Some highs (and lows)

Claire did a really nice job of summing up our first month here, and hopefully we'll have more frequent updates throughout the future. Here are a few interesting highlights (and lowlights):

some highlights...

1. Like most cities, Santiago has a fair number of people asking for change at intersections. Only instead of holding up signs and walking up and down the traffic, they juggle. Sometimes they juggle balls, and sometimes they juggle sticks on fire, but they're almost always performing. Last week we saw an entire squad of cheerleaders/people-asking-for-change that made a human pyramid and even threw someone up in the air that did flips during red lights. Pretty awesome.
2. There are stray dogs almost everywhere. There is no animal control, and so there's no one to take the dogs off the street. And the weird thing is they're not mangy, scrawny-looking dogs, but for the most part they are pretty healthy, pet-looking dogs. A lot of them are even wearing sweaters. And they rarely follow you around, but they seem for the most part to be pretty occupied and have agendas of their own. They even cross at cross-walks and wait for green lights.
   
3. Not sure if this one is a highlight or a lowlight, but ALL students here refer to us only as "meeeh-ster" or "meeeehs." Even the kids from the US (around 15% of the student body) who definitely know better and don't even have spanish accents will speak flawless english and then finish by saying "thanks meeh-ster." Pretty entertaining, but also pretty annoying. I've begun to take points away from kids who don't at least call me by my last name during class.
4. Things are extremely modern here, but then all of a sudden we'll get stuck behind a bunch of dudes on horses in the middle of a busy road. Definitely awesome (except when you're late).
5. As far as street-culture goes, a lot of things here are pretty 1986-or-so. There is a gang of free-style bikers, for example, that likes to ride pretty close to our apartment. (I apologize for saying "street-culture" by the way, and won't do it any more after this post).

some lowlights...

1. IMPOSSIBLE to watch the olympics. I don't know whether it's because there are only like four Chileans in the entire Games or if it's just general lack of interest, but we've searched the entire city (including the "Sports Cafe") and have found NOTHING. And none of the streams from the US (nbcolympics.com, etc) can be received from outside of the States. Pretty lame.
2. No Chicago-style hot dogs, and instead there is a type of hot dog here called the "Completo" which some Chilean dude told me is better than Chicago dogs. I haven't had one yet, but I'm only putting this as a low-light because it is lame to think that it could be better. (Also lame that we got in small argument about it considering he had never had a Chicago one and Claire and I had never had a Chilean one).
3. Our first snow-boarding experience. Claire definitely bruised her ribs for the past week, and my self-confidence probably should be bruised after TONS of laughter from little Chilean kids as I repeatedly fell off of the tow-rope during our first outing.
4. Most everything that involves me trying to communicate in spanish (although i AM getting exponentially better!). It's impossible to be the least bit discreet when barely able to communicate (personal low-light involves an entire cadre of female custodians trying to understand what I needed at work when I was saying "necessito un plunger de banos." The highlight was that their eventual laughter implied that I at least amused them. Their continued laughter when they see me implies that it still amuses them.)

I hope everyone is doing well! We were a little homesick the other night when we went to the movie theater to see the new Batman (which they call "Batman: El Caballero de la Noche") and saw all the shots from Chicago!