Lets try this again...It has been a month today since my last post and I feel like I have a million and one things to catch up on. So today, tomorrow and possibly the next day I am going to attempt to bring everything up to date starting with New Years and moving forth....

New Years in Puerto Varas was celebrated with traditional fireworks, a kiss at the stroke of 12 and copious amounts of alcohol. Shannon and I decided to help Keko (our boss/owner of the bar) out in the bar that night and boy did that night test our efficiency, perseverance and most of all our patients. We started at midnight after the fireworks and began kicking people out of the bar at 6:30am. My Spanish was still bad at best, so any conversation deviating from anything related to the bar I was useless. Needless to say, by the end of the shift I was mentally spent. I was the first to leave the bar at 7:30am.

This photo is from my trip to Quihua Oyster Farm. What is that? I'm glad you asked, that is called a Piure. It is a filter feeder native to Chile and Peru. I try to make it a point to go along with the customs of whatever country I visit and try the food no matter how unusual it may seem to me. In Cambodia it was a fetal chicken, in Chile it's Piure. This may come as a surprise, but the meat of this creature is absolutely terrible! Not only was it slimmy but it had the strongest metallic flavor of anything I have ever put into my mouth. I had no water to cease my suffering so my only option was to take a few drags of a friend's cigarette...Blah, never again will I do that to myself.

Leo was our beloved French DJ at the bar . Him, Shannon, Keko and I had formed lovely team that has been greatly missed. That he was with us for all of December before he continued on his way to travel through Chile.

My finger is probably the biggest souvenir I am going to leave Chile with. I was working one night in the bar and fell victim to a glass breaking and slicing a very long, very deep cut into the side of my finger. The accident required a trip to the Puerto Varian hospital where an Argentinian doctor put 25 stitches put into it. From there, I had also acquired a fantastic finger splint that kept my finger erect and flipping off all who passed by for the next month. Most people found the humor in it and accompanying their greetings with flipping me off in return. The pictures are the stages from day two to when I got the stitches removed to today, almost two months later.  I was asked so many times what happened to my finger by people that only spoke Spanish that I wrote out the story in Spainsh as well.   The Story is creatively entitled  Mi Dedo (My Finger) and it goes like this:

Yo estaba lavando un vaso en el trabajo y cuando fui a ponerlo para secar se rompió contra la barra cortando mi dedo. Todo ocurrió tan rápido, yo no sentí que el vidrio me cortó, pero luego miré mi dedo, y me di cuenta de que el corte era muy largo y muy profundo. Keko me llevó a la clínica y me pusieron 25 puntos.

Already I am deviating from my plan, but I figure, I work at the bar at night (from 10pm-4am) so it only makes sense that I blog the following day. So here we go...Yesterday, the highlight of the day was Leslie, Shannon and I hopping on a bus and making our way to Puerto Montt to see The Hobbit in theaters. I have to say, I enjoyed it thoroughly. The special effects were awesome, the characters were perfectly fitting, and watching it makes me want to go to New Zealand even more! It has been years since I read the book so the details if changed for the movie occurred had no effect on me. Between the three of us, Leslie would be the only one that would recognize differences. However, Leslie instead watching the movie she took the time to catch up on her sleep and saw maybe two scenes of the whole movie.  

My Aboad

I figured for the next couple days I would start by filling everyone in on the last two months in Chile, starting with the house that Shannon and I live in. Initially, Leslie lived with us as well but she has since gotten a job at a Guest house that requires her to live there. The house pictured is owned by a very sweet older lady named Luz. She is the mother of a friend of Leslie's who lives in Vietnam. When the decision was made to move to South America Leslie was able to arrange our stay with Luz for rent that is a fourth of what most of the apartments in Puerto Varas cost. The house is also home to an Iranian girl named Sara. She moved to Puerto Varas a few months before us and resides in the upstairs part of the house with Shannon and me. It's a tight fit, both Sara and I have our own rooms and Shannon sleeps in the common room area divided off by a fold up Chinese wall.

Challenge Accepted

I would like to give an introduction explaining the objective of this blog. Anyone who knows me knows there has to be a reason why I would go out of my way to read any type of literature, let alone write my own. So, let me explain, a few weeks ago I was on the phone with JD (my step-mom), we were filling each other in on the recent events of our lives when she brought up a neat idea a friend told her. She chuckled as she was telling me the idea but proceeded, her friend told her about a Photo Challenge, "post one photo a day". I was intrigued immediately and took the next couple weeks to contemplate whether this is something I would want to do, my final verdict...YES.  The premise is simple, yet, it provoked a fire in me I wish to stoke. Lately, I have been feeling the need to document the happenings of my life, not because I think I am the most interesting person in the world. Not all of us can be as cool as the XX man from the commercials...but I would like to see my reasons for traveling complied in a continuous electronic "scrap book" depicting cultures outside the US as well as landscapes and historic places. I wish in addition to my photos I could install a "click and sniff" button and/or incorporate music to each entry to give the reader the full experience of my daily life. Maybe one day in my futuristic blog I will be able to but I digress. From this point forth (December 25th, 2012), I shall begin my challenge and post a picture a day with a brief and concise explanation of each entry.

Nothing says Merry Christmas like an awkward family photo. The girls and I are spending our first Christmas together in Puerto Varas, Chile. We had a lovely dinner made by Leslie's boss/ the owner of the guest house she works at.