La Pequena Gigante

Dear Everyone,

The comments on the last blog entry were much appreciated, and all suggestions will be taken into consideration. We'll keep everyone posted on which tactic we use the next time we are assaulted by anti-Americanites, in addition to the effectiveness of the tactic and the subsequent reaction of aforementioned anti-Americanite.

The main conclusion I was able to draw from all of your comments, however, is that
you people want a more uplifting blog entry. So here it is. Enjoy.

Last weekend, the theater company Royal de Luxe traveled all the way from France to Santiago, Chile. They brought with them a giant, 5 meter girl/doll puppet named La Pequena Gigante. For three days, la Pequena Gigante walked around the streets of Santiago, controlled by 18 weirdly dressed French dudes, searching for her Rinocerante Perdido (her lost rhinoceros). Besides walking around the city streets, she also, among other things, took a shower, ate a lollipop, took a siesta in a chair, and got tucked into bed.

If you want to see a kick-ass video of her on her first day here, click on the link below: http://www.emol.com/especiales/videos/index/index.asp?id=M22

Choose the video that says La Pequena Gigante. The woman in black in the video, by the way, is Chile's Presidenta, Michelle Bachelet. If you want to see the rhino, choose the video called Captura del Rinocerante, although it's not as cool as the one only about La Pequena Gigante.

My parents arrived on Sunday, and after getting them settled in to their homestay we took them to see La Pequena Gigante. There, in the center of town, we were among 500,000 other Santiaguinos who turned out to see this massive, slightly unattractive, girl doll. The puppet herself was pretty cool, but what was even crazier was the crowd. I have never seen that many people in one place at a time, and it was impressive. After the Gigante passed, a huge sea of people followed in her wake, and we just stood where we were, on the steps of Santa Lucia, staring with mouths open at the sheer force of the crowd. My dad took some pictures, which he'll post on here when he does his guest blog entry.

Does anyone have anything nice to say about the United States?

Because no one here does. And we are getting sick and tired of having to defend our country to everyone who finds out we're from the United States. As soon as they find out, they blame us for McDonald's, Bush, war, and all other evil that exists in the world. I know we may not be Utopia, but we're certainly not the satanic country they make us out to be. Also, people seem to believe that we are constantly lied to/misguided in the United States and we have no idea how awful our country really is. So they take the opportunity to tell us, because of course everyone who lives outside the United States is an expert on United States politics and policies. I'm sorry about this very un-fantastical adventure blog entry, but Nate and I have had one too many people complaining to us about the United States, and we're downright sick of it. Rant over.

Cascada de las Animas

Last weekend we really needed to get out of the city, so we went here: It's called Cascada de las Animas, which means Waterfall of the Spirits. It took us 3 hours on public transportation to get there, but for once in our lives we got the bus system right and didn't have to pay twice, ride a bus around an entire route, or otherwise frustrate ourselves with this impenetrable bus system they've got going on around here.

We got to try out our new camping gear from Christmas. I'm convinced Thermarests are the greatest invention since the Schopdog rocket, and I can't believe I've ever slept outside without one. By the way, our Chilean friends have since told us that Schopdog is beyond ghetto and we shouldn't make it our weekly hangout. It's true that at least five three-year-olds selling stickers or fake roses approach us every time we drink there, but we just thought it was because we're a bunch of gringos. Mountain view.
On our second day at Cascada we hiked out to the actual Cascada de las Animas via several sketchy handmade bridges. Actually, they weren't that sketchy, but they had rules about the manner in which you were allowed to cross; on one of them you had to be one meter apart in single file, and the other one only five people could cross at a time. Or they were held up with a stick...
Here's the Cascade de las Animas:
And here's Nate thinking deep thoughts. Probably about choripan.
This isn't the Cascada de las Animas, but it was even better because we got to swim under it!The pressurized spray gets you squeaky clean.Oh yeah, and the place had a really awesome tire swing.

Haircut

Long and lustrous...

Roowwrr!
Apprehension
All business up front!
Still long and lustrous in the back.Unfortunately, this is Nate's only chance of fitting into Chilean society......but alas, he decided against it. Clean and classy!

Wondrousity

Malicious comments making fun of my spelling will be punishable by death. Or by abandonment in a crappy, dangerous part of Santiago. Or I will just let Nate have at you. Your choice.

Rocket Love

Nate just read the "pictures of our apartment!" entry and said, "Good. That's funny. But you didn't write anything about what we've been doing. Write another one." So here I am again to write about what we've been doing. And don't worry--it's not that I am super acquiescent to his every little whim; it's just that we're in an internet cafe right now, with unfettered restriction to an extremely fast internet connection. So, you lucky ducks, you get another entry.

The longer we're in Santiago and the more we settle in here, the more boring our lives inevitably become (at least to outsiders). That at least partially explains why we haven't been keeping up with the blog entries. Another reason is that the internet we steal while in our apartment comes and goes, and it's not nearly fast enough to upload any pictures. The last reason should be obvious. We're lazy! But you already knew that.

The past couple weeks have been much nicer than before we left, mostly because we had a big, fat paycheck waiting for us when we got back to Santiago. This has enabled us to go out for beers with friends, eat meals that don't include lots of rice and water, and see an occasional movie. We've gone to an asado at a Chilean friend's house, gone to that big pool on the top of the big hill (see entry about parties, pools, and poison ivy), and hiked around the city in our hiking boots, trying to break them in before our big trip to the south. The latter activity results in lots of stares from Chileans, who sadly shake their heads and whisper to each other about how weird gringos are. We don't care. We're not going to be caught with blisters and cuts all over our feet when we should be enjoying the splendor of Patagonia. I also got to go out dancing all night with some girl friends while Nate happily stayed home, content with the fact that he was not being forced to dance and/or socialize with girls.

Oh, we also went to a place called Schopdog a couple times; once to watch the KC Chiefs lose, and once to enjoy beer in their Rocket. Schopdog has this crazy contraption that looks like a huge bong (see picture below), but is really a magnificent holder of 9-10 beers. What makes this thing exceptional is that there is a tube of ice in the middle of the tube of beer that keeps your beer cold, and you can pour your own beers out of your own little tap! It's awesome. Other gringos have since told me they have these all over the United States, but I refuse to believe it. The rocket makes drinking beer even more fun than it is normally.

I love this thing!

That's about it. Work is going well for both of us. We bought tickets to the south (Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego), and we'll be heading down there mid-February for two and half weeks to engage in camping, hiking and backpacking adventures. My parents are coming to visit in two weeks as well, so that means we get to show the city to them and possibly eat nice meals at nice restaurants that don't sell hot dogs. Don't worry though, Mom and Dad. We won't deprive you of the wondrousnous that is the Schopdog Rocket. You can count on that.

pictures of our apartment!

Now that we have a camera, we thought we'd grace you with pictures of our lovely apartment. It is the first apartment Nate and I have ever shared (alone, together), and we are quite proud of it, despite the fact that none of the furniture is ours and it is the size of Nate's old living room.

Here is our bedroom. The whole wall next to the bed is a window, which is constantly open because it is so freakin hot here.

Our beautiful bathroom. We're still working on putting the toilet seat down, and it's highly unlikely that it'll ever happpen. His argument is that if he has to have contact with the toilet seat when he lifts it up, it's only fair that I have to touch it to put it back down. My argument is that it's just plain ugly when the lid is up. And yes, I am fully aware that this is a trite, overdiscussed, and possibly insoluble argument.
Our dining room/computer room/work area/storage unit.
Our living room. We even have a pull-out sleeper sofa!!The tiniest kitchen ever created. Seriously. We can't be in here together. And if any cabinet is open and you're caught unawares, you WILL run into it. With your head. You have to practically hump the refrigerator to be able to reach the sink to wash the dishes. The stove only has two burners, which is pointless, because you can't fit two pots on there at the same time anway. All cutting of vegetables/non-stove cooking takes place in the dining room.Ha ha! Ha! Did we fool you into thinking we had a separate bedroom, living room and dining room? For those particularly clever and alert readers, you will remember that we said our apartment was a studio. And the size of a shoebox. As you can see, that is no exaggeration. This is the view of the whole thing from the bathroom.Obviously, we get along very well. There's no such thing as fighting when you live here, because, short of crawling in the refrigerator, there is simply nowhere to go to get away from the other person. And if you come visit us, you are most definitely welcome to stay on our sleeper sofa... which is 1.5 feet away from where we will be sleeping.

Christmas vacations

Hey everyone. Happy 2007. We just got back from spending Christmas in the States, which turned out to be a much needed break from our time abroad (and each other).

The first thing we did when we arrived in DC was to hunt down a Five Guys and eat the best burger and fries we had tasted in months. It was heavenly. Then, I went home to Wisconsin to see my folks, my brother, and his wife, and Nate spent Christmas in Lexington with his family. It was nice to have a cold(er) Christmas, although the weather was unseasonably warm and weird in both states. Visiting family was the best; they spoil you rotten and stuff you silly--two things we were both desperately craving. And all our talk about losing weight like crazy was true. Nate stepped on a scale to find out he had lost about 22 lbs. I lost a little less, but still enough to be surprising. We did, however, do our damndest to put all the weight back on by feasting on turducken, stuffing and the likes.

After Christmas I flew out to DC where we briefly met up with some friends before heading down to Lexington. Ridiculously enough, a week apart was all Nate and I needed to realize how much we really appreciated each other (and how much we had needed a break from each other!). We visited with Nate's family in Lexington and Charlottesville and continued to eat as much food as possible.

At one point during the week, Ned, Nate's little brother, convinced us to go caving. And by "convinced us" I mean he said "Hey, you wanna go check out this 80 foot hole in the ground?" And that was all the convincing we needed. After rigging up some serious ropes and rope ladders, we lowered ourselves 80 feet in the ground to find the stinkiest, muddiest cave on Earth. The cave supposedly extends about a mile underground, but we only saw a brief portion of it due to the muddiness and the horrible stench. We are positive some kind of animal fell into the hole and died, because none of us had ever smelled anything quite so disgustingly rotten. While down in the cave we made a list of the things we'd rather be smelling other than the cave-smell, and they were (among others): manure, urine, and Nate's farts. Apart from the stench, however, the cave was super cool, complete with little holes to climb into, rocks to climb over, and tiny, cute bats sleeping while attached to the roof. Ascending out of the hole was the second-worst part (after the smell, of course), and it basically involved climbing an 80 ft. rope with little to no assistance.

Here are a few pictures from the caving expedition:

The Oliver boys contemplating the great abyss.Ned and Erin inside the cave. Nate (poor sucker--we made him ascend last) taking his first breath of fresh non-death-smelling air.

P.S. We stocked up on lots of cool gear in preparation for our trip down to Patagonia. Among the things we bought was... a camera! Don't hold your breath, though. We expect it to be stolen, destroyed or misplaced within a couple days or so.