Week 4 in Chile

I apologize in advance for the laziness of this post, but working all day just makes me too exhausted to type full sentences. If bullet points really upset you (cough cough mom), let me know and I will switch back to the normal paragraph format for next week. Hope you enjoy my adventures from this past week! 

Monday, June 24, 2013

-Work permit at Extranjeria; longest line ever; took 2 hours, but I navigated chilean infrastructure, by myself and in spanish and I got it right
-Went to my first day of work for the Induccion/Orientation; 8 new hires (including myself), Ramon from Spain, and 6 ladies from Chile who are working in outsourcing; had lunch out at Best Western (surprisingly nice) with HR
-More orientation sessions after lunch; all in Spanish; my brain hurt afterward, but I generally understood everything that was said
-Still don't have my ID or email address because I was late because of the work permit thing
-Back to the hotel and cooked dinner and watched some TV and went to bed; working all day is so exhausting

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

-First real day of work; Sebastian showed me around; Lunch at Sushi with Sebastian and Andres; Consulting work; no computer because of system struggles, so I read powerpoints about projects that I will be working on; left early because I had already read all the power points they had; getting computer/email/username in the am
-Made myself dinner
-Looking for a new place to stay; went and met a woman that I might stay with for the next 3 weeks; Air Bnb
-Home to Skype family and get ready for another full day at work

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

-Second real day of work; transitioning into all spanish at work; making new friends too; had coffee with Hayley an intern from Toronto; had lunch with Rodrigo an intern from Chile who studied abroad in Texas; started working on a project finally; its due in a week; got my laptop too finally
-Went home for a bit and then met up with my friends from Ecela because I haven't seen them in a while; went to Zouk with Jamie, Sonya and Juliette and then to Mito with them for a bit

Thursday, June 27, 2013

-Third real day of work; kept working on my powerpoint; Sebastian was in meetings all day as was most of the office, so I just worked and talked to Rodrigo (other intern whose last day it is); went to Subway for lunch again with Juan Francisco and Sebastian; after work went to Mosaic Cafe with work people to celebrate Rodrigo's last day; went with Rodrigo, Francisca, Leticia, Miguel, Andres, Gloria and some American from the SF office who is helping with a project down here

-After some Ecela (Jenise, Sarah, Clare) friends came over to my hotel room for a girls night and to chill because I haven't seen them in a while

Friday, June 28, 2013

-Fourth real day of work; continued to work on my powerpoint; Sebastian said it was coming along nicely and I have a draft of it due monday; went out to lunch with work people at Tommy Beans, which is in the food/shopping district near work; learned about a "Chilean concept" of cafe con piernas = coffee with legs, which is a coffee shop where bikini clad women serve the coffee
-After work let out, I met people from Ecela at Piojera (Nate, Jenise, Sarah, Clare, Lars) to have my first terremoto, which is a really strong Chilean drink; Piojera is a restaurant but it feels more like a Chilean frat party; stand around barrels and just talk to people and have a good time; talked about Piñera vs. Bachelet with some guys

-After that we went to Casa Ecela for a BBQ to say bye to Carol and Jenise; then I went out to  Bar Constitucion with some people from Ecela (Bernard, Laura, Nate); Bar Constitucion is the biggest bar in Chile; met a guy from NJ that I have some mutual friends with, so random; ran into some other Ecela people and then ran into a bunch of the young guys from work

Saturday, June 29, 2013

-Woke up early and met up with some Ecela people (Clare, Huw, Bram, and Nate) and headed to Viña Unduraga for a tour of the vineyard and wine tasting; vineyard is about an hour outside the city and we had to take the metro and a commuter bus to get there but it was so worth it; unfortunately there were no grapes because harvest isnt until april/may, but it was still cool and the wine we tasted was awesome; got to try white, two reds, and a dessert wine; this vineyard mostly produces red wine and has crops all over the country; chile has a very good climate for grape growing and hence has really good wines; wines are very cheap as well because they are all local; I bought 3 bottles of good wine for $27; met two other travelers on our wine tour, Laura from Finland and Caroline from Germany, both girls are study abroad students at La Catolica like me

-Once we got back into the city, we went to our favorite peruvian restaurant and Laura came with us; super fun to travel and meet so many cool people from all over the world

-Went home and napped and packed up to get ready to move to my homestay tomorrow!

Sunday, June 30, 2013

-Check out of the hotel and had my final/delicious complementary breakfast
-Taxi to Kris's house cause I can't move into my new homestay until later today
-Mercado Central for lunch and eat at Donde Augusto, where Anthony Bourdain once ate and liked it as our funny waiter Luis told us; According to National Geographic, Mercado Central is one of the Top 5 best markets in the world; it's a beautiful fish market. Afterwards we went and walked around Cerro Santa Lucia because Kris hadn't been there yet; he really enjoyed it and it was great cause it was a clear day so we got to see some truly beautiful and smog free views of Santiago and of the Andes
-Finally got to move into my new homestay with Ximena and Keko; so excited to live here cause they are so nice and its in such a great location, only 3 blocks from work