Fotografo de Bodas, Santiago

September 15, 2008

Today started off wrong with an annoying car rental company. We, of course, being the (not) cheap semi-Chilean family that we are wanted to rent the least expensive thing that this place had. They offered us an automobile so crappy that we probably would have had to run it with our feet like the Flintstones. Anyways, we reserved it, thought everything was great until a few days later when they called us back and told us we were going to have to upgrade (read: pay more) because they didn’t have any of the Flintstone-mobiles left. We thought, fine, we’ll pay a few extra dollars and rent a bigger one. Problem solved, right? Wrong. Well, a few days after that they called to tell us they were now also out of the midsized cars too and we were being forced to upgrade again. Now this was starting to smell a little fishy so we found another rental company and reserved a small car as well. They have our credit card. They charge it. We breath a sigh of relief. Until lo and behold, yet another rep calls this morning to tell us the same dealio…mandatory upgrade because they’re out of the small sized cars. So we did they reserve it for us in the first place if they didn’t have that size, you ask? We have no idea.

Anyways, then, because on Mondays the universe enjoys torturing me, I needed to go to the bank here to pick up a new debit card since my old one was broken. I’m not even going to get into the story but it’s the same ol’, same ol’. If you’ve ever visited Chile, you know the rigamarole…you’re sent through one useless line after another of people telling you contradicting things. You waste hours trying to chase down a debit card that they could easily send in the mail, but won’t.

And on top of that I had to call Bank of America to tell them for the umpteenth time that there is no “suspicious activity” on my card, could you please unblock it, I need that money to live…the suspicious activity in Chile is me, yes, and has anybody even checked for the fact that I’ve called you only like 20 or so times since I’ve been here in the past three years to tell you that I live in Santiago permanently and my monthly statements are even sent to my apartment here? *Big Sigh*

So all these things have me a little bit annoyed today, but I thought, “Honestly, the sun is shining. I won’t let a few idiotic tramites get me down.” I put my favorite upbeat music on my iPod and set out to take Papito on a nice long walk and enjoy the weather. We’re walking along, about 30 minutes away from home when I feel a big raindrop on my head. Except wait — the sky is blue, there are no grey clouds even threatening to blow over, it can’t possibly be sprinkling. I touch my hand to my head and let out a groan when I see — a bird crapped on me while I was walking!

While it was hard to walk the two miles or so back to myself maintaining any shred of dignity since I had shit on my head, I actually didn’t mind. In Asian cultures they say a bird pooping on you brings good luck, so I’m just going to go ahead and believe that. And fortunately for me, Chileans are on the short side, so most people passing by probably couldn’t see the crap sandwich on my head — unless of course they were on a bike, making them taller — in which case I was just shit out of luck.

PS. Posting will remain slow this week again since it’s the holidays in Chile, YAY for the 18th of September!!!!!!!!

PPS. Group blogging will resume on Friday the 26th, with the topic tentatively set as “How Chileans Perceive Gringos (Or How We Think They Do).”

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17 Comments

Oh my god, I HATE when birds crap on my head! It’s only happened, like, twice, but once was at a theme park and I had to walk around with it the rest of the day. I mean, I washed some of it out, but there was no shampooing or anything. Gah. You sound so wonderfully positive, though — keep that up! Kiss your puppy (and hubby) and be happy!

Comment by kgseymour — September 15, 2008 @ 5:38 pm

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That must have been the blue bird of happiness that crapped on your head! I’m glad the sun was shining.

Comment by Ritamae — September 15, 2008 @ 7:32 pm

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This is probably terrible…but your bad day makes a really funny blog post!…oh and I love your mom’s optimism!!!
Hope your day is better now.

Comment by Rachel — September 15, 2008 @ 7:53 pm

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Hahaha, no not terrible Rachel, I actually thought it was funny too. It took a bird shitting on my head to make me laugh and get me out of my bad day stupor.

Comment by Mamacita Chilena — September 15, 2008 @ 8:14 pm

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Ugh! Sorry to hear about the bad day. I can totally relate to the credit card thing. Drives me crazy!

Comment by Lori - Blondie in Brazil — September 15, 2008 @ 8:16 pm

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Hahahahaha. Glad to see that sometimes you actually have to do tramites. I’d come home fuming every week because of that craziness and you’d listen patiently, and I always thought, “wow, kyle is the beacon of patience.” Hahaha, But they almost got you But way to stay positive. And haha, your mom is hilarious. Oscar laughed out loud when I read this to him.

Comment by Amanda — September 15, 2008 @ 10:02 pm

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Amanda, me!?? A beacon of patience?!? Are you sure that wasn’t some other Kyle you were talking to?

The tramites definitely get to me sometimes!

Comment by Mamacita Chilena — September 16, 2008 @ 6:37 am

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Don’t blame the “oops, we’re out of the small cars” thing on Chile. Car rental companies in the US do it all the time. They make more money overcharging for the big cars, so they think bait-and-switch is a perfectly acceptable business practice.

Comment by Lisa B. — September 16, 2008 @ 6:54 am

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A bird crapped on my dad’s bald spot at the tropical rain forest exhibit at the Baltimore science center once. We all thought it was hilarious, except for him, of course. Sometimes you just have one of those days!

As far as you credit card experience goes, I am so used to encountering incompetence that I’m genuinely surprised whenever someone does something well and right.

Comment by PastaQueen — September 16, 2008 @ 7:08 am

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Oh honey, I feel for you! LetÂ´s hope the week ahead will be brighter; clouds and silver linings!

I had a bird crap on my shoulder once which was worse because everyone could see it and I was in the middle of a crowded city.

Comment by Girl.Meets.Chile — September 16, 2008 @ 7:26 am

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Hahaha, well at least you got all your bad-ness for a while taken care of in one day!

Lisa, I don’t know if we’ve just been lucky with rental companies or if my dad’s just sufficiently intimidating (it’s the British accent), but when rent-a-car places in the US have tried to switch cars on us we’ve managed to avoid paying more. Not without a fight, but they have eventually been convinced that they have to make up for their error. That kind of convincing is almost impossible in Chile, in my experience, because customer service just isn’t as important to most companies.

Comment by Emily — September 16, 2008 @ 9:14 am

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Sorry to read you had a bad day, but as I read on it actually did turn out to be good to have the bird poop on your head. Congratulations on the photographs!
As for bank cards, I’ve had mine for at least seven years and it’s almost completely torn in two, but I look after it like a mother, because I DON’T want to go to the bank and go through all those eternal “trÃ¡mites” just to have a new one. I prefer to deal with the looks people give me when I use it to pay for stuff.
Happy 18th September!

Comment by Flo — September 16, 2008 @ 1:16 pm

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Nice blog, car is my dreams. Toronto Exotic Cars.com – We have an extensive fleet of prestige cars for hire with marques from Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, Range Rover, Bentley and much more. http://www.canadaexoticcars.com/

Comment by Wallace Johnson — September 17, 2008 @ 12:27 am

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I’m paranoid about birds crapping on my head. Sorry it happened to you, Kyle. But you had a good attitude about it. It’s nothing that a shower and some laundry can’t fix, right?

Comment by Ordinary Girl — September 17, 2008 @ 8:43 am

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I think the next group blog should be on the Pokemon culture in Chile, in response to the latest NYtimes article (and Newsweek article from months ago). I am curious what other gringos think about this phenomenon

Comment by Cachorrita — September 23, 2008 @ 9:38 am

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Hmmm…my experience here in the US, HI included…if the car type we reserved was all out they've always given us a free upgrade at no extra cost…plus an apology…We've used them all.

I've had the misfortune of a large seagull at the beach dropping a rather large splat on my head just to run down my face…thankfully the water was just a few feet away. I didn't feel lucky at all…but I did laugh at the irony of it…why me?

Comment by miguel — June 14, 2009 @ 8:35 pm

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Hmmm…my experience here in the US, HI included…if the car type we reserved was all out they've always given us a free upgrade at no extra cost…plus an apology…We've used them all.

I've had the misfortune of a large seagull at the beach dropping a rather large splat on my head just to run down my face…thankfully the water was just a few feet away. I didn't feel lucky at all…but I did laugh at the irony of it…why me?

Comment by miguel — June 15, 2009 @ 3:35 am

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