I have definitely decided to move out of the residence where we are staying. It’s not that bad, but I definitely want more. This place just feels too young for me. It’s a lot like Maclean, the dorm where I spent my first year at uchicago. There are lots of completely arbitrary rules that they tell you on a strictly need-to-know basis, like there is a laundry schedule and that you can’t drink any alcohol. I had no idea about either of these until I was down to my last pair of underwear and found the laundry door locked, (in the first case) and when I was enjoying some cheap red wine with dinner and the caretaker saw the bottle in the kitchen (in the second). She actually poured it out, which seems uncalled for, even though there was less than half a glass left. Now, I understand the need for rules, but I also understand that you have to tell people the rules if you want them to be followed. In my case, no one told me about this stuff. Well, Colin told me that he “thought” we weren’t allowed to drink. Honestly, I didn’t really believe him, since he also told me that in Soviet Russia, your mind is the hobgoblin of monotony. Then, on my first weekend here, there was a huge loud party in the common area with all kinds of drinking. I figured Colin was just confused. The practical upshot of all this rambling is that now I have been told that I cannot do my laundry as I please. If it’s Thursday, and I don’t have any shirts left, but my name is written down on a little piece of paper under the Tuesday column, I am just going to have to turn the dirty ones inside out and wear them like that for five days. And, if I am going to drink, I have to do it at work, not at home. No thanks.
Now, the other residents are really nice and international; they speak Spanish more slowly and clearer than Chileans, and they listen patiently for the most part while I stutter back. They like to go out to silly dance clubs and they watch good movies. They keep the kitchen clean, and they laugh at my three-word Spanish witticisms. I am learning about where they live and what they think about their homes and the United States, but that’s part of the problem: they’re definitely not average Chilean, even the ones that are from Chile. They rent is comparatively high, CLP150.000 (262 USD) so even the Chileans who live here are well-off. And I never mind saving a few extra pesos myself, especially if I can also get a place the feels more like a home. In southern Chile, they have places called hospedajes, family homes where tourists can stay for cheap. It would be really nice to find a place where I can learn about Chilean family life in addition to the other things I mentioned.
So, yesterday Matt, Carolyn, Colin, and I went to the Goethe Institute, where they have have a board of advertisements for really cheap places to stay. It was in a very nice section of Santiago, with lots of colonial apartment buildings and forested parks, just off of the Plaza de Armas, the main square of the old part of the city. In the evening, there are lots of people strolling around, shopping, playing chess, and proselytizing each other with megaphones. I wouldn’t mind living in that neighborhood at all. We had been to Plaza de Armas several times before, but there’s always something new to see, so we walked around looking for a restaurant. We found a chinese place and ordered up a meal for four. The waitress was really nice and about our age, so she chatted a little bit. Soon the food came, and it turned out to be huge, the first meal in Chile that I hadn’t finished. Portions in Chile tend to be smaller, just about the right size for me, in contrast to the States, where I am usually mostly full by the time the entree comes out. I guess since this was Chilean-Chinese different rules apply. As we walked down the street, I heard a voice cry “Chico!” (Boy!) and the waitress rushed up behind me and handed me a pair of plain wooden chopsticks in a paper wrapper with the name of the restaurant. Oh yeah, the ladies sweat the style like the squirrels sweat the nuts.
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