When all caca goes to the diablo

Well, many have been writing and inquiring why a) my Facebook profile is full of anger (a rare emotion of mine that I think freaked a few of you out) and b) my AIM away messages have been slightly depressing. So, the point of this post is not to fill you all in with reasons to hate your lives and be extremely jealous of me, but rather to simply explain the reasons for my frustration. (disclaimer: despite the following rant I am very very aware of the great opportunity that this trip has afforded me, and in the end--just like I say above in my title for this blog--I don't care if traveling barfs on me, this is a trip of a lifetime).

So Matt and I got to Santiago last Friday where Fabian--the guy we are indebted to for life--picked us up and we had a blast with him all weekend. We basically slept til noon everyday, had him drive us around as a personal tour guide, and spent our nights learning that Chileans love drinking coke with any liquor (Mom: chill. HOUSE parties with his FAMILY!). Most of our convos centered around crazy hilarious Chilean slang and it was a good thing, because on Monday and Tuesday the curses we had learned came in handy for SURE!

I don't know who I have kept up to date on all the issues with the car shipment but here is a monologue of my rant: Matt dropped the car off in LA in mid-December with a verbal guarantee by the shipping agency to have the car in Chile BY Jan. 15th. Come the second week of January we find out the car won't make it until the 24th or so. Okay, a little annoying, but we'll work around it. We'll just have to drive faster and switch around our itinerary to make our boat to Antarctica. So Matt leaves for Buenos Aires to take a week of Spanish classes while I wait in the U.S. for the car's Title to be sent to CO (has to go through U.S. customs first). Oh wait, now we get another email: new ETA (estimated time of arrival) is Jan 28th, and now the title still has to go BACK to the company and THEN to me in CO. Change of plans: we'll send it to Fabian in Chile and I'll meet it down there, the shipping company tells us. Okay. Can you send it Fedex, because we NEED the title to pick up the car. 'Sure, sure, it'll be there, sure sure, we'll keep you updated,' they say. (Sure my BUTT!). So we get to Santiago and Friday the title still hasn't gotten here. So we try to figure out if the car registration will do instead. We even get a copy of it and Matt's passport notarized. We think this will work. We are getting excited. The car will be here Monday (28th) and we really think the registration will work.

Monday: Fabian takes off work, we get the stuff notarized and we head to Valparaiso(1 1/2 hr drive). We call the dock on the way. They can't find our container number. So we stop by an international call center to fax them all the info we have and to call our shipping dude. The title has been shipped and should get here today! Oh wait, we get the name of the lady who has the title and call her. She has had the title for two weeks and still has it. She is awaiting PAYMENT from our company (I hate liars...just tell us the situation straight so we can deal with it!). We can't pick up the car until she gets the payment--she will email us when it is sent. We paid our company over a month ago! As of today (Thursday--four days later) she emails to say she still hasn't received payment and the title STILL hasn't been sent form the U.S. But the best part of Monday is when the lady at the Chilean docks calls to tell us that she has talked to the agent from the actual ship company and the boat the car is on is not going to get here until FEBRUARY 6th! 7 weeks after Matt originally dropped off the car. (This is confirmed later by email to the U.S. from two different sources---EXCEPT our company, who refuses to email us back and is conveniently out of the office when we try and call long distance). Now we DEFINITELY don't have time to drive to Ushuaia, Argentina.

I understand weather and ship mechanics screw things up, but returning phone calls and e-mails I think is just common-sense business etiquette. Would have been nice to be told the truth that the title hadn't been shipped and been updated about where the boat really was. Now we have had to spend a boat-load (pun intended) more money buying plane tickets last minute (it's summer vacation here!) down to the tip of Argentina, plus the docking fees that we will be charged until we get back from Antarctica, since we can't take the car out in our name before we leave and leave the country without it (that's assuming we can even get the title)(plus add on all the extra costs my other brother Nick is going to have because we were going to be his ride back to Buenos Aires after Antarctica). If it weren't for Fabian's family's kindness and hospitality I don't know what we would do. Does anyone know a lawyer?

Thanks for letting me rant. You are great friends.

Let the games begin!

The team has assembled!

Team members: Bob Esponja and Sinead
Team mascots: El Pato and the dancing leprechauns
Team theme-song: Rick Astley's "Never gonna give you up"
Team mottos: 'You need the best mules for the best price!!' and 'go papas fritas yourself!'
Team captain: Walter the mini-bowling bartender
Team call sign: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot


We have had a good time so far (as you can already see from the plethora of inside jokes that none of you will get). I arrived in Buenos Aires last Monday afternoon where my bro was nice enough to meet me and we left straight for Mendoza. Though we thought it was kind of a weird little town, it was where most of our team themes were born. Therefore, we must pay it a bit of respect. But now we are in Santiago awaiting the arrival of the transportation device (2002 Toyota 4Runner). Things could get super complicated and our route is ever changing, but that is part of the adventure! Plus we have met tons of super nice people that are psyched about our trip and willing to help us if they can. We would like to thank the Academy, and especially our amigo Fabian (Brittany's boyfriend who lives in Santiago) and his familia. Thank you and good night.

P.S. for more info on what we have been up to so far. See my bro's blog: http://myhighwayhome.blogspot.com/