a few more photos up on photobucket.

a new housemate moved in. she's from finland. she's super tall and super blonde and drinks milk (maybe it's just me, but i always think it's strange when people have milk to drink with a meal). she's cool, though.

robert comes over a lot, entonces hemos estado hablando más español en la casa. tal vez el nos llevará a la nieve.

i went around shopping for classes today. i went to the san joaquin campus first and signed up for a poetry class, a couple poly sci classes and a history class. i couldn't get the portugese so i got all discouraged and went to campus oriente. on the bus ride over there i met a music professor who pointed me in the right direction. i talked to a lady in the music office who gave me stamps and signatures for bassoon lessons (!), music history I, and music of chile and the americas. as we are obligated to take the spanish and chilean culture classes, i'll probably end up dropping all the poly sci and poetry.
my friend will be here soon and we'll go look into how to get over the mountains to argentina for the weekend. if stuff is as cheap as i hear, i'll pick up a guitar.

i'm getting to know the city better now... thanks to the metro which goes everywhere. the part of santiago in which i live is very modern... might as well be in europe. however a lot of the city is as funky as most other latin cities. matt and i went to a weekly market in the west side closer to the mountains. it was freezing cold and raining, but we still had a good time grocery shopping and eating food from sketchy sidewalk grills. i picked up more long underwear... it's key.
last night a few of us went out to some clubs with killian's room mate and his friend- our first chileans. i was tired from waking up at 7:30 to go class, so i went to sleep at 3:00am, but everyone else was out until 7:00. that's normal, though. the night here starts at 12:00 or 1:00 at lasts until well after the sun is up. the clubs are super fun and it's easy to meet people. still, gringos (that's what they call pretty much any foreigner) must be careful and not drink too much. already two students in my program have had their wallets and cell phones stolen. one of them woke up in a tree planter and couldn't remember who he had been with... i'll make a note to myself not to end up in that situation...

oh! i got it... i think. to call me, do all that phone card stuff, then dial 011- 569-78690441. the 011 is to call outside US. 59 is country code, i think 9 is for cell phones, then the rest is my number... i guess there's no city code. i'm three hours later.

I conseguired a place to live. it's on the 11th floor above a shopping center that has a big supermarket and a giant department store. we get to take our shopping carts on the elevator up to our apartment. the apartment is for 6 people, but right now liz (italian liz... not brandlin) and i are the only ones here. my room is TINY. enough room for a twin bed, a little table and possibly a chair... i'll probably just get a folding chair and keep it under the bed. i also have my own bathroom and a decent closet across the hall. the apartment has a great view and is an excellent location, but is sort of filthy. i spent hours cleaning up my room and bathroom... throwing away old nasty curtains, mopping, bleaching the walls, etc. then liz offered to make killian and me spaghetti and meatballs if we cleaned the kitchen... but the three of us ended up cleaning for three straight hours. we should have done a before/after picture... it was heinous. now it's respectable. after dinner i played some bassoon for them.
spanish class is fun- the teacher is super nice. the reading is kind of hard for me, but i'll catch on aight (purposefully misspelled). i'm still sort of unclear on how we sign up for classes... but that'll be easy.
soccer here is madness. while i was cleaning i kept hearing all this crazy yelling and couldn't figure out what was up... sometimes it'd seem like the holy city started yelling. liz came up and told me that it was the copa america causing all the noise. every once in a while i'd look off the balcony and see people gathered around bars yelling, people in the street dancing and waving chilean flags and when a goal was scored all the drivers in the city would start honking their horns... who knows how they knew...
we went to a movie today. that was also madness... there was no parking in the whole neighborhood around the theatre. there were over-flow parking lots down the street with theatre employees assisting. most movies can be seen in spanish or in english with spanish subtitles.
Mom says my phone instructions didn't work... i'll ask liz how her parents call her cell phone. i'd like to hear from some of my gente norteamericana.
i'm sure there's much more to say, but i have to work on this spanish... class early tomorrow.

I got a phone today… you may all reach me at 78690441, but first you must dial 011 to get out of the US, then Chile’s country code, which is 56, then Santiago’s city code, which is 02. Also, never call without a calling card because it’s crazy-expensive otherwise. So to call:

1. Call 1800 number on the back of the intl. phone card

2. Scratch off the gunk covering the pin number and enter that

3. dial 011-56-02-7-8690441

…or just e-mail me at dudealacarte@hotmail.com That’s much easier.

Once again, everyone I met today was very helpful and nice. I hung out with Liz today… not Brandlin… Liz whose surname escapes me. I got an adaptor for my computer and a cell phone. We went to check out the San Joaquin campus, which is immense. I have Spanish class there tomorrow morning. We also went to the Oriente campus where the music institute is located. Oriente is a beautiful campus… puts Cal to shame. We met up with Paula, Katy’s exchange student from years ago. She and her boyfriend drove us to a possible apartment. It included food and laundry, but the room was tiny and didn’t have a private entrance. I told the lady that if I couldn’t find anything else I might stay there a couple months… not too polite, but honesty is just a harsh form of good manners.

I can’t figure out how to upload photos to this blog, so maybe I’ll just start a photobucket account that ya’ll can check out.

It was a long trip- left Monterey at 11:00am on monday and arrived at this hotel at 2:45am wednesday. It was fun, however. Liz's place in palos verdes was awesome. I got to have a second good ol' american bbq party before leaving. we ran into LeAnna at LAX, but she was on another flight. In costa rica we got to leave to airport without paying any sort of tax... i guess there's a 12-hour limit. So we went into the small town by the airport (birthplace of Juan Santamaria- the national hero) and got plates of rice, fish, salad, beans and fried plantains for $2 each. It was very typical latin america- hot, tropical, lots of people hanging out in parks who have no qualms about meeting foreigners. And we could not have been more obviously foreign. we were sweaty and disheveled from the plane and had our carry-ons, which consisted of liz's over-filled backpack and purse, and my laptop and bassoon. despite the weight we were able to explore a little. Back in the airport we met up with LeAnna, who had just arrived after a lay-over in El Salvador. I tried to sleep on top of a coffee table, but liz made friends with two little mexican boys who crawled all over us for the rest of the hours we were there. After a short thunderstorm, we left for Lima, where we had a short wait before the final leg of the trip. Santiago was an abrupt change from Costa Rica... mid summer in the tropics vs. mid winter in the andes.
here at the hotel I have a room completely to myself that includes a king-sized bed and its own bathroom complete with a bidet. the three other guys in the program all share one small room. the first thing i noticed when leaving the building in the morning is the row of mountains to the east of the city. i'd describe it, but ya'll should just do a google image search. i explored for a few hours on my own. everyone i met was super friendly. i took the underground metro (which is cheap and comes all the time) to the university. the music school is on another campus, however. our coordinator told me that they received my audition CD.
I start spanish class on friday... in the meantime i have four days to find housing.