On Writing: Two kinds of parachuting I’ll never do
I was recently at a travel writer and photographer's conference in Corte Madera, California, convened by an amazingly well-curated new and used bookstore called Book Passage. If you're in the area (right over the Golden Gate), I highly recommend a stop in. They...
When you are in nature, or in San Francisco
Cuando estás en la naturaleza, un bicho puede picarte, un león puede comerte, y hacerte desaparecer When you're out in nature, a bug could bite you, a lion could eat you and make you disappear. These are the lines of a song that was going through my head constantly on...
On ducks and bugs, and other animal-based expressions. With love, from Chile.
I was recently describing someone I know to a friend of mine, and used the expression "she's an odd duck," an English expression that is kind of playful, like, she's peculiar, but not a bad person. I like her, but she's not precisely what you might expect. And that...
On the meditation of hanging your laundry out to dry. A lesson from Chile
Once upon a time, when I used to live and move around the United States, I spent a weekend at a retreat center on the Oregon Coast. Here I ate vegan food and learned about the word "gift" used as a verb. It was the kind of mellow, wood-paneled place where people spoke...
Nice is relative, a lesson from Paraguay
One of the things I like about traveling, is that it unfolds my origami perceptions of how the world works, and reveals nooks I didn't know where there, later refolding my mind into a totally new formation, another preconception of how the world works, which is also...
The truth about passports, Paraguay and that pesky new $160 ninety day visa, oh and border crossings in general
In my continued quest to get to know my neighbors, I decided to visit Paraguay. It helped that a friend of mine was going to study Guaraní for a month, and so, as doesn't often happen, I was going to get to travel with someone, as opposed to going it alone. I don't...
When we is singular, and may or may not include you. A tale of Chilean (and other) Spanish.
Nosotros. You learn it early on in Spanish class, the first person plural, what happens when you add someone to your self. I plus you is we. Right? Not so fast. As you may or may not know, I just got back from Paraguay. So, Paraguay. There are many reasons why...
The anatomy of a traditional Chilean pastry shop window
If you spend any time at all in Santiago, chances are that you will spend some time downtown. I think of this as the more "traditional" part of Santiago, where traces of the past are more than that. Many of them have not yet been erased or paved over, demolished and...
Que Penca, or what’s in that bag at the feria in Chile?
Sometimes you will be walking around in the feria, and you will see bags of pale green something in a bag. it will be double-knotted on top, and flattened into a squared-off brick inside its bag, as though you were going to make sandbags out of it to stem an...
