So Now We're Back

After two and a half weeks of traveling through Patagonia, we were looking forward to getting back to Santiago. You reach that point in a vacation where a night in your own bed and a meal you cook yourself start to seem like the most appealing things around. Our first days back were spent being as lazy as humanly possible and washing the clothes we'd been wearing for the entire trip, each of which smelled worse than death. We, thankfully, had reached that stage of filthiness when you can no longer smell your own stink, but the Chileans around us had no such immunity, so I'm fairly certain we were the least popular people on the plane home. We also took the opportunity to meet up with Fiona and German to swap hiking stories and so Erin could take her pretty new ring out in public and start telling everyone she knows she's engaged. It was good practice for her.

When Monday rolled around, we both started work again. Thankfully, the February slump is over. All the Chileno business types have left the beach, put down the ice cream, and come back to Santiago for work. School has also started up again, so around about midafternoon all the school kids in their uniforms are milling around the streets and begging money off strangers near the metro. This is a practice that vaguely annoys me, so I try to come up with creative ways to say no. Tactic 1: Say I don't have any money and ask them if they could lend me some. Tactic 2: Give them exactly 2 chilean pesos. A peso is worth approximately one fifth of a US penny. A little less in reality and has the same buying power here as a fifth of a penny would in the US. That's to say no buying power at all. I have decided that rather than keeping single pesos, I get more value out of either throwing them at things or offering them to school-aged beggars. Tactic 3: Sorry, I need my money for beer. I haven't found that anything really deters them, but it keeps me vaguely amused and I get to practice my spanish. Work is pretty much standard, and it's a good enough way to fill up the day. It also conveniently ends by 2:30, which leaves the rest of the afternoon free for whatever activities we can think up.

Since we got back, we've been trying extra-hard to catch up on all the entertainment we've been behind on. Mostly, this means watching episodes of Futurama and the Simpsons in spanish, but my spanish has gotten decent enough that I can also now follow some of the original Chilean programming. Erin always seems a little disgusted with me when she catches me watching Casado con Hijos (the Married with Children rip off), but I don't care. We both finally got to see the Borat movie, which most of you probably saw months ago. It doesn't officially come out in Chile until this weekend, but, like most movies, bootleg copies have been available since the US release. We both thought it was funny, but it definitely got over-hyped. We also saw Pan's Labyrinth, which was incredible. Here, it's shown without English subtitles, obviously, and that made it a little difficult for me, but I did an okay job and Erin answered my questions after it was over. We've also been trying to get out and do things. We went rock climbing again in Cajon del Maipo. This time we took Nick, Fabiola, and Paz along with us. Nick was kind enough to drive us, and in exchange I promised him I wouldn't let Will or David make any more inappropriate comments about his under-age, pseudo-step-daughter. He was very appreciative, and both he and Paz were pretty good climbers. I was pleased to learn that I was still able to climb after a 3 month break, and I suspect the loss of some 20-30 pounds during these last seven months was helpful in that respect. At any rate, it was fun, and they invited us over for a BBQ afterwards. Nick regailed us with dirty stories of English boarding school and taught us what a "minger" is, and in exchange I spilled wine on their new tablecloth and ate so much steak I was sick that night. Erin was generally pleasant, so good for her. It doesn't make for much of a story.