October is over?!?

Hello my dear fam! Welcome to the last blog of October (!?!??) following a beautiful week of warm Santiago spring weather. I have to preface this blog saying that it won't be very long or full of adventures because this week was very low key and beautiful and I spent most of it trying to spend as much time as I could meandering around with the people I love and doing not a whole lot. But I did meet 5 kittens, explore Santiago's most incredible farmer's market, went to the Hollywood Hills of Chile, and confronted Pedro Pablo about stealing my hidden cereal collection. So maybe this week was crazier than I thought! 

1) Adding a new kind of baby to my Chilean life

Carina's host cat had five little beebs a little over month ago, and after finally leaving the bedroom closet they were closed up in and exploring the world a couple of feet away from their mother, we were allowed to visit and cuddle them. Goodness me oh my were my expectations more than met. I just want to quickly highlight that these little nugs were kittens #3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 that I have met since being in this country. 7 very high points of my time here. Two of the five are pictured below. We named the ginger little one Jengibre (creative I know -- Google translate that one if need be). He was the only one in the litter that wasn't white and grey and so I snuggled him a little extra just in case he was feeling left out. And the other cutie on my lap reminded me of Piper so I snagged him for 30 minutes of playing too. 

2) Santiago knows how to do a farmer's market. 

On Friday, I headed out in the morning with Pati and Polo to La Vega Central. This market in La Chimba (a neighborhood that I had JUST spent a week of Folkclore Chileno studying!) is famous for its size, signage, and being an experience that includes being pretty intensely shouted at by vendors as you trying to pick out a broccoli as peacefully as possible. We filled up 3 pull carts (you know the ones that people in cities wheel around with their groceries) with everything from radishes to chirimoyas to pineapples to beets. The market takes up a full block and I would guess has over 200 stands. You can find EVERYTHING there for such amazingly low prices. It was such a cool and fast paced way to experience the purchase of fresh produce! I only just wish Chile would get rid of plastic bags because it really hurt me when every last thing purchased was thrown in an orange plastic bag. Even though it was going right into the cart! Oof. 

There are cats everywhere to make sure that the rats stay out. Natural pest control ya gotta love it

So pretty!!! 

3) Aerolineas journey

On Tuesday we are going to Buenos Aires! Taking advantage of another one of Chile's many feriados (national holidays = no school). Well, or so we thought up until Friday when we got an email saying that the Aerolineas Argentina (the national airline of Argentina) workforce was having a strike on Tuesday and that our flight had been cancelled. Yay for workers rights and fair pay and their right to organize, but it certainly put a little wrench in our plans. Originally moving our flight was costing $300 so that wasn't in the cards. We started doing some last minute planing to completely change our week long adventure until we found out that flying out on Wednesday morning is now freeeeeeeee. Yay! Halloween in Santiago after all! We put in a request and will be hearing soon if we can change our flights for one 12 hours later. Cross your fingers for us. 

4) Last straw for Pedro Pablo

And here we get to the meat of the blog. Pati and I went food shopping together on Thursday after she surprised me with a MANI PEDI DATE! Wow she is just the best. My June toenail polish has been replaced! Besides shedding a single tear when Unimarc was sold out of peanut butter :( it was really lovely to pick out all of the things I wanted to eat for the week and doing some meal planning together. We also loaded up on 4 bags of yogurt, and she treated me to some granola which is just so absurdly expensive in this country. Oh I was so excited for my Friday morning breakfast, and it did not disappoint. Mmmmmm honey almond granola with some greek yogurt. That's all I need man. Anyway, I woke up again today excited to repeat this beautiful morning ritual only to find that there was no longer any yogurt in the house. Pedro Pablo, my ten year old host brother, walked into the kitchen slowly after I started scrambling around and just dropped that he had eaten all of the yogurt. ALL OF THE YOGURT. 4 bags in 3 days are you kidding meeee. I mean it is one thing that I was sad that my perfect breakfast pairing would have to be delayed until the next food shop, but a whole other that this kid had downed more or less 2 liters of yogurt in 72 hours. Someone is certainly not lacking probiotics. 

Pablo has a tendency to eat everything as soon as it enters the house. His favorite snack is far and beyond Naturs, a delightful cereal that is basically just sugary cheerio tasting popcorn. It is addicting. If a bag of Naturs is in Pablo's sight it is gone in 10 minutes. And these bags are larger than your average cereal box size. Well at one point I got an initial taste of these amazing things, and Pati nicely started to get more than one bag so that I can have some. But she also made the smart move of handing the bag directly to me and having me hide it in my room because if she didn't Pablo would just eat all of them. So now I have a Naturs stash in my closet. 

Well anyhoo, I was looking forward to a) showing my parents this stash along with the yogurt story as I was face timing them today and b) having a little snack this afternoon. WELL. My unopened Naturs bag from Thursday has disappeared!!! Stolen away from sitting on top of my leggings with only one little grain left behind as evidence. I confronted Pablo (who comes into my room to move the internet router a foot away from the wall which he is convinced greatly improves his internet) about this but he denies it. But honestly the kid has a nose like a bloodhound for these little puffed corns I know it was him. I need to find a new stash location. More information to follow as the investigation continues.

After ignoring everything that his mother asks him to do along with playing Mario Kart at far too high of a volume, screaming profanities at the television, and often having uncalled for tantrums when he is told he cannot have a second dessert or must eat his dinner at the table, I am really frustrated with him. It is one thing that he is annoying to me and pretty casually invades my space and gets mad at me for putting the router back in place even though I'm not the one doing it, it extra pisses me off when he is a brat to Pati, one of the most caring and loving person out there. So how am I dealing with it? Oh just acting like your average sister which is one skill I'm quite good at if I do say so myself. I tell Pati when he swears in English (which is often) and casually point out to her that by his age I was clearing my plate and helping out with dishes and that maybe he should help out a little bit. Maybe he will finally do something other than being suspended from school, playing video games, or yelling from his room calling for Pati to bring him something from the kitchen. 

Oohhh we also got a bottle of pebre, a lovely little hot pepper sauce and by far my favorite part of Chilean cuisine, at the Unimarc and now my food has such a delightful flavor once again. Almost forgot to add that in here! 

Ok my loves, that brings this week to an end. Wish me luck as I set out to write my second 8 page paper for Arte y Espacios Públicos once again in size 11 font and 1.15 spacing. I'm going to need all those positive thoughts. 

Sending love always, 

Olivia/Liv/Boo

Spanish word of the Blog: beet = betarraga 

Fresh from La Vega to my plate today :)