Back in Chile for a couple of weeks now, we took the girls out to eat last night for dinner. Well, it was our dinner time, at least.

At 6pm, we show up at the mall and have to drive to the fifth floor of the parking garage before we find an empty parking spot. Thinking it is going to take a long time to get our kids food, I mentally start to panic. They are tired, hungry, and have been in the car a little too long. Ruby Tuesday is at the other end of the mall from where we parked, so we push Jenna in the stroller and hurry Rachel around all the people wandering through the mall at their own pace.

When we get to the restaurant, the Chile moment begins: there's no one there. We have to walk all the way through the empty place before we find the hostess, who seats us back by the door. Then we order and it's not more than 10 minutes since we entered the mall that we are eating.

Eating dinner in Chile at 6pm is like eating lunch in the States at 11am. Maybe there will be a restaurant open, or maybe not for another hour. It makes sense: everyone just finished eating lunch at 3!

I guess that's one benefit to keeping some of my strange gringo ways - quick food.