End O' March

Watermelon juice & Lollapalooza

My best "Chilean pose" (according to Sara)

Helmet hair, meat, beer, potatoes.

   Hey, everyone; Matt here.  Been a while, hasn't it?  Things are going along just fine down here for me & Sara.  Sara started working with the children again, which sounds difficult but fulfilling (as always).  I'm still tutoring English and giving bike tours.  I've made a few contacts over the intercomputationalweb device to get outside with, so hopefully that will happen soon (I haven't been out since early February!).  Sara & I might actually be getting out of the city a little bit this weekend as Thursday and Friday are a half day and holiday respectfully.  In other nice news, it seems to finally be cooling down a bit; this year w/o a winter sounded nice at first, but I'm tired of being a sweaty bastard (moreso).  

Sara made a delicious chocolate & raspberry cake

Vero, Mashini, and Vale

Charlie knew what to do.

   I celebrated my 28th birthday last Tuesday, which was fun.  I did have to work, but I guess that's part of growing up.  Many thanks to Mom and Dad for sending me socks & underwear, my set from high school was just about done.  When I got home from work, Sara had made me a big dinner of steak, potatoes, and spinach.  It was a nice birthday dinner w/ craft beer and bourbon to accompany it.  Sara also gave me a great birthday gift of tickets to Lollapalooza Chile.  After careful consideration, I decided to take Sara with me to the festival this last weekend.

Ina might be allergic.

Pollo, Vero,  and Sara with Rice sneakin' in.

   Before the festival, we had a party at our apartment on Friday night.  It was good fun with our Chilean friends.  People seemed to have a good time and we certainly destroyed the apartment.  This set the tone for the weekend as we would be partying from Friday night straight through to Sunday night.  The company of friends was a great way to celebrate; a direct quote from Mashini, "ARE YOU READY FOR MASHINI?!"  I also received some great gifts at the party: nice tea, a free contract, American (real) newspapers, and the cream of the crop, a quarter lamb (2 breasts and a leg).  Good looks to Charlie on the lamb; I spent a lot of yesterday eating the leg like a king/caveman.

Vale & Charlie photobomb

Even at Lollapalooza, dogs everywhere.

Great birthday gift.

   Lollapalooza went from 11-11 both days of the weekend.  This being Chile, we didn't get there until about 3-4 each day.  However we saw a lot of great music.  There was a good mixture of Chilean, other South American, and North American acts.  Some of the highlights from the South American shows were Los Tetas and Follakzoid (with an umlaut on the first o), both Chilean acts.  Illya Kuryaki & The Valderramas (from Argentina) was one of the best acts we saw, they were a lot of fun to see live.  As for North American acts, Thievery Corporation put on a killer live show; people were going nuts.  Also, Friendly Fires is an energetic live show, the frontman contorts himself passionately to the music.  Gogol Bordello was predictably interesting.  MGMT and Pretty Lights were also a whole bunch of fun to see.

Not a bad job.

At Follakzoid.

Man plays computer, crowd goes wild.

Yep.

Have some illicit rum.  Thanks for the
checkered-flag duct tape, Ma.

  There was also a ton of dubstep and/or dubstep-influenced music at the festival.  This was not only because of the major dubstep names playing, such as Skrillex and Bassnectar, but I guess that is trending at the moment.  We even heard dubstep-esque sound in Bjork's set.  On that, I would not normally go out of my way to see Bjork, but her music was beautiful; strange, but beautiful.  Foo Fighters was exactly what you'd expect, fun and loud.

Thievery Corporation.

  Each night ended with a requisite trip to the bar for a beer, chorillana, and debrief.  The weekend was a seriously good time, but also lent itself to serious case of the Monday blues.  The people on the Monday morning bike tour did not have the most chipper guide.  Trying to go for a cleansing run afterwards might not have been the best idea either.

Despite a lot of protest, Sara insisted on buying this Donald
Duck balloon and getting pictures with this very creepy
Chilean clown.  Walking back to the apartment with this
in no way says, "I'm not from here, please mug me."

   Well, that's about it for news from us down here.  Davin and Molly are coming through on Sunday, which will be fun.  We're excited to hear about their South American adventures and maybe make some together.  OK, I'll let you go now.  As always, please write or gchat/skype us to let us know how you are.  We haven't seen or spoken to you in too long.