Hello family and friends (and bored U.Wisconsin students). Chile is getting warmer. We're getting antsy for summer and visitors. I predict the next month is going to fly. At the risk of losing valuable readership, I have to say that we're moved, elated, hopeful, sad we couldn't be in Chicago on Tuesday but thrilled to see our city represent, and really proud about what our country did. I'm also deriving some personal pleasure from watching the Republican Party self-destruct before my very eyes. When Fox News is reporting on how dumb Sarah Palin is..well...just sit back, watch the show, and try to keep your hands away from the mouth of the mother that is eating her young!!

We've had some good adventures in the last two weeks. Again, seeing new stuff around Santiago, getting into nature and this time, getting into the local wine scene as well. Our friends Ian and Lissa live up near school in Lo Barnechea/LoBa (aka "the country") so we like to do city-country exchanges. They came down for the gourmet food fest, so we went up there for a different kind of food fest--a choripan taste test. Choripan is the basic staple of Chilean asados. It is a nubby chorizo sausage in an above average bun (chorizo+pan=choripan). There are approximately 73 brands of choripan. We tried to make a dent by taste-testing 3. We also went for a great hike basically out of Ian and Lissa's backyard. I should note that Ian has built a cornhole set. This is a strictly midwestern game that involves skill and focus (and beer). You throw beanbags in a hole. It is excellent backyard entertainment. I hated it when people played it in our neighborhood at all hours and whenever the temperature broke 40 (thereby obnoxiously blocking the sidewalk). In Chile, I love it.

This afternoon of backyard entertainment was followed by a scrutinizing screening of "Top Gun." This included taking notes and pausing scenes and rewinding them. Why you ask? Because of THIS:

[Above: Viper, Ice Man, Maverick, and Goose--Happy Halloween!]

Last weekend was a long weekend. Why you ask? I again, refer you to the picture above. That's right. Halloween is a holiday in Chile. So we had a long weekend which means lots of time to explore. Again, we teamed up with Ian and Lissa and headed south into wine country. We met up with some other folks once we got down there. An amazing part about Santiago is that you can get out of the city very quickly. We were well within wine country in about an hour. It was beautiful and very cool.
For whatever reason, I love taking tours of wineries. I find it very exciting (kinda like those segments on Sesame Street where they show you how orange crayons are made--it's so cool!). This was the pre-wine tour picnic...

And the tasting!

The next day we went to a beach town called Pichilemu. This is supposedly one of the premier surfing spots in the world. The day we were there there were 8-10 meter waves!! There weren't that many surfers who braved the waves but those that did were pretty amazing. The weather was pretty crappy--totally clouded over. There was one hour where the clouds cleared and our picnic got totally awesome. One of the best parts about going to the winery in the beginning of the weekend was that we had a ready stash of wine at a moment's notice. So even though we didn't have total sunshine, we did have good wine. Picnic pics below...
You might have noticed from the pictures above that, unlike Ian, Justin did not shave his mustache after Halloween. So I got to wake up to that for the rest of the weekend. Kinda like the spooky Halloween trick that keeps on giving (or tricking).

There was another break in the clouds later in the day that provided a new opportunity for wine and a great sunset.
Our night in Pichilemu was lots of fun and included finding our friend Chad's friend's house and bonfire for some sing-a-long, followed by latenight empanadas ricas y fantasicas.

Pichilemu has an interesting Boston connection...
And a bizarre food specialty...look carefully.
We had a beautiful drive home. With fields upon fields like the one's below:
We're feeling really lucky to have some fun, adventurous friends in Ian and Lissa (we stayed in some kinda nasty places and everyone was still in a good mood) and keep loving all of the cool things we see. I will leave you with one final oddity about Pichilemu. They sell these in their local markets...
Used school folders from the 1980s and 1990s featuring various metal bands. Go figure. We might have been too distracted by the pretty stuff to take mullet pictures. Please believe that mullets did abound. We are continuing to work on our setlist for the upcoming acoustic show. We have been given a somewhat featured spot on the lineup which makes us nervous. Who do they think we are? Beardog?

Much love to everyone!