The sunburn to end all sunburns

Maybe I'm exaggerating but it seriously could be.

They say most of the sun damage to your skin happens during your teen years. For this, I was always very careful. Lots of sunscreen, minimal exposure, hats, long sleeves. But for what? For in a single hour I have absorbed 10 years worth of ultra violet sun rays.

It looks as though I have taken slabs of raw salmon and plastered them across my mid-section. But this time, its not raw salmon, ITS MY SKIN. Yes, my skin. 

I will say this. Luckily, I only exposed my stomach to the sun because it was in the most need, so the rest of me is okay. Truly, if I laid on the sand, it disappeared completely, causing various passers-by to faint from the shock of seeing a disconnected chest and hips reclining on the beach. So it really was in the best interest of all to achieve some level of tan.

Hopefully, eventually it will turn into a tan. But for now, I carefully limp to bed and apply generous amounts of aloe.

I caused a middle-aged woman to scream for fear of her life

All I wanted to do was get my towel. We were going to the beach and I forgot it so I had to run back. But I'd only been there once and not by myself so I got a little confused. The door is hard to open with the key so I stuck my hand through the window to unlock it.

Next came a blood curdling scream and a crazy woman running toward me. This was definitely not our apartment, but the apartment next door!

I could only stammer how very, very sorry I was. 

She asked me where I was from.

"Los Estados Unidos," I answered stupidly.

"No, which apartment," she said. Duh.

How Embarrassing.

Pictures

Jeff's vistit!

The Opera house

There were a lot of intermissions

A lot.

We loved our blue house picture in our first apartment so much.

a possible tattoo for sarah

Huge solar-powered metal flower that opens and closes. So cool!

In Recoleta with our landlord, Ezekiel

Home Alone (5 or 6?)

Sarah and Andrea have left me to fend for myself as they enjoy a few leisurely days at the beach. 

Not really, I'm going to go join them tomorrow, but the house feels so empty without them. I am kind of enjoying being alone though, just because it proves I can do it. I can feed myself and walk down the street by myself and take care of the house by myself. It's quite empowering really.

Today I went out for breakfast by myself and later I'll go to the gym by myself and last night I single handedly out-witted a group of burglars with ingenious homemade booby traps by myself. 

You think I'm kidding.

Felices Fiestas!

Entonces, we spent Christmas and New Year's on our rooftop. Ezequiel threw a party and we watched the fireworks that were being set off all around the city. As Sarah said, if you could find it, you could light it on fire, wherever you wanted. And I think she's right. I don't think there are any firework regulations here. There were bottle rockets going off on the street below and shooting up to within feet of us. And these cool floating lantern thingies in the sky. 

They were both potlucks so for christmas we brought spaghetti and cheesecake and for New Year's we brought pita chips with meat and cheese, little morsels filled with blue cheese and wrapped in bacon and pumpkin pie.

Awesome.

Victory!

I got a job! Well, I think so at least.

It's at a little italian place called "Chez Juanito" which, after a very loose translation comes out to "Little John's", which is kind of like "Papa John's". I've never been there though. But I want to someday.

 Anyway, I went tonight to try it out. It was crazy busy! It was just me and the owner and he was making all the food and after awhile he was like "ok, that's it, no more food, only drinks." and I was like "Thank you, God!" But it all went a lot better than I expected and I think he really liked me and liked that I spoke english because there were a lot of tourists. Another girl is going to give it a try tomorrow and then he said he would call me on Saturday to say if I got it! So cross your fingers! Only one hand though, because both is bad luck.

I hope I get it, besides everything else, just so that I don't have to go searching for jobs again. It's so stinkin' scary and stressful! But I'm glad I did it, it was really good for me. 

During the job search, something really funny happened. I answered an ad on craigslist for a part-time cook at an old people's home and the lady replied and told me to come in for an interview. It was in Meridian and I was all excited so I asked our landlord where exactly that was and he didn't know so we looked and looked and finally realized that it was in Idaho! I couldn't believe it!

Ciao!

Gabby