Hyper-kinetic

Empanadas for lunch. Cheese and olive filling. Surprisingly tasty. "People think Chileans eat like Mexicans," said my host father, Reinaldo, at dinner that night (salad, tortellini with ricotta cheese and ham, some kind of egg with the yolk seasoned and put back). What followed was a list of things Chileans did eat: pasta, potatoes, rice, fish, "maize," chimed Rodrigo, the youngest son, fetching something canned and mysterious from the pantry. This prompted a discussion I couldn't follow, presumably regarding the inclusability of maize on the list of things Chileans eat.

At lunch, (potatoes, in addition the empanadas; also some kind of lettucey casserole I forced down) while trying to tell my host mom, Gloria, that I'm absent-minded, I apparently communicated that I'm "hyper-kinetic" (or however that word translates in Spanish). She provided this phrase. The english translation of what I said in Spanish was that "my mind goes to all different parts." Gloria said that she too is hyper-kinetic, as is the boyfriend of her eldest daughter, Alejandra. I didn't have the energy or the vocabulary to contradict her. Now I'm worried that I will reveal myself by sitting through a movie, or failing to fidget during some protracted period of sitting. When she brought it up again at dinner I said "un poco", and it might have just been my imagination, but some inner light in her seemed to go dark.

Also, because, according to Gloria, drinking the native tap water will give me diahrrhea, I have my own special lemonade (their lunch and dinner-time beverage), which she makes from some kind purified water and that I get to serve myself from a measuring cup into a little glass. So far today, I have drunk 1 and 1/2 pints of lemonade, as I steel myself for Santiago's water. I can already feel my inner lemon lighting up.

To catch up: after an extremely easy flight, I arrive in Chile today. Waiting for the flight, sipping my $7.50 rum and coke (almost worth it), the husband of an elder couple pointed to my ticket and pointed out that in addition to sharing a vicinity waiting for the plane, we would also be sitting next to each other. I made healthy middle-class conversation with them, in anticipation of further conversation on board the plane, but it turned out they were across the aisle from me, and I sat next to a youngish Chilean woman who offered me gum to counter the pressure change in my ears when we took off. I spoke Spanish to her, apparently communicating that I "liked the taste of the pressure change" but she only talked to me in English, and soon I was in my book, and then in my earbuds, and then in a surprisingly restful sleep, probably thanks to the ambien (and my genius tactic of draping the blanket over my head, like a Halloween ghost).

Probably the most interesting thing that happened on board the plane was learning the word pareidolia, which is the psychological phenomenon of finding patterns in random sounds or images. I was listening to a podcast called the Skeptoid, and a skeptical man named Brian Dunning informed me that a very small group of people believe that the unconscious mind reveals itself through speech--you just have to listen to what someone's saying backward to hear it. The example provided was someone talking about energy, or something like that, and when played backward he appeared to be saying "I want to comfort you." Paredoilia explains all kinds of interesting things, like why it sounds like Jim Morrison is saying he's satan when you play that one song backwards, and why people are always seeing the Virgin Mary in tacos and the like. Insert joke about my own unacknowledged pareidolia here.

At the house, I share a door-like object with a 27 year old Alabamaniac (soon to be my Alabamainman), named Thad, or Thaddeus. It's not entirely clear which is his real name and which is the name our host parents call him by, because it's easier. For now, I'll go with Thad. Thad goes to the Catholic University here. He is still an undergraduate because he took five years off from school to work at his family's 3rd generation car washing business. I think I gathered from our (spanish-only-enforced) dinner table conversation that he himself has built car washes. He said he quit because of all the familial in-fighting, which sounds fascinating, and kind of like the makings for a really great TV show (Suds?), and which I'll have to ask him about some time. According to Thad he's made friends with a number of Dutch and Germans and some other Europeans with whom he converses in English, as his Spanish isn't that great. He invited me to go to a party with him, which I am ever so excited for. Also, he--specifically his superior-to-the-shit-adapter -from-Radioshack-that-provided-me-with-fifteen-seconds-of-power-before-winking-out-adapter--is the reason that I have power for my computer.

Go Thad!