A Birthday in Santiago!

First of all, thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes!  When I reflected upon all the birthday greetings, I was humbled that I received well-wishes from all stops of my life--family, Remsen, RU, University of Iowa, IKM, Ole Miss, ELC, Boji, SMSU, and many places in between and far away.  Many people wished me a great day and it was!  So I decided to write about it because I had such an enjoyable day with LG and Garv.   And don't worry, I'll still be writing more about Buenos Aires tomorrow.

So here's my day.

9:30 am: Wake up.  I wake up at 9:30 most days here.  The sun doesn't come up until 8:30 anyways.

10:00 am:  Walking tour of Nunoa, a comuna (mini-municipality) of Santiago

One of the many reasons I was excited to visit Santiago for a second time was that I would be able to see parts of the city that are not necessarily remarkable to tourists.  Nunoa is certainly not remarkable to tourists, but it is my new favorite part of the city.

LG and I visited Nunoa because there was a self-guided walking tour with six stops, and it is the part of town where LG volunteers in the schools, so she wanted me to see her schools.  The first stop was the National Stadium.  The National Stadium has some interesting history since it was a detention center during the dictatorship.  Because of that, 300 seats remain unoccupied in memory of the victims during each soccer match, including Chile's victory there in the Copa America in July.  We were only able to see the exterior the stadium so I snapped a few pictures.  I found the playground interesting because someone is missing out on a lot of parking revenue.  There's no way a stadium in the United States would have largely unused playground where expensive parking spots could otherwise be.  When I mentioned this to Garv, he laughed and said that "Financial transactions are the farthest thing from [Chileans'] mind.  It's just different."

Lots of lost revenue!

Showing off my pipes with an imitation of some random Greek statue.

The major reason I liked Nunoa so much is because of the area around Plaza Nunoa, the last stop on the walking tour.  It was an upper middle class neighborhood; had lots of restaurants, bars, and shops; it was very clean and orderly; and it wasn't at all touristy.  I especially love the picture below--the mountains, the apartment building, the church with unique architecture, and the palm tree--because I'm clearly in a foreign country.

4:30 pm: Nap

5:30 pm: Work out

Santiago has lots of parks and many of them are located in the middle of boulevards.  They have crushed gravel paths for jogging and walking and playgrounds and workout equipment in the grassy areas.  So I jogged a mile and a half or so (the perfect distance!) and then did some pushups, pullups, and abs.  But I didn't work out too much because I knew I'd be doing a little (or a lot of) drinking later.

8:30 pm: CHPE Libre

For an aperitif and appetizer, we went to CHPE Libre, a pisco bar and restaurant in a trendy part of Santiago called Lastarria.  This is one of the most brilliantly conceived restaurant/bars ever.  Pisco is a liquor made from grapes and these grapes grow particularly well in northern Chile and southern Peru.  So the CHPE part of the name is derived from the first two letters of each countries' name and they called it the Independent Republic of Pisco.  That's not what was brilliant!  What was really brilliant was that they appropriated communist symbols as a marketing aspect of a capitalist enterprise.  That's the perfect place for me on my birthday.  Pure brilliance.

I love places with maps!

A new country!

Power to cocktails for the bourgeoisie!

The food and drink was excellent, too.  We each ordered a different a different pisco drink and some ceviche (raw fish marinated in lemon juice), flanked by two different kinds of corn.  It was an excellent start to my birthday evening.

Ceviche

Another picture of me with a drink...

9:30 pm: Bocanariz

Last year, I ranked Bocanariz as my second favorite experience.  Here was a conversation LG and I had about my birthday plans:

LG: What do you want to do for your birthday?
TK: Go to Bocanariz.
LG: But I wanted to go to Bocanariz one day for lunch.
TK: It's my birthday!

Needless to say, the birthday boy won.

We had reservations at 9:30 and since CHPE Libre was right next door to Bocanariz, we were right on time.  Which, in Chile, means we were way early.  Since we were early, the host let us go down to their cellar which had thousands of wines, all of which were from Chile (which also makes Bocanariz a brilliantly conceived restaurant).  We (or mainly Garv) peppered the host with questions about wine and he even dug out an expensive one for us to look at (and take a picture with).

I was really nervous about dropping this bottle even though the floor was crushed gravel...

Once we were seated, I thoroughly analyzed the place mat that had a map of central Chile on it.  Since Chile is such a long country, only part of it fit on a place mat.  When you put three place mats together, it would have been most of Chile.  But I didn't go that far.

In between map gazing, we also looked through the wine menu which is extensive.  One of my favorite things about Bocanariz is that it is all Chilean wine.  I really don't know that much about Chilean wine (I just drink it), but Garv knows a fair amount and he splurged on a bottle since it was my birthday.  It was very good and, of course, we got a picture of me drinking it.  We also ordered three small plates and a dessert and all of them were excellent.

And another picture of me drinking wine--with a plate of hams from various animals... 

 I also love Bocanariz because this is the greatest thing ever for a wine bar/restaurant...

We only had one bottle...

 Once again, thanks to everyone for the birthday notes.  And thanks to LG and Garv for sharing it with me in Santiago!

Buenos Aires, Part 1: Food and Drink

Last year when I was in Santiago, one of my disappointments was that I didn't try any Argentinian food.  During last year's trip, however, Garv, LG, and I made tentative plans to go to Buenos Aires in 2015.  We held to those plans and spent a long weekend in Buenos Aires, which was amazing!  We arrived on a Friday night at about 7 pm local time and left the next Tuesday at noon.

I'm going to break my trip into three parts:

1. Food and Drink

2. Dancing

3. History, Politics, and Economics

Lindsay also posted a blog about our trip to Buenos Aires.

Food and Drink in Buenos Aires

A. Beef

One of the prominent features of Argentina's geography is the Pampas, which is a huge plain ideal for herding cattle.  Argentina is well-known for beef so we had to try some parillas, which are basically steak houses.  Garv had received a few recommendations so after checking into our hotel we immediately headed to La Brigada, one of Buenos Aires's best known parillas.

The food was excellent, particularly the fried cheese appetizer, the steak, and the bottle of Malbec.  Even better was the service.  The server, a gentleman of about sixty years, was deft with everything--bringing food, serving food, serving wine, removing dishes and silverware, cleaning up my mess of breadcrumbs.  It was remarkable and added to the atmosphere and food to create a great experience on our first night in Buenos Aires.

Fried cheese and red pepper--a great appetizer!

My sirloin--shaped like Australia

Enjoying my sirloin!

On Sunday night, we went to another highly recommended steakhouse called La Cabrera.  Unfortunately, this experience was not as enjoyable.  The food was great (check out the size of the spread below!), the wine was great, the service was good (though no where near as good as La Brigada), but the problem was that it was miserably hot in the restaurant!  Garv couldn't tolerate it and had to go outside a few times.  Even LG thought it was hot! South Americans have a much different internal temperature.  While we were immensely uncomfortable, no one else seemed bothered.  There was even a Brazilian guy wearing two fleeces...

Garv: I have to outside!
LG: Even I'm hot!
TK: Even I can't eat all this food!

B. Pizza

The real food winner of the trip according to LG and Garv was pizza... Argentina is usually known for its beef, and it certainly was good, but it wasn't brilliant.  LG thinks it's because we are used to eating really good beef raised by family friends.  So though the meat didn't blow us away, LG and Garv loved the pizza (I thought it was good, but it did't blow me away).  The reason the pizza is so good is that around the turn of the twentieth Argentina experienced a huge influx of immigrants from Italy (and Spain).  Because of that Italian influence, there are some great pizza places and we went to a pair of them, Guerrin's on Saturday and Banchero's on Sunday.

Guerrin's

Banchero's: LG and I preferred this one.

C. Wine

If you go to the Hy-Vee liquor store and search for wine from Argentina, it's almost certainly going to be Malbec. There is a region of Argentina called Mendoza that is ideal for growing Malbec.  Chile and California also grow some Malbec, but Argentine Malbec is the best.  We had a bottle or two each day.  And like the beef, our best wine was at La Brigada.  Of course, we also spent twice as much on the bottle at La Brigada than our bottles at other places.

D. Coffee and Dessert

LG really likes coffee and dessert.  So we visited Cafe Tortoni, the most famous cafe in Argentina.  I'm not really sure why it was so famous, but because it was famous, we went.  We shared some desserts. I had some hot chocolate since I don't drink coffee.  Garv had a milkshake because he doesn't drink coffee.  LG had coffee because she would rather have coffee than alcohol.  Crazy.

LG enjoying her coffee at Cafe Tortoni

E. Speakeasies

One of the trendy things in Buenos Aires (and other cities) are "speakeasies."  There is nothing illegal about these speakeasies, but it adds another layer to the drinking experience.  On Saturday night, we went to a place called Frank's.  Entry required a password which could be found on the bar's Facebook page.  So we said "Grace Kelly" to the bouncer, went through a telephone booth, and were in the bar.  The bar specialized in intricate cocktails.  This was great in theory, but horrible in practice.  Because the drinks were so complicated to make, it was very hard to get service.  After about half an hour and not even getting close to the bar, we left.  In my final analysis is was trying to hard to be hip and failed at the basic function of a bar--serve customers drinks.  However, many Portenos (residents of Buenos Aires) disagreed because the bar was packed.

Entering Frank's Through the Secret Passage

The second speakeasy we visited was Florida Atlantica.  The front was a flowershop, but inside was a secret door that led down some stairs to a restaurant/bar.  

But here's a picture of the flower shop!

The Secret Door!

This was a much better experience.  It had a cool vibe and we had a bottle of wine, a couple of appetizers, and dessert.  The dessert was chocolate mousse and was the culinary highlight of the trip.  It was sublime.  So good.  It was so good we didn't get a picture because when something is so good you sometimes forget to get a picture of it.  It was a very fitting way to end our last night in Buenos Aires...

Wineries!

I learned an interesting fact on this trip--Chileans are not big wine drinkers.  That's okay--more for me.  They are, however, big wine producers.

Last year, we visited El Cuadro vineyard and it was my favorite experience of the entire trip.  This year, LG and I did a day trip to two wineries as part of a tour: Santa Rita and Concha y Toro.  Though these two wineries were not as amazing as El Cuadro, we had a great day and drank some great wine.

We went to Vina Santa Rita first.  The tour was interesting because it focused on the industrial process of making wine.  The small vineyards I've been to emphasize how non-industrial they are.  So I liked this tour because Santa Rita proudly proclaimed how much wine they made (a lot, in qualitative terms).

Of course, since I found the industrial aspect of the winery most interesting, I didn't take any pictures of it.  A picture of me next to some aging barrels will have to suffice.

I also enjoyed this winery because there was an interesting story related to house and grounds (before it was a winery).  I excerpted this story from the noted historical website, Joe's Produce.com.

"In 1814, General Bernardo O’Higgins, one of our country’s forefathers, together with 120 patriots fighting to achieve Chile’s Independence, found refuge in the Santa Rita Hacienda, after a fierce battle against Spanish Crown soldiers in the city of Rancagua where they had been defeated. History tells us that the distinguished dame Paula Jaraquemada, with great courage, defended the 120 patriots by hiding them in the basement of the Santa Rita house, confronting the Spanish soldiers and not allowing them to enter her home by throwing a brazier full of hot coals at them. Thanks to her bravery, the 120 soldiers where able to regain their strength and continue on their quest for Chile’s independence. This historical fact was printed on the label of our vineyard’s most traditional wine, the 120 line as homage to those brave 120 soldiers."

That story was moving enough that I bought a bottle of 120 Carmenere.

Of course, since I found the historical aspect interesting I didn't take any pictures.  A picture of LG and me with some aging barrels will have to suffice. 

Another awesome thing was that there was a museum on the grounds called Museo Andino, which had thousands of artifacts from the Indians of Chile (more on that in another post).

This is actually a picture of me that is related to the what I wrote about.  The Museo Andino is behind me.

Our second winery was Concha y Toro, which is the largest winery in the world in terms of land area and the fourth largest in terms of production (or at least that's what our guide told us).  The size of Concha y Toro is best exemplified by the fact that the only Chilean Carmenere I can find at the Estherville Hy-Vee liquor store is Concha y Toro.  And wouldn't you know, one of the three wines we tried was the Casillero del Diableo 2013 Carmenere--which is what you can find at Hy-Vee and is the wine I've consumed the most in the past year.  But I happily drank it.

There were two features of the Concha y Toro tour that I really enjoyed.  The guide spent a lot of time talking about the importance of pruning in determining the quality of the grape.  He gave this explanation in "The Garden" which consisted of the twenty-six most common wine grapes grown in Chile.  If I had visited in March or April, I could have tried the grapes.  But alas, there were only "twenty six kinds of sticks" (a great line by the tour guide).

The other part of the tour that was enjoyable was visiting the Casillero del Diablo--the Devil's Cellar.  Before modern technology, wine was stored in cellars in order to age.  The Devil's Cellar acquired its name because the cellar was robbed.  So after being robbed, the owner started a story that the devil hung out in the cellar in order to keep away thieves.  Apparently, it worked.  Though I'm guessing it was stronger locks and more guards...For you superstitious and supernaturalist types, the devil doesn't really hang out there.

Regardless, the wine was good and we had a great time!

Salud!

The 5k That Became a 15k

As I've become older, I've come to enjoy jogging less and less.  I've never been partial to longer distances since I only ran 100s and 200s in high school, but the last two or three years, it's been worse.  Here is the recreation of a conversation LG and I had a few weeks ago in Okoboji that illustrates my increased antipathy for running.

TK: I'm going running.  Do you want to go?
LG: How are far you going?
TK: A mile or so.
LG: That's not even worth going!
TK: That's the perfect distance.
(Ten minutes later.)
LG: How was your run?
TK: I despise running. Every step I wished I wasn't running.

I did that mile because LG had signed Garv and me up for a 5k (3.1 miles) and herself for a half-marathon in Santiago on Sunday, August 9.  So I knew I had to do at least a little training in Okoboji.  In Santiago, I was able to run a little more because there's very little humidity, but regardless a 5k was the perfect distance from me...or so I thought.

Pre-race

Besides LG, Garv, and I, LG's friend, Kathy, was going to run the half with her and LG's friend, Laurie, was going to run the 5k with us.  Shortly after we took this picture, Laurie examined the map and this approximate conversation took place.

Laurie: Where's the 10k route?

Garv: There is no 10k route.  Only a 5 or 15.

Laurie: I thought I was doing a 10k.  I've been running 10k's to prepare.  Do you guys want to run the 15?

Garv/TK: No (and some other statements of general hesitancy)
Garv: But a 5k is hardly worth getting out of bed for.  I had to wake up two hours before the 5k even started when I could have slept in, and ran a 5k on my own.

So before the race, Garv and I were strongly leaning toward the 5k, but Laurie wanted to do the 15k.  Eventually, we collectively decided that we would make the final decision of what race to do when the 5k and 15k routes split.

So the race started and we're doing great.  We pass the 1k mark and the moment of truth is approaching.  I'm not exactly sure how the conversation went and who made the final decision, but I think that it helped that we were in the left lane and the 15k went left.  If it was completely up to me, I would have done the 5k.  But Laurie had trained for a longer race and Garv wanted to justify the amount of time he was spending to run a race, so we went left...

The first 5k or so went fine, but then the next 3k went up Cerro San Cristobal (St. Christopher's Hill) and we struggled a bit with that and walked a portion of it.  I didn't mind walking it because I hadn't done enough training for nine miles.  While we were walking, LG and Kathy zoomed past us even though they had run an 6k more than us (though they also started half an hour sooner).  But shortly thereafter, we began the run again.  We cruised down the hill for about 3k.  Then we gutted out the last 4k.  Somehow, I didn't feel too bad during that last 4k, but if I was running by myself, I no doubt would have quit running and lifted weights instead.  With about 2k, I ran ahead of Garv and Laurie and finished about a minute ahead of them in seventh to last place...(because technically we were part of the 5k).

(A quick non sequitur concerning our names.  When signing up for the race, you MUST enter two last names, though you only need to enter a single first name.  This is VERY important in Chile because what family, school, church, neighborhood, etc one attended/is from is the basis for social, political, and/or economic status, etc.  Garv, in order to totally mock this convention, uses Bachelet as his second last name. Michelle Bachelet is the current president of Chile.  Before posting the blog, I sent Garv the results and here is the text he sent me: "Can't believe someone related to the presidenta ran such a slow 5k.")

5k Results

I felt pretty good after the race, amazingly, considering I haven't ran more than five miles in a long time...With that said, I have no desire to run that distance again.  I would do a 5k and maybe a 10k, but that's it.  The best way for me to run a distance as long as a 15k is for me to have no intent to do it.  Shortly after we turned left to run the 15k, I told Garv and Laurie that this was the best way to get me to do a 15k--to all of sudden do it, like what we were doing.  This way,  I didn't have time to dread doing it or spend time dreading the prospect of running the 15k or dreading training for a 15k or dreading having to train for a 15k....Despite the previous sentence, I'm really glad I did the 15!  It was even kind of fun...

Post-race: Me, Kathy, Laurie, LG, Garv

Museos

Other than my first day in Santiago, I have been unlucky with the weather.  Everyday it reminds me of one of those spring days in Iowa when the tennis, track, and golf meets are canceled because it's 45 degrees and rainy.  This has limited our ability to do some touristy things because we've been rained out of a walking tour in Santiago and Valparaiso.  So we've had to do indoor things like go to museums, which of course I'm perfectly happy with.

So far, LG and I have been to four museums in Chile and their themes are dramatically different.

Museum of Colonial Art

The Museum of Colonial Art is in the former convent of the adjacent Iglesia San Francisco.  Its primary feature is fifty-four 5x10 foot (approximated using the height of LG) paintings that depict the life of St. Francis of Assissi.  The paintings are remarkable in size and scope. (Here is a link to them.)  They were painted by an unknown Franciscan monk or monks in Peru in the 1600s.  The question that I wondered about this is "why paint these?"  One answer is that monks have a lot of time, even after their prayers and chores.  But then that leads to why paint these? The answer is that it is a long ways from Spain.  And pictures like this reinforce the mission that Franciscans had in the Americas for spreading Christianity.  So as Francis spread Christianity throughout Europe, so too, would Franciscan monks spread.

I should have taken some pictures of the paintings (illegally, of course, like most museums), but LG did take a picture of St. Francis's prayer despite the photography prohibition

On a lighter note, the paintings were displayed in galleries that ringed a central courtyard.  And the courtyard had roosters, hens, and peacocks crowing and strutting about.

Museum of Memory and Human Rights

The Museum of Memory and Human Rights is dedicated to accounting the violations of human rights during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet from 1973-1990 (which I visited and wrote about last year).  During the dictatorship, there were executions, assassinations, torture, disappearance, and the suspension of civil rights.  Seeing a museum a second time allowed me the opportunity to notice things I may have missed the first time.  One of the items that struck me was the brevity of Pinochet's statement on the day of the coup, September 11, 1973: "The armed forces have acted today solely from the patriotic inspiration of saving the country from the tremendous chaos into which it was being plunged by the Marxist government of Salvador Allende.… The Junta will maintain judicial power and consultantship of the Comptroller. The Chambers will remain in recess until further orders. That is all."  This statement struck me because I sometimes wonder how dictators can perpetrate such acts of violence.  This quotation demonstrates how Pinochet, in his mind, could justify the coup and his subsequent dictatorship out of patriotism, an avoidance of chaos, and an opposition to Marxism.

Pablo Neruda's Homes: La Chascona and La Sebastiana

Had he lived longer, Pablo Neruda would have been one of staunchest, and certainly the most famous, opponents of Pinochet's dictatorship.  Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet who won the 1971 Nobel Prize for Literature.  He was also a socialist and diplomat.  Neruda died September 23, 1973, just twelve days after the coup.  Neruda's politics were very interesting, but his personal life is even more interesting...

La Chascona

LG and I visited La Chascona, Pablo Neruda's Santiago home, immediately after the Museum of Colonial art.  After going to a museum dedicated to St. Francis, devotion to god, and an ascetic lifestyle, it was quite a contrast to go to a house a Chilean poet had built for his mistress.  While St. Francis endured the stigmata, Pablo Neruda wrote poems that contained lines such as "I want to do with you what spring does to cherry trees."

As old houses go(though this one's not really old), I would rank La Chascona behind only Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and George Washington's Mount Vernon.  It was awesome for several reasons.

1. It had a name.  A house is more awesome if it has a name.

2. The name itself: La Chascona is a word of Quechua Indian origin that means wild mane of hair.  His mistress, Matilde Urrutia, had a wild mane of red hair.

This is a picture of Matilde, that represents her public face and their private relationship.  It hang in La Chascona.

3. He built the house to hide the relationship with  his mistress.  This clearly shows evidence that he spent time in France.

4. It's not a house so much as a bunch of rooms at different elevations built around a central courtyard.  I think I want a house with a central courtyard....

5. He built the exterior and interior so that it would give him and guests the sensation that he was on a boat.

The dining room.  The secret entrance is straight ahead.

6. He built everything was built with a particular purpose.  Most of the time, the purpose was for his amusement...For example, the main dining room had a secret door so that he could make surprise entrances.

La Sebastiana
Neruda also had a home he named La Sebastiana in Valparaiso, which is on the coast.  (He also had a third home on Isla Negra.)   Though this house was full of his eccentricities (such a bathroom door in his bar with holes in it), he originally acquired it to work.

And it was quite a work and living environment.  The first level was an entrance, the second level was his living room, the third level was his bedroom, and the fourth level was his study.  The pictures below are from the internet.  I couldn't take pictures and besides, it was raining heavily and our view wasn't as great.

View from the living room

View from the bedroom

For some reason, I'm now very intrigued by Neruda.  I don't even like poetry, but I'm going to go back to La Chascona and I might even buy one of his books of poetry....

August 4-5, 2015: Taking It Easy

When Garv and Lindsay decided to move to Chile, I was very excited because I knew it would give me an opportunity to spend an extended time in a different country.  Staying two weeks (like last year) or three weeks (like this year) would be too expensive if I was staying at a hotel.  Staying an extended time appealed to me because I wouldn't have to sprint through a city or country like a few of my trips. The opportunity to participate in mundane daily activities provides a fuller understanding of a culture than simply by seeing the tourist sites.  For example, I can visit New York or Washington, DC or Paris, but that is not the real New York, Washington, DC or Paris.  Also, I like spending a full three weeks in Chile because we can have a very leisurely (and Chilean-like) schedule.   (And according to my sister, spending three weeks here gives me time to "bond with your sister").

My first day in Chile (Tuesday, August 4, 2015) was a perfect example of the leisurely schedule.  Day 1 consisted of unpacking, napping, going out to lunch, grocery shopping, planning the rest of the week, dinner and bedtime.  

Garv and Lindsay live on the 20th floor of an apartment building in the Las Condes district of Santiago.  It has a stunning view, too.  

The view from their apartment

They truly live a city lifestyle.  They have a vehicle, but they usually only use it on the weekends.  So when they conduct their mundane business that most Americans (except those who live in Manhattan, downtown Chicago, or a few other city centers) would use a car for, they walk.

Since they can't just go to Hy-Vee, Fareway, or Wal-mart, they have five main ways of acquiring groceries.

1. Bring items from the states:  This picture is a sample of the items that they brought back to Chile.

2. Have someone do the shopping for her: There is a business called La Vega Delivery in which the customer submits an order and someone from LVD goes to the market, buys those items, and delivers them.  She simply filled something out online on Tuesday and this was waiting for her on Wednesday.

3. Order their groceries online, which sounds a lot like La Vega Delivery.  But they can't do that because they need a Chilean credit card, which apparently is very complex...

4. Go to the Jumbo supermarket, which is a Wal-mart sized grocery store.  To do that, she walks or takes the metro to the store and then takes a taxi back home with all of her groceries.

5. Go to the Unimarc grocery store, which is a Majere's Foodtown (the grocery store in Remsen) sized grocery store.  To do that, she walks a few blocks with her cute blue (obviously, they didn't have pink) cart, which is what we did.

LG walking with her empty cart

The grocery store really isn't that different, but it is a strange phenomenon to walk six blocks or so to the grocery store.  For example, I live four blocks from the Estherville Hy-Vee and five blocks from Fareway, but it would never cross my mind to walk to the grocery store.  But then again, I don't have a cute, blue, flowery cart with which to transport my groceries, which I'm doing in the picture below.  And that little cart has $90 worth of groceries; food is expensive in Chile!

Despite ordering groceries and going grocery shopping, we still didn't have anything to eat that night.  Garv went right to work on Tuesday so he didn't feel like going out.  So we did the most logical thing--pick up LG's favorite, empanandas!  So we bought three of these, each for $2 (it's the best food value in Chile), and enjoyed them that evening.

My second day (Wednesday, August 5, 2015) in Chile we did some site seeing from 10 AM-1 PM (which I will discuss in a subsequent post), but once again it was filled with mundane tasks.  We met Garv for lunch, I used some Spanish to buy postcards, did some writing, worked out, and ate at the apartment.  The evening concluded with a visit from some of Garv's and LG's friends, Rob and Melissa.  They came over for a couple of hours to hear about Garv's and LG's time in Okoboji and to catch up.  Rob is Canadian and Melissa is Australian, and like all Canadians and Australians I've met, they're a lot of fun.  It was also nice to meet some of their friends because when I visited Chile last year, they didn't know anyone outside of Garv's work.  It was very relaxed and very enjoyable and just the type of experience that I could only have if I was spending an extended time in Chile...