1. I have learnt that just because you are at the bus stop, doesn't mean a micro (bus) is going to stop. You can very well wait twenty minutes at a bus stop watching bus after bus go by, and the driver may even whistle or shout some seductive thing, still doesn't mean he will stop.
2. Never ever hurry to class. It will only make you sweaty and no matter how late you arrive, some one will always be later. Probably the Professor. On the same note, I have missed my 8 o'clock class 3 out of the 5 times, in other places this would be a problem. However, here, the professor has also missed it 3 out of 5 times. The one time I made it and the professor didn't, I realized that Chilean students go anyway, incredibly even when the know that it is cancelled (this is a sixth sense, gringos never know these things), sit in the weird triangular shaped class and watch movies on cuevana.
3. Never worry about where the micro is taking you. This is not because you might not be horrifyingly lost (you probably will) it is just that it's not worth the increased blood pressure. For instance yesterday on a bus back from the Elqui Valley, my bus took this great detour from the highway and for twenty minutes winded through dirt roads among shacks built elaborately from random bits of corrugated iron held together with spit and a prayer. Generally I can see the sea and know, worse comes to worse, I can head that way. Here I was in the middle of the mountains with nothing recognizable in sight. It made me feel how I used to going into New York on a Thursday. That point where all the signs point left to New York and the bus takes a left into the suburbs of New Jersey, always exactly when it is getting dark, and you surrender yourself to dying in Jersey, probably having your head cut off by your seat partner. That is the feeling these chilean micros give you. Constantly. So, it's best just to sit back, look at the ceiling, and think about the fact that you have lived a full and complete life.
I have also not learnt, and am realizing I probably never will, the following:
How to pay for things. This seems like it should be a simple handover of bills for items. False. I went to buy lotion in the cvs equivalent. The lotion is all behind the counters, so first you have to ask a sales assistant to show you the lotions, then you choose. Seems simple enough, but when you make your choice and hand her the money, she looks at you pityingly, and writes you a receipt. With this receipt you go stand in a long line of people, all with receipts, waiting to pay at a register. Once you pay, you get another receipt and you get to go to a third counter and pick up your lotion. Three times the amount of employees necessary and, like everything in Chile, slightly different in each store.
EVEN FOOD CARTS WITH ONE PERSON MANNING THEM HAVE THIS SYSTEM. You first pay at the register, they give you a receipt, you walk around the side, give them back the receipt they just gave you and they make your food. Ludicrous all of it.
This was a bit of a rant, and now I am tired and want to watch cuevana and nap. However, I spent the weekend in my lovely beautiful Pisco Elqui, and have surfed (without breaking anything) since I last wrote, so I will try and be a bit more consistant.
No comments:
Post a Comment