FOTOS!!

Sunrise in Santiago de Chile.
Me encanta Santiago.

Preparate, esto es largísimo!! jajaa, entonces, si no tengas mucho tiempo ahora, creo que es mejor para esperar un rato antes de trates a leer esto jajjajajaa..........

Haven't put pictures up for a while!! And I'm still missing some periods of time in the below, but I'll have a "random pictures" update sometime hahaa....

Ok, a couple weeks back I went to my first chilean wedding!!

was in this nice church. I showed up 50 minutes late (in typical chilean fashion), and really didn't miss much. Perfect timing! Haha, then we walked over to another building for the reception...


appetizers and cocktails, then entrees, then fire breathing....


me and fiorella after dinner, dancing ensued mere minutes after this foto...


all the guys lined up for the garter toss..... i didn't really try to catch it at all hahaa....


just havin a good time!




more sunrise fotos.


recent weekend trip out to the beach, viña del mar...


ivan and his blurry headed brother sebastian....


ivan.


yum!!! pastel de choclo... super tasty!! ivan's mom and nanny/house cleaning/general helper lady hooked it up on this one!!!! side note: nanny / nana / house cleaner / cook / helper people seem to be a lot more common here, i feel like it's only the wealthy families in the states that have people around to help out, but here a lot of people have someone come over for some hours, a couple times a week, to help with cleaning / cooking, etc..... ivan r. (my roommate) and i have a lady that comes every friday, irons our dress shirts, and cleans up.... it's amazing!!!

we spent Saturday, 24 de Abril, skateboarding and outside, was a gorgeous day in viña !!

nollie heelflip.


360 flip.


ivan walking up a hill... viña off in the distance.


switch heelflip.


ivan filming me.



kickflip... ocean in the back....




don't know what happened to his ears but he seemed like a nice guy.




sunset in viña, would like to put the above together to make one panoramic picture. Need to download something for that, so maybe later hahaa....



UPDATE: My cousin Ryan sent me a panoramic version of the above, he also brightened the colors a little bit to make it more like it did in real life...

amazing.


gorgeous sun set.



then we went to this place where ivan and his band, Ventura, practice. A month or so ago I went to their show in Valparaiso so I recognized some of their songs.... was fun!!
ivan.


Ventura.


Lucas singiiiing.


at the bus station... me, diego and ivan... diego's a friend from santiago so we took the same bus back.... end to an awesome weekend.


Well quick general update.... been working a lot the past couple weeks and got paid for the first time yesterday! woohoo!!! So, I'm not celebrating yet as I haven't signed a contract but things look good, I'm really happy, and I'm helping. This is the first time I've ever worked for a small business and I love 100000 times more than working for a large corporation..... I know the owners and feel if I perform well I will really have a lot of ability to develop my job's focus in the direction I would like.... and in order for that to be possible, the company needs to do well, so I have a vested interest. I want the company to succeed. It's way way nicer than feeling like another number, and just working for the pay check.

So to get an idea of what I'm doing right on the day-to-day.... I've been sending a lot of quotes, in Spanish and English, to prospective clients interested in purchasing our machines. I've been helping make more standardized quotes for the team as we're missing some standards in Spanish, and had next to none in English. Doing some translating, both of documents and press releases that will be on the site, and for co-workers who occasionally receive an e-mail in English and need help understanding it. I'm doing various odd-jobs for my manager who is seriously overworked. I just redid inventory and reorganized one of our rooms (was actually nice to be up and moving around all day). Occasionally I speak to suppliers to get quotes and availability of materials when we have an interested customer.

Basically I do a lot of things... kind of what the company needs I try to help with. Am doing lot of quoting, and this week I have a bunch of customers that we've quoted in the past and not followed up with. So I'll be making some calls.... but lemme just say that I'm still not the best at talking on the phone in Spanish! haha, it's hard.... but not as hard as talking on this Nextel deal we have, it's like a little walkie talkie and we use it with our peruvian office a lot.... its loud, and distorted, and so hard to understand!! I think that even if the other person was speaking English I would struggle, uuufffff!!!

It's funny, when I was 8 I decided I wanted to be an "International Businessman" whatever that was.... I didn't actually know what I wanted to do, I just wanted to travel around and do some sort of "business"..... When I got to Scottsdale Community College I took macro-economics but I was bored, and was much more engaged in my mathematics courses. But even then, I still had the idea of getting into the business world when I was younger, and eventually teaching when I was older, leading into an avenue to eventually partially retire but still have something to do, maybe teach a class or two a week........ well after a couple years working for large companies and corporations, I was kind of over it.... I was thinking I would teach down here, then go to grad school for education, and start teaching at a community college..... buuut, then I received the call, and the offer to work at the company, and I'm pumped!!

My desire to be conducing business internationally has returned full force!! I love the idea of helping a business succeed and working with people all over the world... traveling to other continents, countries, cities, neighborhoods, buildings, houses... and meeting new people!! The idea of taking some night classes and studying international business is something that's very appealing to me right now, so I'm going to do some investigating!!!

Ok, sorry for the slow updates. I do better with e-mails, so send me one of those if you wanna say hi!! haha, ok, i'm off to bed.... hope all is well in your world!!

Saludos,
Zacarías