Lots of random stuff....

So I have been meaning to update for the past few days, but things have been pretty busy.

So here are some pictures from the barbeque that Zoe had for her birthday on Saturday:

Sunday I met up with Walker and Erin, as we haven't seen each other in about 3 weeks or so.  It was great getting to catch up with them, and we sat at La Terraza for about 2 and a half hours just talking about random things.  I got a huge hamburger with all types of stuff on it, but didn't think to bring my camera with me.

Later that evening my roommates and I had planned to make dinner together, and so we had beef tacos with salad.  We also had some wine, but I forgot my bottle opener at the asado for Zoe on Saturday night.  Mario tried opening the bottle on his own, but when he had trouble with it 3 of my other roommates started hovering over him and decided to try and help out:

After about 10 minutes they managed to get the bottle of wine open, and this is what our dinner looked like:

This week at school has been a rollercoaster ride in some ways.  I love how I am greeted as if I am a movie star, and I get lots of students coming up to me and asking how I am and shaking my hand.  Dealing with some of the student behavior has been very challenging.  I was incredibly frustrated after working with one class.  It all started when I told a student to sit in a different seat during presentations and he refused to move.  In hindsight, I should have just kicked him out then, but I was told it's better to talk to kids at the end of class here if there are problems.  Then after that, I was dealing with cell phones and kids refusing to turn them over after being told to put them away multiple times, kids banging my desk, talking throughout presentations and simply talking louder in response to my death stare, trying to blame me for them cutting up their papers and demanding new ones, and more.  We talked at the end of class, but there didn't seem to be much resolution.  Let's just say I am not looking forward to working with this class again on Tuesday.

So that left me really frustrated, but then the classes on Wednesday and Thursday were refreshing.  They were eager to learn and speak English, and I have gotten into the habit of bringing out my frisbee at recess to play with the kids.  They seem to really enjoy it, and it's a nice way to get in some movement after being in class for a while.  Talking with some of the kids I've learned that they and their families have connections to the States, and they have gotten to travel there.

I am also figuring out where to pick my battles.  In a class today the teacher was checking assignments that the students did by having them come up indiviudally to her, and with a class of 36 that takes a while.  I walked around and helped the class complete a list of irregular verbs as well as an interest inventory for me, but there was still a lot of chaos.  I encouraged the kids to work on the two assignments, but there were kids that already had everything done and had nothing to do.  So if I saw their Ipods out and they had everything done, I told them they had to be listening to songs in English.  I told the students with Uno cards out that they had to play in English, and I played a round with them to be sure that they knew all of the words they would need to do so.  I encouraged the boy that was throwing a paper airplane across the room to say "Catch the airplane!  Are you ready?" and "Throw me the airplane!"  And I think that was the first time I heard him actually speaking English in the class besides his presentation in front of the class.

I just had to laugh as one student decided to make a tip jar, put a coin in it, and walked around the room tyring to solicit tips from his classmates.  Others were drawing in their notebooks, and others were walking around the class to talk with their friends.  I started up a game of Hangman on the board, and some students came over to me to play.  This is simply the way the classrooms tend to be here, and I'm thinking perhaps I need to be less strict with the class I had such trouble with on Tuesday.

Today Claudia (one of the teachers at my school) invited Erin and me out to lunch with her husband and 5 year old daughter.  We went to an Italian restaurant named Basta Pasta in Las Condes, and afterwards we enjoyed the nice weather at the park.  They are such nice people and offered to help us find free or low cost things to do in the area, and her husband offered to help me find a kickboxing gym and also gave tips on biking in Santiago.  Their daughter is adorable and a bundle of energy, and after stopping at their home for a short while she decided to give Erin her chocolate bunny from Easter and to stuff my pockets with her chocolate eggs.  Unfortunately I didn't have my camera on me to capture the delicious food or good weather or get a picture of us together, but hopefully next time.

Tonight I decided to experiment with cooking some churrasco (for you Jersey people it is like steak in a steak sandwich) with potatoes along with some salad, and it turned out pretty good:

This might come across as a morbid topic, but despite that it is an interesting one with different cultures.  My roommate told me that she was taking the metro home but she was delayed because someone committed suicide by jumping onto the tracks.  Apparently in Chile they have a system set up where if that happens they have a crew set up that turns off the lights down by the tracks and they have 8 minutes to clean it up.  Once they complete the job of cleaning and taking the body away, they have a mandatory paid month off so that they can recover and cope with what they just had to deal with.

Furthermore, she continued to tell me that if a person tries to commit suicide in Chile but does not succeed that they go to prison for 15 years.  This stems from the fact that Chile is a deeply Catholic country, and taking your own life is considered a sin.  The only other alternative to this sentence would be to go to a mental institution, but she said that going to prison is more likely to happen.

This weekend I am hoping to catch up with friends over dinner and buy a bike.  We'll see how that all goes....

Mendoza Day 2

So yesterday was an awesome day.

It started out with rock climbing.  I was so glad to see that it was warm and the sun was shining, and it made up for the cloudy and cool day during ziplining yesterday.  After making the trip there, I was glad to see that there was someone else doing the rock climbing with me.  Victoria was a woman from New Zealand but living in the UK, and our guide was Fernando.  Before we even got to the rocks to climb, Fernando noticed a 2 peso bill in the grass.  As he picked it up, I noticed another 2 peso bill and then a 5 peso bill. This sent us all in a flurry to try and look around further to see if we could find any 100 peso bills, but to no avail.  He told us to hang onto the money so we could buy fruit later.  I thought he was joking since where we were was so desolate, so I didn´t think much of it.

We got to the rocky area, and Fernando pulled out a bunch of shoes from his backpack for us to try on.  He was like the Mad Shooer or something.  Fernando got us secured and sent us up for our first climb.  I went first, and it was really challenging.  Being able to keep both of your feet and both of your hands secure was rougher than I thought it would be.  After stopping and slipping several times, I finally made it to the top.  Then Fernando helped me repel back down.  I told him how hard it was for me and asked if there were any easier ones to try out.  He then told me that in Argentina they rate climbs between grade 4 and grade 9, and that the one I did was a grade 4.


Victoria then took her turn, and she struggled too.  After she came back down, Fernando gave us some tips.  I learned that clinging to the rock for dear life does not help you, as you need to keep your body away from the rock in order to be able to move around and get from one place to another.

Our next few climbs went better though.  We were getting the hang of it with more practice, and it was easier.  I actually didn´t complete the second climb the first time around, as I stopped a few meters short of the end becuase I couldn´t find a way up and was too tired.  Victoria and Fernando encouraged me to give it another try after Victoria finished it, and that time I was able to do it.  It was such an awesome feeling to have completed it.

The sun started shining more brightly, and it was getting hard to see when looking to climb up.  Add this to the fact that my glasses were getting looser and looser and were almost slipping off, and it made it that much challenging.  Victoria was experiencing the same thing with her sunglasses.  I also realized that I had a tissue pack in my pocket to wipe away my sweat between climbs, but apparently I lost it on one of the climbs.

After a while, we decided to take our lunch break.  We sat in the grass and ate, and it was so peaceful to only be able to hear the water going by and no noise of the city.  We also heard the occasional rooster that apparently slept in.   Before I forgot I told Fernando about my glasses.  He then disappeared for a few seconds, and he came back with a kit to tighten glasses.  He tightened both of our glasses, and it seemed totally random that he had the tools with him to do that. 

We went back to the climbing area, and now Fernando was setting up some grade 5 climbs for us.  I thought grade 4 was challenging enough, but these were much steeper and had you climbing over rocks and having to reach up and around a bit. 

While Fernando was up at the top, we heard him whistle loudly and then call to us "¿Quieren fruta?"  We then told him that we wanted apples and bananas, and he came down a minute later.  It turns out that a fruit truck was driving by, and he whistled to him to get his attention.  I gave him the money we found in the grass, and he came back with a large bagful of fruit.

We enjoyed the fresh fruit and then did a few more climbs.  I was getting the hang of it and enjoying it, but it was wearing me out.  I hadn´t done something very active like that in a while, but I was enjoying it despite that. 

Then as Fernando set up the last climb, he came down with my pack of tissues.  I guess they got stuck to part of the rock and he found them.  The last climb was the most challenging, but the view at the top was amazing and it felt so awesome to see what I accomplished.

Here is me with Fernando:

This was such an awesome experience.  When I was in high school we actually took a field trip to an indoor rock climbing place, and I remember loving it and going back once.  Even though it is about 15 years later, it is so fulfilling to have done the actual thing.  Sure, I was scared and slipped a few times.  I got scraped up.  But I will never forget sharing the experience with Victoria and Fernando and them calling up to me to encourage me and help me up each of the climbs.

Once I got back to the hostel, I decided to hang around for a bit.  I talked with some people and got some tips on good wines to buy, and then I headed out with Peter (from Switzerland) and Nika (from Holland) to get some dinner.  Peter really wanted to go to 1884, but after wandering around for about 45 minutes we decided to go to Facundo instead.  We got a nice steak dinner with wine and sat outside.  I rarely have wine at dinner and even more rarely eat outside, so it was a refreshing experience.  Afterwards we went out for drinks and just talked about our travels, and it was a really relaxing night.

I made it back to Santiago in about 6 and a half hour.  I am going to miss it in Mendoza and am hoping to return for the weekend of Semana Santa.