored however, as I had entered what is known to some as "The Golden Zone" What it means is that I was awesome. In the words of cartoonist Brad Neely, "I was important, and funny, and helpful and seemingly rich, and I had the body of a heavy lifter." The curtain behind the stage rose and revealed a dance floor and a second bar. We burst forward and danced with an exuberance that can only be fueled by Pisco or insanity. I was dancing with everyone, sometimes two at a time. So all this was happening, and I was feeling great. Then, all of a sudden, I felt sobriety hit me in the face like a wet fish, and I knew that the night was about to turn ugly.

All of a sudden I realized how hungry I was. I tried to keep up the dancing, but I was no longer the awesome guy I had been seconds ago. I danced with a seemingly mute 30 year old woman, who would only guesture wildly at my friends for them to join us. They pulled me away from the situation like a man being pulled from a burning vehicle. I wandered about, trying to bring strong sack and overcome my hunger and fatigue, but I couldn't. We stayed there until the place closed, then we all piled back into somebody's car. We once again passed up all the McDonald's in Chile. We made it back to Jaña's house. There wasn't any way to get food from downstairs, so I ate two handfuls of Coco Puffs, drank three handfulls of tap water, and willed myself asleep. By the way, if you measure food and drink in handfulls, you're doing something wrong.

Mi Cumpleaños

We're going to take a break from the Tales of Rancagua because it's my birthday and that's damn special. Granted, in this country 18 is the legal drinking age, and the other day I was hanging out in a bar with a 16 year old and a 17 year old. It was actually more that we were existing in the same place at the same time. I didn't ask them to come hang out with me, but I digress. The point is that it's not as big of a deal here as it is in Los Estados Unidos. Anyway, for my birthday, the mess hall has sung (sang? singed?)me happy birthday twice (once in Spanish and once in English) and I keep getting handshakes, hugs, and kisses. I alos ate lunch twice and got this special meal of steak with an egg on top and french fries. It's a pretty sweet deal and tomorrow I will tell you of my adventures on Thursday night in Rancagua.

Rancagua - Part II

I was just joking about going to the gym. I actually ended up going to the Casino (Firstie Club) to grab some Italianos with my gringo buddies. Anwyway, we return to tales of Rancagua. On Monday we woke up around noon (as is our custom) and ate breakfast and lunch in rapid succession. Then, we headed out with our friend and his uncle to see the Chilean countryside. We visited and walked around some small towns, while looking at damage done by the huge earthquake that destroyed Concepcion. Some of the older buildings in Rancagua had actually been knocked down by it. We also went to the mall, which some people will not enter because they think it was built poorly. They use the long cracks that run along the ground as evidence of this. Later in the night we went to a small town built by Americans many years ago. Our friend pointed out a mural of Che Guevara painted on the side of a nearby mountain while talking about how most of the workers supported Communism.

That night we went out to the disco pretty early. I think we were there at about 7. We drank a bunch of Cristal and Fanta, which you wouldn't think go well together but they do. Then we danced, met some chicas, the chicas left, numbers were exchanged. So overall it was a pretty good time. Then we went home and had some ice cream.

We did roughly the same thing on Tuesday in that we drove around the countryside, looked at some rivers and mountains, and stopped to urinate by this path that smelled of dead and dying fish. Conveniently, after we got back in the car, it started smelling of fish also. That night, we returned to the disco. There weren't a whole lot of girls there, so we ended up leaving and going to Jaña's uncle´s house. We drank Piscola and talked about various subjects in Spanish. I did my best to understand, but a combination of fatigue, Pisco, and the fact that I don't actually speak Spanish impeded me. Around 2 in the AM, we went back to Jaña's. I presume that we ate ice cream, but I can't really remember.

Wednesday, we once again drove around and looked at churches, rivers, mountains, and people. We mostly took it easy since we had been up so late the night before. At night we just hung out watching YouTube videos. As usual, it is to be presumed that we ate ice cream and conversed with Jaña's family at length.

Sheesh, I've been trying to get caught up on my blog, but I've been hell of busy lately. Also, my birthday is tomorrow, which is pretty cool. My next post will be about the madness that ensued on Thursday. So get stoked for Rancagua - Part III.

Rancagua

Sorry for the hiatus, blogaditos. The internet has been kind of screwy around here, but now I've got both time and internet. Last Friday, started our week long Winter Break after only two weeks of classes. After much debate and indecision concerning what to do for the week, Antonio and I ended up traveling to Rancagua with a cadet named Jaña, while Jordan went to Viña del Mar with another cadet.

Friday night, we hung around Santiago and headed to a part of town called Suecia which has a lot of discos. I did a bunch of dancing, as I am prone to do sometimes and eventually we staggered back to the school to sleep. I did get a chance to use the Chilean bus system which was pretty crowded and slow. Lots of rapid acceleration and deceleration, not cool.

Saturday we woke up somewhere around 1100, which would become a recurring theme throughout the next week. We took the bus (much less crowded this time) down to the train station and then boarded a train (very crowded, kind of unsafe) down to the city of Rancagua. We were picked up at the train station by Jaña's uncle and grandfather who took us to their house where we met an assortment of other family members who also live in the house.

Honest to God, I just sat here for about 15 minutes not remembering what the heck we did that night, but I think it went more or less like this. We went to a BBQ with a bunch of dudes from the military school. We drank lots of Piscola (Pisco and Coca-cola) and Rum. There was a singer there who sang a song in Spanish that as far as I could tell was about the act of fellatio. At some point a photographer took all of our photos and somebody bought it and gave it to Antonio and I as a present. I tried my best to convince some Chilean people that George Bush did not in fact know about the September 11th attacks before they happened. Eventually we left, but not before we all raised our glasses and somebody gave this long toast. We made it back home, drank some water, and went to sleep.

The next day was Sunday, which Chileans call Fomingo because the word for boring here is 'fomen' and the word for Sunday is 'domingo'. It was a pretty boring day as Fomingos tend to be. We woke up late, Antonio stole all the hot water in all of Chile during his shower, then we ate breakfast, then about an hour later ate lunch. Apparently it's only the military academy that serves really small portions of food, because I was pretty full the entire time I was in Rancagua, or I was starving because we went to the disco before dinner and didn't get a chance to eat. Anyway, we ended up going to Jaña's uncle's house, where we ate dinner and talked about random stuff. It was Fomingo, so we just went back to the house and did YouTube for a while before going to sleep in our heated beds, which at that point we still didn't realize were heated.

I'm going to head to the gym right about now, but be prepared for Rancagua - Part II

Earthquakes and Bad Luck

Funny thing happened today. My roommate and I had just woken up at around 1100 when he asked me if I felt this rumbling. As a matter of fact, I did. We both wondered if it was an earthquake but were more concerned with the frigid conditions of our room to care about it.

It turns out that this Tuesday was Tuesday the 13th, a day of bad luck (much like Friday the 13th, I don't know why it's Tuesday and not Friday in Chile, but whatever). You're not supposed to be in boats or travel, but we traveled anyway. After a day of hanging out and going to the disco for Combat, we returned to our host's house, where we were informed that there was not one, but two earthquakes today. We hadn't felt the second one, which was supposedly super strong. Kudos to Antonio Diaz for being able to detect earthquakes without the use of fancy equipment.

That's really all I´ve got for today. We've been kind of just relaxing in Ranagua for Winter Break, but I'll post something summarizing our adventures in Rancagua in the future.

English Circle

Hey there Blochachos! Last Tuesday, Antonio, Jordan, and I headed over to this little group meeting called English Circle. We had been invited by one of our friends at school (coincidentally the same cadet who had met us at the airport). We met up with the teacher, a guy from the UK who had been living in Chile for the last 11 years or so. He told us that the students wanted to celebrate the Fourth of July, but he had no idea what it was all about. We agreed to go in and talk to the cadets in English and talk about the Fourth of July.
The teacher pointed out some of the posters the cadets had made for the Fourth of July celebrations. They gave a pretty good insight into what Chileans think about America. One poster displayed a special Fourth of July edition of Marlboro Reds. Another poster had the Hooters logo, complete with a drawing of a bikini clad torso. At least two pictures featured Duff Beer, donuts, and pictures of Bart Simpson. Another poster simply showed the American flag with the word 'America' written across it diagonally in black letters (I thought this would be a pretty cool addition to the actual American flag).
Some cadets got up in front of the group and spoke in English about what we were doing and then I went up and introduced myself (my friends had told me they'd talk alongside me but didn't). After that, people started talking among themselves (in Spanish mind you) and I joined a group and forced them to speak English. While we talked, some guys played a soccer video game (decidedly not an American thing to do). Eventually, the teacher busted out karaoke and some cadets sang songs in English. I kind of wanted to try it out, but figured it would be cheating since I speak English pretty fluently.
After a while, we decided that we all had to work on our auto-biographical presentations and left after taking a picture with the teacher. It was good getting to speak in English and seeing that the Chilean cadets have problems with English just like I have problems with Spanish. Granted, I'm a Spanish major and my entire academic experience revolves around learning Spanish, but I try and look at the bright side.
Well that's all for now, blogaderros. My loud keystrokes are keeping Antonio awake.

Well if it ain't Italiano'clock

Around here, the three of us gringos have taken to supplementing all of our meals. You see, dear readers, the Chileans don't eat a whole lot. We usually have bread and butter, jam, ham, or cheese for breakfast along with cereal and yogurt. Lunch is usually pretty good, consisting of a fruit of some type, some sort of meat, and maybe pasta or soup. Dinner is pretty much the same. As I mentioned, the food is good, but there usually isn't a whole lot of it. Between the relative scarcity of food and the track workouts we have to do for physicial training, we get a little bit hungry in between meals. At this point, we check our watches are realize what time it is. Usually, it's Italiano'clock.
I hear you asking yourself, what's an Italiano. It's like a hot dog, except instead of putting ketchup, mustard, relish, and the like on it, the Chileans like to cover their hot dogs in diced tomatoes and guacamole (here it's called palta). It's pretty delicious. We also have the "jamon palta" consisting of ham and guacamole in between two slices of bread. Another favorite of ours is the "churrasco italiano" which is a sandwhich made of churrasco meat and guacamole. As you can see, they're pretty big fans of the guacamole here.
Pounding an italiano usually leaves me feeling a little bit of intestinal distress, but I always keep coming back for more italianos in between classes. It's just too good to deny.

Meeting, Greeting, Studying

It’s been a pretty busy week and I can only access the internet either from the computer lab or an area near my roommate’s desk, so I haven’t posted for a while. Now I have to recap everything that happened since Monday.
On Tuesday, we went around and met all the important officers around here including the Superintendent and his Deputy. Meeting with the Superintendent was a pretty high profile affair. We had to have our pants pressed at the cadet laundry service before we could go down and see him. When we went down to his office, the school photographer was there, ready to take pictures of us meeting the Superintendent, who is a Colonel in the Chilean Army. We filed in one after the other and stood at attention. The photographer took pictures as the Supe shook each of our hands. He welcomed us to Chile and asked each of us how our Spanish was. I didn’t understand the question at first (indicative of the answer to his question), but eventually figured out what he was saying. While we were shaking hands and trying to be as formal and serious as possible, a stereo was playing “All You Need Is Love” in the background. Chileans seem to love American music, even if they can’t understand all the words. My roommate will play anything from Blink-182 to Britney Spears to the Halo theme song.
Wednesday we started classes. I have all the same classes as my West Point classmate, Antonio. We started off by heading to the library for a class that only meets on Friday. After figuring that out, we screwed around until we had to go to Political Science. I didn’t understand almost anything the teacher said, but the students told me that they didn’t understand him either. That day we had to go to sports for the afternoon. I wanted to do swimming, but since the pool is broken due to the earthquake in Concepcion, I decided to go to Judo instead, figuring that it’s never a bad idea to learn a martial art. Some of the student’s took time to teach Jordan and I some of the basics of Judo since we are pretty far behind. On the other hand, the instructor obviously did not want us to be there. One Chilean cadet asked me “What are you doing here man? Why aren’t you swimming?” I responded that the pool is broken. If someone wanted to do intramural swimming at West Point, but didn’t know how to swim, I’d volunteer to teach them. That’s all I’ll say about that.
Thursday and Friday were similar in that we kept up our routine of eating breakfast, going to class, eating lunch, going to class and eating dinner. All three of us had our PE class both days, which consisted of at least 6 miles of running on the first day and running with weightlifting on the second day. Although I’m still sore, I’m looking forward to improving my running ability. The Chileans smoked us on the run, but when it came to weightlifting, we had them beat. We’ll have to keep supplementing our diets with hot dogs at their firstie club if we don’t want to lose weight though.
Friday night we headed over to my roommate’s apartment to hang out and then go to a nightclub. We had a good time talking, alternating between practicing Spanish and teaching English. After midnight we drove over the club and somehow managed to get in free. Some interesting things about Chilean nightclub are as follows. First, when we got there the girls were all in the middle dancing with each other and the guys were all on the outside dancing with their friends. There was almost no interacting between the two as far as I could tell. Eventually, more people started showing up and that brings us to odd thing number two. The girls didn’t seem to want to dance with guys. I must have approached about 50 different groups of girls between the two nights we were there and only ended up dancing with two or three girls. It’s possible that I have bad game. It’s also possible that I’m missing some key cultural component. Either way, I’ve got to figure out how this works. We left around 5:00 AM and came back to the school.
Saturday, we ate breakfast and then slept until about 3:00 PM. We then headed over to the mall and ate at this nice steakhouse. The food was good, but pretty expensive. We also gave our waiter way more of a tip than he should have gotten, because we got confused with the pesos. That night, we first went to my roommate’s apartment, then to another person’s apartment then to the club for another night similar to the first.
This morning, we woke up for lunch and celebrated Independence Day by watching a Chinese kung fu movie and eating at Pizza Hut. I think we’re having a little bit of trouble adjusting to Chile’s culture, but hopefully we’ll get used to it.

Partying it up in Santiago

Last night, our guide took us to a party in someone´s apartment. We met up with some of the people we had seen earlier and their girlfriends. The party was pretty different from a party in America. For one, everyone stayed seated almost the entire time. Also, instead of there being food to grab and eat, someone would pass around a bowl of chips or some other food and everyone would take a little and pass it on. At some point, one of our Chilean friends tried to teach us how to play a game known as Liar´s Dice in English. Later on, one of the Chileans busted out a picture of Pinochet and we toasted to him. This was followed by discussion about whether Salvador Allende killed himself or was killed by Pinochet´s men. All the Chileans agreed that Pinochet was a good dude. I found this alarming, but didn´t want to bring up a differing view concerning politics. Eventually, we staggered home.

Today, we slept for a while and then went to someone´s apartment to watch Chile play Brazil in soccer. We had some barbecue including Chile´s version of a hot dog. The Chileans seemed to be holding out for while, but the game quickly turned ugly and the team lost three to nothing. We left and headed to the supermarket to buy some towels and school supplies and then returned to the school.

Tomorrow we are going to be inprocessed into our company and do all the necessary administrative stuff that comes with that.

At Last...

...I am in Chile. Our flight left around 2200 from Atlanta and we finally arrived in Santiago at around 8. There was no inflight entertainment, but the guy next to me gave up his window seat and thus I was able to catch a few Zs. We eventually made it through customs and met up with a cadet and an officer from the military academy. They gave us a ride to the school while explaining what was going to be happening for the next couple of days. After getting assigned to our rooms (not with other Americans), we relaxed for a bit and then headed down to lunch, which consisted of a generous portion of noodles and meatsauce. After that, we walked to the mall, which is fairly close to campus (take notes, West Point) and bought some of the stuff that I had forgotten to bring along. I also managed to get more minutes put on my cell phone (at the pharmacy, for some reason). We ate dinner at McDonalds, where I almost managed to order in Spanish without messing up. Now we´re just relaxing and are soon going to head to a party.

So far, today has been a little bit worriesome when I take into consideration how little Spanish I´ve been able to understand today. Hopefully, I´ll get used to listening to people talk in Spanish, and I´ll get used to the Chilean dialect. It´s only the first day of a six month experience, after all.

Sitting in the airport II

This time I am in Atlanta airport, as I have been for the last 8 hours. I flew out of Stewart at 7:00 am after catching a 4:00 am van to the airport. My fellow traveler and cadet, Antonio Diaz, and I have been walking around the airport aimlessly, stopping to eat, talking about how we can't understand the Spanish announcements over the PA, watching the United States get knocked out of the World Cup, and discussing what we've heard about Chile. Personally, I've heard some of the following things:

-I am supposedly going to lose all kinds of weight because Chileans do not eat large meals.
-The Chileans are a very proud people and also very big on making fun of people. I expect to be hazed into fluency basically.
-I've heard that the Chileans party like it's their job, so that's always a good thing.
-Their dialect of Spanish is very hard to understand and they speak very fast.

Over the next ~6 months I will evaluate the truth of these assumptions. I think as long as I don't get into a knife fight, I'll survive.

Sitting in the airport

So, here I find myself once again, sitting in the New Orleans Airport, about to head back to West Point. This time feels different though, probably because I am not returning to West Point for the start of another semester or for training, but rather I am heading back to begin a six month semester abroad at the Chilean version of West Point. I am going to increase my fluency in Spanish, which I have been studying for the last two years, and also to become immersed in the culture of South America.

Since spring break of last year, I have been afforded the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica and Ecuador. I have also been able to escort cadets from the military academy of Ecuador and the air force academy of Colombia. My plane is about to board, so I will finish this later. Adios!