Livin La Vida Loca

So I guess now was a bad time to say that I'm re-starting my blog again because I am going really crazy trying to get things for the holidays. I had the rota virus last weekend which I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I lost 5 lbs in 24 hours- blech. I've been to/had 4 family birthday parties in the last week and one more to go on Friday (Christmas Eve) when S's dad and step-mother arrive. Ahhhhhhh!!!!! I think I'm going to start an international campaign for couples called "Wrap it Up for Christmas" to be run during the month of March. It's not fair to the birthday people and not fair to their families to have birthdays in December.

So, I'm really excited to have S's family coming in town for Christmas. I love it when his family visits. His mom came last year and we had a great time. I'm busy now getting my teacups and saucers polished for his dad. I'm really lucky to have found not only a great husband but to have great in-laws too. They are each special in their own way and I love spending time with them. His mom really does feel like mom to me as in she has strength like a mom and it comforts me to be around her as I totally realized during the earthquake there. She is also a lot like me personality-wise so I totally relate to her and it's really funny to see these similarities hanging out together. We have this really cool connection that I can't explain. His dad I could hang out with all day. He is so cute, funny, and fun-loving and makes me smile/laugh just thinking about him. His step-mom is great too and she is my shopping companion. She is the girly-girl in me who likes to shop and go to the spa. It's so cool that I get totally different and special things from each of his parents. It makes it worse that they live so far away from us since I love them and hanging out so much. This is why I am really excited looking forward to the week(s) ahead and going crazy trying to prepare. We are also going to NYC for New Year's weekend with will be sooo much fun :D !

Come and knock on my door, we've been waiting for you...

So, the blogging has been non-existent for a while. Not only has my blogging been non-existent but reading the blogs of others has as well. It dawned on me today after doing my usual Facebook and news check that reading and writing blogs is really something that I miss. I thought about this blog and decided to log on and there were actually a few posts that people had made without me even keeping the blog current and it was exciting to me to read comments again. I'm definitely not the type of person to blog daily but it shouldn't be too far fetched that I can do a few postings per month and get my reading list going again. So...here we go...

I don't have anything specific I want to blog about in this post. I'm more just curious if anyone still is out there reading. I do have moderation on comments on due to some spam comments coming through (ANNOYING!!). If you are out there as one of the blogs I would read and comment on- my apologies for disappearing. A lot has happened since the last post and I'm sure I won't be short on material for future blogging.

Something that did happen today is that S was singing "Come and knock on my door, we've been waiting for you". (Theme song to "Three's Company"- a show from the 80s). I said to him "How do you know that song?!?!" He said he used to watch it when he was younger and in Chile they kept the song in English (unlike the Duck Tales theme song so I've found out). He then explained that he liked the show when he was young but now is not really sure why as it's not a kid's show at all. I have the same memory and feelings about it now. This again proves the point that although we are from worlds apart there are still similarities that we find all the time even after being together for a few years. Chao for now!!

I'm All Shook Up

Long time...no post. It's not for lack of material that is for sure. I think it's more that I have waited too long and don't know where to start. Having survived the 8.8er in Santiago I have had a lot to reflect on.

I guess let's start where I left off- tape rojo. I read all the comments left and thank you. Especially Cachando Chile who is probably right although I did explain to the consulate that I was a US citizen but next time will explain about the visitor visa. We made a day out of it though to go downtown Santiago to get the paper legalized. S's mom stopped by the office who sets these rules and told them that it was stupid to which they didn't agree but had no real response. We then proceeded to the other office to have the document legalized which went smoothly. The guy called us over to his desk when it was our turn and asked what we needed. We explained the document and what was required and he gave a confused look wondering why this was required (to which we laughed and said we were wondering the same thing). He had a whole safari of origami animals on his desk and let my son pick one out. So, for all the hassle and over $100 we spent to get this paper we got an origami elephant out of the deal and in the end they didn't ever ask for it when we left for the US. We then went to see the changing of the guards while the town dogs took a bath in the fountain and barked very loudly at the horses with armed guards riding on them that were trying their best to keep still. That was also amusing.

We had an awesome time in Chile and even got our family photos taken by the uber talented Kyle which turned out amazing as usual. We were winding down our final days in Chile and awoke 2 days prior to leaving to the 8.8 terremoto. I have never been so scared in my life nor had I imagined being so scared. This was the first earthquake I have experienced. After it happened I couldn't think of anything more frightening to have gone through. It's the total lack of control I felt for 2.5 minutes while the top 12th floor of the building I was in was swaying back and forth so much I was totally convinced and waiting for it to fall. It felt very evil to me- the sounds, the feeling, everything. I guess there are more frightening things to go through but most situations I can think of have an "out" or something that you can at least hope to control or that a sphere of influence exists. As it happened and I jolted out of bed still asleep and not aware of what was going on and I couldn't move. I yelled for S to get E (our son) as I couldn't move. He tackled E in bed and got him out while the TV fell on him. My first instinct was to run and then get the hell out of Chile as fast as I could. As soon as the quake was over I was eager to get off the 12th floor and go to the 1st. I actually wasn't sure what I was going to do if there was another quake as it seemed like no options were "safe". S's mom was staying a few blocks away and showed up at our building shortly after. As soon as I saw her I felt relieved. Relieved that she was ok and relieved as I really trust her and she knows what she is doing. I was glad to have her by our side :). Long story short she arranged to have us stay at her friend's house that day who lived in a house outside of the city where there were no tall buildings. It was so nice of her to find this for us and for her friend to let us stay. We had an asado, hung out by her pool, and took a shower and watched the news on TV. We then moved to S's dad's place that was on the top floor of only a 3 story building and away from the city. I had severe vertigo for a few days and had a very hard time going back to the 12th floor where I experienced the terremoto so I was very grateful to stay there. I was glad that we were "stuck" in Chile because I don't know how I would have felt about going back to Chile again had I gone home right away. I think I needed to experience more tremors/earthquakes and realize that it's a part of life there and not always so bad. That extra week I stayed I did figure out that 6.0 is my limit before I want to freak out. I also fell more in love with the family I have in Chile. S's mom and dad were completely awesome. His mom drove us all around just to get us to places where I/we would feel better and made sure we were ok. S's dad let us stay with him and offered me my daily 2:00 terremoto therapy of pisco sours and fed me into a Chilean food/pisco coma even without electricity- all kinds of good things were forced to thaw out for our consumption.

It still bothers me to feel the floor move like when someone is shaking their leg under the table where I am sitting at or I feel a slight movement. We were recently at a restaurant sitting at a chef's table where you could see the cook line and waiters picking up the food and a mexican worker was yelling not so nice things back and forth with a gringo waiter and the one woman was telling them "tranquilo, tranquilo" which sent chills up my spine. My son was standing in my room the other day and I was walking which made the doors of the armorie shake and he looked at me totally terrified asking if it was an earthquake. I don't think this feeling will ever totally go away but I do appreciate the reminder now and then of how fragile life is.

Tape Rojo

Ok, so I need some anger management therapy and I don't have a professional so I am writing this post. Nothing like some frustration to motivate you to blog when you have been VERY bad at it lately.

I will be traveling to Chile next week with S and bringing my 6 year old for the first time. I know when a child is traveling internationally with one parent you usually have to have a travel authorization letter which is notarized by a notary in the US. Last Sunday I decided that I better check to see if there were any weird regulations with Chile. It turns out there is. I call the Chilean consulate in Chicago and find out that there is a form that I need to fill out. Interestingly enough the person answering the phone barely speaks English and can't understand me. Is it just me or shouldn't be part of the job qualification to be able to speak English in order to work in the US at the Chilean Consulate office? I find out that what I need to have my son's father fill out a form and (1) get it notarized (2) take it to the Clerk of Courts to have it notarized and (3) send it to the Chilean consulate in Chicago along with a $12.00 money order in order for it to be "authenticated" whatever that is besides being $12.00 richer. They send me the form and it says-

autorizo a mi hijo(a) menor: (authorize my minor child)__________________________________________________

para que viaje de Santiago de Chile a _______________________________________
(to travel from Santiago de Chile to)

entre el _______/_______/_______ (día/mes/año) y el _______/_______/_______ (día/mes/año). (between) (dd/mm/year) and (dd/mm/year).

So I call the consulate office in Chicago and they assure me this is the right form. I guess they use this form on the way back from Chile for me to get my son back into the United States which makes NO SENSE. I guess they will ask for it on my way into Chile but you need it to get your child out. I thought the whole point of this is for me not to kidnap my own child and run off to another country but the point of this letter is for me to bring them back to the US from Chile. To verify the process I call several other consulates offices and there is no answer. I call the Chilean Embassy in the US and I am convinced there are no live people there. I tried every option possible and even picked the dial by name option and tried typing in names and called about 10 different extensions- no one answered. Oh, and the option to be transferred to the operater sends you to a voice mailbox that is full :). I finally get in touch with the consulate in New York and they verify the process.

Ok, so Tuesday there is a billzard in Cincinnati and I have all the paperwork to take to the Clerk fo Courts. I'm driving there and find out that they are closing at 12:00 due to the snow and it's 11:50. I convince them to stay for a few minutes because I really need to get this signed and I try not to wreck the car on the way. They were really nice and gave me the signature I needed. There were no Fed-Ex locations near by but there was a post office. I take the letter to the post office along with the $12.00 money order and pay an additional $40 (20 there and back) to send it express mail.

Side story- while I'm filling out the labels the guy behind me seems like a regular customer and was asking if one of the workers was in. The Post Office worker said "Oh yea, she just got back from Chile". I said "Oh!! That is where I am going to!". The customer said to me "Chile, is that in Ohio? Chile, Ohio?" I said "No, it's in South America". He said "Oh, is it in Florida?" I'm like "No, it's on teh contient South America". He was still perplexed. I finally said "South America, like where Brazil is." He said "Oh, ok...yea." He said "Is it warm there?" I said yea, it's summer there now. He seemed even more perplexed and I didn't want to get into how the earth was round and trying to explain the weather. Crazy!!!

Anyway, the letter is sent. Letter is supposed to arrive next day at 12:00. On Wednesday I call at 11:00 and the lady who barely speaks english answers again. She can't understand me and I give the phone to S in complete frustration so that he can speak Spanish to her. He finds out that they did not receive the letter. They close daily at 1 PM (nice job- 9 to 1) this is how efficient the government is at running things. On Thursday I traveled to Florida and completely forgot to call them to check. This morning I log on to the United Postal Service web site and use the tracking number to find out that they attempted a delivery. I call the consulate office and they say that they don't have it. I call the post office to find out that for the $20 I spent they only try one time and then it goes back to the post office and either I can call to schedule delivery (only for the next day) OR the receipient can go to the post office (good luck getting the Chilean person to go out of their way to go to the post office to pick it up, I know). So ALL morning I am on the phone growing more eager by the minute and really worried that I am not going to be able to travel. I FINALLY get in touch with the actual person who delivers the mail for that route. He was an angel. He searched the post office and did not see the letter. He mentioned that he has had several instances with the Chilean consulate's office where they have misplaced letters (GREAT!). He told me that he would stop by the consulate office before they closed at 1 PM to talk to them to find out what might have happened to the letter. This is a great example of what I expect as a gringa for customer service :). So I call the consulate office to let them know that the post office does not have the letter and their postman would be stopping by to find out what happened to the letter. They tell me that they are in no way at fault and didn't receive the letter. At some point during all of this S calls me to tell me a letter was just delivered at our house from the consulate. Apparantly they DID receive my letter and apparantly they DID process the letter but had no recollection NOR checked any sort of "system" they have (you would think they would be tracking these $12 authentications closely) and they are very familiar with me because I have been calling them 3 times a day for the past 4 days!!!!!! URGGGG!!!!!!!

So....S opens the letter and in it says "IMPORTANT NOTICE: You must go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Chile to authenticate this document to make it legal in Chile". Yippie skippy- JUST what I wanted to be spending my time in Chile doing. I can authenticate that this process is a bunch of BS and authenticate that their consulate office in Chicago SUCKS and apparantly their embassy is BS too because there is no one there that can answer a phone. So, I guess if I ever want to steal my own child all I have to do is take them to Chile and not get the form legalized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

I really have this burning desire to understand why this process is the way it is and fix it. I guess it's the Gringa in me.

To think that our government should have control over anything other than the military is totally crazy when we see how awesome they are at running things. Stuff like this in the Fortune 500 company I work for would never fly.

ANYWAY- thanks for the therapy :) I'll need some extra beach time in Chile to make up for this added stress.

Chicken On The Nightstand

Chicken On The Nightstand- this is a new concept to me as a gringa. I’m told in Chile that there are hotels or hotel-ish places that will allow you to rent the room for a few hours. These places are for you to take your significant (or not so significant) other to during the afternoon for some “private time” along with providing a hot lunch (hehehe) which is where the chicken on the nightstand comes in (no pun intended). I guess these are open for more than just the afternoon but the chicken on the nightstand is the afternoon/lunch bonus.

To my knowledge these types of places are not available in the US. I know they exist in Chile and Colombia and I think I remember seeing a show about these in Japan. At first I thought that the reason they don’t exist here is just because we are too conservative but talking to a friend it dawned on me the other day. The reason is probably because of the whole living with mommy and daddy until the last minute possible when your spouse rips you away (yes, I’m exaggerating about the ripping away but this is still a foreign concept to gringo(a)s so I joke). I guess there are not a lot of chicken on the nightstand opportunities if living at home in a city in a city-sized dwelling with mom and dad and nana so you need places like this.

I know there are different levels of these ranging from the not-so-nice to very nice but I think no matter how nice the place is I would not get over the heebie jeebies knowing what goes on . I know it is the same thing with any hotel room you are in but I try to block it out and knowing these places have one specific purpose would bother me in terms of cleanliness.

Do these exist everywhere in South America? Where does the magical line stop between before getting to the US? Do these exist outside of South America and Japan?

This is totally unrelated but gringas reading might appreciate this. It will also put you on the bleeding edge of the latest pop culture in the US. If you are Chilean you probably won’t find the humor in this so my apologies in advance. This guy was on American Idol last night:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSLc64JGbDE

I'm Chilly...No, Actually I'm Freezing

I've been a very bad blogger lately...my apologies. Happy New Year to all!

I sit here frozen but very excited about going to Chile next month. Thinking about being in Chile at the beach warms my soul even as I sit here and look out the window at this:

A Chileno and a Mono (my son E) and this also help to keep me warm in the 10 degree weather...

I promise to write a post with some more substance to it but just wanted to say hello again and Happy 2010!!

Chilean Education for Kindergarten Gringos

This week S and I are going to do a presentation of Chile to Kindergartners at our son's school as they are having a "Holidays Around the World" week. We are trying to come up with good material for them. The teacher realizes that Christmas in Chile is not that much different that Christmas in the US but wants the kids to learn about Chile in general.

We are supposed to take a food to share. We attempted to make empolvados today. I'm going to go off on a tangent here for a minute. This is my SECOND attempt at a recipe from a Chilean cookbook. The last time I tried it the recipe given was totally incorrect. I blamed it on translation errors but this time it was from a cookbook from Chile in Spanish and still incorrect!?!?! I am starting to wonder if the Chileans are sort of like some of the women from southern US who will give you the recipe for something but leave an ingredient out on purpose. We ended up having to experiment with the recipe and triple the flour/sugar/baking soda we were using. Anyway...this was my first time trying empolvados and while I thought they were pretty good wondering if they are not so great for the kids because sometimes the corn meal can be dry and hard to swallow. My backup plan unless I can come up with anything better is empanadas but apparantly just about every country has their own version of an empanada. Our son's teacher is from Sri Lanka and even they have something very similar there. Maybe I can just cut up a few Hot Pockets (just kidding). I'll share those while educating them that finders keepers, losers weepers is an ok philosophy.

I think we will also print out some Chilean flags for them to color. S is going to start working on the presentation for them tomorrow. This reminded me of a friend from Colombia who said that he was talking to some kids in elementary school in the US about Colombia. One of the kids asked "do you have colors in Colombia?" They weren't asking about crayons...the kid thought that everything was in black and white in Colombia. Not sure if he had seen some films from there in black and white or what but I thought this was really funny. When S was an exchange student he was asked if they have TVs in the jungle in Chile.

I'm trying to think of some cool ideas for the Kindergartners to teach them about Chile. If anyone has any ideas for this (including food items) please let me know. Gracias!