Tuesday, July 27, 2010
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.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
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
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
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, July 12, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, July 5, 2010
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.
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.
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