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If you know any french, you might think this is rude… but it means, just, “shut up”!

Discussing chilean slang last sunday after church, and in the churchyard, no less, we concluded that owing to a lack of alternative words, or, perhaps just a lack of innovation, chileans don’t have a lot of words to choose from when forming slang.

Amongst the higher classes, there are signs of more imagination… caballo, normally meaning horse, is used as a superlative. Is something better than brilliant? “Es caballo!”

Otherwise, just two words form a wide range of insults. These are:

More on huevon another time… but for the moment, I hope that satisfies your desire for rude, crude chilean, Richard! Hey man… how about Chile for a honeymoon? Can get a good deal for you here or in the Sheraton.

Do you remember that scene in Austin Powers where he enters a public toilet and asks the first man he sees “you haven’t seen….errrr (noticing that the man is blind), anything at all?”.

A few days ago, I was searching for a sports centre in our local area as I wandered back from the city centre. I was thinking how to ask the question and, after preparing it in my mind, I was searching for someone to ask… the first person I saw was (apparently) sitting on a balcony on the first floor of a block of flats to my right. I stopped and asked boldly in chilean, “Disculpeme, donde esta un centro de desportivo cerca de acca?”.

Immediately the man reacted by moving closer to me on the balcony and, at that moment, I realised my error! The man glided smoothly across his balcony…. in a wheelchair! He was very polite about it and explained he didn’t know. I apologised profusely in spanish, embarrassed.

…which is more than I managed to murmur after I asked a former Geography lecturer if she was pregnant, during a conference coffee break in London! I wanted the ground to swallow me whole! Oh well… I suppose everyone learning a language makes mistakes. And everyone who isn’t learning a language makes mistakes too!

I’ve noticed that besides a collection of Opels (our Vauxhall), taxi collectivos who congregate outside supermarkets and office blocks, also employ plenty of Daewoos, a korean car-maker that has bought the rights to use chassis design and engines of former Opels/Vauxhalls.

To avoid duplication and, presumably, to improve branding, Daewoo have given the models new names. However, clearly unaware that a suave, sophisticated word in English might not mean the same thing in spanish, the name given by the Koreans to the most popular Daewoo taxi here in Chile is “Espero”, meaning “I wait”!

More appropriately, it could mean “I hope”! As i step into a taxi, i often hope that i will live to see my desired destination! Taxis here in Santiago drive very fast and generally ignore all rules of the road!

Yes, yes… sounds like Iguanas. Long tail, grows back if shot (reference to Starsky&Hutch- did you get it? Did you?), brazilians follow their trails, nicaraguans eat them, mexicans keep them as pets, generally lazy and difficult to get alongside.

A bit like customs officers then. “Las Aduanas” are the customs and excise folk here in Chile. They’re proving a little difficult. Our air freight has arrived and i was told i could collect it from the airport and clear it through customs. Only, i went to SCL and the import company i was to meet with, doesn’t have an office at the airport! And customs can’t clear the freight without paperwork held in their office in the centre! So…I spent my afternoon in the centre, learning the word for delivery (entregar) and trying to cut through the bureaucracy! And then, after all that, the aduanas at the airport were closed at 5pm. “Manana, manana!” I say through gritted teeth!

Its strange- in Chile, some places are really efficient and smooth. Then some places require you to go to three different people within the space of a minute, for the simplest of transactions (like buying a croissant!).

I’m a scotsman. No wonder i’m having difficulty finding the aduana, getting on their tail only to chase a long paper trail! I haven’t resorted to shooting them yet, but then, they might grow back! I’m certainly not going to keep one as a pet (hola el senor aduana! que tal esta dia?) but when i finally get my hands on our stuff, i’ll probably want to skin them alive and grill them!

As you may have read we have been searching for a house or flat in Santiago de Chile. In the process, we’ve been learning a lot of words relating to the house, to rentals and property agents.

Some things are easy to remember- like Propiedades… Property, Departomento… Apartment. But muebles? It sounds like a medical condition. “Doctor, doctor, i’ve woken with the muebles!” It sounds like it should describe my condition in the morning. Is a vaccination available?

No. Muebles= furniture. Or rather bits of furniture. Fantastic! I mumble no more. I mueble instead.

We can’t wait to shop for furniture, to set up home and receive some of our belongings sent by ship 3 weeks ago. Indeed, our air freight has, apparently, arrived in Santiago, yesterday. Thank the Lord! Very exciting! They contain my birthday presents for one. And it means i can stop re-reading the economist and read one of several books that we sent by air. Oh and we’ll also have our photos from the wedding, our albums and card-making materials, so we can write to you all!