Whereas Santiago summer is a predictable 90 degrees with no precipitation; the south is decidedly less so. Though shine is always more photogenic, inevitably, there is rain. Hail, in the middle of summer, however, was not anticipated. In pursuit of the more attainable of my ‘2 Goals in Chile’ (the other is the much less successful learning of Spanish), enthusiasm was generated, plans made, camping crap dragged out, piled and packed, and food and bus tickets bought. In an act of flagrant un-patriotism, neighbor Nick and I skipped the SuperBore and instead spent 8 hours bussing s [View Full Entry]

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Today’s AP headline informs that Obama is in Indiana stumping for a stimulus plan that the let’s-not-approve-a spending-bill-for-the-first-time-in-8-years-Republicans are bemoaning in WA. Seems money for rebuilding schools, early childhood education programs, meeting state budgets, unemployment benefits, food stamps, improving infrastructure etc. is ‘wasteful big government spending’. The answer predictably enough is more tax cuts because using the government to propel the economy out of a recession is inefficient and stinks of the old bugbear communism. Only the deb [View Full Entry]

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Horror. Despair. Waves of nausea. Real fear. Different from the three day bender fear that can be fixed with a gallon of water, an icy diet coke, serious sweating or the white flag of surrender return to bed. I stared again at the message. One terrible sentence fragment with an excessive amount of punctuation meant to convey, or perhaps engender, enthusiasm: “Plomo Next Week!!!!” El Plomo is the 5424 meter dome shaped glaciated mountain looming over Santiago. Over the winter, conversation often wandered dangerously near the idea of climbing it. Now, my neighbor Nick had ma [View Full Entry]

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A lot of people have and will write about the US election in 2008. The vast majority of them will do it better. Here are a few disjointed thoughts from watching this thing unfold from a few thousand miles away. Somewhat surprisingly, Obama won Iowa. Then he kept winning. The democratic establishment was blown away. Perhaps it was because the black guy from Illinois was selling a different brand of snake water. Perhaps it was because a lot of people wanted to and still want to believe in the cultural mythos that informs and is the United States: from ‘We hold [View Full Entry]

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There is a KFC around one corner and McDonalds around the other. In the park, 4 year olds are regularly seen chugging two liters of Coca-Cola. Black Iron Maiden t-shirts are ubiquitous. There is Budweiser and Doritos in the supermarket. Moreover, the dominant economic philosophy of the country was imported wholesale from the University of Chicago’s School of Economics and Milton Freedman. All of which is to say that American hegemony is more or less wholeheartedly embraced in Chile. Unfortunately, super awesome parts of Americana such as Halloween have met stiff resistance. Hallow [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday is not usually altogether much different than any other day of the week. Sometime around 7 carly gets up. She is understandably not happy about this, so I am considerate and stay in bed til 8ish so as not to get in her way. Often I wake to the sound of cell-fon bull frogs. On occasion, I discover a freshly ground and brewed french press of strong dark coffee, which is surely a sign of the gods’ benevolence. Whether bull frogs or café, there are a few peculiar variations. Some days, it is the gas man. He pedals about the [View Full Entry]

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It is Monday in august in Santiago. Friday was a holiday in honor of the Virgin. I would assume that would be the Immaculate Conception one, but I can’t claim to know the Catholic pantheon that makes a regular habit of mercifully intervening into the ‘work’ week. (Microsoft Word apparently is more religiously sensitive. The green line has appeared under ‘immaculate conception’ recommending that it be capitalized. In case you were wondering, Krishna and Buddha get auto-corrected with capital letters. An un-capitalized mohammed gets red lined. Here too appare [View Full Entry]

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La Serena Midway through the rain, we decided to flee to the desert to the north. Six hours up the Pan-American Highway is the coastal town of La Serena. La Serena has the distinction of being one of the oldest cities in Chile and has a slew of churches that show off hundreds of years of architectural style. The older ones are squatty fortresses that bear witness to the locals’ historical dissatisfaction with Spanish conquistadors leading them to raze the town in the 16th century shortly after its founding. After being rebuilt, it was razed again a hundred years later by [View Full Entry]

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After 6 months without even a hint of rain, fall showed up in mid May. They say it always arrives in May, but being from the Northern Hemisphere, this still seems ridiculous. Nevertheless, fall arrived drizzling, then dumping cold wet rain. For six days, there was a genuine attempt to right the summer’s deficiency of rain. The muddy smelly Mapocho running down from the Andes grew turgid and menacing, while the streets, clearly ill-equipped for the deluge, flooded. Similar weather ineptitude was mirrored in the south where rivers swelled, flooded, and blocked the Pan-American Highwa [View Full Entry]

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If I were to write a book about living overseas, which i won't because enough people have done it well and many more have done it poorly, I think disabusing people of their grotesque misconceptions would be a priority. Living in a foreign country is not the same as visiting. Rather, it is the 'once-in-a-lifetime opportunity' to feel like a complete idiot almost every waking moment. Sure, there are plenty of 'unique' cultural experiences, but 'unique' cultural experience is often vacation brochure talk for 'look, say, do, feel, or be stupid'. This bit of reflection was inspired [View Full Entry]

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