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(Mail to 669 Manhattan Avenue, Apartmnet 2, Brooklyn)
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Volume One, Issue Three — Mid-to-Late Afternoon Edition — Last Updated: Early Morning
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The Weather
Warm, Bright and Overcast. Slow Winds Out of the Southeast.
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Real Things Happen
by Nicholas Hall on January 27th, 2010Mérida Real things happened yesterday and Monday in Mérida, as students took to the streets to protest the shutdown of RCTV, one the last remaining broadcast networks in Venezuela which had been openly critical of the Chávez government.
On Monday students were seen throwing rocks and moving in groups, armed with molotov cocktails fashioned out of regional beer bottles. Many had t-shirts tied around their faces. They blocked traffic in a series of streets in the downtown area, using chairs and tires that were then set on fire.
Police in riot gear massed throughout the downtown area over the course of the afternoon.
Later in the evening the downtown area had become impassable, as much due to a domino traffic effect as to specific blockades. Busses were not running into the the downtown area from the outlying neighborhoods, and taxis were largely unable to pass the lower streets.
Most people walked home, and the streets were relatively safe in all but the southern
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quadrant of the city's center.
In the evening, reports circulated in the city about a young man who had died of a gunshot wound during clashes between pro- and anti-Chavez groups, after this event, and due to escalating conflict later in the night, the city center was seen as impassable.
In the morning it was reported that another young man had been shot and killed during the night.
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Protests continued throughout Thursday, and all classes at the school attended by this reporter were canceled. Shouts and chanting could be heard in the streets from the downtown bureau, which is this reporter's homestay for the next two weeks.
Today life had largely returned to normal, and irrelevant topics were once again under consideration for further coverage.
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The Conjugation of the Preterite Form
Yo Tú El, Ella o Usted Nosotros Ellos o Ustedes -ar -é -aste -ó -amos -aron -er -í -iste -ió -imos -ieron -ir -í -iste -ió -imos -ieron -
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Conversation About Whorehouses Barely Understood
by Nicholas Hall on January 30th, 2010Mérida A conversations about whorehouses was barely understood on Saturday, in the kitchen of the house where Nick resides, between Ramon, a man who occasionally stays in the house, and two other men, a local friend named Nicolás, and another who is apparently a lawyer.
The lawyer and Nicolás both grew up in Mérida, and Ramon grew up in Caracas, making his perspective on the existence of the whorehouse under discussion less valid than those of the other men.
The whorehouse was barely understood to have at times been a movie theatre as well, or perhaps to have been nominally a movie
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theatre while in fact operating as a whorehouse.
The words 'puta' and 'putaria' were interpreted to signify that the conversation being had concerned whorehouses.
Additionally the words 'mierda' and 'coño' were in heavy use. Their purpose was understood primarily to be essentially that of punctuation and emphasis.
The conversation was believed to have concerned at times the specific year in which the supposed movie theatre had operated in this capacity. The years 1975, 1974, and 1970 were debated has having potentially been the year of the building's provision of said services.
The night began with the innocent eating of dinner, during which 'Cuba Libres' were offered, thereby commencing the conversation in question. Continue on Page H7 »
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Venezuelan Nerds Found
by Nicholas Hall on January 23rd, 2010Mérida Venezuelan nerds were found today, in La Facultad de Ingeniería, a building of the Universidad de Los Andes in La Hechizera, a neighborhood set into the mountains above Mérida.
Wearing glasses, slouching, and installing Ubuntu, these nerds were found to be nerds very similar to those common in the United States.
They were also found to be earnest, smart, and avidly practicing their yo-yo skills.
Websites were shared and programing languages discussed. There was agreement in the excellence of CodeIgniter, and in the eventual interestingness of learning Ruby on Rails. Continue on Page T4 »
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The Apartment Hunt: Mérida
by Nicholas Hall on January 29th, 2010Searching for an apartment is always a hunt, but especially here in hip and edgy Mérida, especially when your prime location is on the other side of a student riot.
Nicholas Hall began his search with a conversation at an unlikely event: a meet-and-greet between American students and Venezuelans who want to meet American students. The date was set for Monday morning, and then the search was on.
Nicholas was looking to move up from his current digs, where he's lived since he arrived in the city a week ago. A room in a large house in the northern quarter, the old place was always meant to be a starter home, and he was ready to move on by the end of the month.
The first location, a swank, geriatrically-decorated three-bedroom, two-bath in a heavily guarded community compound proved just a little too rich, and Nicholas thought he could bring the price down. Playing a little hardball never hurts when swimming with the sharks of real estate, and playing like you don't understand any of the words they're using to up-sell you on a ridiculous place can take you a long way, as our Hunter learned.
Moving on to a fresh first-floor apartment in an active student neighborhood, our hunter and his de facto realtor encountered something unexpected and exciting: The local student scene out and looking engaged, in violent political protest, wearing interesting masks, swirling molotov cocktails, passionately sharing views on social matters.
These signs of local culture left Nick almost sold, along with the miniscule rent and single bus to his school, and he signaled that he was ready to close a deal, in a couple days when he had confirmed with others that the miniscule rent was sufficiently miniscule.
After some research and market-comparisons, Nick was ready to move forward, and informed his self-defined realtor. The conversation then turned to payment transaction methods, and that's when things got really interesting.
Tune in to the next installment of the Hunt to find out the smart inside-game on how to pay for shit here.