Less than perfect Updates

     So, I'm not quite sure how to go about wording this, without using some rather strong language that isn't very nice. As a result, I plan to pour every detail of what happened into this post with as little offense to others as possible (excluding Nelly of course).  Feel free to stop reading if you don't like what you see, but this is just as much for me as to update my family and friends with what happened and why.
     March 24th: When I moved into this apartment, Jess and I had certain expectations and agreements with our landlady/host lady/ landlord, Nelly. We were told when we paid our month's-rent-security-deposit that we would have full use of the kitchen, appliances, washer, pots and pans, bathrooms, living room, terrace, and other rooms. We would each have our own shelves in the fridge. We could come and go as we pleased as long as we were quiet. We could have one friend stay overnight if we asked her first, and we could have visitors.
     March 30th: Once I arrived (Jess moved in two weeks afterward, when the German girl moved out) Nelly also extended her generosity to include the use of her Tupperware. She also told me I was free to store clothes on Soraya (her daughter)'s terrace, where there is a large drying rack, if my load of laundry was too big for the rack in the laundry room.
     April 1st: We can't use the washing machine Monday night to Wednesday morning, all day Thursday and all day Saturday because the maid uses it then to wash Nelly and her daughter's clothes. Within my first day in the apartment, Nelly came and told me I had to dry my dishes and put them away soon after washing them because the drying rack would get filled up too quickly.
     April 7th: Nelly scolded me for using the drying rack on Soraya's terrace, citing the fact that we are not allowed to dry clothing out on the terraces and we would get a fine, which I would have to pay, since they're my clothes, if anyone saw the clothing out there. I would like to point out that since we are on the 10th floor, only people on the 10-14th floors of the building next door would even see the clothing, and Nelly was the one who told me to put it out there in the first place. Also, Soraya dries clothing out there every day; I can see it from the laundry room.
     April 15th: Jess arrives! Nelly yelled at us for slamming doors during the night. Jess's room has a drafty window that won't stay closed and the wind slammed her door once. We put some clothing out on the terrace thinking that a few hours wouldn't hurt and also because Jess had 6 weeks worth of dirty clothes that she had no access to a washing machine to wash (the hostel and the laundromat prices were OUTRAGEOUS; close to a $1 an article of clothing!). This time when Nelly reprimanded us, it was because we were not allowed to enter Soraya's room for any reason. At this time, my doors were being opened at night on occasion; I don't know by whom, but that means someone was entering my room as well.) Within the first two days of her stay, Nelly changed the dishes rule to Dry Everything Immediately and put it away. FYI, this is the revolting result of Nelly and Soraya's dishes:

Because they have a maid to clean up after them, they stopped cleaning any dishes altogether, and instead, just pile them up in the sink and on the counter until the maid comes to do it for them. We also lost a shelf privilege and the two of us had to share one single shelf of the fridge in the laundry room. Yes, there's a fridge in there; YES, there's a second fridge in the actual kitchen. That's our shelf in the middle. See what's on the bottom shelf? a single piece of pumpkin. And the top shelf? a layer of vegetables and one milk carton. Give me a break.

     April 16th: Because we have so little space to claim as our own, the maid used my frozen vegetables in food for Nelly (none of which we share, ever). The same day, one of our eggs went missing; Soraya had taken it and eaten it for breakfast, despite the fact that her mother refuses to buy any type of white or bleached egg, only brown ones. The one she took was white (the kind we bought from the grocery store as opposed to the kind you buy in the fresh market).
     April 19th: A Friday night. We thought it would be fun to make cookies together. We bought a mix at Jumbo, and some zucchinis to make zucchini chips in the oven with, but were interrupted and stopped 30 minutes in to be told that a new rule was in place; we cannot use the oven for more than 30 minutes at a time because the oven required a lot of electricity and power and her bill would go up. How one is supposed to do anything in the oven that takes less than thirty minutes is beyond me. We rushed through our cookies and took them out early because we had no time left.
     April 20th: Today we finally sojourned to the open air market in Santiago, La Vega, a separate blog post :) We bought a TON of groceries, so excited to sautée and stew our little aspiring cooks hearts out. In Chile, it is necessary to soak ground-growing produce in a solution of chlorine to kill bacteria that grow. We separated everything into shifts so we would maximize the amount of food being cleaned at one time. We were a little worried about everything fitting into our little shelf, but we hoped it would work out. Nelly had said if we needed more space we could put one or two things on another shelf, but we weren't sure how many would constitute too many and we didn't want her to reprimand us again. Jess and I, two wild and crazy chicks, threw a raging party that Saturday night, standing at the sink talking quietly and washing vegetables. Nelly got very upset with us for this use of her kitchen and told us to stop. She said we were using too many of her dishes, despite the fact that we cleaned and dried and replaced every single dish. We were loud and ocupando mucho la cocina. This means we were literally taking up too much of her kitchen. On a Saturday. night. at 11pm when she was in bed watching TV. Yep. As a result of our rowdiness, Nelly developed a brand new rule- We are not allowed to use any pots, pans, skillets, bowls, or big utensils. We were just using too much stuff.
     April 21st: We were caught cleaning some plates from lunch! Nelly rebuked us, saying that we were not allowed to use her dish soap any longer and we have to buy our own. We were also cut off from the sponges, placemats, and dish towels.
     April 22nd: Monday morning. Yes! Nelly would be at work, we could cook a bunch of stuff and clean and get it out of the way without anything going bad and she would never even know! We wouldn't get in trouble! Until, of course, when she surprised us and came home in the middle of the day (for the first time ever in our month in the apartment; she was having lunch at home so she could play with her 5 month old infant grandson who happened to be staying the week with us. Oh, did I not mention that to you guys? It's ok; it was a surprise to us too! Hooray!). She was muy enojada. Very angry. She told us we needed to have a talk. She berated us for about 15 minutes on how we were no longer allowed to use the kitchen. PERIOD. She complained that we used the kitchen a lot and all her previous renters never did this. She said she doesn't like people in her kitchen. Yes, you read that right. I directly asked her why we were not allowed to use it when we cleaned and replaced everything immediately and never made a mess or much noise. Her response? "It bothers me. I don't like people in my kitchen. I don't like it. I don't want you in here." She argued that most of the other renters were students and they didn't use up her kitchen and her house all the time. They only made pasta and other small things and used the microwave. From now on, she said, you can only use the kitchen once a week, and can only cook pasta. Yes, I clarified that with her too; "We can only cook pasta????!?!!?!?!??!" "Sí, solamente fideos. y usar la microondas" (Yes only pasta. And use the microwave).  From that point on, we were monitored anytime we were in the kitchen. The maid would wander in and back out without doing anything; Nelly would come in, get water and go back out; Soraya would come and eat a piece of bread and then leave.
     April 29th: Jess was told not to use their toilet paper anymore, and would have to buy her own from now on. (I had my own bathroom so I understood having to buy my own. Jess shared one of three bathrooms available to Soraya and Nelly.) SERIOUSLY?!
     A few recurring issues: constantly chided for "leaving lights on," though I never did because I never left my room (my bathroom is attached) and Jess was extremely careful to turn them off behind her. Basically, the daughter Soraya would do something, tell her mother she didn't, and then Nelly would come blame us. At one point Jess just lied and said she did it and she was very sorry, just to get Nelly to stop yelling at her in Spanish! This greedy, foul old woman also threatened at least once a day to raise our rent if we didn't teach her English. She knew we were teachers and at first, joked around about us teaching her. We didn't find it very jocular however, when we are paid 10,000clp an hour to teach. This is our profession! If she wanted lessons, she would need to pay for them. There was no basis of respect that would have made us feel obligated to teach her a little bit, just to be nice, or to appease her. She would demand it, in a nice or kidding sort of way. When we didn't laugh or give in, she would huff or pout until we awkwardly changed the subject. When it got to the point that she wouldn't let the subject change, and also told us she lowered our rent (see this post, back when I bargained with her for our current rent rate) I finally got the guts to tell her Listen, our fee for teaching English is 40,000 a month for one hour a week of lessons. You only lowered our rent 30,000 so if you want lessons for free, you need to lower it more. So she responded, Well I guess I just need to raise it higher then! Hahaha. To which we replied with a stony-faced silence, because this was no longer a joke, and was never funny.
     At this point, we knew we needed to get the HELL out of here. This crazy witch was clearly not adhering to the "bargain" we had agreed upon in March. I say bargain because my room is no larger than my actual bed, we have these ridiculous rules, and yet we each pay almost $450 per person per month. She reneged every single advantage or offer she made when we moved in, and still expected us to be pleased with living in this awful situation. Jess and I were stuck; on the one hand, if we tried to leave, she would no doubt keep our security deposit. On the other hand, if we stayed, we would be miserable!
     We asked our coworkers for help because we didn't know who else to turn to. One of the girls from the office actually came to our apartment to help us talk to her to explain the situation and discuss our options with her. But of course, almost as if she knew what we were planning, Nelly came home uncharacteristically early, and left about 5 minutes before Jess walked in the door with our friend. Next up we tried Andrea, the coordinator of our TeachingChile program. She came over late on Monday night to help us talk with Nelly in a civil way. Our end result was that we would stay for two weeks, until the 15th of May, because in Nelly's words it was customary to give two week's notice so she could find replacement renters (an unlikely possibility- if we can warn anyone and everyone in Santiago NOT to live with this psycho woman and her entitled brat of a daughter, we will). At the end of the two weeks, she would give us each half our deposit back. Thank God! We can't WAIT to get out of this loathsome apartment and have a little freedom! Now, we just have to go back on all the search lists and try to find a new place to live.... oy vey.

UPDATE! May 7th: We have a new place! It's a one bedroom apartment. Jess and I will be sharing a double bed, but it's only for 1 month; I think we can handle it. We move out and in on the 15th. Can't wait!!!

UPDATE! May14th: I talked to Nelly three days ago to ask that she give us our deposit on Tuesday night because we were leaving early on Wednesday evening (we have to meet the new landlady so she can let us in; it can't be too late at night). At first she said yes, but then she said what time, and when I told her 730pm, she said she would be home and that first we had to "entregar," deliver, her rooms to her in the exact condition we received them. Aka, she's going to inspect them for anything different, dirty, or wrong, and try to take money out of our deposits. I REFUSE to let her however, since the room is cleaner now that I'm living in it than it was when I moved into it. We are very nervous for Wednesday because we don't know if Andrea will be around to help if anything goes wrong, but we'll see what happens. You'll be the first fourth to know. Keep your fingers crossed for us please!

Marvelous Markets

     Today, Jess and I journeyed long and far to La Vega, the central market of Santiago. We forgot our cameras (darn it!) but I can at least tell you what we did and saw and bought (LOTS). Here's a quick breakdown:
                              32,000 Chilean pesos spent
                              6 hours of standing/walking
                              86.3lbs of baggage to carry home (I weighed it with my hand scale)
                              7.9 miles walked in total (we mapped our route on Google Maps)
                              A sunny day spent drooling in anticipation of delicious meals to be made with your                               best friend @jessica pasik?
                              PRICELESS
     Our list was mostly fruits and vegetables, though we got a little carried away adding meats, grains, and spices on there. We did end up getting a few spices- curry, oregano, and cumin, but held off on the meat thanks to our ridiculous walk home. We bought a little old lady cart for our groceries, but they wouldn't even all fit! It was crazy haha. We ended up using the nylon strap Teaching Chile gave us to prevent thieves from stealing our purses and instead used it to strap more plastic bags of food to the handle of the cart! 
     All of the produce needed to be washed, at least in our paranoid minds. TeachingChile told us anything that grows on or close to the ground needs to be soaked in chlorine (a special bottled chemical rinse here) for 5 minutes before being eaten to kill off bacteria in the irrigation water. In spite of the fact that we were going to cook pretty much all of it, we decided to soak everything; we don't need any parasites getting us sick! Tomorrow we'll start to plan out our menu list. Can't wait!
     We went for the vegetables first in our plan of attack; they would be the heaviest and would need to go on the bottom. I'll ask Jess for the price list later because even that deserves to be shared! Just for comparison, we got 3 kilos of potatoes for I think 2,000 pesos. That's roughly $4. FOUR DOLLARS for 6.6 pounds of potatoes. WHAT?! This market was crazy. The prices were so low, and it was so crowded, so noisy, so smelly. But it was so exciting too, and we can't wait to go again! (Though we should probably eat all we have first...)

Volcanic expeditions and serious physical exertion in Pucón

Bumbling Buses

     I would like to take a moment in time to describe the bus system of Santiago to you, since it's so near and dear to my heart. As a serious commuter here, I take different buses to each and every one of my classes. The buses are fairly large, generally cleaner than in America, and have tons of poles, manillos- handles, and pasamanos- railings to grab onto (you know, for when the bus driver instead of slowing down, randomly stomps the brakes six times to get to the red light). The Santiago bus system is VERY comprehensive and when aided by Google maps, it's actually really easy to find how to get where you want to go. My friend Chelsie showed me even more invaluable information, on the website transantiago.cl. From here, I can find the names of all the bus stops and therefore figure out when mine is coming up.
     The bus drivers are much less consistent than the actual system. Sometimes they're super nice, especially if they realize you're a gringo. Other times, they are really nasty and won't even respond to you. Once, the disgruntled driver didn't respond when I asked him to let me know when my stop was, so I was counting the stops when suddenly he yelled out, La gringa! ven acá! (American girl, come here!) He then proceeded to grumble to me that my stop was the next one, which I had already pressed the stop button for. I thanked him and got off at my street. However, they ALL will allow at least one person to get on the bus without paying the fare. We use electronic "BIP" cards here, and all you have to do is swipe them in front of a machine in order to pay your way. They give off a loud beep and turn green when you're good to go, but when you don't have enough credit left, they beep differently and turn red. If they discover they don't have enough left on the BIP card, most of the Chileans just say permiso or discupla (both mean some form of Excuse me) and keep on walking. The bus driver usually lets them go without a word. I think it's a very trusting system that hopes that people will be honest enough not to do this every single day on different buses. I haven't had to do this yet, but I pray that I will get the nice bus driver that day! The bus drivers also allow performers on the buses for free.
    This "entertainment" may include singers, musicians, poets, and the occasional political clown. The other day I had two clowns in full makeup on my bus, joking about different political parties and problems here in Chile. They were talking extremely fast so I had a hard time understanding them, but they got the most tips I've ever seen a performer collect on a bus in the whole time I've travelled here. My favorite performance is when someone tries to sing an American or English song and they mess up the words and no one notices but me :)
     Next, I have to bring up rush hour. The worst words in a commuter's vocabulary. Well aside from, The bus is gone, or I lost my ticket, or something like that. Rush hour in Santiago is INSANE. Here's what it looks like on the metro:
And here's what it can look like on the bus:
     The buses are only slightly better, because I am usually early enough onto the bus that I can get a spot near a door and there is wind when the bus moves, keeping most, um, smells, at bay. Rush hour can start at any time; I've been on a bus one day at 6pm and it's fine, but the next day at 6 it moves half as fast and there are twice as many people. On top of that, Chileans have no qualms about encroaching on personal space. If there is a spot behind you, they will squeeze themselves in there and not mind that they're breathing onto your neck, or sneezing on your shoulder, or pulling you with them because they're getting off and there's nowhere else for you to go. I find that the best way to deal with what could be such stressful commuting is to laugh. I get stressed out very easily, but I realized the only way to deal with someone sitting on your leg or grabbing your arm instead of the railing after a particularly hard jolt is to laugh and move on. You'll get off eventually; and if you miss your stop, the next one is coming and hey, you got a little extra exercise haha.
   To end on a light note, I have to explain the bonus that the buses give. If you are travelling on the metro before the bus, you can ride two consecutive buses(different buses, with different route numbers) for free within two hours of getting on the metro. The same goes for, I believe, three buses; you only pay for the first one and if you can catch two within 2 hours, you don't have to pay. You still swipe your card but the machine tells you 0 pesos have been charged. This is particularly enjoyable when you have a class for only an hour. If you can time it right, you can get on 45 minutes before class, get to class, teach, and run to the next bus stop to get back on by the time 2 hours is up. Though it doesn't always work out because maybe a bus is running late and doesn't make it in your time frame, it's a nice surprise when it all works out. I asked someone once why you have to take different buses each time, and they told me because the bonus is not meant to get you somewhere and back, it's meant to help people who have to go so far in one direction that they HAVE to take 3 separate buses, or the metro and two more buses. Good job, Chile, this is an awesome program I wish we had back in Manhattan haha.

Profound Discoveries

    Since I'm on this new walking kick, I convinced Jess to meet me at a halfway point between where we're each staying now, which happened to be near to the Plaza de Pedro de Valdivia. On my way there, I stumbled across two awesome little places. One was a weird nautical-looking restaurant that you couldn't see into (but you could if you reached your camera over the wall, haha). A man nearby saw me taking pictures and explained that it was a casino and club for sailors and men in the Navy when they returned home for a break. How nice!

  

The second find I made was this beautiful building right across the street: 

 Apparently made in 1897...

 That looked like this inside:

Gorgeous! It was such an opulent house (mansion?) and I was just spying through the doors when a lady told me to come in. She gave me a private tour of the place, for free! Only the first floor, but that was awe-inspiring enough for one visit. A famous family named Falabella (yes after the store chain haha) was the first to inhabit this luxurious home, though now it is used for different municipal purposes, mainly meetings. There was a salon for the men to meet and discuss important matters, while the women had their own to do their hair and wear dresses in. Almost all of the materials you see are originals, the floors, wood, the rugs, the statues and carvings. It was wonderful to walk through. A real treasure of Santiago.
     Finally, I tore myself away from the lavish house and ran to meet Jess, arriving at the park at the same time as she. And what a pretty little park it is! It even had this awesome kiosk, where they had books, magazines, and newspapers seemingly for temporary check-out and free wifi (SCORE!)

 Sadly, we hadn't thought to bring our iPhones 

to snapchat everyone. Thankfully, I did bring my 

digital camera, whereupon we commenced the 

jumping pictures, photoshoots in random

places, and macro-shoots of ALL the flowers. My "discovery" stems from this stupendous Macro function where you get to shove your camera waaaay into a flower's personal space and take out of this world pictures of them. While I restrained myself a bit and mostly took pictures with Jess, once she left and I walked home, I shot as many pictures as I could of any different flower, and some seeds, around me.
     We had a lovely time in the plaza and after we exhausted our photographic capabilities, we sat and read or wrote for a while. I currently have two lonely Good Housekeeping magazines down here with me (shoutout to Aunt Cacky; thanks!) but am already almost finished with them and am so sad. If anyone out there has homey, cooking, food, cleaning, organizing, Real Simple-y, mom, or any other magazine of that kind and is finished with them, I would love your recyclables ;) After I finish, if I can part with them, I'm going to donate them to my office so other language teachers can enjoy them on the bus or bring them to class to use as American realia (real life language material from an authentic source). We caved and got Pizza Hut for a late lunch; it was delicious, though still not quite as good as authentic American Pizza Hut.
     The one dark spot on what was a lovely day, I feel I must bring up because I would like to ask all of you your opinion on it. When the older gentleman earlier explained what the sailor's club was, he kept walking with me for a bit to chat, and while I was polite, I didn't stick around long because one I had to meet Jess, and two, I am still a bit over-cautious when talking to men down here in South America. Later on, I felt badly that I had been so judgmental regarding this kind old man who probably was just curious about me, being the foreigner that I am. So, when I walked back and saw an old man sitting in the same place, wearing a similar shirt, I thought it was the same guy and I said Hello, how are you? He asked me to sit down and I thought, 'oh fine, I was mean before. Ok, what could it hurt'. We had a nice conversation for a few minutes, talking about where I'm from and what I'm doing here, etc. He punctuated it with kind, but slightly awkward remarks about how pretty I was, to which I responded with Oh haha, thank you. Then, we talked about him and his family a bit, until suddenly, (it's always suddenly) he asked me to kiss him. I mean, really? What am I missing about these other cultures that I didn't see that coming. Granted it was actually a different guy than earlier (oops, my bad) but why do men have to be weird like this? Now I feel justified at being standoffish to the first man, even though he was nicer and not creepy like the second man was. If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear some other opinions.
   Anyway, enough with my ranting. Overall, it was a lovely Sunday, and I'm glad Jess and I enjoyed our afternoon in the sun. What did you all do with your Sundays? Let me know :) ¡Chao!

Fantasizing about Food

Nothing huge to report this week. I had my classes, planned my lessons, did a whole lot of walking, and ate boring meals.
        As this was my first week in my new apartment, I did realize that it's only a 30 minute walk from my office, so guess who's now going to save metro card money and burn off calories every day?! :D I found that I like walking here, as long as it's not desperately sunny or really hot. I've gotten lots of color and even lost some weight since!! Though that won't last long if I keep eating my Easter huevos (eggs) that I got during rebajas (sales). I wouldn't call 30% much of a sale, but maybe they're not as awesome as we are back home in terms of liquidating holiday candy.
    My meals this week have been sub-par, in spite of the significant hours I have spent online on Pinterest, Real Simple and most recently on Chrissy Teigen's food blog. Let me tell you, she is one hysterical chick! Mostly my excuses stem from not wanting to spend cash/ not having any left before my paycheck on Friday and not feeling like cooking anything without Jess here. (Btw, she is a PHENOMENAL writer, check our her Chile blog too!) I'm too unmotivated on my own :/ But, she'll be here in one more week, so until then I'll stick with my garlic-and-whatever-kind-of-pasta-is-left-in-my-grocery-bag dinner.
     In terms of cashing my check, the process was relatively simple, but longer than I expected. Fellow Chilean teachers, when your check is ready, haul your butt over to the office and then immediately to Santander around the corner! We waited in line about a half hour, just to cash our checks. Luckily, we didn't have to say anything to the cashier, because I had a little moment of blind panic right before my turn (Oh god, how do you say cash a check? I want money? Give me cash?? HOW DO YOU EVEN SAY CHECK?!?!? it's cheque fyi. Hence, the unnecessary panic.) The only thing I even needed to respond with was whether I wanted it in 10,000 peso bills or 20. When we have a full paycheck, I recommend 20 people. That's a lot of tens otherwise... Done with my turn, I of course didn't want the teller to think I didn't trust her, so I moved to the little mini desks before I re-counted the money on my own (yes she counted it in front of me, yes I am paranoid you're right. That's why I wore my lame gringo money belt under my shirt and tucked the shirt into my belt when I was done hiding all that cash away. My thin cotton fabric tank top WILL prevent robbers from stealing my salary!) The best part was I had already forgotten the amount on the check so as to the number I was trying to check, I don't even know anymore. It was Friday, give me a break.
     And now this post is much longer than I intended it to be, huh. Go me! Enjoy your weekends everyone and know that I slaved away on my Saturday night in to write this for you all ;)

The Suite Life of Deirdre and Jess

     Ok, so it's not exactly a hotel suite or anything, but it's mine! My own little room, a space to call my own, my own little corner with my own little chair (actually there's no chair-it wouldn't fit!), whatever other clichés or songs you want to throw in, put them in the comments please :)
     Last night, I officially moved into my new room, and while it's tiny, one of my FAVORITE things to do, as anyone who has ever met me knows, is organizing. Thus, my Easter Sunday evening was spent arranging and rearranging my little closet in my room, and putting toiletries into my personal bathroom. It's funny that so few people have their own bathroom to themselves, especially in their early twenties like me, and yet, this is the second time in my life I've had my own private bathroom. I have to say, it's like a little slice of Heaven :)

 
  On another note, I'd like to take a minute to discuss some culture. Coming from America, it is easy to think how much stuff we have, how much space we need, and how we can't live without this or that. One thing I've noticed in my many travels is how little you actually need. Granted it's very comfortable to have extra toiletries and a plethora of clothing options, but when I was in the hostel, I kept all my things locked in my suitcases and basically lived off of about a dozen pieces of clothing for a month. It's boring, but it's what worked. Now I find myself in a new bedroom (just as small as the hostel interestingly enough), and while at first I was worried because I couldn't fit myself and my two giant suitcases into the room at once, I am organizing and spreading out and I find that I can occupy this space and still have room for more! While my closet at home is huge (a half-walk-in that I share with my sister, and we still think isn't big enough to breathe in), my closet here is a quarter of the size, and I am lacking things to put in it. I know one of my quirks is packing as much as possible into as small a space as possible, with occasional spatial-relations-problems (thanks Mom ;) ) but I guess what I'm trying to say is to appreciate what you have and work with what you've got, because you can do a lot more with the space you have than you may think! And if you ever have any creative problems, just do what I do and troll through realsimple.com for some tips and ideas!