Vacationing

See Argentine Congress, make dumb face

We danced!

   Hey, everyone; Matt here.  I meant to update last week, but hey, life happens.  We just got back from a vacation to Argentina and Uruguay for Sara's winter vacation from school; it was a ton of fun.  It was also nice to finally get to see the Andes from a plane; the range is huge!

That's a lot of sausage

Plaza UN's GIANT Flower

  We spent 7 days in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  From the apartment we rented, we made daily excursions to the city's many parks, cafes, museums, bars, restaurants, and neighborhoods.  Buenos Aires reminded both of us of NYC in many ways (big-city feel).  The Evita museum was really cool: intimate, lively, informative.  Of course, we also had the requisite massive meat-meal.  The dinner took over 2 hours to get through and we were dining the whole time.  Needless to say, I loved it.  Going to Teatro Colon to see the symphony was cool as well.  We had super-nosebleed, standing room tickets, but we had a perfect view and the acoustics in there were stellar.  Going out for delicious Argentine pizza after was definitely the right call.  One night we took some dancing lessons at a really cool space.  Sara's friend, Marita, was in Buenos Aires so we met up with her and went to a late-night disco.  When we were leaving at 4am on a Wednesday, people were still lining up to get in.

Not touristy in the least

Post-Symphony Pizzas

   From Buenos Aires we took a ferry across the Rio de la Plata to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay.  That was much nicer than bus/plane travel.  Colonia is a small place that used to be a Portuguese fort town.  We were able to adequately explore it in 1 day.  We did get to see a beautiful sunset over the Rio de la Plata though.  Sara was elated that there was a dirty sea dog there to watch the sunset with us.

Old and young ladies dancing at Bar Fun-Fun

One of the larger dog-walking groups we saw

   The next day we took the bus in to Montevideo.  It was their Constitution Day, which is a national holiday.  We were hoping for parades/fireworks/etc., but found a ghost town.  That was OK as I had accumulated a substantial stink by this point and needed to do laundry.  The hostel we were at (which was great!) didn't have a dryer, so we got to spend our first night drying socks and such by the stove (romantic!).  We spent the next two days in Montevideo seeing the sights and experiencing the life.  We had an awesome meal one night called chivito, which is a steak covered in a ham, covered in bacon, covered in eggs, covered in cheese, and served with french fries.  After taking the night to sleep that off, we rented bikes and toured the coastline boardwalk/beaches/parks.  At the Bar Fun-Fun (pronounced foon-foon) we saw a great band and had a bunch of grappamiel (honey and grappa), the national beverage.

Angry-Sexy Montevideo

    Since then it's been back to Santiago and working, ho hum.  It's Sara's birthday this Friday (the 3rd), so we're having a party.  I suppose after that there will be more to tell.  Maybe I'll just have to make something up.  Until then, we hope all is well with you and look forward to hearing from you or seeing you soon (whichever comes first).

Ah, memories.

On Music, Models, and M-Words

Peruvian hamburgers & expensive Bud, AMERICA(s)!

The Lyonses & some hungry friends

   Hey, everyone; Matt here.  The OK times are rolling!  We hope everyone had a sunny/explosive 4th of July.  Enough about you, on to me (us)!

Wine & Chocolate tasting; thanks, Emily!

   So Davin and Molly left town at the end of June with Davin's brother, Teague.  It was great to have good friends very close by for so long.  However, visas expire and people land jobs (way to go, Davin!).  We're actually renewing our visas right now to legitimize another year here (living the Chilean dream).

Part Bowie, part B-52s, Of Montreal

   We saw an awesome concert the other night at a small venue in Parque O'Higgins.  Of Montreal was playing with Fredi Michel.  We had front row spots for both shows.  Of Montreal put on a fun, energetic, androgenous, and super-hip show; we'd strongly recommend you see them live if you can.  Fredy Michel was not very good, they attempted to make up for lack of musical creativity by having a semi-attractive frontwoman basically strip-dancing.  She was not a very good dancer.

Filmed in a TGI Fridays, this is stereotypical
American according to Argentines

Some of the other models, the Japanese guys were super
fun.  The Italian woman was clearly popular.

   So I did land that gig as a model for Quilmes in Buenos Aires.  It was incredible.  They flew me out on Sunday night, paid my visa fee ($160), and a man with a sign picked me up.  The company put me up in a swank downtown boutique hotel (+free breakfast!) and gave me a big wad of cash (per diem too?!).  It turned out that they had flown in a bunch of models from LA for the commercial too, so I had plenty of fun/beautiful people to hang out with.  They were all very excited for me and accurately summed up the experience, "Everyone is going to be super nice to you and you won't have to pay for anything."  By Wednesday, when they flew me back, I was exhausted but in a very good way.  The commercial/paycheck should arrive in about 2 months.  I strongly recommend international male modeling to whoever is considering it.

Sara making a serious Aww face at the market

   Sara was a real trooper about not showing how angry she was that I was living like that while she was doing real work here in Santiago.  I have a completely newfound respect for her and all elementary school teachers after having worked as a 5th grade substitute on Friday.  That is a ton of work and those kids need a lot of attention.  

Vale's (late) birthday dinner

   We had a bunch of fun the last two weekends with friends, newer and older, going to dinners, BBQs, and bars.  We've also been preparing ourselves for our vacation to Buenos Aires & Montevideo.  We leave tomorrow, so today has been busy busy busy.  We'll be back on the 21st, so hopefully we'll have pictures and adventures to post then.  Until then, we hope all is well with you and that your summer (or winter for the Chilean readership) is going swimmingly.  As a final note, the video below was taken during a particularly cold night.  We had not seen this here before.