Linares, Money, and Quirks

I think it might be the end of my semester here that's affecting me, because I've been doing quite a bit of reflecting recently. Friends parents are coming, classes, papers, and tests end on Wednesday, and my big end of the semester trip to Patagonia and El Sur, as Chileans affectionately refer to they gorgeous southern part of the country. I can't wait for my parents and brother to get down here in exactly a month! It's been forever since I've seen them, not including a SKYPE webcam of course. I'm also really proud that I have such an adventurous family (kinda explains where I get it from) who is putting their complete faith in my ability to plan this trip for them and isn't afraid to try something out of the ordinary and go on a real adventure, past just the surface view of Chile. It promises to be a great time!

Man do I have so much to share about my life but I'll have mercy on you (and myself) and not type it all now. First off, last weekend I returned to Linares for the first time since being there in July. The first comment I got from my family (after a warm hug) was "Pato, porque tardaste tanto en regresar?" or "Why'd you take so long to come back?" I unfortunately didn't have a good answer and had to settle with the accurate but bad excuse that I've been busy. It was a great few days catching up with them and they were just as glad to see me as I was to see them. Linares is a much different city in the summer, with people wandering around town everywhere and no propane heaters and wood stoves going to keep the houses warm. It was especially great to share with them now that my Spanish has improved so much. Go figure, communication is easier when you speak the language better! On that topic, it's been really tough to gauge how much my Spanish actually has improved. It has probably changed little by little every week, which makes the progress very hard for me to see and appreciate. Sometimes I feel that I haven't learned very much at all, while others days I say things I didn't even know I knew how to say. The truth is that I am immensely more comfortable with speaking grammatically correct and at a faster pace. My accent, although far from perfect (I hate you "rr") has also improved dramatically.

I have also long since realized that I am going to blow through all my savings here (well, actually I'd already done that in 2 years at ND), but do not worry about this one bit. I travel as economically as possible and enjoy every minute of my time and haven't ever regretted a trip. The US dollar situation hasn't been helping though. Since getting here, the US dollar has fallen from being worth 538 Chilean pesos to it's current value of 480. This means that I'm basically getting $23 less every time I go to the ATM. Ouch!

I also got an awesome invitation this weekend from my Chilean friend David to go 9 hours South of Santiago to go fly-fishing in the mountains near Temuco. Sounds absolutely amazing right? Most unfortunately I had a test, mandatory program meeting, and online registration for ND classes that made it impossible to go. Any one of these problems alone could have been solved, but together it was just too much. I'll probably look back on this in a couple months and regret not doing more to work around these conflicts.

I've also been doing some thinking about the quirks of life in Santiago. First off, my basically $4 Chilean cellphone refuses to simply tell me I have a missed call and from whom but instead insists on sending me a text message with the number that called me, no name included. Really? You want me to look through every contact in my phone, scanning all the numbers to see who called? Also, La Católica has an absolutely mind-boggling printing system. Instead of having a simple computer lab and print release station like ND, La Católica insists on having someone work full time staffing the printer. Their sole job is to take my paper, put it in the printer, and then tell me to go to the release station, all of course done at a snail's pace. Does the administration really think that Chilean university students at the most prestigious school in the country are not capable of putting their own paper in the printer? Slightly more important than these two bothers is the commute time in Santiago. Every morning and every evening I have to take a combination metro and bus about an hour each way to get to school and back home. I try to read, do homework, read LonelyPlanet while planning a trip... but in a packed metro this isn't always possible. I guess this is the real world though and ND just spoils me.

Lastly, in order to end on a better note, the Santiago metro, which is the cleanest and best metro I've ever ridden by the way, just got even better. Come the summer heat, the fans on the platforms have little nozzles that spray water into the fan, cooling waiting passengers with just the right amount of water to be refreshing, but never enough to actually make you wet. It's awesome!