Why the long face?

Some things are learned from books and some things are learned from experience.  Another friend, Theresa, is staying with us for a little while before she starts exploring Chile.  We took her to the fruit market and caught the trolley bus home.  It was a double length trolley bus, the type that pivots in the middle and looks so long that you feel like you should be carrying your passport to cross halfway.  We pressed the bell and the bus stopped and our group alighted.  I was walking down the steps when the doors started closing.  Obviously the driver hadn’t seen me.

Operating at Matrix bullet time I rationalised that the doors would bounce open when they felt the resistance of a human pushing through the doors.  It’s true these buses were made about 60 years ago but surely they’ve introduced tourist sensing devices for closing doors.  By the time the rubber seals were pushing on my ears I realised two things.  1.  Hydraulic doors are stronger than a man.  2.  This bus didn’t have tourist sensing devices for the door.  This is something I would have preferred learning from a book.

A quick search of my memory banks and I could not remember any phrases from the Lonely Planet South American Phrasebook for, “Excuse me Mr Bus Driver but my head is stuck in the doors.”  Some of the shopping ended up on the outside of the bus and Theresa politely took the bag of avocadoes that had almost been made into guacamole. 

Talluah and I left the girls in Theresa’s care and went out sin niñas to Boris’ birthday party.  Boris had a 90s, blue theme going which involved decorations adorned with The Smurfs.  In Spanish they are known as Los Pitufos.  An equally bizarre name but because we grew up with The Smurfs, Los Pitufos just seems odd.

As part of Chilean culture the party invites said for a 9:30 start but we arrived early to chat with Boris and his family while it was still quiet.  Talluah has advanced so much with her Spanish that she laughed in the right places and made others laugh.

There seems to be a tradition that the birthday person has to eat some of the cake before it is cut and invariably it ends up on their face.  Perhaps this is the best way to eat cake.  We danced to music from the 90s trying to see who could recognise the song first.