What Do You Eat For Lunch In the Desert?

A sandwich.

How's everybody doing today/tonight? Thank you for taking the time to read about your favorite exciting, open-minded, cultured streets maintenance worker/fall guy/sparring partner living in Chile, South America.

Unbeknownst to most of you (because you are ignorant), a couple of weeks ago Chile qualified for the World Cup. Unlike in the United States--where spontaneous public celebration is discouraged unless Obama is elected--people in Chile have impromptu street parties often when something good happens. A few friends and I made the trip to the central plaza* in Concepciòn to partake in the festivities. If you have never celebrated your soccer team going to the World Cup, I strongly recommend it. At the plaza party people jumped in a cold fountain (a lá Friends), sang soccer songs, danced soccer dances, honked car horns, drank in public, climbed up statues, and waved flags out car windows. Only 21 people were arrested, and no one was hurt!

Last Saturday, I attended a Chilean wedding. The ceremony began at 8:30 P.M. and the reception didn't end until around 5:30 A.M. It was a lot of fun and pretty similar to a wedding back home, even with the whole making people feel embarrassed thing. However, I did notice some things that usually do not occur at a wedding in the United States:

• During the obligatory wedding slideshow, the song "Love Hurts" by Nazareth was played. Unfortunately, they did not play "Son of A Bitch."
• At 3 A.M. waiters brought out silver trays of Mardi Gras accessories, which everyone proceeded to wear. I accessorized with a giant, pink polka-dotted plastic bow tie and some glowsticks.
• There was a dessert buffet. All large get-togethers could be made better by the addition of a really good dessert buffet.
• During the meal, the DJ played lounge versions of popular English-language 80's and 90's rock songs. Highlights included, "Creep," "Don't Speak" and "Hungry Like A Wolf."
• Everyone danced "The Twist" in Spanish.

All in all, it was a really good time made better by an open bar.

Recently, I took a trip to the Atacameña desert in the far north of Chile. It is a beautiful place and probably the only place in Chile where old white couples with matching overloaded backpacks, fleece pullovers and cargo capris can blend in. However, ridiculous outfits aside, the Atacameña desert is well worth the trip if you are into any of the following:

• Sunsets and Sunrises
• Bonfires inside restaurants
• Sun
• Salt flats where flamingos live. I think they imported the flamingos to get people to go the salt flats
• Sand in your orifices (especially your ears)
• Sand in general
• Beautiful mountains and valleys
• A really good restaurant that only serves rotissierie chicken, drinks and french fries
• Oasises
• Throwing your used toiletpaper into a garbage can

After the desert, I returned to the capitol of Chile, Santiago where I got to spend some time in a novelty T-shirt shop. Now all of you know that novelty t-shirts in English are ugly and stupid and should never be worn outside of fixing a car or painting something messy. However, the language and cultural barriers make Chilean novelty t-shirts funnier. My personal favorites were "Burger King, The House of Shit" and "Sex Aspirin."

Best North American Apparel:

• D-Generation X hat sported by senior citizen
• Ricky Watters Eagles Jersey

Thanks again for reading. I'll leave you with the best quote I have heard directed towards me on the street in broken English the whole time I have been in Chile.

"Your face, your ass. What's the difference?"

*Plazas are big open spaces in the middle of a city with statues, vendors, trees, lightposts benches and vagrants. You can watch a live comedy play, get your shoes shined, and urinate on lightposts (even in broad daylight) in plazas.

Where in the World is Carmen San Tiago?

Man, I kill myself with titles sometimes, even if they're not funny and the pun is a stretch. Sorry it has been so long. So, what's good with it, you ask?

Last weekend I took a 6 hour bus ride to Santiago. On the way, I consumed some good old horse jerky, you know, like the kind mom used to make? The flavor of it doesn't really resemble horse meat at all (more like dirt on a farm) and it saps all of the spit out of your mouth before you can say, "This really sucks!"

Upon arriving at the Santiago Bus Terminal at 10:30 P.M. we decided to take a taxi to where we going to stay. Along the way, I saw some uncultured juvenile delinquents of about 12-14 years standing on the back bumper of a moving metro bus (like Metro Transit size) pounding on the back window. When we passed by, they were nice enough to recognize the photographic opportunity they presented by giving us rude gestures.

Santiago is a really fun place. It has cool graffiti, places to buy Ash Ketch'em and Misty Blue masks, a nut stand called "Nuts4Nuts," statues of naked people, smog, and mixed vegetable pizza. I visited a zoo that had giraffes that you can look at, touch, and get licked by. I also went to a sports bar, ate a bacon cheeseburger and watched the Vikings game with fellow United States citizens. It was a great cultural experience!

The commuter train in Santiago is actually surprisingly clean and the stations have everything from extremely detailed escalator instructions (a bullet list of 8 warnings of how to safely ride an escalator; one of them is, "Do not go on the elevator with anything you have trouble holding") to people who wear big signs on their back that say, "You can buy minutes for your phone from me."

We stayed in the Andes Hostel in the BellaVista neighborhood of Santiago. Hostels are really fun places to stay. The ones I've stayed at are nothing at all like their namesake movies (neither 1 nor 2). If you're young, not boring and haven't stayed in a hostel before I would recommend staying in one. It's a great place to meet people from different countries and laugh at the way they talk. Last weekend, I met an Irishman who said, "I have to retire right now," but he wasn't talking about his job--he actually meant that he had to go pee! What a crazy bloke!

Santiago nightlife is also something I would recommend if you enjoy any of the following:

• Dancing
• Drinking
• Drinking on streets
• Budging in lines

I went to a club where everyone in the place danced their heart out to "The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats. The DJ had her hands in the air like she was actually playing a cool song! Another club called "Aliens" seemed promising at first because a) it sounds like the type of place where a foreigner would fit in and b) you'd assume it would have semi-decent barbecued ribs and an arcade. Unfortunately, it was just a normal dance club with a cover charge and expensive drinks.

On a completely different subject, the University of Concepcion was the site of much turmoil this past week. Case in point: For the past few weeks I have been waiting for a package of t-shirts and other assorted tasty treats from my lovely mother. I pick them up in the Arts and Humanities Building on campus. Unfortunately, some disgruntled students decided to have a sit-in on Monday in that same building. Apparently, arts and humanities students pull this card every year to protest high tuition. One time they tried to stage a sit-in in the library and the engineering, law, and medical students beat the hell out of them. I ended up getting my package on Thursday, as the building was open for a little bit. Unfortunately, the future teachers of Chile sat-in again Thursday night. I guess they had a party in there--I was cool enough to get invited! Unfortunately, the cops were on there way so it was a bad idea to go.

I've been watching a lot of music videos today. One artist I'd highly recommend is Miguelito, the badass Latino thug answer to Hannah Montana. He's a ten year-old Puerto Rican reggaeton artist that is famous for such hits as "Backpack of Love," "Boom Boom," and "The School." This is the video for "Boom Boom."

After watching it, don't you feel your childhood was missing something?

American clothing of the week:

"Vodka. Connecting People."

"Bristol City Police Department."

That's all folks! As they say in Chile, "Pass it well!"