Last Day in Punta Arenas!

Hey all. For those of you who have been keeping up-to-date with my whereabouts, I know the blog's been a little dull lately... I've resorted to writing about mugs in my faculty room.

Well, I kissed that faculty room goodbye no more than one hour ago. Yesterday the school held a ceremony in my honor, and as my British friend Steph would say, "I was so chuffed, I cried." And for those of you that know me, I am not much of a crier... but 4 months have gone by so quickly, and as cheesy as it sounds, it was a lot of fun working with the kids at Escuela Argentina, despite their "desordenado" tendencies. They had a slideshow for me, which maybe I will upload on here one of these days, and each grade level gave me a gift or some type of nice message.

In any case, I am excited to be getting out of this cold corner of the earth. Tomorrow, at 11 a.m. I am flying out of Punta Arenas and heading up to the boiling hot Santiago Summertime for final evaluations of my teaching program, and then I kick off three weeks of travel, beginning in Santiago, then heading perhaps to Vina del Mar and Valparaiso, Chile... then a much anticipated week in Buenos Aires, Argentina and then perhaps to the north of Chile.

Many exciting things up ahead before I go home for Christmas on Dec 21st, so I´ll leave you all waiting with anticipation (assuming I can find internet access while I´m traveling!)

Mug Shots

So this mug is in our faculty room here in Chile. As the only Native English speaker on the faculty, I`m also the only person who finds the humor in what`s written on it. My Chilean co-English teacher insists that the words must mean something coherent, although she can´t say exactly what, or where this phrase might have come from... so I`m at a loss.

$10 to anyone who can decode the mysterios message on the mug. Key words: "Beatest" and "Sparet"

My Favorite New Chilean Singer

So I was riding a bus home from the Argentine town of Ushuaia this past weekend... 11 hours south of Punta Arenas, and apparently officially the REAL Southernmost city in the world. The bus aisle monitor(who was a little "off" and took his job a little toooo seriously) took advantage of his captive audience, to the delight of all of our tired and haggard souls, with his atrocious taste in music.

I'd never heard of Zalo Reyes before stepping onto this bus, but after 4 hours I knew him very well... a musical icon of our parents time (if our parents happened to be Chilean and flaite -- Chilean for White trash). I also believe that Zalo Reyes may actually have been an inspiring force for modern-day rap music videos. Observe the bling, the pimped out rides, the hot women, the thugs smokin{ fatties, and of course the sweet crib this guy rocks. And most importantly, enjoy. My only regret is that I didn´t film the entire video... the story is actually quite interesting and has a huge twist at the end!