The air was good.

We packed an extra lunch for the flight over the Andes... just in case. Buenos Aires:

Sarah spelled with an H.

I thought I'd like to reflect on some indside jokes, of no interest to anyone other than my sister and I. In list form.

a) 4 star hotels and their diluted detergents.
b) The oblivious rock-throwing threat on Diego's car.
c) 45 minute tooth brushing.
d) Que rico. Swept away by the riconess of it all.
e) Esparagus-effect empanadas.
f) Pil-Pil.
g) Used hospitality drinks.
h) Chocolate dinks.
i) Okaaay. Okaaay. Ok? Okaaay.
j) Boom-pole wasp intervention.
k) LAN Chile's inconsistency with elastic sunglasses holders.
l) Twigs. Aaaand we're filling.
m) The same goddamn mall 3 times.
n) Tarjeta retenido. Fuck you, Argentina.
o) Where the hell are we?
p) Absent hairdressers.
q) I'm your private drivah! Drivah for money!
r) There's a birthday every 10 goddamn minutes at The Fat Cows.
s) Daza's gandy legs. Frog sitting. Couch destroying. Her sudden and mysterious death.
t) Connie Tracheotomy at the French Place.
u) Sleeping 2 hours before flying to Buenos Aires as a medal-winning idea.
v) Blondie's saturated meat-smoking sauna feel.
w) Two dogs fucking in the restaurant and people argue over what to do about it. They're left alone. Chile.
x) Devo without a shred of irony.
y) How many fucking dogs do we have now?
z) Avoiding Lynda-Hamilton-meets-Señora-Carmen.

I love you Sare.

Sitting here itchy.

Sitting here, itchy, trying to figure out what bit me, I'm looking disdainfully at my cutey street rat of a puppy, wondering.

Gabriel thinks it was a Zancudo... Zancudo... Zancudo. I can't stop saying this word. It looks like a bright green mosquito. Here is a picture of a Zancudo... Zancudo... on an eyeball:



All I know is that I had a little hot flash, I looked at my arm to see a hot, puffy mosquite bite, with a smear of reddy welts coming out of it. As of right now, the bumps have traversed the nipple zone, through the armpit forest, and are slowly pulsing onto my other arm. I -think- it's following a vein.

Chile really hasn't felt exotic until right now.

What's going up?

Hello Jordan:

Why are yu lost in Los Andes ??
Good joking for chilean humour sense ...
I notice you like ironic jokings ??
Is it true ?
I am Daniel, a chilean guy who enjoy the life to melt this saturday night ??
and you , what ' sgoing up?
I hope hear soon from you ..

Daniel
Santiago- Chile

Viking, GO!

Yes! Yes!


Yes!



Yes!

I -finally- found the most viking restaurant in Latin America. Intense mead, steaming cauldrons of meaty meat, meat, and cow-leg ashtrays. There's something so Cruello DeMills about ashing inside of something that once kicked something else. Ridiculous hoofery.

Sarah and I were the only actual viking descendents in the place, and they gave us honour with ceremonial hats.

Argh!

Cotton-Candy for Brains.

The itinerary for learning a new language resembles something out of a Psychology 100 textbook. Like the boring heirarchy of Maslowe's, you begin by addressing the necessities: ordering in restuarants (food,) ordering in bars (fluids,) haggling with landlords and hostel-owners (shelter,) and pick-up lines (love.) Over time, these concepts web fractally, the triangles obtusify, dissolve, fibbionacially fornicate. Slowly but steadily these world-wide-word-webs weave, with subordinate threads, chimeric networks, quipus of knotted semiotics and snafus, when you finally start to form sentences and simple thoughts. Our Psych 100 textbooks tell us that neuropathways extend in this same way when you learn your first language in soft-serve, infant, cotton-candy brains. You go through a kindergarten of flashcard flashbulbs, simple nouns, barnyard noises, shapes and colours, sprials and lines. The progress could probably be graphed into the golden section.

With relief, I've finally reached the stage of conditionals, of maybes, of evasive conversation. Excuses, at last. I've finally learned the word for supposedly, supuestamente, which allows me a lot more breathing room with anecdotes and second-hand facts. Allegedly is next, with other sarcastic doubts.

Ambiguity, a wonderful wool pullover, will hopefully be followed by subtlety and some pretty, fanciful embroidery.