(Molly's) Grand Finale

Have I mentioned that I have a high school friend living here? My friend Molly who went to St. Paul Central and now goes to the U of Chicago had an internship in Santiago this summer and is living about 20 minutes away from me on the metro/walking. Anyway, she leaves a week from tomorrow (Saturday) so she has been squeezing in all of her last touristy outings this week and I love it because a lot of them are things I haven't done either. On thursday, we went to a restaurant in the Bellavista neighborhood called El Caramaño. We both had AMAZING meals - mine was white fish stuffed with tomatoes, chorrizo, and cheese and she got seafood-stuffed chicken, and we shared a bottle and a half of wine. It was a lovely time. The restaurant is in the best-known nightlife part of Santiago but it's a little bit off the beaten path. It was small, quiet, and the walls were coooovered in things people had written in marker. I had to get up early on Friday so I went home after dinner.

Firday morning I had my second day at the high school in La Pintana. It was a lot different because they had a regular day of classes. I sat in on two classes but with a different teacher than the one I'll be working with. The first one was doing an activity out of a workbook so after I introduced myself I was just sitting behind the teacher's desk not really knowing what to do. After a little while I noticed that the kids sitting at the table right in front of me were copying each other's work. I thought well crap, it's my first day, I don't want to start off reprimanding them OR telling on them right away. Sooo I asked them if I could help, they let me, and after that things went swimmingly. The second class I was in was apparently missing a lot of students, so the teacher had the kids who were there circle up and ask me and another volunteer questions. The most interesting thing they asked us was to sing a Michael Jackson song for them. (His death has really hit Chile hard.)

The weather has been beautiful since about Tuesday. Today a few of us went to el Mercado Central for lunch. It is a fairly well known tourist destinations in the city, but also incredibly practical and used by Santiaguinos. Half of the market is made up of fresh seafood stands and the other half is restaurants. We ate a mildly over-priced meal in the restaurant half of the mercado after being approached and chatted up by about five different owners. They were all very friendly, but the result was that we were going to feel guilty no matter where we ate. The funiest thing we saw there was this: a table had ordered crab and when it came, a waiter stood at the table cracking the shell off the entired time they were eating. We thought maybe an asterisk on the menu would be appropriate indicating that not only were you going to get crab, but also an extra lunch guest. Haha! The top picture is of one of the booths at the seafood market and the other one is an old couple eating at a table near ours.

The Mercado is right across the street from La Piojera (the bar with the earthquake drinks), so we went over there after lunch for an afternoon terremoto - Molly hadn't had one yet. And NOW I have my first real-league soccer game! My friend Mari is coming to pick my up in about ten minutes, so I should go and get ready. Allez les blanc!