All the days are magical

What I like is about 2013 is that every date feels magical when I write it.

For example...
1.3.13
1.11.13
1.19.13
I like this year's date aesthetics.

And then of course, 3.9.13 promises to be pretty magical. March 9th is my birthday. I'll be turning [insert twenty-something age here] and I've had the inclination for awhile now that I wanted to make this birthday abroad pretty spectacular. As it stands, I've had several notable birthdays, both US-bound and abroad. My 19th birthday was spent in Mexico, complete with a surprise Mexican birthday party featuring a pinata, my surrogate Mexican family and tres leches cake shoved in my face. My 21st birthday was spent hungover on a plane on my way to Mexico for Spring Break with Kelli.  My 23rd birthday was spent in Cairo, Egypt. And last year's birthday was one of the best, in Sandusky with all of my friends having a ball on the town and listening to live music from the Womacks.

But this year will be different. I've made plans to spend 6 nights on Easter Island, alone, in a cabana on the ocean.

I've made all the reservations; I'll arrive on March 8th and leave the 14th. My cabana is booked, and all I have to do is get my gringa ass to Santiago by the 8th. I'll go with my yoga mat, my notebook and plenty of space on my camera. (Oh, and clothes and stuff.)

I don't normally splurge so much on trips, but the rationale is that I will never go back to this place, and I want to make it something quite memorable. Hence the non-hostel accommodations. I'm usually averse to spending more than $15 a night anywhere in any part of the world, but for what I'm aiming for here, my little cabana on the ocean was both a deal and a necessary component for the trip.

WHEE!

Now, here are some more pictures from life in Puerto Varas.

Osorno at sunrise.

The sunrises and sunsets here are so magical and pink,

all the time. 

One of my friends here, Fu, is from China and practices

Acupuncture here in Puerto Varas.

He showed me his vaguely communist cigarette case.

Delightful. 

The wooden German church here in Puerto Varas,

early morning snapshot. 

Non Sequitur

 Here's a shot of my cutting board, for no particular reason.

I was really impressed by the mushroom design.

Look at how gnarly that thing is.

(The red pepper bits are just for artistic effect.)

And then I found this rainbow a couple days ago.

Usually you see the beginning of the rainbow but not the end.

Well the end of THIS rainbow was in Lago Llanquihue.

And look at how brilliantly vivid it is.

Another shot of this epic rainbow. 

It was actually a double rainbow (not noted here).

Soo....a little bit better than just one rainbow. 

A shot of the Great File Transfer of 2013.

My files were distributed between two laptops (my old one

and the one borrowed from my friend, far left) as I

awaited the arrival of the New Vaio (far right).

Completing the transfer using only a 4gb stick was fun,

let me tell you. 

My new bike!

Her name is Hermanina. 

She has tricky gears and wobbly handlebars,

but I love her because she let's me zoom down hilly streets

and enjoy crisp Chilean airs atop two moving units that are not my legs.

Holidays Below the Equator

I've never spent a susbstantial holiday away from home, despite my extensive travels. This trip was the first time I'd ever spend all the major ones away from home - Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and then who knows what else in the future - and away from family.

I was slightly apprehensive about how I might feel during these days. Obviously Thanksgiving came and went successfully, complete with Bursting Gut Syndrome yet thankfully free of Black Friday Madness. Christmas was quiet here and save a little unexpected Tearful Joy after talking with all of my family on Christmas Eve, I felt very calm and happy. Even away from family, I can have a successful and fulfilling Christmas.

Me on Christmas Eve! Note I'm not wearing a heavy jacket.

Because there's no snow here, Ohioans. No snow. 

It helped to have the girl's here. We opted to spend our Christmas Eve helping out with a dinner at the guesthouse where Leslie works, which allowed us to spend the time together, eat really well, and be surrounded by Americana-type comfort. The guesthouse is really gorgeous and it's decorated impeccably, so being surrounded by such cozy Christmas touches helped the holiday spirit.

Vicky readying the gourmet salads for the Christmas Eve dinner.

We made the decision to not purchase presents. None of us are really in a position to spend mass amounts of money on gifts, much less ship them around the world. So without the pressure of gift purchases, and the weather indicator (first Christmas without snow and cold - WEIRD!), it was really hard for me to remember that Christmas was even approaching.

Our awkward family portrait on Christmas Eve.

New Year's Eve festivities commenced with a fireworks display downtown at the beach. Around 11:50pm everyone started shooting off silly string and screaming and cheering and popping champagne bottles on the street. Then right at midnight, a huge fire sign lit up that said "Puerto Varas 2013"; it was really impressive. Then the fireworks started, and they went on for quite some time (far longer than the July 4th Cedar Point fireworks, for the record).

The rest of the Eve was celebrated in typical fashion (partying) but what was different about this New Year's Eve partying was that I was working. And working really, really stinking hard. We were slammed to the gills with people from 12:30am until the (not so) early morning, and I've never run so much at that place as this night. I think the first time I was able to look past the wall of people waiting at that bar was around 5am or so. Two girls were supposed to come in and help us serve drinks that night but something didn't work out right, because they definitely showed up behind the bar. Amanda, Keko and I served hundreds of people that night. Phew!

Plus I got a sunburn on the beach later that day, and took a dip in the Lago Llanquihue. Invigorating!!

Me and a friend braving the cold waters...

Not a bad backdrop, eh?

Merry Christmas (a little late) and Happy New Year to all my loved ones and dutiful readers! 2012 was a ridiculously fun, magical, eventful, rewarding and inspiring year...here's to 2013 being all that and more!!

All in a night's work...

Pouring a Schop (draft); it's Kunstmann.

I am a sub-par bartender because I don't drink beer 

and don't understand beer terminology...

nor do I care to learn. The most you'll get out of me is, "It's an amber beer,

and no, we don't carry any cerveza negra. Get a Heineken and shut up."

Guitarist for the tango group.

The Tango is very Argentine; you could tell the Argentine 

members of the audience based on who was reacting

the loudest/most fervently in favor of every tango song. 

Lovely performance by these two;

I can't wait to visit the 'tanquerias' in Argentina!

Our team! Leo (the French DJ), me, Amanda, 

and Keko, our boss (and the bar owner).

We have a lot of fun together...

which includes the implementation of unnecessary dress codes, 

as seen above. 

The International Cookie Conundrum

I don't know if many of my readers know this about me, but I make chocolate chip cookies. Not just any chocolate chip cookies, mind you - Vaguely Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I sold these things for four years at my local farmer's market. Initially, the name drove some people off. I frequently heard "Ugh, no thanks, I prefer my cookies unhealthy." I gently reminded my customers that my cookies were not entirely healthy, thankyouverymuch - just vaguely, due to the fact that I used the best quality and minimally processed ingredients available  in the market.

While my exact recipe remains a secret that I refuse to disclose except in the event of a very large sum of money, what makes my cookies different is the fact that they are infused with a flax meal egg replacement, and feature REAL vanilla extract, alongside stone ground whole wheat flour, kosher salt, and more. It's a hefty, hearty, vaguely healthy experience. My clientele were testament to this - after four years and one 3rd place award in a general baked goods contest, I was selling out nearly every week at the market and taking large orders for those customers who just couldn't get enough of my vaguely healthy goodness.

Four years, man. Four years of baking something like once a week for 50 weeks each year. So it stands to reason that I might be going through a little withdrawal here after almost two months without a single sniff or taste of my beloved recipe.

So I broke down and hit up the local Lider store on a mission to bake MY cookies. "It's almost Christmas," I reasoned, "I need to share cookies with people." I make this sound easier than it was - I had to go almost four separate times before I recognized the baking aisle (it was that small), and then a couple more times before they had chocolate chips in stock (one brand, super expensive, one package available). Awesome.

Furthermore, it appears that Chile does not differentiate between baking powder and baking soda. Due to the specifics of my secret recipe, I won't elaborate on which one I use, nor the brand, but let's just say that it's still unclear what I was using, how it was processed, and why the other kind isn't also made available to the baking public.

i was able to find wheat flour, which was nice, but stone ground varieties were conspicuously absent. I had procured my own sea salt from the local vegan store, which I ground using mortar and pestle. Raw sugar (or what looks like raw sugar) was also available - score. (I am slowly revealing my whole recipe to the general public, and I realize this, BUT I'LL NEVER DISCLOSE MY RATIOS!)

I got a little stumped when it came to Brown Sugar Time. It was nowhere. Like, actually, physically non-existent. Como como?? Hello, I thought this place was founded by Germans. There is an explosion of pound cake around every corner, and while I don't actually know if brown sugar is a requirement in any of the pastries or baked goods produced in the area, you would think it was.

So I turned to Luz for help. I described what I was looking for, and after much explanation and lack of dictionary and/or online translator, we got to the bottom of it. She hands me a brick of something that smelled like brown sugar, tasted like brown sugar - by god, it was brown sugar in brick form. She told me to use the crazy grater instrument that I have never once in my life used. What a genius implement, I see now.

This was a therapeutic and invigorating experience.

When it was all said and done, I had a basic approximation of my recipe, minus the flax meal, which meant I baked cookies using eggs for the first time in four years. Similar to my Thanksgiving Baking Experiment of 2012, I did this all without a single measuring tool. Boy was that fun. Again.

Uhhh...yum?

What emerged from the oven after a very nervous and pacey 7 to 11 minutes (once again, cannot disclose the time allotted in the oven - also this number is unclear to me because I have no way of telling what temperature I set the oven to, making any attempt at my prior method a total gamble) was this:

Readily identifiable cookies! Chilean Success!

Luz's reaction after tasting my not-so-vaguely-healthy-anymore cookies?

"La encuentro bien. Muy bien." I find it to be good. Very good.

My reaction after tasting my not-so-vaguely-healthy-anymore cookies?

Shit, these are buttery. And sorta gummy. And maybe I didn't use enough sugar. Maybe it was the brown sugar, since I did get lazy and not add the whole [amount has been censored] cup. Is it possible to have a buttery cookie? What purpose does the brown sugar serve, anyway? Why does it not come pre-grated here? Do these chocolate chips actually taste like anything? I better eat another one and find out. 

Next up: making these again, but this time WITH the flax meal, which I was able to find. Now I just have to wait for those chocolate chips to be in stock again...

Navigating the Cosmos (in Puerto Varas)

There is a conference of astronomers visiting Puerto Varas right now, and they have been visiting the Garage each night they've been in town. I never imagined scientists and astrophysicists could consume so many mojitos and draft beers. Furthermore, I never imagined they would be at a bar at all, much less MY bar. But alas, these scientists were rocking out, dancing, having fun, involved in conversations of most likely epic proportions (I imagine their jokes must be infinitely more intelligent than mine).

One of them was a Chilean man, a Santiago native, who lived in Edinburgh, Scotland for seven years before coming back to Chile to continue working with the telescope in the Atacama Desert. He spoke English very well, and we chatted for awhile about the work they're doing up there, what type of telescopes they use, the dimensions of the antennae, nerdy things like that. I showed him my space shuttle necklace as proof of my dedication to all things outer space.

We had a live tango band last night. At one point, this Chilean astronomer came up to me and asked why there was no one on the dance floor, dancing the Tango. I felt a particular lightning bolt of wit come scorching through the cosmos and land somewhere in my chest cavity, so I thought I'd follow this inclination. I told him, "What do you mean? There are tons of people out there dancing; you just can't see them." 

He looked at the dance floor, then back at me, confused.

"They're in a different dimension," I clarified. "You just can't see them, but they're there."

He watched me a moment, still somewhere between amused, confused and horrified.

"Like in the tenth dimension, you know? String Theory and all that."

Another pause, and then he says slowly, "What are you talking about?"

I felt my joke shrivel and crumble and return to the interstellar dust bits from whence it came. I was a little surprised; I mean, I dropped the term 'String Theory'. Isn't it obvious that I'm being witty in front of an astronomer?

"I was trying to make a scientific joke," I said. "I thought it would be funny...People dancing in the tenth dimension."

"Oh, you mean the eleventh dimension?"

This time, I paused. Sure, maybe I'd gotten the specifics of String Theory wrong. But was my joke so unintelligible with that slight, barely noticeable, quark-of-a-gaffe? Come on, Astrophysicist; cut me some slack!

He threw me a pity laugh and we went on our separate interstellar paths. I thanked the astronomers later for sharing their presence with me and the bar and Puero Varas in general. I was strangely honored and thrilled to be in the same breathing space as the people responsible for some of the most cutting edge scientific research in today's world. 

Oh, and by the way, these guys found water in distant galaxies!! Look for the articles coming out soon...

Bad News Bears: Chile Edition

I would like to relate a small tale in narrative form.

Once upon a time, a wide-eyed vagabond moved to a foreign country to begin pursuing writing full-time. She brought along a laptop with her, one that boasted the style inclinations of a Mac with the functionality of a PC. This laptop was handy, dear to heart, and quite durable. At one point it had even been knocked off a table by said vagabond´s dog, and it survived with flying colors, minus a new rattle which the vagabond thought was just a loose screw somewhere inside.

The laptop made the move to the new country and hemisphere with no complaints. The vagabond, about a month into her life in the new land, realized that she might want to purchase a new latptop some time soon. Afterall, the laptop was nigh on three years old and had been dropped off a table once.

The vagabond searched high and low on American internet sites, comparing reviews, GB space, dimensions and aesthetics until she arrived at the perfect new Sony Vaio. She became so excited by this new computer that she wanted to buy it instantly, but felt guilty because her old laptop was still functioning very well (even though it had been dropped off a table once). 

Approximately six hours after her purchase decision and general enthusiasm, the old laptop exacted its revenge. It began shutting off with no warning; despite the vagabond´s pleas, it refused to launch itself normally, instead choosing to wring her through a complex series of false System Restores and half-hearted System Repairs.

The vagabond repented, pleaded for mercy, bargaining with the laptop that if it would just let her get off the most updated version of the freaking novels she'd been toiling on mercilessly, that it could take its operating system and do whatever it wanted. The laptop regarded her in icy silence.

Some friends calmly asked the vagabond why she hadn't backed everything up, to which the vagabond responded, 'I did. But just not very recently.' 

The vagabond has plans to purchase her new Sony Vaio immediately, which will probably enrage her old laptop even more. She will soon attempt to take her flailing computer to a local electronics store, where she will search out someone who can read error messages in English.