If you ever ask an expat to compare Chile to the rest of this continent, there’s a good chance that she will tell you that the food here is not as delicious as it is in Argentina or that the people here are not as open as they are in Peru, for instance. If you’ve ever asked me about Chile, there’s a good chance that I said exactly those things.
And I have been wrong. Read more…
Here, young people are burdened with massive education debt before they even have the chance to build a life for themselves.
And here still, this younger generation congregates in the streets, demanding a fairer shake from the government, starting with the elevation of taxes for the wealthy and higher quality education.
But “here” is not Occupy Wall Street. It’s the corner of Monjitas and Merced in downtown Santiago, where Chilean university students marched for educational reform, a fight that has been more than a year in the making. Read more…
OH MY WORD, have I got some explaining to do. The last time I updated this blog, I was 4,000 miles north of here. I mean, I was on a different continent, for God’s sake.
But now I’m back in Santiago, partaking in all the pisco-drinking, sopaipilla-eating, reggaeton-dancing debauchery that I can get in before the world ends in December. And I forgot to tell you that all of this was even happening. Read more…
I’ll admit that the only thing I have been occupying as of late is my own bed. Due to an aggressive cold and some very powerful antihistamine medicine that was given to me by my mother, the prison nurse (and no, that is not a joke), I was sleeping soundly with an open mouth when the NYPD began closing in on the flagship location of Occupy Wall Street in Zucotti Park at 2 a.m. Tuesday morning.
Nonetheless, I was lucky enough to find a lively real-time account of the ruckus this morning via @TheOther99. It’s an occupy account run by a guy named Tim Pool, a 25-year-old activist from Chicago. [Read about him here.] He had the good sense to take out his mobile phone and start streaming video of the whole thing via Ustream, seldomly taking a break all day. Not even for a banana.
One of my primary motives for moving to Lima was the food. There. I finally said it. I packed up all my belongings and moved to a different hemisphere (again) for the food. But not just any food. Limeñan cuisine is fresh and flavorful and as unforgettable as the first time you got felt up at the movies. Read more…
Photo used under Creative Commons from http://www.maoquai.com.
I inherited my love of fine spirits from my family.
Well, not exactly. But they are usually the reason I partake in such fine spirits. Especially during the holidays. Let me explain…
Halfway between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I’m inspired to re-up on my drinkage of alcoholic beverages so that I can keep up with all of this holiday cheer and my family’s nonstop planning of get-togethers. Interestingly enough, while one side of my family are avid drinkers with whom I always pass the merriest of holidays (my aunt P even renovated her downstairs common area to create a bar room in her house), the other side consists of teetotalers who are something of an unyielding bunch when it comes to short dresses, natural hair and–yes–drinking.
If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you may have noticed that I spent the majority of Thanksgiving weekend with the former, downing apple martinis, eggnog and an entire bottle of carmenere. Having exhausted those possibilities, I’m craving something different for Round Two, otherwise known as Christmas, which is right around the corner. So I asked my lovely Reners for her recipe for Vino Navegado, a fine Chilean winter drink that’s perfect for blustery evenings.
All you Twihard fans, I have a bone to pick with you.
I usually don’t like a whole lot of mainstream stuff. MTV makes me barf, I’ve never read Harry Potter and I don’t know how to dougie. (And no, that is not an invitation for you to teach me.) But you guys have been talking up Team Edward and Team Jacob for three freaking years, and I finally got sick of it.
Last spring, in a fit of boredom, I watched all three Twilight films in one weekend, and oh…my…goodness! Jacob is the sexiest werewolf I have ever seen and the first time he took off his shirt after Bella crashed that motorcycle I was all like, “Oh…oh….oh,” and I would totally let Edward ‘change me’ if you know what I mean and Carlisle needs to quit it with his doctor talk and vampire morals because I would really fake an accident just to get him to treat me with his little First Aid kit. Oh, and Bella’s pretty awesome, too. Read more…
I have a confession to make. For more than three years, I have, in fact, been Keeping Up With The Kardashians. From Khloe and Lamar to Kim and Kourtney taking New York, the fastest way to make me forget about all the work I have planned for the day and spend an afternoon watching trashy television is for E! to air a marathon of Americas most vapid family. And while I may have tuned in for the first half of the network’s four-hour special about Kim’s “Fairy Tale Wedding” (even I zone out around the two-and-a-half hour mark of a marathon), this has just got to stop.
As guilty a pleasure as it may be, there are, like, a dozen other stories that should have dominated our news cycle and Twitter’s trending topics this week. So in the interest of contributing something significant to our national conversation (err, besides trending topics like #ThingsthatlastlongerthanKimsmarriage), here is my round-up of newsworthy and fascinating events.
Just fyi, this is how I resuscitate my brain after hours of mind-numbing content writing. Thank you, Polyvore, for letting me play dress up with all the fancy clothes I cannot afford.
brittaneyc.polyvore.com
twitter.com/polyvore
Culture is the defining essence of the human experience.
We read it, watch it, taste it, hum along to it, feel it, praise it and pass it along (that is what this blog is about). But, if we are lucky enough, we can also transform it. That’s what these guys (and gal) do.
Social media, at its best, is great storytelling. In the simplest terms, it has the ability to change the way a person sees herself, the way she perceives the string of events that make up her life. This I realized while talking to my sister over a cup of frozen yogurt on a Saturday afternoon.
Before taking a spoonful, she whips out her iPhone and says, “Hold on. Let me check in.”
Read more…
