can´t quite get this to work

The pictures won´t really load like they should. But at least I got one up. This is me and Ljuiba, walking down Kuzma Slavic, our street, on saturday.

It is warming up. I now only wear my winter coat if we´re going out at night, and some days you don´t even need a scarf or mittens.

no pictures yet...

Damn it, I was going to post some pictures, because yesterday we actually took a bunch, but I can´t figure out how to get them loaded onto Jamie´s computer. Maybe later.
Anyways, yesterday was not too bad weather wise and me and Dylan took Ljiuba (I think that´s how you actually spell Lubob´s name) for a long walk and snapped some pictures along the way.

At night Jamie´s parents had a hot dog party in their BBQ-house (that´s right, they have a house in their yard, the size of a big appartment, used only for BBQ-ing since it´s too windy and cold to be outside) with some aunts and cousins and after that me, Dylan, Jamie and Feliepe went to the casino. The casino is a new and huge building downtown with a roof top bar. That´s where we went first to have a drink and enjoy the view. While waiting to be seated I went to the bathroom and got to enjoy peeing while over looking the city and sea from three directions, magnificent!

However, when we finally got seated, it was in the very corner and then the waitress was rude and said we were too late to order the 2 for 1 drink offers they had. I obviously didn´t pick up on much of that, I don´t go to fancy roof top bars on a regular basis and when I do, I asume that if the waitress is rude to me it´s because she can tell I don´t go to fancy roof top bars on a regular basis.
I was oblivious, trying to figure out the correct grammar for asking wether they had any white wine instead of the listed coctails (I don´t really care for Pisco) when Feliepe suddenly snapped at the waitress, grabbed his coat and marched to the elevators. Jamie was right behind him and after them, me and Dylan, confused and trying to keep up.
So instead we payed a $10 dollar cover to have a drink in the downstairs casino bar. It was a good time, but I don´t think I will be a regular at that place.

Today, a bunch of soccer teams are playing so the guys will be watching games and me and Jaime are going to the store to get what we need for tonights sushi making.

care package

They´re the best. Yesterday my mom´s x-mas package got here. Jamie told us it was from Dylan´s parents and I got really excited because they´re supposed to send us some Spanish discs for self studying. But instead I got some Swedish treats, so I´m not that disappointed. Now it´s Saturday morning and after a couple of sandwiches with egg and Kalles Kaviar, I feel pretty good. On the kitchen counter is a bowl of Gott & Blandat, only it´s not really Blandat any more...for some reason the black pieces never get eaten.

Still no sight of my cell phone, I have a feeling it will get here just in time to take it back home. Now that we have a phone in the house, it´s not that big of a deal though, and a very limited number of friends also helps.

Thanksgiving was fun. There was turkey, asparagus and mashed sweet potatoes with banana and orange. Sounds really funky, I know, but it was a recipie from Rachel Ray and actually tasted pretty good. We also went around the table and gave thanks before the meal. Only once have I been forced to do that before, but I actually kind of like that tradition.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hey, it´s the turkey day! I really don´t care that much, I have only had two real Thanksgivings in my life and two fake ones. The real ones were in Minnesota and Idaho, the fake ones in China and Sweden with Americans who simply couldn´t do without poultry and pumkin pie. I didn´t even know today was the day until Dylan got an e-mail this morning inviting us to this French dude´s house for dinner tonight. He´s like French/American though (I think, I´ve never met him) and Dylan met him playing soccer. But it should be fun, any holiday is a good reason to celebrate. Thanksgiving in Chile with a French twist....I think this will count as another fake one.

Today was the windiest it has been in a long time. Walking down Bulnes avenue to downtown I had to take probably ten pauses where I just stood still, concentrating on staying upright and not letting the wind knock me over. Snot and eyeball juice streaming horizontal from my face I finally made it to Spanish class in more than twice the time it normally takes to walk downtown. It was only my second actual class here, but I try to study on my own, even though it´s pretty hard. Now (since I asked for it) I also have homework to do. For tomorrow I am supposed to write the story of my life in Spanish. I have a feelings it will be very simplified and contain very few details. My favourite word in Spanish as of right now is trabajaba. Any excuse to use that in a sentence.

I just got off the phone with my mother. She has made this years first lussekatter. A year ago I was at home, baking them with Karin and Anette....good times. Sweden and advent seem very far away right now.

something fishy

Just finished dinner, fish in the oven. Didn´t turn out too bad. A lot better then the seafood wok we attempted last week, that was one soggy mess. This weekend when Feliepe is here the four of us are going to have a sushi night and make our own sushi, I haven´t had sushi since I don´t even know when...so I´m excited. Jaime is a fena in the kitchen too (only funny in Swedish) so as long as we let her be in charge, the result should be delicious.

But so far it´s just Tuesday and we just got some bad news. Lech, Feliepe´s dog who got arrested for biting cheep, is dead. He somehow strangled himself on his chain. So that sucks.

I spend my day today at the coffee shop, reading and studying. Dan, my Spanish instructor was there too cause his class got cancelled and we had tea. He asked me to guess his age and I said 30. He is 23. Kind of embarassing, but then he asked for my age first and when I said 27 he said, you´re still a child..... so what the hell does that make him, an infant? he was asking for it.

Back in town

We came back today after three days in Tierra del Fuego. Feliepe lives in a town called Sombrero and if there is a place on earth with less action, I´d like to see it. Now, bear in mind that I´m from Holmsund and Dylan from Rathdrum. It´s not like we have high standards when it comes to activites and stuff to do, but I have never seen a sleepier town, and so far from any other civilization. But, we didn´t go there to be social. We went to visit Feliepe and to go camping and that we did.
Saturday morning the dogs had ran away and we drove around for ever looking for them. Finally they were escorted back to the house by the cops, accused of biting cheep. I don´t know what will happen with them now. Lubob gets off the hook for being a puppy but Lech might be facing death penalty.

So when we finally drove off for the end of the road, that´s where Feliepe wanted to camp "at the end of the road", only Lubob got to go. Lech was chained up and left at the house.
Unfortuntly we didn´t have enough gas to make it to the end of the road, so when we thought we could still make it back on what we had left in the tank, we set camp. The wind was ruthless as always but we stayed clear of the rain and had a very nice evening by the camp fire.
Yesterday we drove back to Sombrero and had a lazy afternoon and night by the tv. Now we´re back in Punta Arenas and today the phone and internet was finally installed in the house, communication with the outside world made easier by a lot of percent, yeah! I don´t know our phone number yet, but when I do, I will inform those who may want it.

Music and Memories

Earlier this afternoon as I was sitting in the coffee shop, studying my Spanish and drinking the cheapest coffee on the menu (instant, no sugar but you do get a tiny cookie) they were playing Cat Stevens and Oasis on the stereo. It´s not like this is the first time music has ever reminded me of times passed, but this was just song after song, and it made it really hard to focus on the vocab I intended to memorize. So finally I gave up and instead started making a little list of songs and music related to certain parts of my life.

Oasis - most all of their songs are simply the soundtrack of (hjalp mig har, Steken, Berta...?) 9th grade I think it was. Akward teenage years, writing on Wonder Walls, gossip in locker rooms, gossip everywhere, make up, push up. I was never really into Oasis (or Blur, Suade, Pulp or whatever they played on Alternative Nation, which I never watched) but my friends were.

U2-staring at the sun. Even though I wasn´t into music I did buy a few CD´s and singles. This one was the summer after 8th grade. Miserable. Still can´t stand this song.

Loop troop, A camp, the Cardigans - my first years of college. Good times.

Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan (and many others) - Dylan introduced me to this kind of music, old folksy stuff, as he introduced himself to my life. Moscow. Probably the best year of my life.

Whitney Huston & Mariah Carey (when you believe?) This song was played every single day at lunch time in Yantian Foreign Language School. If I heard it now I could probably taste the rice and string beans.

Cajsa-Stina Akerstrom (Av langtan till dig) -I don´t know any song with more beautiful lyrics than this one. It was playing in the cab when I was driven out to the airport, leaving for Idaho the first time. I was holding back tears since I didn`t want to cry in front of the cab driver but for various reasons I thought I was making a terrible mistake leaving and looking back I could not have been more wrong. This is also the song me and Dylan walked into at our wedding. I didn´t care that much about any other details about the wedding, but I knew this had to be the song.

Oh, the list could go on and on. But I have to go to the store now and then back to the house and pack my bag. We are going camping in Tierra del Fuego this weekend. Should be fun, and hopefully not too cold since we don´t have sleeping pads.

Anyways, I´m not smart enough to figure out how to check how many people actually read this. I know it´s not many, but I also know that a handful actually do.... sometimes.
So if you would, do leave a comment and let me know what some of your special songs are. It´d be fun to see. Thanks.

Observations

Life is less exciting now. Not necessarily in a bad way. Words are still written but not all words are for all eyes so I go back to pen and paper for the observations I want to keep to myself. Although most of the time I don´t want to keep them at all, just get them out.

I manage to fill most of my days with enough meaning now. If I don´t go to the coffee shop when I´m supposed to, people will wonder where I am. I have Spanish classes. I have people. I miss my friends, but I have people. I have Dylan too of course, but not only him. Isolation is not healthy. Not for me, not for us. He has soccer now, this is good.

This morning I went for a run that came to be much faster and shorter than I had planned. A street dog chased me the whole way. I didn´t even take time to stop and open the gate, just jumped the fence and then he stood there, howling on the street, for ten minutes. Stupid mutt.

Sunday

Sunday, grocery shopping and a walk with the puppy. She´s getting pretty good at "sit" but "heel" is way over her head. I bought two different kinds of doggy treats to help with the learning process but she doesn´t like either of them. Just spits them out.
When she´s good I like to take credit for it and feel like a good step-mom. When she´s a pill, it´s just someone else´s dog and has nothing to do with me.

We´re talking about whether to stay here after x-mas or head to Argentina and do some more travelling. I don´t know. On one hand I would like to see as much of Argentina as we can, now that we´re here. But on the other hand, we have limited fundings and leaving that early means giving up a free place to stay. We´ll see. It also depends on what happens with my helping out at the tourist agency and Dylan´s soccer team. He has his first practise tomorrow and woke up with sore hamstrings this morning, supposivly from the anticipation of actually running.

Where do the days go?

Another friday, the 13th nonetheless. But I believe there has been a lot of them in recent years and I´m not too worried.
I even bought an overpriced piece of goat cheese today, just because it´s weekend (and I really miss cheese)

Since last, the guy did eventually get back to me and I had my first Spanish class with him today. Instead of paying him, I will put in a few hours a week at this café/tourist agency that his friend owns. It seems fair and like a good deal to me. I get to learn some Spanish, I get something to do during the days and if something better comes along it will be easy to quit.

It also seems like Dylan has found himself a soccer team, we went and watched them play a game last night and the coach invited him to come practise with them on monday. So that should be good for him, he´s been really eager to play.
I stick with the gym, I found one here (well, it´s right next door so it wasn´t hard to find) that´s pretty good, pretty cheap and has a few decent classes. Mondays and thursdays I do "Power jump" which is kind of rediculous but still a pretty good work out. And besides, ever since the aerobic classes in China, I don´t think there is a work out routine that could possibly embarass me. I just jump along, sweat and pretend I´m in fluorescent spandex.

Tonight we are going to a birthday party. Randy´s friend Juan is turning something close to 30, possibly even 30, and is having a party. We met him and his wife at Jamie´s wedding (we were actually seated next to them during the dinner) so it should be fun.

Oh, and Lubob´s broken puppy heart is healing pretty fast. She is a lot calmer now that Lech is gone but she has gone from suicidal to tail-wagging and seemingly allright in the last few days.

that is one sad puppy

The guy who sounded so promising about getting me a job and Spanish classes has not e-mailed me back. That was monday, this is wednesday and I have little patience. So now the question is, do I just go back to the office like I figured he accidently gave me the wrong e-mail address or has been really busy or whatever, or do I just wait and hope he eventually gets back to me??

Feliepe and Jamie (the couple we are staying with) came back from their honey moon monday night and unpacked their wedding gifts. They got, not only one, but two flat screen TV:s. This is very good since it means me and Dylan can keep their "old" TV in our room.
Feliepe left this morning to go back to Tierra del Fuego, where he works. He took Lech, his dog, with him, as usual. But since Lubob (the puppy) has gotten so used to always having Lech around, since they´ve been together since before the wedding, she is now grieving the loss of her friend. She started at 6 am, when they took off, sitting right outside our window, crying her heart out. I felt really bad for her, then a little for myself for not getting any sleep. But it´s heartbreaking to see her, she used to always jump around and be the biggest pill ever and now she´s just laying around, sobbing. We´ll have to pamper her with lots of walks and attention these next couple of days. I´ll have to buy new dog treats too. I bought some last week that appearently are not that yummy....they won´t eat them but hide them in the yard.

Now the rain is pouring down, so I´ll linger at the internet café a little longer. I don´t understand why they even have weather forecasts here. Since we got here every day has been the same, some sun, some rain, maybe some hail, maybe some snow...and constant wind. Don´t leve the house without a rain jacket and don´t plan a picknick unless you have a plane ticket to put in the basket. Maybe I should just be the weather girl...?

No case of the mondays

The package my mom sent from Sweden with Jamie and Feliepe´s wedding gift arrieved today, about 3 weeks after she sent it. Perfect timing though, since the newlyweds are due back to Punta Arenas tonight. And I´m glad it did arrive at all, nobody had told us that the regular mail is not to be trusted here ("How did you send it?" "In the mail.." "the regular mail??" "yeah..." "oh, not good, nobody uses the regular mail here") so we were affraid it had gotten stolen along the way. Now I just hope they´ll let my christmas package through too, but I told my parents not to put anything expensive in there, just in case.

Today I found a lead to what might be the answer to my being bored out of my mind and restless like a hamster without a wheel. I probably shouldn´t get my hopes up before it´s all worked out, but it´s way to late for that. Anyways, today has been a good day so far.

The soup took a lot longer to make than we had anticipated, mainly because we didn´t actually read the instruction part of the recipie before we were about to start. It turned out ok though, but too sweet for my taste, not a personal favourite.

Today it seems the wind is even stronger than usual. I can´t believe people choose to live here their whole lives, the weather would drive me nuts. We took the dogs for a walk along the water again this morning, even though the wind is worse along the beach there are less street dogs and less things to sniff there, so walking the two tazmanian devils is a little easier. But today the wind was just too brutal.

Nothing else, over and out.

Long days in the long country

As much as I do enjoy not having to pack and repack my stuff every other day, aswell as carrying my backpack, sleeping on busses and all the other not so cool sides of travelling budget style, I am getting really freaking bored here. Yesterday we had lunch with Juri´s (Dylan´s old room mate from Moscow) dad who has a lot of buisnesses here in Punta Arenas and he is going to try and help us get something to do with our time. I´d be happy with pretty much anything. Fun and money would be a bonus, pretty much I just need a reason for getting up in the morning other than using the bathroom.

Friday today and another weekend coming up. We have no plans though, other than attempting to cook French onion soup tonight and invite Randy over. Jamie has a lot of cook books and we found a recipie that fit our criterias, not too complicated and all the ingredients are pretty cheap and except for bay leaves (lagerblad??) we had heard of all of them before. So, onion soup it is.

I´m excited they have goat cheese that´s really good here, but it´s unfortunatly also really expensive and not something you could eat every day. I haven´t seen any soy milk or other soy products, but they do have lactose free milk and yoghurt which makes my life easier.

I wish I had more exciting things to report, but I don´t. Life is slow.

Laila K till frukost

I wonder what it is with Swedish music in Chile. You hear Abba way more often than you´d wish, Roxette, Europe and Ace of Base are not unfamiliar on the radio and DJ Mendez (who is Chilean, I didn´t know that) is disturbingly enough actually famous here. Yuck.

And then this morning, as I´m making breakfast, Laila K is suddenly in da house. I had totally forgotten about her. She´s like the Amy Winehouse of Sweden, only not talented, and hasn´t been around for years as far as I know. Last I heard about her was a debate on whether she was dead, homeless or making a comeback. And there she is, on Chilean radio. Now the question is, is this acutally a comeback or is Chile just stuck in the 80´s?

Last night we took the dogs for a walk along the shore. I call it a walk but it´s more like forcing them to be on a leash, trying to move in one direction, while we let them out of the yard. And the moon was just amazing, I have never seen anything like it. Of course we had no camera but I´ll be ready with it for the next time. First we didn´t even know if it was the sun or the moon, if someone had told me it was a new, undiscovered planet that would have made more sense. It was dark yellow, full, hanging just above the horizon and absolutely huge. At that point I forgave Punta Arenas for the harsh winds for a while and thought this is actually a really cool place.

Jag kommer inte hem till jul, men sen...

We bought our tickets home yesterday. Home for me and home for Dylan, we are going together though. I can´t believe we were able to find tickets from Buenos Aires to Stockholm to Seattle for just $1100. That´s insanely cheap. But they will get more expensive with time so even though we don´t know if the visa process will be ready by then, or much before then, we bought them. We will leave Buenos Aires for Stockholm (ah, moder Svea) october 3rd and spend a month in the land of ice and snow, then asuming my visa is ready, we will go to the US March 3rd. If it´s not however, I will have to change my flight and stay home longer. I really hope that won´t happen so we have to do more time appart, but there´s no point worrying about it now.

Last night we rented "Gomorra", the Italian mob movie and were really excited about watching it, but it was in Italian with only Spanish subtitles.... so no luck. That sucked.
I have gotten really lazy with trying to learn Spanish since we got here since we are almost always with Randy or people who speak English. I need to change that and try harder.

Randy is trying to find Dylan a soccer team, he says otherwise he´s afraid he´s going to stop getting out of bed in the mornings. I don´t think that would happen, but Dylan is perfectly comfortable staying in a whole day, just reading books and playing with the dogs. I admire that at the same time as it can drive me nuts, cause I can´t do it. I climb the walls. Right now I´m downtown, I was going to call home but can´t get Skype, and also maybe go around to some of the hostels around and see if there´s any need for some help.

Sunday with wolves and dogs

Halloween didn´t really happen. We spent most of yesterday out at Rody and Carina´s at the estancia with Randy´s parents and when we got back Randy still hadn´t found his cell phone so if there was a big party to find out about, well, we didn´t. It was still a good time though, the estancia was pretty cool. Rody drove us around and we saw flamingos, emus (I think that´s what they are...huge, running birds) and of course a lot of sheep. And at night, Randy came over and took us downtown for a while.

We will just have to throw a cosume party sometime later, to make sure the costumes get to be used.

Today we slept in, watched Dances with wolves (Dylan is reading Sacajewea and is having this whole native American hang up for the moment, calling me squaw and stuff....) and then took the dogs for a walk. Jamie and Feliepe has two dogs, a collie named Lech and a German sheppard puppy called Luiba, but we call it Lubob. They are really friendly, hyper and nice dogs, but I don´t think anyone has ever put them on a leash before so walking them is something of a challenge. But we are going to try and do it once a day.

Right now I think our best bet for finding something to do is going to be within tourism, since that´s the season starting now. We have a few ideas. Hopefully something works out.