¡Viernes Libre!

Okay, I'll refrain from the temptation to write in Spanish. That'll make this post go faster at any rate.

So today was a good day at school. I didn't have any caffeine in the morning and I was still good to go! Probably because I let myself sleep in an extra 40 minutes because someone was in the shower when I intended to get up. So I went to school dirty and [stupid old] Neil got to have his freakout. I should mention that it's not that he's old that I dislike him - rather, it's his sense of entitlement and disposition to watching movies really loudly in the fairly small common room that I find annoying. And to be fair, those may or may not have anything to do with the fact that he is aged. But back to fun things!

Today was Mike's last day (he came for 2 weeks as a vacation) so during the pausa we all got cookies and there was a impromptu graduationish ceremony in which they gave him a diploma and Paola told me and the German student who speaks almost no English that they only give diplomas to students they like, which I thought was hilarious. So Mike's deal is that he is a number-cruncher econ dude at a small firm in NYC and this was one of his vacations for the year. He has apparently done this is a variety of locations - it's how he travels solo, always taking Spanish classes in the mornings. I find this very interesting, since on one hand you improve your Spanish (always awesome) and maybe meet people in the classes (good when you're alone), but on the other your mornings are sucked up by class and he couldn't visit anything in Chile except for Valparaíso because he had class all the weekdays. Anyone have an opinion about this? I can see why backpackers and richer folks would do it at the start of a vacation, but not for its entirety - I think it's too restricting. So post a comment and let me know what you think!

I came home in the afternoon and had PBJ before heading out to one (or many?) of the schools I rejected to register for the DELE (Diploma of Spanish as a Foreign Lanugage) exam which is on August 24. Then I was going to walk down to the area around where I work and check out restaurants (write down URLs, not be nerdy at all, etc.) and maybe shop a little and maybe go to the Tosteria which has several fun food staples at lower prices than the Jumbo. Then, literally a crossroads and realized I was wearing leather-uppers instead of sneakers, I decided to go back to the apartment, change my shoes, and head for Barrio Patronato, which Paola had told me was full of cheap clothing and Kanika had mentioned had at least 3 oriental food stores. So off I went.

On the way I walked through the park by the river instead of by the street, and it was so neat!
I have never been there right after school got out, and it was gorgeous out (I had a t-shirt on until around 6pm) and the playgrounds were FULL of kids playing and there were a couple of carts selling popcorn and cotton candy, and the edges of the park were full of young lovers canoodling, and it was all very sweet. Then I crossed over into Patronato and saw nothing but clothing for several minutes, haha. It wasn't like the bazaar where Mike got super cheap sweaters, I don't think, because the prices weren't actually much better than the US for fairly cheap things. Actually, it looked a lot like the clothes you pick up at Forever 21/Wet Seal/Charlotte Russe/etc. so nothing particularly grabbed my attention. This is either sad or good, depending your love of owning things from other lands and your recognition of the fact that you have plenty of clothes, thanks. If I could find a snuggly sweater I'd get it, or fun jeans, but I have promised not to spent more than CLP$6000 at the very most on anything that isn't amazing or extremely good quality.

So I somehow managed to remember Kanika's email about the food stores enough to turn on the right street and then I found all three of them! They were amazing! I'm sure I looked silly, walking through there smiling stupidly when I saw spring roll wrappers or sushi rice or wasabi or vegetarian oyster sauce or the rows and rows of different fun noodles. I looked at everything in all the stores, then continued on my way. I got tired though, and all the stores were clothes and I wasn't coming upon any interesting restaurants (Oh! Except for "El Gringo" which has FALAFAL for CLP$120 each, or in sandwiches and other forms, and shwarma, and probably other delicious things. The falafal looked good. I should have tried one.) and I was worried the stores would close, so I headed back and bought soy sauce (which I later realized was overpriced, but oh well, now there's enough for both apartments for the rest of the summer), GREEN CHILE PASTE (omg so excited) and vegetarian dumplings. I am looking forward to everything. I think it was probably all overpriced but hey, it's cheaper than a restaurant and better than the same old almost-teriyaki sauce every night. Should give Lee and I some fun times.

On my way back south I also spotted a thin-crust pizza place which used real tomato sauce and has some deal specials so that might be worth looking into later, though I remain more excited to go to the NYC-style pizza place near Geomás which smells so delicious every time I walk by. Anyway, I crossed the river again, visited a Santa Isabel grocery store, figured out where I was (2 blocks from the Plaza de Armas) and decided to take the metro home and I wasn't looking foward to the 45 minute walk home. It was surprisingly short, haha. Between the station and home I passed a popcorn vendor and bought a package of crispy kettle korn for $300 which was delightful and I'm still not hungry. I'll probably eat a big breakfast tomorrow to tide me over for as long as possible in Valpo/Viña, since I'm not sure how it'll all go down tomorrow.

So I'll officially try to get into the habit of posting starting now! Except I probably won't post tomorrow since I'll be gone all day. Oh well!

Be well!