No Longer Homeless!

Well, so much for writing every day!  There is just so much going on right now that I can't keep up!

But on the upside, I am no longer homeless!  Yesterday was quite an interesting day!  There was a place that I wanted to visit down near where my school is, which is about half an hour from our hostel by metro.  I slept in until 11:00 or so, and got going around noon.  The place was really easy to find, and in a really nice location.  It is actually considered "University Housing," but in Chile, they aren't run by the universities so anyone can live there.  It is about three blocks away from a "Hiper Lider" (Super Walmart.  Literally.  The Lider brand was bought out by Wal-Mart a couple years ago).  On the other side of the street from the Lider is a huge mall.  Like Mall of America huge.  And my campus is just down the street from there.  So, perfect location!

Anyways, I found the house around 1:00, but I didn't have an exact time to meet with the owner (we had just agreed "in the afternoon."  Which around here is probably more like after 3:00, because that is usually when people eat lunch).  I had thought that there would be a doorbell to ring once I got there, but there was nothing to ring or knock when I got there.  The whole house is surrounded by a very tall, thick metal fence, so I couldn't see in or reach around to knock on an inside door.  I decided to call the owner to have her let me in, but every time I tried, my phone kept saying "not allowed."  I thought that maybe I had written her phone number down incorrectly, so I tried to call someone else just to make sure.  Once again, "not allowed."  Our phones are pre-paid, so I figured that I had just run out of money.  I headed off towards the Lider to recharge the phone.

On the way, I noticed that the neighbor was sitting out in the yard, so I figured I would see if he knew anything about the house.  The place had been advertised as "Hostal Universitario," so I asked him if he knew what it was.  He was a little old man (the kind that you can just imagine yelling "get off my lawn, you stupid kids), and his accent was incredibly difficult to understand!  I'm not sure if he is foreign, or if that is just something that comes with old age, but I had the hardest time understanding him!  He said that he knew of the Hostal, but that the police had come and shut it down because it was illegal and they didn't have the right papers and everything like that.  He said there was a raid and they had to kick everyone out.  I was incredibly confused, for a variety of reasons, so I just said "thank you," and started to walk away.  As I turn, he called out to me "You didn't hear it from me! Keep quiet on this!! I didn't say anything! I didn't say anything!!" It was very strange, especially considering that I could see that there were definitely people still living in the house, and everything seemed quite calm and organized.  Perhaps his accent was just that difficult that I got it all wrong.  Or maybe he is just a paranoid old man (I discreetly checked his story with other neighbors, and they all seemed quite baffled with it).  So, after that interesting encounter, I headed off again towards the Lider to recharge my phone.

But of course I forgot the word for "recharge," so I asked for a phone card.  The clerk gave me a sim card.  After some confusion, we finally figured out what I wanted (recargar).  The last phone I had in Chile, you had to buy a card and charge the phone ourselves.  This time, apparently you have to tell the clerk your phone number, and they recharge it with a machine.  Of course I didn't know what my phone number was, or how to find it in the phone.  The clerk was quite patient with me as she handed me a pen and told me to write down the number.  I finally found the number (luckily, I had saved it myself into the phone; unfortunately, nowhere obvious), and gave it to the clerk.  She asked me how much I wanted, and I asked her how much people normally put.  She gave me a funny look, but told me I should put 1,000 peso ($2).  I agreed, and finally got the phone recharged.  It was definitely a trip, but I think that I at least entertained the store clerk!

With my phone recharged, I headed  back towards the house, figuring that I could call the owner on the way and she could let me in once I got there.  Again, my phone told me that I was not allowed to make the call!  I was about to just leave and give up on the whole thing when I dropped the phone and the battery fell out.  I put it back together and turned it back on.  I decided I would try the call one more time before I left, just to make sure.  Amazingly, the phone worked this time!!  I talked to the owner (her name is Saydee, pronounced say-day) and told her that I was at the house for our appointment.  She said that she was still at work because I hadn't given her an exact time to meet, but that she would call someone else to let me in.  Just about as soon as I hung up, a man appeared at the door to let me in.  I forgot his name, but it starts with a "D."  I'll let you know when I figure it out.  He has awesomely curly blond hair, so he is obviously automatically awesome.

"D" let me in and showed me around.  The room that was available was on the first floor, down a hallway behind the kitchen.  It has a big bed (they call it 1.5 plazas, but I can't find a direct translation.  It's about as big a queen bed), and a bedside table.  Those two things pretty much take up the whole room.  There is also a built-in closet that is pretty shallow (about as wide as a small hanger), and a tv in the wall.  So the room is a bit smaller than normal (or the bed is bigger than normal!).  The best part about it, though, is that it has a private bathroom!  That is almost unheard of (at least in the price range I'm looking for).  The kitchen is a good size (fairly large for a Chilean kitchen, there is enough room for two people to stand side-by-side in the narrowest part, so that is quite large).  There is also a big dining area with two refrigerators, and an outdoor patio to eat as well.  There is even a washer and dryer (also rare in my price range).  I was pretty excited about the place, even though I hadn't met the other people living in the place yet.  "D" said that they were from all over and that they were all really calm and quiet, which is perfect for me since I'm not really into partying and stuff.  The room in that house rents for 155,000 pesos per month (about $320), including utilities, internet, and access to a washer/ dryer.

The same owner of the hostel also owns a guest house out the back of the big house, which "D" took me to see as well (because I had told the owner in an email that one of my friends also wanted to come look at her place.   I ended up coming alone, but I took a look anyway).  We had to go through a gate to get the back, and as soon as "D" opened the door, I was surrounded by a bunch of super fluffy puppies!  Apparently they own a couple shi tzus who had just had some puppies.  They were so excited to see someone new and all gathered around my feet.  There were two elderly people sitting in a swing on the back porch, just watching the puppies and laughing.  They are the owner's grandparents.  I nearly tripped because of how enthusiastic the puppies were!  We finally managed to get through the sea of puppies and into the guest house.  The house is super awesome, and I would totally have gotten it if I had known for sure that someone else was going to stay with me!   It has two bedrooms and two bathrooms.  It also has an awesome living room and fully equipped kitchen.  They are renting it for 300,000 pesos per month ($620).  If Scott comes and decides to stay, hopefully we might be able to stay there (fingers crossed that the timing works out!  It's a really great deal).

We left the house and navigated through the sea of puppies once again, and I told "D" that I would like to rent the room in the big house (it was the only one left, so I wanted to make sure I could still get it).  He told me to give Saydee a call and let her know, so I rang her up and asked her about the renting process.  She told me I had to put down a deposit (here, you usually put down an extra month's rent as deposit).  Since I only had 8,000 pesos with me, I told her I would have to go get some more from the ATM if she wanted me to leave the money with "D."  I asked him about that, and he didn't seem comfortable dealing with business things, so Saydee told me just to come back around 4:00 so that she could write up a contract for me and take the deposit.  She said that she would call me when she got back to let me in.  I asked her how much she wanted for the deposit, and she said, "oh, whatever you feel like.  Maybe about 40,000 or 50,000?  Probably more than 8,000, but whatever..."  Since it was only about 2:15 at this point, I decided just to head back to the hostel and pick up money there that I had already taken from the ATM instead of paying to take out more (there are banks that let me take out  money without a fee, but they aren't the most common so I haven't been able to get any yet.  Hopefully once I get more settled, I will get to know where they are).  I thanked "D" and headed back towards the metro to go back to the hostel.

The metro was much more crowded on the way back, but I managed to get back around 3:00.  I had thought that my excursion would be quick, so I hadn't eaten yet that day.  I had a piece of bread left from dinner the night before, so I grabbed that and gulped down some water before heading back out with my money to get back to the hostel around 4:00.  I got to the area a bit early, so I did some exploring of the neighborhood.  It is a pretty new area (most of the houses have only been built in the last few years), and it seems to be mostly families.  I saw two different colegios (Elementary/ middle schools.  They are usually for about 1st-8th grade) within walking distance of the house.  There were also two nice parks to hang out in nearby, and one of them even has a full circuit exercise course.  Around 4:00 I walked towards the house to wait for Saydee to call, but after about half an hour I still hadn't heard anything.  I knew that she had said she had a lot to do at work, so I figured she just got caught up there or in traffic or something.  I decided to walk around a bit more to wait for her call.  I went back to the park with the exercise equipment and played a game on my phone for a while (and also watched a really cute old man in formal attire using the exercise machines, very slowly, on a 90 degree day.  He is awesome).  Still no call, so I decided that I might as well go check out the mall across the street.

This was Thursday, the day before colegio starts again here in Chile, so the mall was packed to the brim with back-to-school shoppers.  Navigating between the families and groups of tweens was quite interesting, but I managed to dinf my way around a bit.   I was surprised at how upscale the mall seemed, and how many American brands there were!  There was, of course, and other Lider (Wal-Mart) inside the mall, but there was also a Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts.  There was even an Apple store!  The mall itself is huge, and has just about any kind of store you can imagine (and of course, because Chileans love pharmacies, it had at least three.  Probably more, because I only managed to see about 1/4 of the entire mall).  I walked around and even contemplated getting some Dunkin Donuts coffee (one thing that I missed about Florida), but then around 5:30 I got a call from Saydee saying that she was about to head home.  I hurried off back towards the house.

I had figured that I would get to the house before Saydee (I have no idea where she works, but I didn't know at the time that she has a car so I thought that the public transportation would take a while), so when I got there I just sat outside the door and waited for her to arrive.  While I was waiting, the grandmother that I had seen earlier arrived and entered.  She gave me an odd look, but smiled and continued in without saying anything.  I waited a bit longer, and as I was about to call Saydee (around 5:45), another car pulled up, and two women stepped out, carrying a brand new printer.  I thought one of them might be Saydee, but they also just went inside without saying anything.  About two seconds later, one of them came back out and asked what I was doing outside the door.  I told her that I was waiting for Saydee to come so that we could talk about renting a room.  This brightened the women right up and they told me that Saydee was already inside!  They let me in and brought me back to the smaller house behind the big rental house (this is Saydee's house.  Apparently she owns a bit of land, so the big rental house, her house, and the guest house are all on the same parcel).

After so many attempts, I finally met Saydee in person!  She is really nice!  She actually owns three different business--one is consulting, another is renting out properties, and I don't remember what the other is.  Suffice it to say that she stays pretty busy.  She had three computers up and running when I came in, and blueprints spread all across the table.  She had some other things to figure out first, so I just sort of hung out for a while as she worked on some other things.  The other women were also trying to work on other things.  I didn't catch their names, but I guess they both work for Saydee.  One left shortly after I arrived to take one of the puppies to the vet, so I don't know much about her.  The other is a middle-aged woman from Spain who actually came to Chile to find a job because things are so bad back in Europe.   I actually understood her speaking better than everyone else!  She is currently living in the big house and working for Saydee.

While I was waiting, "D" came back with glasses of soda for everyone, and I sat down next to Saydee so that she could begin to set up the contract.  She already had a template set up, so this should have been super fast; just change the names and dates and everything would be all set.  She wanted to finish it pretty quickly so that we could go to the notary and get it notarized before they closed at 6:00.  Unfortunately, technology had different ideas.  First, she couldn't find the correct template.  Then, her computer just completely turned off, totally randomly.  By the time she got everything back up and running, it was already too late to get to the notary.  She had the Spanish woman start calling around to see if anyone else was open later.  In the meantime, her phones (yes, she had multiple phones) were ringing off the hook. 

One of the calls she received was from a couple of Portuguese students who were going to rent an apartment from her and were coming to her house to sign the contract.  They had apparently been calling for a while, and were very lost.  She kept trying to get them directions, but they still couldn't find the place.  Finally, she managed to get them to the correct metro stop, but she decided that trying to explain to them how to walk to her house would be too difficult and that she would just go pick them up at the metro stop (just about 4 blocks away).  She thought she would quickly print out my contract and have me sign it before she went to get the boys, but once again, technology wasn't on our side.  The new printer kept giving an error saying that the ink was out, even though the whole printer and the ink was all brand new.  They messed with it for a while, and couldn't figure out how to fix it.  Saydee really had to go pick up the Portuguese guys, so they decided to stop at the store on the way an exchange it for a new printer.

Unfortunately, the woman who had gone to take the puppy to the vet was the one with the receipt.  That woman wasn't planning to come back to the house until very late, so they decided to just buy a completely new printer and return the other one later.  So the three of us got into the car and headed towards the store and metro station.  We dropped the Spanish woman off at the store to buy the printer, and then Saydee parked right next to the metro station near a stop light.  She was getting nervous because she wasn't technically supposed to be parking there.  Apparently, she had met the boys before, because she recognized them as they walked towards the car (and then got stuck at the light, of course).  When they made it across the street, they hopped in the car and we headed off back towards the house.

The two Portuguese guys are here for 5 months on study abroad with their University.  One of them is studying to be a mechanical engineer, and the other is getting his MBA.  The school system is a bit different in Portugal--there are three years for undergraduate, and then two more for the Master's.  Once you start, you have to go all the way through to Master's, you can't stop after the first three years.  We all talked a bit in the car in a weird mix of Spanish, English, and Portuguese.  I don't remember Chile being so international before, but I guess I must just be in the right places this time!  It is very interesting!

We arrived back at the house once again and waded through the puppies to get into Saydee's house.  She had already written up the boys' contract, so we just had to wait for the printer to arrive to print them all out and be ready to go.  We all chatted inside for a while until the Spanish woman returned with another new printer.  While the two woman worked on the printer situation, the Portuguese and I played with the puppies an talked.  I felt really bad because one of them said that he had a really bad experience on his first day.  Apparently, he had done his research and knew that a taxi ride from the airport should cost around 15,000 pesos ($30).  When he found a taxi, he asked the driver straight up what the cost would be and was told 15,000 pesos, so he took the cab.  However, when he arrived at his hostel and went to pay, the driver said, "Oh, I guess you didn't know this about Chile, but when we say fifteen, we actually mean to add an extra zero, so the price is actually 150,000 pesos.  And that is what everyone charges."  Being tired and confused, the Portuguese guy just paid the driver the 150,000 and the driver left.  It wasn't until later when he was talking to some more honest Chileans that he realized that he had been duped.  Apparently, the hostel's camera had caught the driver's face, but not his ID number or license plate.  I felt so bad for the guy!  I guess that cab driver had a really good day, though!

Apparently we got along quite well, because when the owner's boyfriend arrived with yet another printer, he asked if we were dating (after only having known each other an hour)!  It was really interesting, and the puppies were adorable (although they did eat a hole through my shoes), but the day was starting to get long.  Finally, around 8:30, it was announced that the printers were finally working!

We signed our contracts, and Saydee asked the boys for their deposit.  Unfortunately, both of them had forgotten to bring enough money to pay the complete deposit (they are renting a whole apartment, so they had to pay much more than I did).  They offered to go to the ATM to take it out, but Saydee said that they shouldn't be walking around with so much money, so she offered her boyfriend to go take us to the ATM and then to the subway.  On the way, he gave us some advice about being in Chile and said that he would help us out whenever we needed it.   I felt really good about choosing to live with them, and having made some good friends in the process!

By the time I got back to the hostel, it was nearly 10 pm and I had missed another appointment to view another apartment.  I had tried to call him, but my number was wrong!  I received a very angry email about that, but after an apology, everything turned out OK.  I am very excited about being able to live with so many different people, and also being so close to my school!  I will leave you with some pictures of my new home: