Mini (teeny tiny) Update

Hi World!

I've been so busy over the last few days... I've basically just been home to sleep. Eek! I will hopefully be able to write some proper posts soon!

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In The flowers

Ain't these pretty?

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Barrio Brasil

Hey Internet!

If I may be so bold I would like to start this post with a small anecdote about how being tall in a country of tiny people can be very odd (see picture below for a clear depiction of my stature...). As I've mentioned before on my blog I sometimes have to go to some not-very-nice places for work. Now I'm relatively accustomed to this in the States. I worked in Compton, East L.A., and Juvenile holding cells. I'm not, however, used to being the only person on the train who can see over everyone's heads. At home I feel pretty average (although I suppose at 5'10" I'm not exactly average height, but still, I have plenty of family members who are taller). Now mix the abnormal height (amongst Chileans) with the not-so-nice neighborhood and you get an odd situation. I often find myself riding the bus in this sketchy neighborhood as an old man pulls up alongside us with his horse and buggy... in Santiago! But that's not what bothers me. What makes me uncomfortable is the unwanted attention from gross older men who see a gringa and view an opportunity to make some horrifying noise (along the lines of the little suction thingy at the dentist). What man on earth has ever been successful in wooing a woman by crudely making a creepy noise from their truck and then driving on? Answer: no man. Thus I must conclude that these men do this as a bizarre (and pathetic) way to demonstrate some sort of nonexistent power over me? I'm getting philosophical and far away from my point. Anyways in response to all of this gross weird older man nonsense, my student offered to have his sweet little old security guard stand with me at the bus stop. Result: a huge woman standing at the bus with a man who must not be more than 5'3" as her protector. Sometimes the bus takes it's sweet time and I have to make awkward small talk with this sweet old guy who has no interest in talking to some 20-something gringa. I also struggle with his impossible accent (worsened by his missing teeth), and bizarre Chilenismos. But I guess that's what I signed up for when I moved to the country where the average height for men is 5'7" and 5'1" for women. Oops. Ha!

Anyways now that I've rambled on and on about something totally unrelated I'll get back to the point of this post which is to show my pictures of Barrio Brasil!

M, K and I decided to hang around in Barrio Brasil yesterday. It's a fun neighborhood with lots of cool graffiti. We wandered around the streets for a while and had a very disappointing meal at a restaurant across from an awesome park. Overall it was a nice day, but next time I will definitely do some research before choosing a restaurant. Hopefully my odd assortment of pictures will entertain you :)

M and I taking a selfie in a small market.

Random Graffiti.

This was my favorite one.

I loved how colorful this wall is.

I'm definitely not a cat person but this cat is kind of cool... more importantly, however, is the cute little old man carrying all sorts of flowers. Aw.

Another cool piece. The building was shnazzy in a dilapidated way.

Overall Barrio Brasil is pretty fun and super accessible (Linea 5 and Linea 3!). I'll have to go back next time with a little more research under my belt (in other words where to eat). I'm not sure what I'll get up to today, but I'll keep you guys posted. Happy Sunday :)

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P.S. Happy September!

Parque Bicentinario

Last night I subbed a class for a fellow teacher. In the U.S. it would've been terrible to teach a class at 7pm but here it's not even dinner time. The student lives in a super swanky apartment across the street from Parque Bicentinario. The neighborhood is essentially the Beverly Hills of Santiago. I arrived really early in an effort to avoid the insane rush hour traffic so I decided to poke around the park. It was getting dark but between the fog and the weird light the park had this awesome creepy look going on.

Palm trees always look odd when it's overcast.

A swanky municipal building.

These lights reminded me of jellyfish. 

Black and white.

Sky/trees.

This restaurant looks really cool and swanky... I'm want to try it out when the weather is nice. They have a huge patio.

More palm trees and the park.

It's an awesome park. I recommend a visit to anyone who's in the area. I will definitely head back when the weather perks up. It was beautiful for a week and then this week it's been super cold. Very bi-polar, mother nature. I took some cool pics today in Barrio Brasil which I'll be sure to share soon!

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Popaico Part 2

Hi World,

Excuse my radio silence. I've been insanely busy running around Santiago the last two weeks. I've finally started teaching at the Polpaico plant. Little did I know, the plant is actually owned by a huge global company. This means that each of my classes only have one Chilean student. I also have a student form Venezuela, 2 Argentines (Argentinians?), and one Brazilian. It's so cool to learn about other parts of South America! But I digress. The real reason I've decided to share any information about Polpaico is because I wanted to show you guys my classroom. Maybe you won't agree, but this room feels like a '70's board room to me. I imagine that the room is usually stuffed with a bunch of old guys smoking cigars and making important decisions. But when I'm there it's a classroom in which we play games about articles of clothing... such is the life of an expat ESL teacher. Ha!  Anyways I thought I'd share some [awkward] pics I snapped while I waited for my students.

A snap out the car window on the way to the plant. It was a very smoggy day but you can kind of see the mountains in the distance (they're very faint).

I panicked as I took this picture because I thought someone was about to walk in and catch me creepily taking pictures of this seemingly uninteresting board room, so the composition is not the best. You can, however, see the 70's-esque interior and the old-man-cigar-ness of the place.

As I've mentioned before, Polpaico makes cement. They have all of these jars of pebbles and stuff in the "old-man-cigar-room"... which really contributes to the old man-ness.

See... they're all different!

So now you've seen the weir old-timey baord room I spend 6 hours each week in. Good times! I have another post coming up soon! In the mean time enjoy your Saturday :)

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Food and Random Ramblings

Hello World,

I've had a much more relaxed day than yesterday. I went to Lo Prado this morning where I teach English to low-income children. It's fun but totally exhausting. It's like my high school if everyone was actually 9 (instead of just acting like they're 9). My day was pretty boring... lots of cleaning, organizing, and errands. Boring. I did, however, take some kind of random snaps on my various outings so I thought I'd slap this post together (I hope it doesn't seem hasty!).

I took this pic on my walk home form the metro. I got off a few stops early to enjoy the WARM (read 85F) weather. It was a really smoggy day, but I managed to take a picture that looked somewhat clear.

I spent the majority of my walk behind this annoyingly slow couple. It was agonizing. I decided that because they were walking slowly I could take a picture of them... I was also curious/excited/amused/interested in the extreme height difference. It seemed very applicable to my life here where I tower over everyone. Also fun fact: the restaurant on the side is called "Dalai Lomo" (lomo is pork sandwich meat).

Later I decided to make stir fry. I made a similar version a few weeks ago but I decided to actually take pictures this time. It's pretty simple... Bell peppers, zucchini, garlic, rice, chicken, egg, and my secret sauce (sunflower seed oil, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and honey). *Poor picture quality thanks to horrific florescent lighting in my kitchen... when I have my own place there will be absolutely NO florescent lighting.*

My cooking process... Clearly I'm a neat chef (as evidenced by the scene on the right).

My finished product. 

Vanity shot of the fried rice... it's a glamorous beast of a meal.

So that was my day in a nutshell. Nothing wild, but super productive. And hopefully my food has at least been yummy to look at ;)

In other news...
-I recently read (OK I listened to the audio version) of Miranda Hart's autobiography (I guess it's more of a memoir). If you're a Miranda fan I recommend it. Such fun.
-I bought a new dress which I hope to break out this weekend... maybe I'll do an outfit post?
-I've become obsessed with candles. I get them at this awesome store.
-I'm thinking about making this recipe soon. I have a lot of bananas that are brown and ready.
-Planning a trip to Mendoza, Argentina soon... keep an eye out for that :)

OK I'll stop babbling now. Hope everyone out there is cyberspace is well. Just remember it's Wednesday night... the work week is halfway through!

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LONG Day

Hi Guys,

Just a quick post this morning. Yesterday was outrageously long. Now I know plenty of people leave the house around 8am and don't return until 8pm. I'm not complaining about being out for 12 hours (although it is exhausting), I'm more complaining about the progression of my day. It was ROUGH. I woke up a tad too late to shower (ew/oops) so all day I looked like a homeless freak with insane hair. NOT good. I also wore a very blah outfit which, as you may know, is not helpful when you are having a rough hair day. I thought I would return home from teaching around 3, but before my 1pm class my lovely boss (that is not sarcasm... I legitimately love my boss) informed me that we would be going to the Polpaico plant to begin teaching. My boss is incredibly busy and she thought she'd told me but she hadn't (again I totally understand... these things happen). This did mean, however, that my sad hobo-esque appearance would see me through meeting a batch of new students as well as two hours in a car.

The other things that made yesterday insanely long...
-Taking the bus to Renca (not nice neighborhood, very far)
-Take the bus/metro from Renca all the way to Las Condes (very nice neighborhood, very far)
-Endless car time to/from plant.

Anyways I did manage to snap some not-very-good pics with my new camera. I was terrified to take it out because I really don't want it to get stolen (slash make me look even more like a gringa than I already do). But hopefully I'll have some cool pics with the new camera soon!

I have to walk up A LOT of stairs to get to my apartment... cherry on top of my never-ending day.

I indulged in another fresh squeezed orange juice. DEL-OI-CIOUS.

I hastily snapped this picture (and the next one) as we drove out of the Polpaico plant. The sun was setting and it was actually pretty beautiful. I personally like the moving effect, but I suppose it looks like I'm just terrible at taking pictures.

This is a blurry (arty?) picture of the plant itself. I have no idea what this tower functions as, but I thought the lights looked cool. Ha!

OK guys... I guess this wasn't exactly "a quick" post. Today is much more relaxed so I'll recuperate (tomorrow is the exact same as yesterday... eek!). Talk to you soon!

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