El Mullet is really popular in Chile right now

So we arrived in Santiago, Chile at 2am on Wednesday morning and we've observed the following so far:

1) They don´t believe in reciprocity. We each paid a $130 reciprocity fee when we landed and we've yet to see much reciprocation. This may have something to do with the fact that we are in...
2) ...Chile, which means cold in their language. And apparently, they feel the need to live up to that definition, in every sense of the word. The weather feels like fall and the people seem to go out of their way to make you feel like you are not welcome. They don't try to speak the language or smile whenever you are dealing with them. And when they pass by you, they love to stare because they know you are tourists, or because....
3) ...they don't know what good hair looks like. (A) Most of them are either sporting rat tails or a mullet that is business in the front and we-just-arrived-at-the-cocktail-party-in-the-back. You know, it's not ''drunken after-party wild'' in the back, rather it's ''we know we just arrived somewhere where we need to be sophisticated for the first few drinks before we get wild'' in the back. (B) I don't think anyone in Chile has ever seen blond hair before. Every time we walk by someone, they stop the conversation they are having, they stare at the top half of Lindsay's head for a few seconds, and then they look at me as if to say ''are you sure you can handle that or do you need help bringing her back to the circus tent?'' But of course, even if they really felt I needed help in corralling the circus animal, they wouldn't actually let their thoughts become actions, like when I inadvertently ordered...
4) ...octopus the other day. I swore that I was ordering baked potatoes and grilled vegetables, but what I got instead were a couple of purple tentacles with suction cup thingies sprinkled all over them on a plate with a grilled carrot. Of course, being adventorous, I tried it and I tried to convince myself while I was chewing it that it tasted like chicken. About a minute and a half in, I was still chewing the same piece and that chicken felt like it had been marinated in the toxic sludge that collects in the street gutters. Now, given that I have a bleeding heart and am very cognizant of the starvation going on worldwide right now, I decided I needed to keep eating and would have to figure out different methods for getting it down as painlessly as possible. ''Chew it in the back of your mouth and let little pieces go down individually and you'll be done in no time'' I thought. After one bite, I didn't care much about starvation. However, at that point, I decided it wasn't about starvation (maybe a little), but about being a man. Men eat weird fishy things, like my uncle Tim proved and told to me at a family cookout when he was downing grilled sardines like they were Mom's chocolate chip cookies. So, now that I was in a 1 on 1 mantest with myself, I decided all I needed was a good beer to dilute the flavor and wash it down. I chose a beer called die m dunkel because it sounded potent..which it was. The beer was black as night and tasted like what i imagine the combination of tar and the bottom of a beer barrell tastes like. Anyway, I was able to finally will the octopus into my stomach, but not without a couple of those bad shudders - the ones where the feeling starts at your toes, shoots to your hips and makes them rock back and forth, continues on to your shoulders where it makes them come forward and towards each other, and then culminates in your head whipping back and forth like on a swivel. Anyway, man prevailed over beast and all was well in the world. And then I realized that despite all of these negative moments, Chile...
5) ...actually is a very interesting and cool place. Santiago is what I imagine Miami is like if in the fall, Miami had Connecticut's weather. There are lots of gorgeous and massive palm trees, the houses are constructed with beautiful spanish architecture, and all of the streets have latin names. Valparaiso, which sits on the Pacific ocean about 100km´s away, reminded us of Malaga, Spain. It is very blue collar city that is built on a mountain overlooking a bay and has some absolutely phenomenal views. Maybe a poor man's Santorini? We'll see in a month. Anyway, we really enjoyed exploring the different neighborhoods that had a lot of character and we went out to some really superb restaurants. We also took a quick train over to Vina del Mar, which is a little more opulent but reminded us more of atlantic city´s boardwalk than anything else.

Anyway, that's it for now. Tomorrow, we leave bright and early for Patagonia, where we'll be paying tribute to glaciers that might not be around that much longer if Obama is not elected this fall...