Settling in

I moved out of that guesthouse a couple weeks ago into this great new house. Gino (the real estate man who I wrote about a couple weeks ago) found it for me. This old man named Carlos is renting me a room, but he is only there Saturday night and he occasionally stops by to fix something or say hello. Everything is working out well and the house even came with a bike, so I am biking to work! The house is right on the edge of town, so I have the countryside one block away. Riding my bike around there is pleasant and quite a change from town. Huasos, the Chilean cowboy, can be seen riding their horses around just a couple minutes from my urban home. So all in all things are going fine, I like my house and I like Melipilla.

The past couple weekends Angie and I have been doing stuff with Gino. He has taken us to three barbecues, two of which were at his English friend Frank’s house. Frank is great and so are all of his friends (who are mostly Chilean). He is 64 and has been living in Chile for the better part of 40 years most recently as a real estate agent in Santiago. He was interestingly enough rather pro-Pinochet, while his Chilean friends and family were quite liberal. So as you can imagine, the discussions were lively. These barbecues have been oddly international in flavor. So far we have met a Mexican, two English people, another American, two or three Chileans who are half German and have lived in the US, and finally a German who is married to an Ecuadorian. Everyone has been really nice and they have all welcomed us to their homes any time we wish. Despite all the nice people we’ve met, I still haven’t met any people who are likely to become great friends simply due to the fact that everyone I have met is 20-40 years older than I am. But I'll see how this goes. at least I am getting some Spanish practice.