que linda eres

[Before this little story starts, I was no where near the earthquake yesterday so I love you all but no worrying. There aren't even tremors around here :) ]

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Cultural differences all day long. Pirobos all day long. Now, what's a pirobo? It is a whistle or a comment or a movie line yelled from the rooftops at female passerbys. And I happen to live in the center of a bunch of construction sites so we have latin american culture (which totally accepts pirobos) plus construction workers. I can essentially leave my house in running clothes, with no makeup, rocking my afro to its fullest and still get whistled at at least twice on my five minute walk to the subway station. Please don't panic out there everyone who worries about me. These guys are harmless! Chileans are such such such nice people. Many of them just happen to yell at me.

So today, after spilling tomato juice all down my shirt and having disturbingly large hair, I had to come home from class and I think we may have actually set a pirobo record. Set this all aside for cultural difference number two.

Here (I'm not sure about the rest of Chile but in Valpo), smiling at someone is a sign that you have met and should therefore say hi. It is not something just thrown around between strangers. Out of habit, I smile at people as I run past them, walk past them, sit next to them on a bus, across from them on the metro. And they just stare back. It drives me crazy! We have even seen babies that don't smile back and that's just sad. Because of that, I love smiling at other gringos because it is their habit to also smile back and that makes me happy.

Where these two tie together... I was walking down the street after my new pirobo record about to turn in my neighborhood and I see this gringo walking out. I am so excited to smile. Not because he was at all cute but simply out of the cultural comfort I get from receiving a smile in return. It's surprising how much I miss that. So I smile! And what do I get in return... A completely straight face and "Que linda eres." Darn it, you're Chilean. Is a smile so much to ask for?

On a completely separate note... if you're reading this you probably have some level of interest in my day to day life so a quick tidbit. Between classes today, my friends and I went to a lebanese dessert place that one of them knew about. It was closed but after my friend stood on the fence and yelled "Julio" for a while, his friend/ roommate let us in. He is her host mom's boyfriend and he was actually very happy to have us. Even though the restaurant was closed, Vladimir (who is actually Chilean) gave us tea, coffee and empanadas! So yummy. When Julio returned, he played us a little guitar and informed us that he loved karaoke. And I know no better way to end lunch on a happy note than youtubing karaoke background music and singing Frank Sinatra as a group. What a funny way to spend our two hour lunch break :)