Yesterday morning I though of checking my Chilean entry stamp as my 90 days visa was about to expire. Squinting at the stamp I noticed that I had day and year confused and therefore my visa was not expiring on the 10th, but this very morning. I was hours away from becoming an illegal immigrant. I went to the busstation right away, but they had changed the schedule and the next bus was this morning. So today around noon I was standing slightly nervously in front of the border official, who looked at my stamp, frowned, looked at his watch, looked up at me and said "es un día de retraso". I looked back at him with my well practiced, slightly confused "I don't know what is going on, I don't speak your language, please bear with me" look.
He decided he could not be bothered with this and stamped my passport.

This reminds me of one of the many perks of being a foreigner, always having an excuse for my habitual confused way of being.

Oh, and formality, especially, but not restricted to digital conversations. I find it soothing to be able to play the "it is my second language card". Being email or chat or anything, it is nice to know that misses in tone will probably be overlooked.
Which is probably one of the reasons I find it more relaxing to write and speak English than German.

I am sending at the moment from a hostel in Mendoza, occupying the one bed in this dorm, which has a plug next to it. On Thursday this blog will be off for another eight hours, when I will going back to Valparaiso.