Taxi Tales: I’m Selfish because…

I’ve written about talking with Santiago cabbies  in the past**, and even though I haven’t written much of anything lately, I continue to gather material nearly every time I hop into a cab. In fact, I could probably do an entire blog on taxi tales!

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Cachando Chile… and Beyond?

Most blogs are personal, but serious bloggers keep their readers in mind, so now I have to ask you a thing or two…

Dumb Stuff the Gringa Says

Foot in the mouth (What? by I am Brad via Flickr)

There are real pros and cons to speaking another language. The pros are much talked about, but let’s get serious. Speaking (or attempting to speak) another language leaves you wide (I mean WIDE) open for riduclosity (I know that’s not a word–but it helps make my point!)

Chilean Cures for the Common Cold

Image by foshydog via Flickr

Ergg, chhjk, hack, cough, cough, wheeze, ergg, chhjk, sniffle…
Sorry, excuse me, cough, don’t come too close…

Yep, Eileen at bearshapedsphere isn’t the only one battling the bug this week. I swear I read her post on all the ways to name a cold and came down with it myself the next day! We’ve since compared symptoms, and while a certain degree of misery is shared, we’ve each maintained our own personal relationship with our viral foes.

Blogger Tag and My Seven (Just Seven?) Links

Remember how much fun it was to play tag as a kid? Well, I just got in on a grown-up blogger version. Eileen at Bearshapedsphere just tagged me, so now I’m it. Thanks Eileen!

I have no idea who made this game up, but the way it works is a blogger tags you, you match your own posts in specific “Most this” and “Most that” categories, and then you tag another 5 people. I like the idea—except for the ‘just one’ part—it’s made me go back and think about everything I’ve posted here over the past 2 ½ years or so—not to mention how interesting it is to see what everyone else puts in their categories.

Here goes:

Coffee for the Road: Your Cue to Go Home

How do you know when it’s time to go home? As in before you wear out your welcome? Maneuvering the Emily Post of good dinner guesthood is challenging enough when you grow up with the rules. It gets downright tricky when you’re on someone else’s cultural turf.

We had dinner with friends the other night, and during the after-dinner tale-swapping

Damned Diphthongs!

Image via Wikipedia

I’m coming up on 20 years in Chile, and I speak Spanish all day, every day. Sure, I still have an accent, but it rarely gets in the way—except when a diphthong is involved!

The dastardly diphthong is the sound produced when two vowels buddy up in the same syllable and get so tight they morph into a whole new vowel sound (sounds almost biological, doesn’t it?).

Some Serious Jonesin’ Going On

Image via Wikipedia

I’m sitting across from my friend Sheila at a booth at Liguria, a favorite bar/restaurant in Providencia, and I can’t help but stare at the bags under her eyes. It’s the first time I’ve seen her in months, and she’s clearly on edge. Distracted, jumpy. She fidgets with the menu. Can’t make up her mind. Doesn’t know what she wants. And frankly, she looks like hell.