The Plot

In the weeks leading up to our departure for Chile and Argentina, many people asked if we would keep in touch. “Of course!” was our response. Having lived for extended periods of time overseas, we both welcomed the audience for our letters home. But as the days passed and we said our goodbyes to more of our friends and family, we began hearing the additional, “…and pictures, will you be sure to send us your photos?”

Now that was a new one, at least for us. It is 2007, but we have always shared the photos from our trips with friends and family after we returned, not before we came home. In fact, our photo sharing and trip recollections are our main test of true friendship among our acquaintances. We need to know who will and who will not sit through our riveting slideshows. “Here is the one of the butter lamp at Hemis Gompa in Ladakh. Oh and here is the one of the 3 story Guru Padmasambhava and the butter lamp at Hemis. Oh and this one really captures the way the butter melts in the large silver butter lamp chalice…”

All of this posting of our photos on the web during our time away begs the question, if we post all our photos then what will we do when we get back to the States? Unemployment?! No one will let us couch surf while looking for apartments back home if they already had all of our stories and photos! We will have nothing to give back in reciprocity for their kindness or the ice cream we plan on devouring! And what will we talk about when we see friends and family for the first time? “Um, the weather’s nice this time of year in this part of the world, eh?”

It is a good thing we have some friends in Madison that don’t read blogs. So we decided to market the idea of a trip blog. We tested this idea out on a few who asked us to keep in touch and we were ill prepared for their answer, “Yes that would be great, what is the address?” Um, hadn’t quite gotten that far, this was just a market test, don't you know.

By the time we left for the airport for our flight to South America on August 31, we had a list of friends and relatives anxiously awaiting the first post and the first pictures. And so my anxiety grew when we didn’t have our blog live and our first posts placed upon landing in Santiago. After all, everyone wants to see the “here we are on the plane, in route and tired and the headphones don’t work and American Airlines is quite cheap because you don’t get free beer anymore” photos (like the one below) and the all important “we’ve just landed and this international airport looks exactly like all the other international airports in the world only it is much colder and the hallways are longer and that damn reciprocity tax seems awfully weird but it smells different here, and oh, you can’t tell from this angle but they do have green roof gardens in Chile” photo (not included below), right? Whew, this blog stuff is tough work!

This anxiety (newly listed in the DSM IV* as “the detoxification of work and recovery in an environment other than the office”) is stifling and is, in fact, a syndrome. I have read that it is a form of mental agitation mixed with aimless wandering which many of the locals here call "la fiebre de turismo". (Haven't been able to translate this yet.) I do know though that this fiebre makes me want to take a nap, which I have done numerous days in a row, (Viva la siesta!) and drink wine all hours of the day, which I contemplate every morning. (Do scrambled eggs and Cabernets go well together?)

So I got to thinking, what will tie this whole blog thing together? Are pictures enough, even if they are only of the rain soaked and overcast town of Temuco? I wouldn’t want to waste anyone’s precious time on the office laptop sifting through pictures of rain on streets, nine angles of the same volcano in Southern Chile or any of my encounters with Patagonian Penguins. No, I want to waste my friends’ and family’s precious time with really riveting stories regarding how we got kicked out of a cab, how good the meat tastes here, and how hard it is to find slippers in Chile.

The only blog that I have ever really read was my brother in law’s www.inacanyon.blogspot.com from last year when he was awarded a Watson Fellowship to travel hither and yon to explore the world’s canyons. (Oh and there is another one overheardlines.blogspot.com that you should all read about lines overheard in daily life compiled by a playwright in San Fran, very funny stuff, esp. the ones posted on July 25th and June 20th of this year.) So I thought to myself, “What am I going to do with this great responsibility of blogging?”

And then it came to me in a glorious moment in a Cathedral off the main square in Santiago, “Steal Scott’s original (hence never used) Watson Fellowship proposal!”** And yes, after looking at all gold lined ceilings in the main Cathedral and all the other Spanish procured Chilean resources that went into this building, I knew that divine inspiration was in the air (or was that must from the pews?) and stealing from Scott was the answer!

This blog will focus on the local drinks of all the areas we visit in the coming year with some attention given to the locals who drink these drinks! Fortunately for me, the first part will be somewhat easy: Qué toma la gente de aqui? [Trans. “What do the people from here drink?”] Answer: Chileans love Pisco Sours and both Chileans and Argentines love wine.

The second part might be harder as I am just enrolling in some Spanish classes and hopefully will get a tutor on Tuesday but I have one of the most important questions ready: Está usted el loco de aqui? [Trans. “Are you one of the locals?]*** Spanish may in fact be easier than I had originally thought!

So now that I have begun to uncover this pressing question of what the locals drink, I can go ahead and post those all important pictures of Pisco Sours and where we ate dinner last night! The pictures of overcast Temuco are forthcoming.

Happy Reading.


*DSM IV

**I may also throw in some lines overheard at the local panaderías and confiterías while waiting in the cashier’s line.

***Yes, all you Spanish speakers out there, I know what is written is not the preferred translation. (Sarah has been giving me quizzical looks all morning.)

On the American Airlines flight before we learned
that the drinks did not flow freely in coach.

The skyline of Santiago on Sunday, September 2.

The view out the front door of Hotel Vegas in Centro Santiago.

Along an old Santiago street.