Money, Going out, Lifting

The Chilean government like ours, has made new dolla bills ya'll! Yea they have made new bills for all their denominations of bills.  They have been doing it for the past year, I finally got all (minus one) of them together to take a picture of them, so you can see them.  They are colorful.  The bills here in chile have many many 0's.  It took me awhile to get it down into how much it exchanges over to the USD or US dollar.  All their bills are shorter and fatter than our USD.

The amounts for example:
The Chileans have a 500 mil peso coin.  This roughly equals $1.(no Photo)
1 mil or 1000 bill that is green(new) or white(old). =  roughly $2
2 mil or 2000 bill that is purple(new) or mostly purple(old). = roughly $4
5 mil or 5000 bill that is red(new), never seen the old ones for this one or the rest, however it roughly I= $10, sorry I didn't have one at the time took this picture...
10 mil or 10,000 bill that is blue. When I go to the ATM, I get majority of these(95%) and they = $20, like our ATMs(cajeros) with our 20's.
20 mil or 20,000 bill that is orange that = $40.  These are the worst and a lot of regular shops, like a liquor store(Botilleria) or the bakery(panaderia) do not have change for you, so you have to somehow break it to buy stuff.  However the good thing is I only receive 20 mil bills when I got paid by the bank/check/government, so its not like I get them often.

All estimates are rough, as the chilean peso right now is 473.6 to 1 USD

Going out.

Well in Santiago we bought a bunch of liters of beers, put them in a backpack went to the middle of the street and drank.(illegal).  Here in Arica most of the nights we go out to someone's house.  pregame there.  We usually have a 5th of rum, which is 5 dollars, and a 3 liter of pepsi/coke which is like 2 dollars.  This is easier to bring around and you don't need bottles for deposits, because with beer, a liter with a deposit is 800 pesos, a little under 2 dollars, but without a deposit it is 1200 pesos or 3 dollars.  Granted this is the cheapest beer, which is like their miller lite/bud light.  They don't have like a national beer that is higher up, well kinda, but it isn't much better.  Their higher beers that are popular here in Arica are Heineken and Stella Artios.  I love stella, but its too expensive to buy all the time.

Off of that tangent, yes we pregame at someone's house, we usually listen to music, but the Chilean's love music videos, not just music.  My host-family has a TV in their car for the little ones and they play music videos for them, They are normally newer songs, we have Shakira - loca, Beyonce - Single ladies.  Stuff similar to that.  However at houses we go to pregame at, people use their laptop's and connect them to flat screens for the videos and stereo systems(the big box with usually a cassette tapes and two large speakers).  After pregaming we usually go to a disco, not often to a bar.  However, we only enter the discos every so often, they have a cover charge of either 6 mil pesos($12) or 4 mil pesos ($8), however with the cover charge you usually get one free drink.  The drinks are super expensive inside about 4 to 5 dollars a drink/beer.  So we usually chill outside the parking lots with about 2 5ths of rum and 2 3liter's of coke.  This is our usual game plan for Friday or Saturday nights, however we sometimes pre-game at the isla(island) or peninsula, well it was an island and is now a peninsula, artificially created..  A lot of young people drive their cars there park on the side and drink.  I haven't done it on a Saturday only week days and maybe a Friday or two.  We do this obviously because the beer is cheaper at the liquor stores than in say a bar/pub.  And I don't think Chileans really like to drink in front of their parents, so this is an easy place to go.

I have been in the discos, just some of our friends are fomè(lame or kinda like 'sucks') and don't like spending the money, which is understandable, I mean we can hang outside the discos, which there are a bunch of other people doing the same thing, and pay 15 dollars for the whole 3 hours for everyone or enter each person pays around the same.  After everyone drives to the beach and again we chill with more rum and cokes, car stereos blasting the beach is probably empty and then at about 3 am it fills up to the max with cars and young mollusks like us.  We usually go downtown(where I live) to get some food if the shops have not closed yet or we just go home.  I get home around 6-8 am in the morning, and I like to sleep, so I sleep all day the next day...

I do miss going out at 9-10 at night, going to a BAR(not screaming to have a conversation) then going home at 2/3 and sleeping in a somewhat normal sleeping schedule....

Among others

They don't have nachos here in Chile. Instead they have papa fritas, which is the same word/phrase for potato chips or french fries.  The put everything you could image on them, well except jalapenos, but yea, meat, cheese, mustard, ketchup, and they eat it like nachos(think appetizer). Or something everyone can share as people drink at the pubs.

They don't have mountain dew. I am craving it, nothing like a nice cold can of mountain dew. Just writing that makes me thirsty/crave for one.  I miss my v8 fusion/acai juice too. They have OJ here, but it's not the same. I don't know if the chilean's do the same with the juices as they do with coffee (open a packet of something and pour it in water) but it isn't the same and I think my body is not recovering from me overdosing my body with Vitamin C everyday back in the states...

Lifting weights

Finally found a decent place to lift without paying an arm and a leg.  Since I only lift once or twice a week, I don't need to pay the 60 dollars for three months or the 15 dollars per week, but it might come down to that.  I have been to two other places, one was super super nice, but it was super super expensive. Like 8 dollars a day or like 80 dollars for 3 months.  I don't have 80 dollars to blow on going lifting in a nice gym.  The other gym that I go to now is only 3 dollars a day and is a bit worse off, however all of them have the machines I use, and the nicer place still has white rope for the machines.  They don't have like steel cables with rubber/plastic surrounding it, they just have white rope. It's kinda funny, and when I do lift everyone stares at me.  Not only because I obviously look different, but I am lifting a lot of weight and running around like a mollusk head banging to music.  I super set(do a set of lifts on one muscle/group and then don't rest and continue to do another lift on a different muscle group) everything and when I lift, I do a lot in a short time.  Doing some hand-cleans people were staring at me with a very confused look on their faces.  It was quite comical.  The best story I have at the gym is, at the super nice place there wasn't many people in there and their benches that hold the weight up are not as wide as the ones in the states.  Almost all of their weights are in kgs, but all 3 weight rooms I have been to, have plates, 45 lbs and 25 lbs, no 35 plates though.The difference is the size of teh bar where the wiehgts go, the Lbs are much wider, and the kgs are much skinner.  Anyway to continue, I use the plates with lbs not kg, because I am used to them(know exactly how much weight I am using).  And since their benches are not as wide, I was removing a plate while one was still on the other side and the bar flipped up and made a huge bang.  Haha, Yes I was getting starred at because I am a gringo, and they probably think im taking steriods(all the running around/non-stop lifting), and because I don't stop lifting for about 2 hours and then I flip a bar with 45 pounds on it.  So I look like a newbie. Haha well at least I thought it was funny.

Also, the gym across the street from my house has about 3 machines and no free lifts, basically none of what I use.  They do have spinning classes(on a bike), dance/exercise or um jazzercise classes, like karate/tae wan do/dance classes, all types of stuff for girls, but I see some guys in there as well. The nicer place I went to does the same thing and even the one I go to now has a wood floor and a  bunch of spinning bikes. Apparently it is very popular here, but it doesn't show in the everyday people you see, they are like people in the US and many don't exercise often.

I think lifting one or twice a week is enough, as I do walk to school everyday for about a mile, so walking 2 miles a day is good. Also taking salsa lessons helps.  I think that is helping me in my fight against the heavy doses of bread Chileans eat to retain my weight and not gain a lot.  However I believe I have actually lost weight, because I don't eat fast food here, or snacks really...

Last but not least was at a pub the other night with some Chileans I met, and Will Smith's Gettin Jiggy with it came on, They all loved it. Funny.  They love love American music, but have no idea what the significance/meaning of the words are.  They always say 'me gusta/encanta el ritmo' or I like/love the rhythm.