My Very Merry Santiago Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy Boxing Day!! Still in Santiago figuring out how we will be spending our last month in South America. We have to decide a route and if we will be visiting just Argentina and Brazil, or if we´ll throw Bolivia into the mix. It´s very difficult to choose- benefits to each course of action- and up until this point, we have pretty much had things planned out. From now on, we are kind of on our own and have to actually figure out the next steps. We did change our flight to India- we are now leaving 3 days earlier from Brazil and spending those days in London! Dee has never been and I´m really excited to meet up with Ali and all of my other English friends who live in and around London, including the new ones we have made thus far along the way. I´ll keep you updated on our plans.

Meanwhile, managed to have a fantastic Christmas! On Xmas Eve, Dee and I separated for three hours and bought each other stocking stuffers. Other than a vast amount of sweets, her gifts included canned peaches, yummy smelling deodorant, sunscreen, gummy pizzas and candy canes. I attempted to get her “Siddhartha,” because I really think she should read it before we get to India, but the tiny English book store closed 5 mins before I got there! I also tried to get her a gift certificate to Pizza Hut (she is beyond obsessed with pizza), but after spending 20 minutes trying to explain in Spanglish (mostly English actually) what a gift certificate is, I found out they don´t do that here. Being away from my translator was QUITE the challenge!!  On Christmas morning, we exchanged pressies underneath the tree in the hostel. She got me an adorable tank top (that I´m now refusing to take off, as having a 4th shirt to choose from is beyond exciting!), a huge Toblerone bar, and a mani/pedi set- along with a “coupon” for one free pedicure courtesy of Dee. After present time, we completely vegged out in the TV room and watched Frasier, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, The Office, Friends and ER. Since everything else in the city was closed, we ordered Domino´s pizza for delivery! It was fantastic to do absolutely nothing.

In the eve, we met up with Romayne and Darren, our Aussie friends from the Galapagos, at their hostel across town. We had an awesome night making new friends and hanging out with everyone at their hostel. They are pretty much the cutest couple ever.

We have run into some problems being American lately though. I tried befriending a Russian girl last night by telling her I was part Russian, but she just berated me for about 20 minutes about how Americans and the USA completely suck and what an idiot I must be for being an American, etc. The previous night, Dee and I had a similar situation with some Brazilians, who went on for about an hour about how we are all completely brainwashed losers and should be doing something to stop the war. This one guy also kept going on about how all the citizens of the country should just come together and bring down Bush, etc. It was absolutely TERRIBLE and made us both feel like shit. We are getting that a lot lately. It´s pretty awful being personally blamed for all of the horrors going on in Iraq and in the rest of the world. He also insisted that the US govt planned 9-11 and we were all assholes for not understanding that. It´s like we are expected to keep apologizing for things we can´t control- ie the privileged country we were born in. UGH!!!!! NOT fun, let me tell you.

Anyway, I hope you all had a very merry Christmas too!! Not sure where we will be for New Year´s Eve yet, though I´m sure it will be someplace exciting. We are in Santiago until Friday waiting on our Brazilian visas to be okayed by the Embassy, but will let you know where we go after that. I love that we have no idea and it´s just a few days away. :)

Peace in the middle east!

xo

Jillian 

***************UPDATE****************

We decided! We are going to skip Bolivia on this trip. Logistically, it doesn´t make too much sense to go ALL the way up there, then go back down to Buenos Aires, then all the way across to Rio. Check out the map below to get a better idea of these distances:

So now, we´re going to head down to Puerto Montt in the Lakes District of Chile, then cross over in Bariloche to Argentina, make our way up to Buenos Aires. From there, we´ll either go to Iguazu Falls (one of, or possibly the biggest, falls in the world) or through Uruguay to get to Rio de Janeiro! Yay- very exciting to have the groundwork for the next month all set.