Machismo and Rolling R's all in One Cute Brown Eyed Package

G. has two of the cutest little cousins ever. Period. I met them three years ago before they could even speak very well (although that's all relative because they still spoke better than me). Now, the youngest one C. is five. He has some of the sweetest brown eyes I've ever seen. When I arrived yesterday they made him run over and greet me with a kiss on the cheek. Nice. Even here that behavior has to be taught. It's not something innate like I previously thought (I previously thought a lot of things).

One of the cutest things her little cousin ever said was one summer (so January) we went to their cabin close to the mountains. We decided to go to the river and swim. G.'s little cousins got a ride on the back of the neighbor's horse and the rest of us drove. While we were sitting on the bank of the river, the adults starting asking C. how he was going to get back to the house because they horsey had left. They were like "Sara will drive!" and I was all "I will?" (sarcasm is a learned trait too you know).

C. looked at me and said "She can't drive! She's a woman!"

So the adults then said, "Well what about your aunty K. She has a car!"

This one stumped him a little and he had to think about it. Then, he shouted out "She doesn't drive. She just cleans the car!"

So there you have it folks. Your proof that they start 'em young in Chile.

Last night, everyone was teasing him because he still can't pronounce the rolling R. He has a dog named Rocky but says Locky. The whole time I'm scratching my head like "There's nothing wrong with saying Locky? Right? Right?"

He also had a rosary (rosario) which he called his losario. They asked like why he needed it and he said "para lezar" (rezar=to pray). That got a good laugh meanwhile I'm still like "BUT I UNDERSTOOD HIM!"

Soon, they started in with the "Make the motorcycle sound C.! RRRrrrRRRrrrrrRRRrrrRRR!" which just made him run around driving his fake motorcycle saying "LLLlllLLLlllLLLlllLLL!"

Then, everyone looked at me and said "SARA SAY ROCKY!" Despite my valiant effort, it still came out like "rLLLocky."

Fail.

Remind me of this in a few years when hopefully I will have perfected the R roll and you will have no idea you are speaking to a gringa even though I'm wearing Birkenstocks and ordering tap water at a restaurant.

AFK

So I'm a nerd. I was reminded of the usefullness of those little acronyms like LOL and OMG when I was watching an old re-run of The Big Bang Theory which is not normally a show I would spend a lot of time watching, but sometimes here I just get so dang sick of...er... quality Chilean programing (apparently Elisa kicked ass though) that I just need something from the US. Who else saw that episode where Sheldon is playing that online game and Penny walks in and he has to keep saying "AFK"?

That's how I will be (Away From Keyboard) until Thursday (sucks that I already said all that about blogging everyday). I left for Concepción yesterday. It was an interesting couple of hours in the bus station because I decided to wait for a direct bus rather than take one that stopped in every town from Santiago to Timbuktu. Eventually, I got on the bus and got to Conce in just six hours. I know I said I would never bus it again, but this week I had to buy an emergency text book for my new stats class and suddenly there went my flying budget. Oh well. At least the on board movies this time were fairly recent releases and they were only sort of badly dubbed in awkward Mexican Spanish.

My only drama of the day occurred when I got out of the bus and tried to join the swarm of people waiting for their suitcase, only to realize that I had lost that tiny little suitcase claim ticket they give you. Because I was busy looking for it I got pushed to the end of the line and when I finally got up I told the guy that my suitcase was the little yellow one. Of course, he heard my accent and I think he might have tried saying "Which one?" in English but I insisted with the "maleta amarilla" and pointing. There were only two left for crying out loud.

Then he looked at me, pulled out his handful of claim tickets, put them inches from my face and screamed at me "TICKET!"

I sighed and said slowly "No lo tengo pero ésa es mia. Te lo juro. No es de él," (I don't have it but it's mine. I swear. It's not his) I said motioning to the balding middle-aged man behind me who was obviously waiting for the greasy looking duffle-bag patched with duct tape.

The confused employee (dispersing suitcases is a tough job) shook his head and threw my suitcase at me. To my credit, I caught it. Jerk.

Then, I quickly forgot about that and saw G. for the first time in almost two months. My former host mom was waiting for me with spaghetti with an egg on top (always a culinary favorite) and strawberries with cream (and I'm not even being sarcastic when I say they were delicious!).

I quickly saw the entire family, and I mean the entire family, as they all came over for once. I remembered that their family is always together and that was one of the things I liked so much about studying here. Even in the US, where I consider that I come from a close family, we don't see each other (everyone together) more than once a month.

Unlike three years ago I was actually able to understand the conversation and even interject and make witty remarks about everything from the Cuban government to the importance of learning math. Go me.

Now, I'm off to try and finish some work before everyone wakes up. There are a lot of deep sleepers in this house.

Wherein weird things happen to Sara no matter where she is and sometimes a stranger helps

We've established that I'm a freak magnet, right? I suppose you could also say sh*t magnet, but let's try to keep in clean folks. Anyways, the point is that weird crap happens to me no matter where I am. Period. Like, "Hello I'm a weirdo who is going to sit next to you in the library while you are quietly studying, tell you my entire life story plus all about this time where I may or may not have been tortured by Russians, then follow you to the restaurant that I think you are going to." Just so you know in that previous example, he did actually show up at the correct restaurant and jumped out of a bush to say "Surprise! I went inside to find you, but you weren't there yet, so I already ate and paid. Bye."

So, after hearing about (or experiencing firsthand) these strange occurrences my friends told me I'm just "special" when it comes to attracting crap. In fact, we used to have a running total of the times Sara almost got run over by a car that appeared out of nowhere, or the number of sheisty old men who would hit on Sara. They got a huge kick out of it. Me not so much.

However, this city really takes the cake. Hands down the most weird crap has happened to me here in Santiago. Retrospectively, I assume that is due to that fact that I A. stick out like whoa, B. Have big blue eyes that make me look innocent/vulnerable/friendly, C. Have an intriguing and exotic accent that makes conversation with me irresistible (Yeh. The last one was totally mine).

I guess the story I'm getting at is what happened last night. A friend and I were going to meet my boyfriend and his friend at Baquedano and walk over to Bellavista. As a rule, I try to avoid Bellavista because I usually end up getting in a row with a homeless person, a punk, or a clown, but last night I actually felt sort of pumped to go.

Anyways, we were meeting in the Plaza Italia because the Chilenos were a few minutes late (somebody arriving late in Chile? Never!) and we sat down on that ledge by the sadly trampled flowers. We started talking in English, of course, and no one really seemed to notice us at all until a fairly large, dirty homeless man approached us with band-aids for sale. We stopped speaking to each other immediately, shook our heads no, and waited for the man to leave. He didn't. He stood in front of us menacingly trying to speak to my friend but all that came out was gibberish. When she shook her head firmly and said "NO," he got angry and started gesturing wildly.

At that point, I turned to her and said "I have mace." Honestly, we were probably never in any real danger because there were so many people and the homeless man was so out of his mind that he probably could not have chased after us if we had chosen to walk away, but the man sitting next to us saw how uncomfortable we were and stepped in to help.

I was shocked. People in Santiago are not known for their charitable spirit and the fact that this man walked right up to the homeless man, grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him out of our way surprised me. It surprised me so much that I broke my cardinal rule of "never talk to strangers ever" (I'm a five year old inside, I swear) and said "Gracias! Muchas gracias!" It must be true what they say that event the crusty Santiaguinos have a soft spot for the weaklings.

It was just at that point that my boyfriend and his friend arrived and we regaled the whole story to them like we had just lived through something a lot worse than one lone homeless man.

As we walked away, my friend said "That's strange. Things like that never happen to me."

I replied, "If you hang around with me enough they will."

Roommate Issues or Cultural Differences?

My roommate is from a European country that I have never visited. She speaks a language that sounds vaguely similar to German, but the similarity stops there. She speaks no Spanish and although her English is fairly fluent, it is still difficult for her. When she first moved in a month ago we spent her first whole day in Chile together as I helped her buy a cell phone and some other essentials. I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that we would get along fine or at least not bother each other.

Now, I'm starting to question that initial thought. She seems to be a bit awkward. I could imagine living in a country that is not your own and trying to communicate daily in two foreign languages would be cause for anyone to be awkward (I should know). But, she doesn't seem to understand personal space or even property.

First, she used all of my plastic wrap. Not such a big deal, but she didn't tell me she was going to use it. I just came down to the kitchen one day and all her food was plastic wrapped and the empty roll was stuffed back in the drawer.

Then, she uses the kitchen as her desk. She talks to her parents loudly and watches movies in the kitchen. It's strange because that's the only room where the wireless signal is the weakest, probably due to the cement walls. Plus, it's a tiny kitchen so that makes it extremely difficult for me to have to walk around her to cook or wash dishes. And if I do have to get around her, she doesn't move, she just watches me.

Yesterday, I had a question for her but I was exhausted so I wrote her a note, left it on her desk and went to bed. I woke up this morning and saw the note on my desk. At first, I thought nothing of it. Then, I realized that it meant that sometime during the night she had to have come into my room while I was sleeping. I realize that may not be a very big deal to some people, but it made me feel vulnerable suddenly. Somebody I barely knew walked into my room while I was sleeping, and I had absolutely no idea.

I have mentioned to her the fact that if she uses something of mine she needs to replace it. The concept seemed to be sort of a new one for her (these things do not magically appear, someone had to spend money on them and bring them back here) but fortunately she agreed and didn't argue. But, now I'm wondering if I need to broach the topic of personal space. I realize that Americans have a very wide bubble of personal space that we need in order to feel comfortable and in control of our surroundings. I know that in many countries it is not the same, but to me these issues seem like they have less to do with personal space and more to do with being a good roommate and not acting like everything belongs to you and you can do whatever you want when you want. I also know that even though she is older than me she has not lived alone or traveled very much and that in itself could very well be the difference. She just might have no real concept of what it's like to live with someone else and a home you didn't grow up in and are entitled to use everything.

Whatever the case, I wonder what you readers would advise me.