The majority of this post is about food... shocking I know.

Aghhhh. I feel like it's been years, and let's be honest... if i tell myself to do homework right now I'm just going to be on Facebook, so might as well update while things are fresh in my mind.

After my last post, my mom sent me an email suggesting that perhaps I was a little too harsh on Cecilia. Let me be clear ... I love Mama Cecilia. She amuses me to no end, makes delicious vegetarian comida (what will I do without her lentils, garbonzos, etc?), and generally let's me do lo que quiero without being overprotective. Thank god.

Anyways, just finished one of the best meals I've had here yet (some sort potato/avacado salad with the traditional lemon/olive oil/salt dressing that could make a dirty shoe taste good, a tomato stuffed with salmon, and deviled eggs- shoutout to 2 Amys, the only other place I've ever had deviled eggs). This meal was followed by Cecilia's very own Betty Crocker-style boxed brownies topped with dulce de leche. Didn't even know that they existed in Chile, but delish nonetheless...
Cecilia, her 30 year old son Tomás whom I looooove (I wish he would be a normal 30 year old Chilean and live with us still) and I spent the meal time mainly discussing Jumbo and China ... naturally. Generally when Cecilia goes off on one of her rants about disliking something, Tomás and I roll our eyes at one another with the unspoken thought: "yeaah, she's crazy and slightly offensive but she's an old Chilean woman so whatever." Today was a little different in that they were both expressing a very anti-China sentiment (because... they are sneaky in business transactions, kill all the females, eat rats, are COMMUNISTS). As usual, my suggestion that perhaps we should not be blaming the entire population of one billion people for these problems was pretty much completely disregarded, and I finally put an end to the conversation by declaring my love for Chinese food and suggesting that we all eat it together sometime and only then would we continue this conversation. Case closed.

Speaking of ethnic food... had a delcious Indian meal on Thursday night with some friends at one of about 4 Indian restaurants in Santiago. Lentils, rice, naan, chicken tikkamasala. I was really overdue and can't wait until Indian food once again regains a steady place in my diet.

While Indian food is rare but still good here, hummus is rare and gross here. En serio. I tried it once and immediately called upon my parents to bring some tahini into this country immediately so I could make my own. Last night was the night it went down... and it really hit the spot. Garbonzos in the can aren't really common here, so we soaked and pressure cooked some, and then made a magic combination that will have to be duplicated real soon since it was gone about 5 minutes after arriving at the asado (BBQ) that our Chilean friends were throwing. Cecilia also loved it (after telling me that she was going to have to keep the kitchen door closed for a week to extinguish the smell of the entire head of garlic that we used). She already told me I should make it again this week. It's time for Cedars/Sabra/Julie's future hummus company to get the hint: Chileans love hummus so it should be sold here.

Several other random notes:

Friday was El Dia de Los Trabajadores (Labor Day) in Chile (and I think everywhere else in the world except the good old US of A). I was shocked. It's a legit holiday here. NOTHING - not even Jumbo - was open. Can you imagine malls being closed on Labor Day in the U.S.?? Giving labor a chance to breathe instead of just creating another excuse to go sale shopping? Preposterous.

On Friday, while everything was closed, my friend Kaitlan and I ran ten miles in possible preparation for a Rock and Roll Half Marathon in September in Virginia Beach. I'm still not sure if it will work out because hotels seem quite expensive, but the entry fee to the race includes a free rock concert and glass of beer afterwards and during the race there are 20 bands on 14 stages to pump up racers... http://www.rnrvb.com/home.html. I think I might have to participate. Does anyone know anyone who lives in VA Beach?

My post-South America summer is shaping up to be very minimal but packed with excitement. I get home to NY on July 16th, head to Philly for a Taylor Swift (don't judge me, I won't judge you) concert on August 1st with some of my new friends from this program, possibly head to the Outer Banks between August 2nd and August 5th, at which point I will fly to Arizona for a 4-day conference before flying back to Boston for a week in Ptown, Cape Cod with my family for our annual drag-queen fill. Then I'll come home, pack my life up again and head back down to DC to move into my NEW HOUSE!!! Hooray! I have the master bedroom... so visitors encouraged!