Se me echó la yegua

I want to start by apologizing to all the compulsive web browsers out there who, in my absence, have had to settle for meaningless dribble like The New York Times, CNN, and the Drudge Report. I will do my best to prevent you from having to inform yourself of actual world affairs when you could be reading about the minutiae of my day to day life in Chile.

The truth is, in addition to being a little lazy, there just hasn’t been that much to tell of late. I was waiting until I had stockpiled either enough interesting material or pictures to make a posting that would be capable of holding your attention for more than a couple of minutes, or, barring that, until I could come up with some fantastical tale that I could pass of as truth until I found something with some degree of veracity to tell.

Based on that explanation, I guess you’ll really have no way of knowing whether the following is the former or the latter, so I’ll leave that decision up to you; believe what you wish.

So after coming back from Lima, the rest of the week in Santiago was like a prolonged period immediately following a massage: that sort of comfortable soreness that makes you feel incapable of any movement whatsoever, and loving every minute of it. There is a Chilenismo (a Spanish expression unique to Chile) to convey that very feeling: “se me echó la yegua.” Literally translated, it means “I’ve been thrown from the female horse.” So yes, last week, I was thrown from the female horse, and I really just didn’t feel like doing anything. Which worked out well, because that’s exactly what I did... Ok, so not, exactly...

Of course I still had to teach. But I also went out on Tuesday night of last week with Amaury (French dude who smokes too much), John (Australian dude with the wobbly eyes), Adam (gringo from Oregon who reminds me of a hitch-hiker and almost got deported), and some crazy Scott (sorry, Bruce) named Ross who drinks too much and swears more. Not really sure why I decided to go out, other than that I have a hard time saying “no” to any social situation, but it turned out not to be a total loss... We ended up going to a very “cuico” bar in Lo Barnechea, where after meeting a couple of girls, I was able to practice up on my Spanish while at the same time being thoroughly entertained by John’s flat out abysmal attempts to speak Spanish to the girls in the club.

Before I continue, let me just give you a better idea of who John is. If you have ever been in a bar in a foreign country and run into an Australian, you’ve met John. He’s the one talking too loud, cursing too much, and leaning on any object – including people – for support to prevent his corporal frame from becoming a puddle on the floor. John also has a very good knowledge of Spanish – and let me just say, I know that it is not my place to criticize others for not speaking a language in which I am far from fluent, but quite frankly, I don’t care. It is so bad, I just can’t hold my tongue – as I was saying, he has a very good working knowledge of Spanish, but there is no sound whatsoever that comes out of his mouth that resembles anything close to Spanish. He says Spanish words, but like a British librarian... reading from the encyclopedia... with a sack of marbles in her mouth.

So I was talking to this little Chilean girl for a while when John, looking hopeless and despondent, sort of sidled up next to me. I decided to introduce him to the girls that I had been talking to, and then was regaled by the spectacle of watching him lean all the way in to shout his own take on the Spanish language into this little Chilean’s ear, only to have her lean over to me to ask me what he said.

Last call came around 4:15 (after all it was a Tuesday), and John was absolutely beside himself. Adam had already left, or at least was MIA (wouldn’t be the first time); Amaury, without any other options, went home with girl who he couldn’t stand but with whom he had a history; and everyone else was sort of standing like a bunch of prisoners who had just been released from solitary confinement and were seeing light for the first time in a couple of months. Ross and I were lucky enough to find an empty cab, and then undertook the grueling task of prying John away from the crowd.

“But look at all these girls,” he pleads.

“What are you going to do, John, tackle them?!” I respond. “Either make a move, or get in the cab.”

Realizing the futility of his at best D- game, compounded by his inability to talk, walk, or even stand, he finally submits to the reality that the cab is his ticket to slumberland, the gateway to sobriety. My being too broke to afford to drink pays off as I hit the sack and in no time am in a far away land, racing lamborghinis with Jennifer Aniston and Penelope Cruz.

After Tuesday, I coasted through the rest of the week until the weekend. Friday night, I went out with the other TIPs from my school, and we met up with some of the other Chilean English professors. I’m not really sure how it started (probably had something to do with the pisco sours strewn about the table), but the majority of the night was spent explaining the translations of little-known taboo expressions. It was pretty entertaining, but entirely inappropriate. Given that we always get off to a late start due to our class schedule, I spent a very short night out, and it was already 3 before I got home.

I spent most of the day Saturday just doing random stuff around the house until I met up with Simon (the non-creepy, steady-eyed, Australian that I work with). On account of my BIP card being completely empty, we ended up walking quite a ways around town on our way to meeting up with a couple of my students at the Museo de Bellas Artes.

Once I finally arrived, I realized that all that walking would be for naught, as the Museum was one of the least impressive art museums I have ever seen. Still, I am always grateful for the opportunity to practice my Spanish a little more, and thanks to Catalina and Francesca (really the only two students with whom I have spent time outside of class), I had plenty of time to do just that.

After the museum, Cat invited me out for some drinks and tapas with her family. Cat has a little niece named Luna, and Luna is obsessed with “High School Musical.” So Fran and Cat thought it would be a good idea to tell Luna that, because I am American, I know all of the cast members in “High School Musical.” Yeah, great idea. I have never even seen the movie or show or play or whatever it is, and they are trying to convince some overly-excitable child that I know all the cast members.

Fran had to leave in the middle of this little farce, but before she left, she insisted that I had the number of Luna’s favorite actress in my phone, Gabriela something or other. Ever the cunning female, Fran decides to enter HER number into MY phone under the name Gabriela, ostensibly so that I can pretend to call the actress.

She then leaves, and we call her as planned, only, because my phone didn’t have any balance left (all the extranjeros’ phones have to be prepay down here. It’s quite charcha), we used Rey’s (Cat’s boyfriend’s) phone instead. Upon talking with her favorite actress, Luna went crazy like a 12 year old at a Justin Timberlake concert. She was so excited that she didn’t even notice that Gabriela somehow spoke perfect Spanish, and sounded a lot like Fran. Either way, Luna was oh so grateful, and spent the 5 minutes following the call bouncing up and down and kicking her legs like Péle on uppers.

A couple minutes later, I see Rey passing his phone around to Cat and Cat’s sister, before they all sort of whisper and murmur that the phone should be passed to me. It finally makes its rotation into my hands, and I see a message from Fran that says “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I like you.” Francesca had no way of knowing that we called her from Rey’s phone, so she thought his number was mine. As a result, what was supposed to be a secret confession to me, was broadcasted to Rey, Cat, and basically all of Cat’s family.

With respect to Fran, she is a divorced 24 year-old chain smoker with a 4 year-old son, so while she is a really nice girl, she’s not really what you would call “my type.” In the end, I didn’t really have to put out any fires because, after Cat told Fran what happened, she basically back-pedaled like Floyd Landis (that's gotta be like a triple entendre), attributed the message to a continuation of the joke with Luna (which it obviously was NOT), and denied any wrong doing. I decided to leave well enough alone, and took her story at face value. As for the aftermath, I am quite adroit in the area of diffusing awkward situations, so I am really not too concerned.

The only other thing worthy of note is that I finally received another job. I start waiting tables and bar-tending on Saturday at a big expat hangout called Flannery’s (if you couldn’t tell from the name, it’s an Irish bar).

I’ll take down a carbomb just for you, Teeba!