There is nothing quite like the taste of freshly-brewed Chilean bureaucracy. I have paid two visits to the central police station, three to my local civil registry, waited in queues for hours... and I still don't have my ID card. The British Council told me that the phrase "patience is a virtue" would be the understatement of the century out here, but ay caramba - this is just taking the piss. Even yesterday, when I went to change my flight, I had to wait around for an hour as apparently there were problems with "el sistema" and my card. Oh, and did I forget to mention that my university might not be able to pay me? D'oh!
Aside from that, I seem to have oodles of free time. My timetable consists of barely more than 10 hours per week, all from Monday to Wednesday. Yes, that means I have four-day weekends. Also, some of the teachers I've been assigned to appear less than overjoyed to have a native speaker assisting them - several times I've been told that I'm not "needed". So, I've decided to pester other teachers and have my very own office hours so that any students needing help can find me easily. That, and join a gym/sit in on english lit & spanish classes/do some voluntary work/save the children/rainforest. Not necessarily in that order.
Last weekend, I was invited to a Chilean "carrete" (a word that can mean many things - party/shindig/outing, in this case it was a flatwarming). This involved yum food, mucho banter with plenty of slang or "chilenismos" thrown in - half the time I didn't know exactly what I was laughing at but hey, it was hilarious! - and an extremely tuneful (ahem) karaoke session. We sang our hearts out to the Beatles, Aerosmith and some mega-popular Argentinian rock band called Soda Stereo, who I slurred along to despite not having a clue how the song went. A place on Latin American Idol surely beckons...
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