Things About Chile

So I realized that even though there aren't really any exciting things happening to me in Chile right now in this instant, there are still things that I can talk about and explain. Especially for those of you who are coming to visit me and those who wish to someday visit Chile.

One of the things that you notice right away here is that there are dogs everywhere. They're the Chilean street dogs. They could be your best friend, or your greatest enemy - so it's good to be careful with them. My experiences with them have been great, in most cases it seems like the dogs cling to American's because whenever a small or large group of us walk by, a dog will join us on our walk and cross the streets with us. Sometimes they will bark at people passing by whom they deem in some way or another a threat to us, once the person is far enough away so that the dog feels we are safe, it'll catch back up to us and continue walking by our side. Some of them can be really gorgeous "purebred" look-a-likes, gorgeous mixes, or some really ugly mixes and mutt (like a german shepherd mixed with a beagle?). I've said it many times already, and I'll say it many times more; I want to take them all home with me.

Mass transit here is definitely interesting. They have two terms for buses, the first is more for our version of city buses which they call "Micro/s", then for traveling buses like our Greyhounds are "Bus/es." Not too hard to figure out those differences, but that's as far as the "easiness" of the bus goes as far as we're concerned or are used to. There is no actual bus schedule, buses come and go within minutes and sometimes seconds of each other. Part of this is because there are so many different companies and the drivers are paid on commission, so the more people that ride a particular bus the more that driver makes. A lot of times the driver will have a friend or a partner ride with them and try to get riders on the bus, especially at night when people are leaving the clubs. Sometimes I feel like I'm being herded onto a bus with five different men yelling "Viña bus this way" in my ear. Also during the bus rides, the drivers let people on the bus to sell snacks or other items to the passengers on the bus - I've also heard of people singing or telling fake "my child is sick" stories to get money or tips as well.

Along that note, there are also street entertainers who will spend their day or night at a stop light and perform an act when the light is red in hopes of making tips. So far I've seen people throwing fireballs on strings, jugglers, magicians, you name it.

One thing that is highly visibly different than what I know back at home in the U.S. is that PDA can be pretty rampant here. Currently the weather is decently brisk and I see at least two couples making out on the streets per day, and I'm sure that number will increase as it gets warmer - especially on the beach. It doesn't bother me so much, but I've definitely seen it bother other foreigners here.

Other things that you notice around town are buildings that have patched up cracks in their walls or other small structural damage from the earthquakes earlier this year. Some buildings are completely shut down and evacuated until they either get fixed or torn down and rebuilt. Otherwise just some of the sidewalks are cracked and unlevel, but Viña was relatively unaffected by the earthquake. But at the same time, earthquakes and tsunamis are a frequent topic of conversation among Chileans - even with those who have been unaffected by them. We apparently had an earth tremor last week, but I never felt it :)

Chileans are HUGE party-ers, el carrete (relatively translated to the party or something like that) is the one thing that everyone does here and they tend to last all night. Bars don't close until at least 6:30 AM and most Chileans don't start going out until 1 or so to make it through the morning hours.

So yea, that's all I have for you all right now. I know that I'm kind of all over the place and all that, but hey - be glad I'm not going into writing ;)