Chorrillana: The Ultimate in After-Hours Dining

I've recently developed a love/hate relationship with one of the most insane dishes I have ever eaten in my life - the chorrillana - so I feel the need to devote at least a couple paragraphs of this blog to this issue.

My first encounter with a chorrillana happened at about 4 a.m. on a Saturday in a greasy spoon restaurant ("fuente de soda" - Chilean style) after a long night out on the town. Brooke, our Chilean friend Francisco and I were looking for a little something to snack on to soak up the beverages we'd been consuming all night, and since there's no 24-hour drive-thru McDonald's in Santiago (BUMMER), we ended up just wandering around the streets trying to find a place that served up some tasty options.

We randomly walked into a restaurant that served your typical, cheap Chilean fare (ham and cheese sandwiches called "barros jarpa," disgusting hot dogs covered in avocado, tomato and mayo called "completo italiano," sliced beef sandwiches with various toppings called "churrasco," etc.) and began scoping out the menu when Francisco suggested we share a chorrillana. I had never heard of it before but was enticed when he described it as "french fries with a bunch of stuff on it" ... and he wasn't kidding.

The waitress set a heaping plate in front of us and it took Brooke and I a few minutes to figure out what we were looking at: a HUGE pile of fries covered with slices of sausage and hot dogs, some kind of beef, onions, and a couple fried eggs plopped on the top. Francisco proceeded to soak a section with mustard and dive right in, so Brooke and I followed suit.

It was INSANELY good ... at the moment. The fries were the perfect amount of crunchy and soggy, the sausage was spicy, the meat was juicy, the eggs added no flavor whatsoever but they looked cool, and I don't do hot dogs but I assume they were delicious as well.

We scarfed that thing down right quick, paid our bill, and headed out feeling extremely satisfied. Just about the time our taxi pulled up to the "residencia" where I lived, I started feeling the after-effects of my new favorite late-night munchie. I'll let you all draw your own conclusions on that one.

When I woke up the next morning I made a promise to myself to never again eat a chorrillana: a vow that lasted a solid 3 weeks.

Your typical Chilean chorrillana in all it's greasy glory.

The chorrillana makes an appearance at Steve's birthday party!

More amazing student feedback!

This week my intermediate class has been focusing on the "simple past tense" (I ate, I laughed, I went, etc.) so I gave them a couple questions to answer using what they learned - what was your best vacation and what was your most embarrassing moment? My favorite responses:

1. My favorite vacation was two years ago in Valparaiso with my crew. We was around eighty graffiti writers on vacation. We stayed there for one and a half weeks painting all days during the morning and afternoon. Later we came back to the house for eat and drink, smoke, listen music, etc. On the night we went outside to find a good bar and know girls. This vacation was very rad!
(Every week I teach the students a new American slang word, and a couple weeks ago it was "rad." Extra points for this student!!)

2. My most embarrassing moment was when my brother down my pants in front of all people in a party. The people laughed and me too.

3. My most embarrassing moment was when I put the swimsuit on in the beach, rolled with towels, and falling saw my ass.

4. My most embarassing moment was when I walked in the streets of Maipu and two children ran grasping my bubbies (meaning boobies??).

5. My most embarrassing moment was the last summer I went to the beach and drink ron (rum) silver and I off TV and throw up. The next day I didn't get up for my bed.
("To turn of the TV" is Chilean slang for blacking out from drinking too much).

Broke as a joke

Cashed my first Chilean paycheck on Friday! And what a process it was ... ugh. Rushed home after work since the bank by my house is open until 4 (most close at 2) and found myself in a line literally 100 people deep. And in typical Chilean fashion, no one was moving all too quickly. At 4 pm on the dot a security guard locked the doors and wouldn't allow about 10 people to come in who had arrived just a few seconds too late. One gentleman was not having it, though, and spent the next 30 minutes yelling at the security guard through the glass and dramatically sliding his hands down the door. Didn't work out in his favor.

OVER AN HOUR LATER I finally got to the window, and after being fingerprinted and signing my paycheck in a couple really random places, I was handed a HUGE wad of bills ... definitely a little scary having to carry around all that money. Foreigners aren't allowed to open bank accounts (I don't fully understand why) so I guess I'll have to hide it all in my mattress every month?

We're paid 335,000 pesos every month - roughly $700 - but I think I'll be able to live pretty comfortably on that here ... or at least I will once I find an apartment. Brooke and I decided to stick around our "residencia" another month, thinking we would be paying 190,000 ($400), but the owner decided to surprise us and charge us 50,000 more pesos. I'm paying more here than I did for my apartment in Iowa City. RIDICULOUS. We have to supply our own sheets, pots and pans, and even toilet paper ... we're essentially paying $500 a month for a place to sleep.

So that leaves me with a whopping 95,000 pesos ($200) to live off of for the month. With about $30-40 of that going towards transportation and $20 for cell phone expenses, I'm going to have to get creative with budgeting for food and entertainment. Good thing pisco's only about $3 a bottle!

Chileans wear the darndest things!

Spotted on the bus today: A middle-aged man wearing a t-shirt that read (in English):

"My most secret fantasy is to have 2 men - 1 who cooks and 1 who cleans."

Not only was it in pink lettering, but this t-shirt was freshly pressed, tucked into a pair of khakis, and held into place by a belt.

It was clear homeboy had NO idea what his shirt said ... so of course Betsy and I were cracking up like a bunch of 2 year olds and almost had to get off the bus before our stop.

Makes me wonder what all those Chinese symbols t-shirts from back in the day really say ...

3 things ...

During the first week of class I had all my students write down 3 things (in English) they want to learn in class this semester. About 90% of them went the uncreative route and wrote speak, write and understand English better, but I also had a a few gems scattered in the pile, such as ...

- Drive an airplane
- Play golf
- Dancing
- Work the ear
- Make dialogue, very much
- I want to learn to conversation fluid with my friends
- I want to learn sing
- I want to learn pronounce
- Drives motocicle

and my favorite ...

- I want to learn a domination this world.

Not sure how to plan a lesson for that one but I'm open to suggestions.

Near death experience

So the title may be slightly misleading, but I had an interesting experience on Thursday night. Brooke, Betsy (an American friend and fellow Plaza Oeste teacher), and I met up with a few of my Chilean friends on the metro to head out for the night. It was peak night hours and the metro was PACKED, so it was incredibly hot, stuffy, and uncomfortable. At one of the stops a guy who was standing behind me stepped on the back of my foot and proceeded to tear off a huge blister I had on the back of my ankle. He said "excuse me" (in English - how did he know??) but the damage had been done. My popped blister started gushing blood and pooling underneath my heel. For anyone who knows me, I have a tiiiiiiiiiny issue when it comes to seeing blood - aka I pass out when I get my finger pricked. As soon as I saw the blood I knew I was in for it.


Everyone I was with could tell I was not ok and offered to get off with me at the next stop ... and thank God I did. Right before the doors opened I started seeing colors and everything got really blurry ... I had to hang on to Brooke who led me to the stairs leading out of the metro station. As if that weren't enough, Brooke also took a Kleenex and cleaned all the blood off the back of my ankle. WHAT A FRIEND!


So I was sitting on the metro steps, sweating PROFUSELY, trying to catch my breath while Brooke was wiping at the blood in my shoe when the cutest little lady ran over to help me. She was a metro worker and couldn't have been more than 5 feet tall. She had me put my head between my legs and breath slowly, then took me to her office and gave me some (warm) water. After a few minutes I was feeling a lot better, so after giving her ALL my information (seriously, it was everything short of my bra size - no idea why she needed it either) I headed back to where everyone was waiting.

Now I bring an economy-sized pack of bandaids and bottled water with me during peak metro hours. Yikes.

Just call me "profe" ...

WHAT. A. WEEK. After 2 hectic weeks of "training," all us gringos were thrown into the classroom on Monday to start our new "careers" as English teachers. A couple things wrong with this situation: Monday morning on our way to campus none of us had our schedules, class lists, lesson book, and we didn't even know what level of Engish we were going to be teaching (it ranges from basic to accelerated advanced). Our coordinator conveniently missed our meeting on Friday when we were supposed to find out all these things and instead just e-mailed us and told us to meet on campus at 8:30 a.m. - and also that 4 of us would be teaching first thing in the morning. Wonderful.

Brooke and I, along with 3 other Americans, are teaching at the DuocUC Plaza Oeste campus which is in Maipú (yes, it's pronounced like THAT ... you can imagine how much fun we've been having with that name) ... wayyyyyyy southwest of the city center. We take a combination of metro and "micro" (city bus) to get there ... a nice little hour and a half ride through some of the poorest parts of Santiago. And I thought my 30 minute commute to West Liberty was a lot! What's even better is that on days I have to teach at 8:30 a.m., I leave for the metro around 6:45 a.m. when it's still pitch black outside!

So we all get there Monday and get our schedules ... mine is by far the best of all the Americans. I teach 5 classes, 1 basic and 4 intermediate. I have weekends and Tuesdays off, and work 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. on Mondays and Thursdays, and have 4 classes in a row on Wednesdays and Fridays from 8:30-2:30. Not too bad except for the whole waking up when it's still night and having to teach for 6 hours straight thing. One of my collegues got completely screwed over and works at 8:30 a.m. every morning, has between an 8-10 hour break, and then has a night class which goes until 10:30 p.m. every night. His choice is either to stay in Maipú the whole time or do the 3 hour round trip commute twice a day. We've been told over and over that it is not safe to stay in that area at night, plus the bus ride to the metro can take up to 45 minutes and the metro closes at 11 p.m. Needless to say he is not a happy camper and is likely switching campuses within the next week ... I don't blame him.

After pulling my first lesson out of nowhere, we come to find out that our coordinator has decided to quit. No real surprise there! Clearly this is why he gave us no direction ... he knew he was getting outta there! So that was the icing on the cake after a MAD MAD MAD MAD MAD week!

The upside to all this is I LOVE MY STUDENTS! Most range from 19-22, but I have a couple students in their mid-to-late 30's as well. The DuocUC campus we're at specializes in majors like automechanics, industrial engineering, graphic design, etc. ... very "male" oriented careers ... and I have a total of 3 girls in my 5 classes.

For the most part my students are really excited about learning English. One student came up to me after class and talked my ear off about how a couple weeks ago he was dreading English class, and then he met a German guy at the train station who spoke 3 languages and he was so inspired, etc. etc. etc. Granted he told me this while speak 100 mph, slang-ridden, mumbly Chilean Spanish, so I could be wrong :)

Although last week was a disorganized disaster, I was able to pull together some really fun lessons and I feel like my students really learned a lot! No word on who our new coordinator will be, but I'll be getting my book on Monday and have a really great lesson outline now. YIKES, I thought I was getting into this English teaching gig to avoid the "real world" and a "real job!!!"

:/

Sorry I've been neglecting this blog but it's been a craaaaazy week! I will update this weekend ... or possibly before.

Ocupada, ocupada, ocupada ....

I finally have a little time to blog! We have been super busy this week but it's been so much fun! Lots of "cultural" training going on .. toured one of Pablo Neruda's houses ("La Chascona"), visited a Mapuche cultural center, learned all about the chilean educational system, etc. Of course we've done some of our own "cultural" training by hitting some bars and clubs and socializing with the locals! :) I've also met up with a few Chilean friends I've kept in contact with which has been SO great!

Next week starts our DuocUC training, meaning we'll be finding out our schedules and seeing the campuses and figuring out how to plan a lesson ... apparently it's pretty intense and I'm kind of nervous!

It's been really easy for me to get back into the "Chilean way of life." My Spanish is coming along a lot better than I expected ... I feel comfortable speaking and haven't had too much difficulty with comprehension. That's not to say I don't have a ways to go before I will consider myself to be fluent, but I think I'm doing pretty good. I also love that fact that Chileans are never on time ... I fit right in! AND I've already lost a couple pounds, which is rad, since the Chileans here have a much smarter eating schedule - normal breakfast, big lunch, small dinner (called "onces") - and because I've been walking all over the place.

Definitely ready for a free weekend! Tonight I'm meeting up with a couple other Chilean friends I haven't seen yet and plan on spending all day at the pool tomorrow, followed by a barbecue (called "asados" - they're really popular here and usually turn into quite the social gathering). Rough life!

We're here!!

Arrived safely in Santiago yesterday around 3 p.m. ... everything went very smoothly except for about a 2 hour delay in Toronto - some minor leak or something. Spent the rest of the afternoon in Santiago relaxing in our hotel, walking around a little bit, and drinking pisco sours while watching the Oscars. Good day!

Today we had lunch with the rest of our American group, had a short group orientation/meeting, and I got my cell phone recharged. So if you have a phone card (or an international plan) you can reach me on my cell by calling 011-569-8-468-5754 ... yeahhh!

That's all for now!

In case you didn't know ...

I figured most of you have an idea of what I'm doing down south but I thought I'd give a super quick run-down just in case ...

So I'm moving to Santiago, Chile to teach English at DuocUC, a division of la Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile from early March to late December 2009. My good friend, Brooke Palmer, will also be moving down there with me ... we've been planning this since last fall and it's so surreal that we're leaving in just a couple days!

That's about it ... working, traveling, improving my Spanish, meeting new people, etc.! But first, time to pack.