I'm back

Schwoof. It has been awhile since I updated this thing. There has been lots of new stuff going on. Let's see if I can remember some of it.

While I´m settling in nicely, there are always new things that surprise me here. For example, I spied this can of Kem below at the bakery yesterday along side a pepsi. I have no idea what kind of drink it is, but the can is cool. Check out the octopus and macaw.

The people in this store, Castaño, are generally pretty nice. They call me "joven" or "young one" all the time. They also use the formal version of "you" when they speak to their customers.


The big adventure last weekend was going to mercado central. It´s a busy, smelly place where one can buy seafood of all kind. I saw octopus, a lot of fish, clams, oysters, and much more. Check out the pics below to see some of the fish.

ugly dead fish

He looks like he wants to tell me something

I went to the market with squid in mind. That´s what I ended up getting. Below is a picture of one that I bought. It was my first time preparing fresh squid. Their bodies pull apart easily, and you can check out their unique anatomy. What I didn´t know is that squid have quills. These are used to shoot their ink. They are not especially sharp but they seem pretty strong. I removed the quills out of a couple of squid thinking it was a piece of plastice that someone had put in there to preserve the shape of the squid. Nope, it´s all organic. It was odd because it felt and looked exactly like man-made plastic. Whodathunk?

getting ready to cook the squid

I´m constantly finding more english words that are being employed in Chilean spanish. Check out this package of cookies from Castaño below. I didn´t want to tell the manufacturer, but they spelled cookie wrong. No one seemed to mind. Also, no one seemed to mind that these kukies didn´t taste very good. I guess that´s a good thing. It´ll cut down on my craving for sweets. They don´t have butterfinger bars or reese´s cups here. Oh man, I wanted those. At least they have honeydew and cantalope here. Yumm. Fun fact- Chile is a main supplier for fruits in US safeway stores. Their cherries are amazing.

want a kuky?

I´ve had my first and second earthquake here in Chile. If you´ve never experienced one, this can be your first second-hand earthquake. Actually, I hardly noticed the earthquakes. They were around 5.0 on the Richter scale and more than 100 miles away. I was in the top floor of my earthquake-resistant building each time. As such, the floor just swayed back and forth slowly for around 30 seconds. It felt like my bedroom was floating on water and moving with the waves. That´s all.

In spanish, there are two words for this event. A temblor is a small rumble that causes little to no damage. A terremoto is a powerful, destructive earthquake.There are generally 1-2 terremotos every 20 years. Santiago experienced an 8.8 quake in 2010 that people still remember vividly. A coworker described her experience of the event to me in great detail. There was another one around 7.5 in March of 2012. We should be good for about 20 years on the big ones. For reference, the 2011 Japan quake that caused the major tsunami with world-wide effects was 9.0.

view from my floor

Next is a picture of $38,000 Chilean pesos. I think their money is pretty. It´s a little more water-resistant (and less smelly) than American dollars. In case you´re wondering, $38k CLP is equal to about $80.50 USD. 

Chilean Pesos - CLP

What do I do at work, you ask? Right now I´m working in an internship position for an international consulting firm. I compose market research reports for Canadian companies who are looking to import their products to Chile. It is very dynamic. I learn a lot about each of the clients so I can help them better. This position will end in about a month so I can start in a real job that pays real money. More info on that as it´s available.

how I use my computer these days

Well that´s about it for now. I´ll try to keep up with this more and write as things happen. It works better that way. Ok, stay tuned.