Dear all, it has been a long time since we posted on our website, but we’ve been busy posting our photographs onto a third party site, Picasa. You can view our web photo albums using the link http://picasaweb.google.es/santiagosnapper
I found this great cartoon today. It kind of reminds me of my bed and a morning two days ago when i woke up with thoughts flying round my head, so I got up and watched a beautiful sunrise.
Facbook cheerfully reminds me that i’ve to say Happy Birthday to some people today:
Julie Gilstrap and Colin Snodgrass…
Well its been a while since we’ve told you what we are doing at the moment. As you can see from the blog, we’ve grown quite lazy in updating it but in the last two months we’ve been travelling with Rachel’s family and Rachel has had a two week shift (yes… the longest yet). After a week of recovery time, which unfortunately coincided with Chile’s National Independence Day celebrations- the “dieceocho” or “fiestas patrias”- on the 18th September, we’re settling back to “work” and normality, whatever that is. Facebook, BBC, Scrabbulous and blogging…. So we’ve been out of the loop for effectively 8 weeks.
We had a fantastic trip to the north of Chile with Rachel’s parents and their two foster children, Liam and Savannah. Rachel’s brother turned up to the surprise of everyone one day after they all arrived (carefully coordinated only 4 days before by William and Doug). And what a welcome too! “want an egg?” asks Rachel’s dad calmly while her mother weeps for England. And we were 7.
Thankfully, our Land Rover accommodates 7 people. But not normally their luggage too. So we borrowed lots of toys from friends, the most important being an enormous coffin sized roof box, from Gaetane and Hughes (Thanks guys!). Thanks also to Paula for her GPS, which provided endless entertainment on days when the road made one turn every 200km. It also took us on a lovely tour through the rougher parts of Antofagasta in search of a Shell Station, up one-way on gradients even the Landie struggled with and over railway lines.
Returning through Argentina was a “long way for a short cut” as we might say in English, but translates badly in spanish to mean “you must go on the long road for a radical hair cut”. North west Argentina is largely untouched and uninhabited but stunningly beautiful albeit on a large scale. The high altitude salt lakes and the mountains of the 7 colours were particularly memorable. In fact, 7 might as well be the meaning of life. 700 miles to a very big tank and 7 hours a day driving. 7 pesos to the £.
Well, since then, we’ve had 2 visitors who claim to be welsh but are actually Brazilian and practically English, studying in Birmingham and Chile (for 1 year) respectively. We’ve got another two friends staying with us tonight, who live in La Serena when they are not getting married in the US or skiing near here. Then we are looking forward to two visitors to Chile at the end of October/November- Stephanie Biden, one of Rachel’s university friends and Chris Reilly (you know who you are huevon). Today has been the first day in Santiago when it actually feels like Spring. So they’ll be looking forward to a tan then since the UK didn’t have a summer this year!
Of course, all of this has so far avoided mentioning the rugby world cup! Scotland, Argentina and Namibia got Doug’s support, while England and Wales and anyone playing Scotland gets Rachel’s support. Chile didn’t even qualify, despite a chilean complaining to me last week that their qualifying match was unfair… against Portugal and Uruguay. It’s great to get coverage of the matches here in Chile. Although it does serve as a terrible destraction from studying for Doug.
Studying? More studying? Yes, Doug starts a distance learning MSc in GIS and Project Management this month… which will keep him busy. He’s trained in it before, but needs an update and to learn another software package, called ArcInfo if he wants to use it at work in future.
Rachel’s work is going… although not always well. She is grateful to have some time in Santiago to get on with her research.
Some prayer requests:
We’re back to the UK at Christmas and New Year this year which will be marvellous. We hope to catch up with you all, or, in the memorable words of an american friend, “all y’all”.
Is it just me or is your day in the office increasingly distracted by the myriad of “networking sites”? I realised yesterday that, if i want to, i can spend an entire day interacting with people entirely over the internet.
Facebook is my biggest weakness- a quick message to someone becomes a day of responding to messages, notifications, individuals asking me questions, playing scrabble games and reading other people’s profiles!
I received an email reminder from LinkedIn, a professional networking site (which was originally sold to me by offering “employment opportunities”). Yet on top of notifications regarding the social life of my friends, I don’t care.
This blog is being interrupted by an MSN messaging flashing at me menacingly and uh oh…. now there’s a chat in Skype too!
The telephone goes. It could be someone calling from the UK, from Chile, a message on Skype being passed to me through a computer, a message waiting on our landline, an SMS message being translated to “english” over the telephone or an email being translated. I hesitate and miss it but i fear it will only return to me in another form later today!
I feel like a London commuter sometimes- emerging from underground, mobile phones sing a co-ordinated chorus telling passengers that the world has moved on while they’ve been on the train. Except that i’m not the train and i’m not unwittingly out of range. I’m voluntarily out of range!
Perhaps I should simplify my life? Cut the phone links, drop my email address, focus on Skype and Facebook? Maybe if I leave the old forms they’ll just shrink into insignificance, shrivel up and die (in some computer harddisk sort of way).
But no… the old technology doesn’t stop bothering me because i stop bothering it. Mr Gates is way too clever for that! A pop-up reminds me that i’m tardy and slow to update my version of MSN and at the bottom of Skype, it tells me that i’m out of date and could be enjoying higher quality Skype calling! How much better can it really get? Am I really that old? I’m cyber-hoarding and I know it. Yet I can’t face hitting the uninstall button for fear of losing those essential contacts, made over 10 years!
What is mildly frightening is that i don’t work! How do you manage it?
Must go. Another pop-up is distracting me!
Recently received from an friend from the US of A. Whatever that means. We’re British.
Notice to all you colonials, the citizens of the United States of America: Times are changing.
In light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.Her Sovereign Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, will resume monarchical duties over all states, except Kansas, which she does not fancy. Your new Prime Minister, George Brown, will appoint a Governor for America, without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up “aluminium,” and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
2. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour’, ‘favour’ and ‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without
skipping half the letters, and the suffix “ize” will be replaced by the suffix “ise.”
3. You will learn that the suffix ‘burgh’ is pronounced ‘burra’; you may elect to respell Pittsburgh as ‘Pittsberg’ if you find you simply can’t cope with correct pronunciation.
4. You should learn to distinguish English and Australian accents. It really isn’t that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney,
upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). Scottish dramas such as ‘Taggart’ will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. You must learn
that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is “Devon.” If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American
States will become “shires” e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.
5. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels (look up “vocabulary”). Using the same twenty-seven
words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.
6. There is no such thing as “US English.” We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take
account of the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the elimination of “-ize.”
7. You will relearn your original national anthem, “God Save The Queen”, but only after fully carrying out Task #1 (see above).
8. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but to be celebrated only in England.
It will be called “Come-Uppance Day.”
9. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists
shows that you’re not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out
without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you’re not grown up enough to handle a gun.
10. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you
wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
11. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
12. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you
will go metric immediately and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
13. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling “gasoline”) - roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.
14. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato
chips are properly called “crisps.” Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with mayonnaise but with vinegar.
15. Waiters and waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.
16. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to
as “beer,” and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as “Lager.” American brands will be referred to as “Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine,” so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.
17. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in “Four Weddings and a Funeral” was an experience akin to having one’s ears removed with a cheese grater.
18. You will cease playing American “football.” There is only one kind of proper football; you call it “soccer”. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American “football”, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour, like a bunch of nancies).
19. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the “World Series” for a game which is not played
outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.
20. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.
21. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due backdated to 1776.
Thank you for your co-operation,
John Cleese.
