Picture Extravaganza!

Since my mother refused to write a guest blog entry, and we were so busy during these past few weeks anyway, it's now up to me to catch you up on everything we did while my parents were here. Before we get started, however, I have a very special story for you. You knew it was coming...

How We (Kind of) Ruined Our Third Camera

It's not easy being Erin and Nate's camera. Our first camera was stolen by hooligans in Valparaiso. Our second camera, which was sent by mail from Erin's parents, was swiped by a dishonest baggage handler at a bus station. When we got our third camera over Christmas, it was understandably worried about its fate. As it should have been. About a week after buying the new camera (it was actually a used camera from Erin's mom's co-worker), Nate and I went caving. You may remember the blog entry: the smelly, dead animal, muddy cave. Anyway, as Erin was ascending out of the cave (which, if you've ever ascended a rope you'll know that it was super hard work), she accidentally slipped and fell against the wall. The camera, unfortunately, was attached to her harness, and it got smashed between her giant butt and the hard wall of the cave. It wasn't until Erin finished ascending that she looked at the camera. The LCD screen had a huge, forking crack through the middle of it. She told Nate about it after he finished ascending. He was already angry that he was the last one left in the cave, and now he got even angrier about the accident with the camera. He refused to talk to Erin for the rest of the afternoon except to warn her that she was not allowed to tell her parents about this because they would kill them. When they got home they figured out that the camera still worked, but they couldn't use the LCD screen to view pictures or to change the settings. The reason they've only just now gotten around to telling you about this is because they finally fessed up to the parents while they were visiting. They did not, as Erin and Nate had expected, kill them. They weren't even really surprised. Although Erin and Nate can't ever take panoramics or set up automatically timed pictures or even change the setting from night time to fast action shutter speed, they are grateful that their camera still functions, and they hope to have no more horror stories involving its breakage, theft, or untimely demise.

And now we return to our regularly scheduled blog entry.

While my parents were here, they attended Spanish classes in the morning every day. Because it's summer here and Nate and I are barely working, we only had classes in the morning too, so that worked out nicely. After class, we would meet for lunch and then some sightseeing. It was odd asking my parents "How was school? And what did you learn today?" I distinctly remember being asked that every day of my elementary school years, and I hated it. But they didn't seem to mind it, and they regaled us with what they learned and spoke in Spanish with us to practice. We took my parents to all the touristy stuff that we did when we first got here (and documented on the blog), and they seemed to like it well enough. On Thursday night we had an asado at their house. We invited a bunch of people, Nick and Fabiola (the people who own the house my parents were staying at) invited a bunch of people, and it was really fun. There was dancing and lots of meat. My parents enjoyed the former, and you can all guess who was happiest about the latter.

Funnily enough, my parents mostly danced with other people and not with each other. Come to think of it, Nate only danced one dance, and it was with another girl too. The theme of the night seemed to be tending towards Light Infidelity.

Over the weekend, Nick graciously invited us to go to the beach in Maitencillo with him and his family. Actually, it was the family of Paz, who is the daughter of Fabiola and her ex-husband. So Nick didn't really know anyone there either. We piled 5 people, 2 dogs, and a ton of bags into Nick's jeep and set off for the 2+ hour drive. The drive, however, soon turned into a 3+ hour drive, mostly because one of the dogs chose to shit all over the back trunk area. We had to stop, clean it out, clean both dogs, and clean the bags. As soon as we got underway again, my mom realized she had dropped her glasses back where we were cleaning up the shit. So they had to go back to look for those. We had to drive with the windows all the way down because of the awful stench. When we got to the beach we realized we didn't know where we were going, so we spent the next hour or so driving around calling various people (virtual strangers, remember) for directions. When we finally arrived at the cabin, we were welcomed by the nicest Chilean family ever. We taught them how to play Spoons, and they taught us that it is cool to eat tomato and avocado for three meals a day. We all got to practice a lot of Spanish, too. Here is the cabin: Here is where Nate and I stayed:
Here is the view from the deck:
This is Paz and her cousins.

This is the grandfather of the family, who, it turns out, is a very famous painter. Here he is throwing together a painting of the sea and a sailboat as his granddaughters look on. This is my mom and Fabiola doing yoga on the deck in the morning.
The next morning we went to a little hippie-town fish market in Horcon to buy fresh fish and seafood for grilling and to make ceviche (raw fish with lemon and onions. It's delicious, I swear). That night we had razor clams with parmesan cheese, fresh reinata (it's a big white fish... I don't know the name in English), ceviche, pork ribs, and of course hot dogs (for the kids!). It was a feast. We all drank tons of wine, and the grandfather made us all go around the table and say what we were thankful for. It was kind of like Thanksgiving, except it was on the beach and with a bunch of people we had only met a day ago. All in all, we had a fantastic trip. To avoid the overcrowding in the car on the way home (and the possibility of being pooped on), Nate and I took the bus back to Santiago while my mom, dad, Nick and Fabiola rode in the jeep.

Here's the fish market. It was really cloudy in the morning, but it cleared up and got super hot and sunny in the afternoon.

This was the biggest fish at the market.
Here's Nick watching our seafood being gutted.
Nick and my mom discussing how they're going to cook everything.
The second and last week of my parents visit was filled with more sightseeing and eating at better restaurants than the ones we ate at the first week they were here. My parents now know that Chilean food leaves much to be desired; and strangely enough, our best meals were at non-Chilean restaurants: a sushi place, an Argentinian steak house, and a Catalan restaurant where we ate the most delicious paella.

Here are a few random shots from the week that I thought you might like. This is me and my mom in Parque Santa Lucia, where, as you may recall, teenagers go to heavily pet one another. If you look closely, you can see a couple smooching behind us. We took bets on how many couples we'd find making out, and my mom won with a guess of 21.
You can create your own caption for this picture. Spot the Gringo: Part II
And for everyone who has ever referred to Nate as Nifty, this one's for you. The sign is awesome, and it says "because you asked for it, it's back!!! Nifty! Enjoy it now!"