The days roll on....

You will have to bear with me I am getting used to this Spanish keyboard (and Spanish in general) so if I make any mistakes that is why. I believe I last left you when we were on our way to Valpo from Santiago. We stayed with yet another great host, Peter y Seba and they were awesome! Ben and I had a great time there hanging out and meeting locals and eating amazing sea food. I got to challenge myself by talking to locals only in Spanish and for the most part generally I understood what they said and they understood what I said!

I can now buy bus tickets and order food and do basic stuff without too many problems but, here in South America they dont do menus all that often mostly the waitress just verbally tells you everything so I have had to just blindly pick most of my meals and I have eaten a lot of stuff I would never ever eat at home haha. So far there has only been one thing I absolutely didn't like though. It was a huge hot dog covered in mayo and avocado and tomatoes called a Itialiano Completo. But I learned quickly how to order a hot dog con ketchup solo (with ketchup only). Still,Entiendo más de lo que hablan. ( Still, I understand more than I speak) but I am learning more Spanish in less than a week than I ever learned in high school!

The bus rides are interesting here in South America. The local city buses cram as many people as possible onto them (literally like over 40) and they are cheap. Less than one dollar usually. They will stop ANYWHERE at ANYTIME which is nice sometimes haha. They always have people on them trying to sell you something which is annoying and there is usually someone playing live music for money which at first was cool but is now annoying a bit too haha. I just got off a 25 hour straight bus ride from Valpo to Calama so long bus rides are normal. Other than having a terrible toilet and no air conditioning on the bus I couldn't complain too much but 25 hours on a bus is a long time! We are headed to Bolivia in a few days though.

I am slightly sick at the moment but just a head cold nothing serious and I did manage to get some medicine here. Our 25 hour bus ride only cost us 44 USD! :) Oh ya one last thing to all my readers. Toilet paper is a privilege in life not a basic right. Here in South America it is pretty rare outside of the big cities so I have learned quickly you should always travel with your own and also dont expect everyone to know English all the time,everywhere because they dont!

So far so good here though, it will be a good adventure :) Til next time,Tyler

P.S. I watched a movie in Spanish on the bus and understood (most) of it and listened to some Spanish music and understood (most) of it. That is an exciting feeling! and one last thing interestingly enough there is a huge German influence in Santiago and some people even speak it (a good thing for Ben) in Chile they love hotdogs,sandwiches,loads of salt,usually they dont provide butter or black pepper and sometimes you have to ask for Servicio (silverware) just some general observations I thought I would throw in here :)