El Bubble

At the edge of a big continent bursting with complex histories and juntas, and dense jungles and wide deserts, at the edge of chock full of culture, public parks and schizophrenic political identies, in a modern office building on quiet street, on the second hides a secret, fortified bubble flying the banner of CARDENAL RED tried and true. Go Stanford! Go.

Excuse the momentary cynicism.

So far, I'm thoroughly enjoying my time here. I love my host family. I'm really liking Santiago and feel that there's load of potential waiting to be tapped. I've even met some cool Stanford kids..... However, I have the sneaking suspicion that the well insulated and highly secure Stanford Center (in which I'm currently typing) isn't the best place to immerse myself in Chilean culture. Especially when everyone is speaking English around me all the time.

After travelling alone for three weeks, I have gotten accostumed to going out and having adventures and mishaps, making conversation with strangers with my bad spanish and their relative patience. So it's a little weird to all of a sudden find myself in Flannery's Irish Pub with a group of twenty Americans all asking for "MASe CerveSa" and talking with a JAP from Brookline about her family's house in Costa Rica. I had to excuse myself early to go have an adventure with public transportation at night.

I'm being incredibly unfair and acting a little superior. I've only traveled for three weeks, that doesn't make me el gran explorador. It's just going to be a bit of a challenge balancing my desire to make new friends with my desire to have a more immersive experience. For any Bing Overseaers former or current who are reading this, I'd love some pointers about how to avoid being the anti-social a-hole but also how to escape EL BUBBLE!

I'll try to keep the updates coming, my schedule's a little different these days and I don't quiet have a computer at my house, but I'll report when I can. More fun anecdotes about the family Castro Monsalve, impressions of Santiago, and further travel plans.

Hope you all are well.
Danny

One more point of criticism: Mama and Papa Bing are paying for all us kids to go see The Magic Flute as our Chilean night of Culture. How terribly culturally appropriate. It's Mozart
for f@#ck's sake!