Nuts and Bolts

I spent from 9am to 2pm today designing new English Tutor fliers, tailoring them to my student target market. For all the work and frustration (mostly due to limited memory on my laptop and no zip drive) I better get some business. This was the one thing that always felt really stupid about designing on computers, they inevitably are a huge time suck, and often for presentations some aspect of the technology always crashes or isn't compatible. 

So I wanted to spend my blog today, not discussing what now feels like a wasted day, but some of the nuts and bolts of everyday life in Chile. While I was in Peru I discovered that toilet paper couldn't be flushed and instead it was deposited in your bathroom trash bin to be emptied by the... actually you empty it.... I think while I was in Peru I had a hard time remembering this transaction, so used to the plumbing in the northern hemisphere, but so far here, it hasn't been a problem.  I mentioned this to Sylvain before he left, assuming correctly that Chile might have the same system, and his reaction was; "gross". The toilet system is further complicated here by the fact that you have to turn the water on with a system similar to what we hook our garden hose up to, before you flush. 

To get hot water in the kitchen, or to take a shower you have to light the pilot light in the kitchen, adjust the temperature there, and then check in the bathroom whether it's in a comfortable range of neither a flesh searing, or ice cold downpour. 

As far as the sink goes, its built just under the pilot light box and its only about 10" square, I've never really loved doing dishes, but at my age, I've come to take responsibility for myself, and since I cook dinner, Sylvain is put to work doing the dishes, because I tried once, and soaked my feet and legs making a water fall while trying to rinse the cutting board.

Speaking of cooking, I made one of my favorite pastas last night, it's from my Cousin's Tina and Travis who live near Boston, and Tina made it for me one time when I was visiting, its a cream sauce with artichokes, chicken, basil, and lots of parmesan and garlic. I had sent Sylvain to school with a list of things to pick up but he came home first to get money and we went together because we both needed to get a coffee. I had gone to Lider early in the day, and I was pretty sure, cream just doesn't exist in Valpo. Sylvain held out hope and we checked the never ending yoghurt isle and the isles of unrefrigerated milk in a box upstairs. This lack of refrigeration was no surprise, although nonetheless appalling to us American's who are used to our milk chilled and stamped with an expiration date only a week or 10 days after purchase. In some countries I've traveled and lived in, both are options, but in Chile, its milk in a soy container or you'll have none at all. We did find what we thought might be cream, but in the packaging photo, the white fluffy peak with a strawberry on top told me we were probably going to get whipped cream, but we bought a little juice box size box anyway, and in the end had it on top of some banana bread Sylvain bought before I got here.

On our way down the hill to get a coffee we decided to check out that gym I had mentioned, we had a look inside and this was more circa 1998 than 1492. The 3 weight machines were similar to the ones I had in high school, although we had more like 13 at Appleton East, and there was a circle of bikes that couldn't have been more then 5-10 years old for spinning class. We also ran into a Lyonnais Sylvain knew from school, Vincent. He was doing some sit-ups or something and after Vincent we ran into 3 more French, one man who owns a French restaurant here Filou de Montpellier, where we were meant to go there my first night but it was closed. He gave me two greeting kisses while all the young French gave me just the one in the style of Chile. I was really having a hard time getting used to not going in for the second kiss, because for the most part I've been accustomed to kiss greetings from Europeans and kissing in their style on both cheeks, but then they switch it up on me, just cause we're in South America. I know most of you Patriotic American's are probably thinking everyone should just adopt the handshake- but in reality unless you whip out your hand sani and in all likelihood offend your new friend by calling into question his sanitation level- to greet new friends with a kiss is scientifically proven to be less germy. 

One last nourishing tidbit about Chile, you can get something here called a Completo which is essentially a hot dog in a bun, with sauerkraut, mayonnaise, guacamole, some tomatoes and ketchup and mustard. They look horrifically unhealthy, but I had a small bite of Sylvain's and I could see them becoming all the rage at a baseball game with a side of beer. And I added the photo here.