-Sam-

Hola todos!

Sorry it took me a while to make my mark on this blog, but rest assured- I'm here, still breathin in the smog :)

Our first couple of weeks have been a mix of amazing, confusing, and stress-ridden times. It is so hard to find an apartment in this city-- especially if you're a couple competing with 60 peers all searching for the same thing in a dark, sweaty hostel with shoddy, spotty internet and habla español like a two year old! But don't fret, we found one :)

Aside from this drama, Joe and I have done quite a bit of explorin! Which reminds me of a fun fact: Dora the Explorer teaches English in these parts...lol.

There's a lot of familiar things here in Chile, for that matter. The moment I exited the airport, for instance, a well known temptation wafted my way. Sure enough, my eyes beheld a Nuts4Nuts cart...

American culture has also bestowed fine gifts like insidious top 40 pop songs in most night clubs here (NOOoOOO!!!) and Lider, the Chilean branch of Walmart. Funny enough, most Chilean men I've spoken to also love American metal, as in: Slayer, Metallica, Megadeath..etc...and they claim this screamo is how they learned some English! Yes, I plan on testing this ridiculous claim in future adult English classes when the opportunity arises.

As for my kids classes, I was extremely happy to discover the show 31 Minutos: a puppet show spoofing Chilean historical/pop cultural people (like Harry Carey on SNL...but kid appropriate) LOVED by kids and adults alike. Really. Half the times I walk into a luncheonette to buy a hotdog (which Chileans are also obsessed with), this show is on TV. Unlike The Muppets, these characters are often hardly more elaborate than inanimate objects with eyes. 

Note the tennis ball. And, creeping in the left side is in fact just an argyle sock with swim goggles. Basically, I'm just using 31 Minutos as an excuse to use poorly made puppets in my classes!

Enough about me and my life, you really only wanted to see some photos, right? Its cool, I understand.

MIRA! Joe found an alpaca in the market! Its hard to tell from this photo, but there's lil sombrero perched between his ears! :D

He also found a b-e-a-utiful iglesia.

The very strange, but effective Santiago walk/run signal.

After a lot of law-abiding walking/running, we've reached amazing places like the top of Santa Lucia hill (the place where Santiago was founded). We were breathless not only because we're horribly out-of-shape, but because this view was our reward:

There are more sleeping, stray dogs then homeless people here. With much internal conflict, we avoid petting these sometimes heart-meltingly adorable, sometimes putrid perros to avoid things like ringworm.

...And the Jesus statue atop the Pontificia Universidad Católica was very pleased to hear a Latin American pope has been chosen!

Thats all for now, muchachos...but more to come soon(ish)!

Abrazos y besos, 
SAM