A Lot of Words About Nothing

You may have noticed that the blog updates are becoming slightly less frequent. We may be losing steam on this whole writing thing. Nevertheless, I was called into work early this morning for absolutely no reason, so I've got a couple hours to kill before my first class. Enjoy.

What have we been doing? Time is kind of all mushing together into a blob, and our weeks all kind of blend together. Generally speaking, we've fallen into a routine of going to parties and movies and whatnot with work people on the weekends and then spending most of our week working and planning for the future. Occasionally, we get out for a beer or something. On Friday we'd been hearing good things about the hamburgers at this Irish pub a couple blocks from our house, so I managed to convince Erin to go give them a try with me. Clearly the only people going to an Irish pub to eat hamburgers in Santiago are gringos, so we fit right in. The most frustrating thing about going to a gringo bar is that the Chilenos feel the need to jack up the prices to a ridiculous degree. That means, instead of paying the 3 dollars for a big plate of sandwich and french fries, like we've gotten used to, we end up paying the exorbidant price of 6 dollars. Completely unfair. Still, the hamburgers were good and loaded with unusual toppings like avocado. We also indulged ourselves in some good Irish beer.

Speaking of the Irish, they all left this weekend, and we were there to witness it. Every Irish person that works in our company has decided to leave, and they threw themselves a collective going away bash. It was supposed to start at 10:00, and Erin and I made the mistake of showing up at 10:30. We were the first ones there by a solid half hour and Erin felt awkward (enough so that she felt the need to put a sizable dent in the bottle of vodka we'd brought), while I made small talk to Niall, the Irish dude. It was also on the 24th floor of the building, with some great big windows, so we took the opportunity to see how long it would take balloons and other things to reach the ground. The answer is pretty long. When everyone showed up, Erin felt less out of place, and I started receiving complementary spanish lessons from our Chilean coworkers. While eating some Pringles, I was informed that the name is funny because in Chilean (not spanish in general) the word pringado refers to someone aflicted by sexually transmitted diseases. Kind of makes eating them seem less appetizing.

Other than that, it's been more of the same. Fall is in full swing, but it's kind of a depressing season here. Pretty colors are completely overshadowed by the fact that the weather turns ice-cold overnight and the smog starts to settle in heavy again. Still, there's something pleasantly sureal about walking down the street and passing ten different guys sweeping the leaves off their lawns using regular house brooms. Do rakes exist here? I haven't seen any.