Time for a BIG update

This weekend my friend Teressa, who works at the hostel, and I were getting restless and jumped on a bus to the beach towns of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. Vina is the nicer, more expensive sister city to Valparaiso. Before the Panama Canal, Valparaiso was one of the worlds largest ports. Below are pictures of the beach at Vina Del Mar, the huge casino in Vina and the city of Valparaiso.

They Say running a mile in Santiago is like smoking a pack of cigarettes

In one of my last posts I had mentioned how Santiago reminded me of Los Angeles. Yesterday two friends of mine and I took a gondola up a hill called Cerro San Cristobal which is right next to the city. It was about 75 degrees out and we could not see the end of the city because there was so much smog. The city has 6.4 million inhabitants that live in a valley.

Wow.

Its been a while since I've last posted and man has a lot gone down. I have started teaching English in town and the picture above is where my first class was located. On the 20th floor is Ernst & Young, an accounting firm.

I had interviews at 5 different institutes in town.

I have had offers from several companies that I interviewed and and am now teaching freelance for several. I'll post more pictures of the people that I'm teaching soon.

Here is a picture of Burford English Institute, one of the institutes that I teach for.

I have also been meeting some really cool friends in town. I don't have any pictures of them to post but a bunch of friends are coming over tonight so I'll take some pictures.

Job Hunting in a Foreign Country

To tell you the truth is was kinda intimidating hitting the streets in a foreign country looking for work. I found all of the language schools in Santiago in the white pages, found where they were on a map and went door to door trying to sell myself. In all I stopped by 7 schools and by the end of the day got called back for two interviews. I went to the interviews and they seemed like they went well. They pay is decent. All of these companies send their English teachers out into companies who subcontract them. I'll get paid depending on how far away the job is. I'll be averaging around 10 USD per hour...not bad. The picture above is the view from one of the schools that I interviewed at.

I met some really cool people while I was out. I stopped in one office that was run by a guy who studied at the University of Colorado. He was really helpful in pointing me in the right direction. He told me how much I should be working for and which schools to steer clear from. He found out that I was a Christian and invited me to their English speaking mens Bible study. I'm going to show up this Monday but I have a feeling that I'm going to be the youngest guy there.

The CITY

Yesterday I walked all over the city in search of Havianas sandals. They are really popular in other parts of South America....but I couldn't find any here in Santiago. I think its because Summer is almost over. While I was scouring the city I took some pictures of the graffiti and the socialist propaganda.
You can see more at http://www.flickr.com/photos/xjamesax/

Santiago!

I've made the move and am now living in Santiago Chile. I worked out a sweet deal here in town and am working 18 hours a week cleaning a hostel in exchange for free room board and breakfast. You can check out the hostel at www.hostaldesammy.com My day has consisted of getting ready, eatting breakfast and exploring the city.

Yesterday I went to one of the centeral markets called El Mercado Venga. Dont be fooled by the pictures. The market is located in the oldest neighborhood in town and it looks like mexico or a third world country. I'll post pictures of other parts of the town later this week. Its very clean...aside from the grifitti. It reminds me a lot of Los Angeles. The city is very spread out and has a lot of smog.

Monday I will be walking around town handing out my resume to the English schools.I bought a cell phone down here so if anyone wants to suprise me and give me a ring the number is 6-253-6049.

I'm here!!!

Hello everyone,

I sent out invitations to follow this blog on facebook and got an overwhelming response. After traveling something around 20 hours I arrived in Buenos Aires. In the Washington DC airport I was holding my breath because there were 18 people trying to get on the plane stand by. Where was I in the line of 18? I took the scary position of #15. After a lot of sweating and praying my name was called for a seat.

It turned out that I was seated next to a lady from Paraguay who didn’t speak a word of English.

Getting off of the plane was a shock in itself. I went from 30 degree weather in Colorado to 85 degrees here in South America. I grabbed my carryon bags and headed for customs and immigration. Standing in the hour and a half line to get my passport stamped I started talking to people around me. I met two super cool guys who were staying at the same hostel that I was. Adam was from New Zealand and had been working on the Colorado Ski slopes for the last three months and Tommy was from some small Celtic nation in the UK. We ordered a taxi and were off to the center of Buenos Aires.

On the short ride from the airport to the city center I could tell that I was going to love this city. It’s a mix of European architecture and Latin culture.
We checked into out hostel, secured out things and were off exploring the city. We walked 8 blocks to La Casa Rosario where Evita Paron addressed her people upon her return. Right next to the Casa Rosario is a huge cathedral. What I found interesting was at the very front of the church where Jesus Christ usually is portrayed on a cross they had a huge statue of Mary instead with a little statue of Jesus under her.

We explored the city for hours and by the end our feet were so tired we were forced to go back to the hostel. We met some girls from the UK during the day and ended up going out do dinner with them and some of their friends.

I ended the night chatting and drinking beer on a rooftop terrace under the stars in the warm air with people from Brazil, New Zealand and the UK....Man this is what living is about.

Click here to see some more pics from the day.