THE SWIRL
Don´t act like you don´t already glance. Perhaps even more than glance. A polite individual makes sure everything is gone before they leave the restroom.
But if you still maintain that you don´t, let this serve as the impetus to give it a try. Once done with the duty, watch the water during the flush. Sure enough, in the northern hemisphere it goes counterclockwise.

EUREKA!!! My first major discovery in Chile - the water flows differently down here. The toilets drain clockwise. (I had my guesses, but I needed to know for sure. I even checked several times!)
I could think of nothing better to begin my year of studying and living it up in Santiago than to understand the physics of the local johns.


And another thing - DAMN THEM FOR THEIR NATIVE ANCESTRY.

I thought that the quick switch from 100 degrees down to 50 degrees here would allow me at least a few days of being one of the darker indivuals. But Irish heritage thwarts me yet again. First as a potato farmer and now by being the whitest white guy down here.
It´s actually very european here, but it´s still frustrating to be near the opaque end of the spectrum.

I meet the rest of the 50-some people in the study abroad group tomorrow because I arrived a few days early. Santiago is wonderful thus far, although I´m not directly in the city center.