Mayonnaise, cigarettes, and lots of beer

There's too many things to say and I don't feel like going too in-depth, so I'll just provide a bullet list of observations. Except it won't be in bullet form because thanks to the EFFING formatting issues that blogger.com has, I've worked on this post for probably over 3 hours now. 

Chileans put mayonnaise on EVERYTHING. Bread, pasta, tomatoes, everything. It's kind of alarming. Granted it's not the same as gross U.S. mayonnaise, but to see it in such quantities on half the food that is served to you definitely falls under the umbrella of culture shock. 

Mineral water. Besides tap, that is all they have here. Which shocked me, until I realized that the U.S. definition of mineral water actually means carbonated water. Still, it's not a guarantee in all stores that you will be able to find water "sin gas" (without gas) because "con gas" is definitely the more preferred option. 

Everyone peels their tomatoes here. No matter what. And no one knows why they do it, they just do. A peeled tomato seems somehow naked though, so I defiantly leave mine unaccosted. 

There's a river that runs through Santiago. It's called the Mapocho River. It's kind of like the Seine, except 10 times more disgusting.

Everyone in Chile smokes. And there are no smoke alarms so they all smoke inside. And it's a completely normal occurrence to see a mother smoking and holding her month old baby. Although the tobacco lobby isn't as strong here as it is in the States because all cigarettes packs sold in Chile are almost completely covered in death warnings. It's something to think about when you bring the pack up to your face to shield your light from the wind and end up staring at a dying man. Or at the word "MATA" in giant letters.

First picture: In Chile, tobacco kills 16,000 people every year. You could be next. 
Second picture: Tobacco KILLS. If you want to live, stop smoking.

Barbecues are a way of life in Chile during the summer. If you have any sort of social life you can expect to be invited or to be hosting them every single weekend. I went to one this Friday and it was a lot of fun. A lot more red meat than I was used to, and a lot of smoking around pregnant women, but all in all the company was very interesting. Chileans do tend to slur even more when drunk though, so I gave up on understanding anything after a while and plastered that smile on my face that tells everyone I'm a foreigner. 

Just had amazing tacos with my host mom. After, we drank wine and smoked and ranted about everything in the world, including politics, silly Americans, and marriage. For several hours. I love that I live with a ranter. On a slightly related note, Chile's first woman president has several former marriages under her belt and is an agnostic. And she was elected. Is this an awesome country? I think so. 

A few pictures:

A pretty church outside of the police station where I spent all of that lovely time last week.



















A statue. And a crane. Lots of cranes in Santiago.

A zoo that I have yet to visit but which has amazing trees.

A street in Bella Vista that seems to only have bars. Pretty awesome though.



















The bar that I went to with my cultural group. Some men sitting next to us decided that I always had to join them for their toasts. Consequently, I got thoroughly drunk.

My brother told me that I look really cute on the webcam, exactly like "Bubby", his class hamster. 

Chau!