The Holiday Report

Happy Holidays!
Well, my holidays were nice because I spent them with my new Chilean family - Cristian. Christmas I actually spent near the beach, I say near the beach because we had a beautiful view of the beach but we never actually went to the beach because we only had one sunny day of 3 and it was the first and we spent it in the pool - I know life is rough. Our cabana was rockin though and we had a great fully equipped kitchen and living area all nicely integrated to make a big social area. Jill and John joined us for the second half and Jill and I had fun dancing to our Baile Entretenido CDs. Oh, I don't think I have mentioned this - one of the high points of my week every week for the past 3 months has been Thursday morning and Saturday midday when Jill and I go to Baile Entretenido (Fun Dancing) it's a class at the gym taught by the most flamingly gay Chilean we have met, although we are wary because even the flamers don't seem to realize that they are gay in this country. But when we told our instructor that our membership was up at the end of December he made us both mixes, so on Christmas day, we showed off our skills.

New Years I spent with Cristian in Los Angeles, and it was mellow. The real sadness of New Years for me though is that Jill left. Yes that is right my other half, my partner in crime, my confidant is gone. She has headed south to Puerto Varas, a summer tourist spot where she will work in the tourism industry for the summer before deciding to stay in the south working or heading back to the states in March. Either way she is gone and I am sad. Luckily she still has her cell phone, which means that we are still on a family plan together and can talk for as many minutes as our hearts desire, which is a good thing, because otherwise we would be paying a ridiculous amount talking to each other like I do with Cristian. I would say the highlight of my new years was not the night but rather New Years day, when Cristian and I discovered this wonderful pool at a hotel where you pay $4 for the day and can hang out and relax by the pool and if you so desire you can visit their pet ostriches. They were hilarious, I am not sure how near you have been to an ostrich but they are huge birds and clearly from the prehistoric era, they are wild. We hung out with them for a while, feeding them leaves they didn't want to eat and conducting them in holiday song which you can tell by thier faces they were clearly not into, damn Chileans, even the birds dont like Christmas carols, but we had lots of fun.

The other highlight of New Years is my new friend, she may be 8 years old but she is cool. Her name is Paola and she is Cristian's neighbor in Los Angeles and has been hanging out with him for a while. We met very briefly once before and she decided that we were going to be best friends as so many little kids do, I'm not sure why, I'm no fun at all. But last week I spoke with Cristian and he told me that she had declared to her parents that no one was allowed in the new pool that they had set up (its a bit bigger than a baby pool but not much bigger and its inflatable, therefore comfortable) until I arrived and that she and I had to go swimming first. Well it was a very nice welcome given that I arrived midday on Friday to 85 degree weather. But we proceeded to make friends over the weekend and she took a liking to my camera and has become quite the little photographer. She is a really cool little girl, sharp, mellow, independent, happy and fun. Cristian and I have fun with her. She is not exactly Jill, but she is a new friend.
Here are some of her first works as a digital photographer, not bad for an 8 year old: