30 June 2010

Wow its really time for an update! Well we have all been busy with fieldwork for the last week or so. At night we have usually just been tired and ate dinner at home, but on Monday we went to a great pizza place called Tiramisu. It was a big restaurant with lots of small tables with candles on them for light, and there were so many different kinds of pizza to choose from, at least 30! I ended up getting a ham and pepper pizza that was very good, and the pizzas are bigger than the plates! Awesome! Also, we have discovered a new awesome food here called papas duquesas, which are basically fried balls of mashed potatoes. So like a french fry on the outside and mashed potatoes on the inside. They are so great, I have no idea why we don't have them in the U.S.

Another thing that we have been occupying our time with is watching some television in Spanish. We only get one channel, so the selection is limited, but we have gotten into a soap opera that airs every week night called Martin Rivas, and it is a story about a law student in Santiago in the 1800's. It is based on a Chilean novel that most students read in school here. Anyways the show is pretty bad, but we are hooked now! And we found the website, so we have been able to follow along a bit better knowing who more of the characters are.For field work right now, we are tracking the degus with radiotelemetry, so we listen to the beeping sound from their radio collars to locate them. Some of the frequencies have other strange sounds that have led us to name some of the degus, and I also just discovered the new paint program on my computer so I have drawn their pictures! Ex:

Degu taxista (Taxicab driver degu)

Degu cortacesped (Lawnmower degu)

Degu extraterrestre (Alien degu)

and Degu fantasma (Ghost degu)

Sadly, this degu was recently eaten by the burrowing owl at our site, who we have named Oh chasquido! (Oh snap!)

Oh, and we got to see a degu up close too!

One night last week Rachel and I were walking back to our apartment after buying groceries and there were a bunch of people standing outside. At first we thought maybe there was a fire alarm but when we got closer, we could see that people were taking pictures of someone. So I took out my camera and tried to take a picture of the guy too, who we learned later was Mark Lanegan, the singer from Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age. Sadly I didn't get a good photo, but apparently there is a concert venue behind our apartment building, so maybe next time!

Oh and one day last week I got a sandwich the size of my head! But you will have to check out Rachel's blog for the photo! And I still love all the dogs here! We have a new favorite we call perro con manoplas or mitten dog. His feet are so furry it looks like he is wearing mittens, and it is awesome!