A comment on Chilean lifestyle

There are many similarities to life in Chile and the US, and some specific differences. Coming to Chile I was informed of the overall relaxed feel of the people here, and have come to find this relaxed feeling is pervasive in daily life. But its somewhat of a different type of relaxed feeling than what I am used to. For example: One of my classes here didn't start until a month into the semester, the intramural sports didn't start until two months into the semester, it took two in a half months to get student IDs, and so on. For things like that, I feel that is more inefficiency than relaxation, but thats probably just my "new england" "busy body" personality coming out.

And man, talking to my friends from all over the US, its a different world out there. To me, the space in between the coasts is a big mystery. Thats on my list to see, as it sounds a completely different world to what I'm used to.

If there is a problem in the US, even something minor, lets say like a bad smell on a random corner on the street, people complain, someone is brought in, and the problem is solved. Here, if there is a bad smell on the corner, people just deal with it and stop noticing(and don't mind it anymore either). It seems that in the US we have a very "fix the problem" attitude" but here they have a much stronger "deal with the problem" attitude. And interesting different that pervades much of society.

The city of Valparaiso is growing on me, each time I go there I get a better and better feeling of the city, seeing less of its dirt, and more of its culture. Getting a photo album up soon. The art in the city really is amazing, its tough to get a comprehensive collection of the city, as its kinda more of a style than a specific mural or two. Because there are thousands of murals it seems.

Also, I don't really notice the graffiti here anymore, almost ignoring it and seeing only the murals. Kinda cool. There isn't much that doesn't have graffiti. Buildings, walls, trash cans, rocks, trees, aloe vera plants, and so much more.

We had a chile versus extranjeros(internationals) soccer match the other night. You would assume it would be a blow out, right? wrong. We won the first game, 7-6, and then continued to plan a best-to-two-switch-out style game which was harder to keep track of winning. (there were three teams at the point, so whoever one the best to twos stayed on while the other switched) While I believe that we ended up winning more, our chilean friends have been talking trash that they won more. So its on again this coming week.
I, just as you, am surprised that we won. It was futbolito(meaning basketball sized field, five on five). We had two kids who played in high school on their teams, but the other three of us haven't played much at all. I guess what surprised me is their lack of "inherent" soccer skills as the stereotype declares. If chileans were to come to america, aside from the slaughter that would happen in baseball, I feel we could "naturally" hold a strong job with basketball across the board. As in, people who really don't play hoops, would be pretty good- or inherently better than those who are from Latin America. Perhaps I am just promoting stereotypes, but I'll do some more research and find out.

I went to a chilean soccer game today, Everton vs. hm.. a team from the south of chile. Everton is the team from Vina, a generally upper middle level team(as in quality and skill). They won three to two, it was a pretty fun experiance, and cost only five bucks or so. Similarities to american sports:
Dudes walking around selling stuff: while I didn't hear the typical "ice cold beer here!" yell, I did see the same type of vendors running around the stands. Also, there was no beer sold there. Also, not ridiculously overpriced, only a little bit overpriced.
Like in college football games, there were kids playing soccer(would be football in the us) in the space in between the field and the stands. An interesting symmetry.

Differences: There were a lot of cops there- and not just in uniform. They kinda of reminded me of Master chief from Halo- some(not all) wore full body armor, helmet and the works with a billy club that was attached to the wrist. Kinda intense, and pretty sweet looking. There were lots of cops there.
There were talls fences with barbed wire seperating the field from the stands. There were two sets of fences with barbed wire(and a row of cops) separating the away team fans from the home team. I saw a few people run over and yell something at the other team, but there were no real issues. And there were always a few master chiefs around anyway.
Soccer fans, at least here, were a bit crazier, but not ridiculously so as I had been lead on to believe. I'll definitely go to more games, its was a good time, and now Everton has qualified for the playoffs, so we'll see how far they go. Also, I think we're going to try to go to the Bolivia-Chile game in June in Santiago, so that should be a cool experience.

Plans for the future: Hmm... theres some sort of race in Vina this coming sunday I'm planning on running, not sure how long it is yet. Just be running for fun anywho. Que mas... nothing for now.
-Brian