Teeth of garlic

In looking up recipes here, I noticed that cloves of garlic are referred to as "a tooth of garlic" or "three teeth of garlic."

Kind of tickled me pink and thought I'd share.

Lauren

Chilean hospitals.

This is something I have so much firsthand knowledge of, I could write a book about it. Emergency services? General care? Operations? Private versus public care? I've got all the bases covered.

Recently, a bump that's been a bit annoying has grown a bit more noticeably painful (and unsightly) so I visited the doctor who told me I have a benign tumor pressing into my tendon creating the discomfort. Why the doctor felt the need to bust out the "T" word if it's benign is beyond me. I prefer to say bump.

But onto Chilean hospitals and healthcare in general: They're fantastic. Quick, clean, efficient, and overall less expensive then services in the U.S., I can see why people leave the country to have surgeries.

The hospital I'll be going to (pictured above) is not only gorgeous, with frosted glass, pleasant and informative doctors and nurses, good equipment, informative "what to expect with your surgery" pamphlets, it also has a faint smell of aromatherapy products. If I wasn't having surgery here, I could easily confuse it with an upscale hotel.

There are some quirks however:

--I have to take all my documentation, sonograms, blood tests, everything to and from the hospital with every visit. Rather then keep them on record at the hospital, I cart them to and from our apartment with me almost everyday. I now have a sack, provided by the hospital, filled with papers from the hospital.

-- There's also this obsession with people not wearing nail polish during surgery. I mentioned this to Daniela and she agreed saying that the first thing people do if they find out their sister has been in a car accident is rush off to the drugstore for nail polish remover. There is to be no nail polish in the operation room, which strikes me as a bit odd. But hey, I'm not going to complain about an attention to details when it comes to surgery.

--Administrators also don't all wear scrubs. They wear identical suits. Blue blazers with blue slacks, floral shirts, and heals, of course, to keep it classy. I'd seen these women walking together during lunch hours in downtown Santiago wondering what kind of job would require all their female employees to all wear the same suit. It's hospital administration. This can be a bit confusing for me.

I'm used to looking for certain cues when I'm at the doctors. Person in scrubs means nurse or administrator. All these women in suits, which one am I supposed to talk to? The organization and layout of the hospital is also confusing. I've never had surgery before and now I am doing it abroad and in another language, which can every once in a while be a bit overwhelming.

But with such attention to details, reassuring and informative doctors, and a nice aromatic smell when I wake up from surgery, I'm sure I'll be fine.

Lauren

Oh. My. God.

In the past few months, I've heard these words more often then I ever did (or even noticed hearing them) in the United States. Chileans say it to you passing in the streets, at parties, or they might even ask you to say it for them at parties. The stereotypical American "Oh. My. God."

One of the adverse side effects of U.S. television and movies being pervasive across the world is that people have a somewhat skewed view of the U.S. and U.S. culture. This phrase seems to be one of the things that Chileans seem to think we say every ten minutes -- and maybe we do.

Walking down the street, people -- strangers -- will say this to you if you have that from-out-of-town look. The appropriate response still alludes me.

It goes without saying, this has to be one of those things that gets filed under the Things I'm Not So Crazy About when it comes to Chile and I'll be happy if I never hear that three letter phrase again.

This obsession with saying The Phrase has turned me totally against it, if only because I feel like a representative of the U.S. and don't want to reinforce the OMG stereotype. This has made me far more mindful of how I express my surprise/excitement/dismay/disgust with something. I often catch myself mid-OMG-ing, stopping short with an "Oh my .. !" rather then saying the full phrase.

Truthfully it's not Chileans I get frustrated with when I hear this. They're just repeating what they hear on 1990s sitcom reruns. The OMG monster is a product of our own creation. Cultural globalization at its worst. All I can hope for is that another U.S. sitcom and subsequent catchphrase take off soon because OMG! this is getting really old.

Lauren

Allende: Suicide or murder?

This was a question that boggled me in my first few months living in Chile. Allende was the first democratically-elected socialist president in the Americas and the president who preceded the dictator Pinochet. Everywhere I read about Salvador Allende's death, it said something different.

Reading El Mercurio, if there was a reference to Allende's death, it mentioned it as a suicide. La Nacion, the government-owned newspaper that has since been dissolved and had been leftist, would refer to his death as murder.

Allende's thick rimmed glasses have since become iconic, not only representative of his death but of socialism, and songs have been made about these glasses, and they've been printed on shirts and mugs. They are one of the few artifacts that survived from the day that Allende died and are on display at the Museo Historico Nacional.

The story is that those leading the military junta rushed into Allende's room, and the official story was that he immediately committed suicide seeing that he'd been defeated -- but this was reported by those leading the junta. There's no real impartial story on what happened in that room.

It's interesting to see how different newspapers refer to the same event differently. During the regime there was a saying about El Mercurio, the leading newspaper in Chile: El Mercurio no dice la verdad (El Mercurio doesn't tell the truth), stemming from their poor coverage of disappearances, murders, and torturing that took place during the regime.

This is an easy way to gauge what way a newspaper leans. Allende committed suicide? Right. Murder? Left. But that still doesn't answer my question: Which one should I read?

Lauren

Being tall.

Increasingly, my height has become an impediment to everyday life. I never considered myself especially tall in the U.S., maybe slightly taller then some people, but here I'm enormous.

On the metro, many people's heads don't reach past my throat (you can really tell when everyone is crammed in the metro and there are five people pressing in from each side). In taxis my knees are always pushing into the seat in front of me, or my head is hitting the top of the car -- definitely not fun if you hit a bump in the road.

Last night I went to the movies, a gorgeous old 1920s-style theater that had been converted into a movie theater. Slightly distracting though, was that I couldn't sit down without my legs hanging out to the side. Thank God for isle seats.

I've noticed this too when clothes shopping. When I arrived in Chile the second time, I came with a little more then 10 days worth of clothes -- the expected duration of my stay. I "had" to do some shopping. Especially with a load of laundry costing $4 (!!!!) dollars each, and many new clothes costing about $5.

The sleeves of the cardigans I bought are about 4 inches short of my wrist, and the crotch of the pantyhose reaches just above my knees.

I'm not particularly tall. 5' 7" (170 cm.) or so, but here I'd have to shop at special stores in order to find clothes that cover my entire body (or the parts I want covered). Thankfully, there are many "American stores" (thrift shops) where people trade U.S. brands. Without this, I don't know what I'd do.

Lauren

Cleaning Products.

Cleaning products. One of the things I didn't imagine I'd really have an opinion on, or even miss, when I moved to Chile. But the cleaning products here are amazing. Almost too good.

A small dab of wood polish on something and it shines so brightly you can see your reflection in the wood. Generic disinfectants practically burn the dirt off a surface, no elbow grease necessary.

It's almost scary. Chile is an advanced country, definitely no longer in the "developing nations" stage, but I question what kind of tests and safety regulations there are on the chemicals in these products.

I'm not going to have any adverse side effects from using these things, no blindness, dizziness, or sudden death .. right?

Instead of filling my suitcases with loads of piñones, alpaca scarves (from Peru mainly, not Chile), pottery from Pomaire, or other interesting cultural items when I leave, I imagine packing loads of cleaning products since they beat those sold in the U.S. hands down.

My only hesitation is that should the bottles of cleaning liquid explode, my clothes would be reduced to a few singed threads rather then be bleached or stained from the cleaning products -- they are that strong.

Lauren

It's an L.A. thing.

Working in a very international company, you get to know people from everywhere. We have many Swiss and Chilean people, folks from Germany, England, everywhere. This has given me a chance to see what people from these countries are beyond stereotypes.

I have noticed people being here and being one of the few American friends people know means I'm a representative for the United States. Anything I do, say, the way I act, walk is seen as characteristic of someone from California. On the upside, anything I do that's odd, quirky, unusual, socially awkward people just chalk it up to being from L.A.

"Oh ... that must be an L.A. thing?"

"Riiiiight. Yeah. Definitely an L.A. thing."

It's both a relief and kind of disappointing. It overlooks personality differences, because they're just assumed to be a cultural difference, rather then personal preference.

I'll admit, in the States I was as guilty of this as anyone I know here. A quirky foreign friend wasn't quirky. They were just .. foreign. Now that's how I am to my foreign friends.

If I don't like mayonnaise on my cold, overcooked broccoli it's because I'm American. I'm vegetarian (which admittedly, is a very "L.A. thing") means that I have a 1.) Unhealthy diet, and therefore 2.) am very American because of my eating habits. Seen running through the park with an iPod, it's because I'm Californian and that's what a Californian girl does. If I can't party for days on end, drink with friends until the sun comes up, or go to club at 4 a.m., it's not because it's not my thing, or I happen to be more of an early bird. It's because I'm North American.

This though, is fine with me. I'm not a party pooper, just .. foreign.

Lauren

Baseball analogies

Never before moving to Chile did I realize how many baseball analogies I use in everyday conversation. "Batting 1,000," "come out of left field," "hardball," "knock ___ out of the park," there are so many.

But since the U.S. and Japan are the only two countries who have any real interest in baseball, these analogies don't really work with the Swiss people I work with or the Chileans I know.

I say these things, and people just stare at me, that familiar stare I know I give people when I can't understand their accent. Blank, no reaction.

We did recently have a Swiss-Japanese girl join the team (we have maybe the most international business in town). Maybe she'll share with me in the baseball analogies.

Lauren

Mendoza.

Mendoza is to Santiago, as Tijuana is to Los Angeles -- if TJ were an inexpensive resort town. Close, but international. Enough to get out of the city for the weekend, but distant enough to feel international (especially when you're freezing at the peak of the Andes which is where the border).
It's know as the Malbec capital of the world, and I ventured there with a few new friends where we did a bike-and-wine tour of vineyards, laid about in the beautiful park there, and generally ate good food and relaxed.The park here is enormous and I would say rivals Central Park in its lakes, trees, and it's definitely got it beat in the number of gorgeous fountains.

The brightness of the stars when we were driving across the Andes was incredible. Chile is known for it's ideal star-gazing sky and I had almost forgotten how bright and remarkable the stars are here.

I did have a moment of homesickness where I intensely missed friends, family, and familiarity when I got home (note to self: traveling when you crave something known and familiar is not a good idea), but a few kind words from friends has helped ease that for now.

Pictures of Mendoza's parks and our bike-and-wine tour to come soon.

Lauren

Cabin fever

Recently I've been getting a little stir crazy. It's both the perk and the downside of living so close to everything, everyone.

I've even done some impromptu gauging of how close everything is, and noticed the farmer's market is less then half way through "Gimme Shelter;" the park is about the same 3 minutes or so and that's starting from the elevator on the 15th floor. Museums, bars, cultural centers, friends are all close and so is work. Almost everything is about a 2 km. (1.2 mile) radius from the house. Which is wonderful, but it's also getting a bit boring.

I can't remember the last time I even got on the metro; my legs take me everywhere.

At the very least it's a good view to have, but I'm getting a little restless. So for the weekend, a few friends and I (a good mix of ex-pats: a German, Colombian, two Swiss people, and the American) are headed to Argentina -- to be posted about tomorrow. We're headed to the boarder town that's still in the Andean Cordillera, Mendoza. Lots of trees, wine, biking, and it's very cheap.

I'm already holding my breath until the weekend!

Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center

 From the outside, standing at Av. Alameda the cultural center is huge.

 The glass roof was made to look like flying kites. Kites are huge in Chile, and during the weekend of the bicentennial you could see hundreds of kites in the air.

During the Pinochet regime the beautiful houses behind the Gabriela Mistral building were reserved for people in the cabinet or serving under Pinochet.

These door handles were first made under President Allende, the first communist to be elected to office in Latin America. These were installed as a "Power to the People!" kind of symbol. When Pinochet came to power, these were turned upside-down, to create a Do Not Enter look.

 "Don Allende" as Bar The Clinic refers to him. A poster with him outside during Santiago a Mil, a variety of affordable and free cultural events including symphonic performances, marionette shows (which I was trying to attend), theatrical performances, and dance among others.

  Big cloth fish in the middle of the cultural center.

The Gabriela Mistral cultural center was initially constructed under communist president Salvador Allende as a place for culture, but shortly after he was overthrown by the military junta and the presidential palace was bombed in 1973, this became the government headquarters.

In 2010, for the bicentennial, it was restored to its original use, as a cultural center, and is host to a large library, rotating art exhibitions, and other cultural events.

There are tons of sculptures throughout, but what is more interesting to me is the history. That the two houses of government were once moved here from Valparaiso to be in Santiago. The bombing of the palace that is just down the street is another totally fascinating component of this building's history.

The outside of the building is beautiful, and I love the glass over the patio made to look like kites. This is a beautiful place to just wander through, and is (like everything) close to the house. Just a short walk down beautiful Lastarria.

Lauren