Soda in Chile is a strange thing.

We have the world-saturating Coca-Cola, of course, Sprite, Fanta, Coke Light (almost Diet Coke), and now Coke Zero, which I tasted by accident last week and decided tastes like Half-Diet Coke.

Then we have Pepsi, which is sort of the lower-class Coke of Chile, and comes in cheaper, smaller sizes. 7Up, Crush, and Canada Dry Ginger Ale all follow along those lines.

And we have Chilean sodas: Pap (papaya-gag!), Kem Piña (pineapple), Bilz (strawberry), and Limón Soda (made by Canada Dry, and very good!).

Once in a long while we see a Mountain Dew that costs a ton at the upper-class supermarket.

But today we saw for the first time in Chile Mark's favorite drink from the States: Dr Pepper! Granted, it cost almost a dollar a can, so I picked up four and went to find Mark in the store. Of course, our first reaction was: How many do we buy? Who else wants this? So we call around and get everyone's orders. (What are friends for, right?) We leave with 28 cans! Yes, we spent $28.00 on Dr Pepper today. And we're pretty happy about it, too!

Hoops. Lots of them. The kind you have to jump through.

The hoops are one of the things that surprised me about Chile. I guess I thought things in Latin America would be really laid back and relaxed. Well, one more reason to wonder if Chile is still Latin, I guess.

Today I went to the notary to get two notarized copies of the ID card of Crusade in Chile. That in itself wasn't too bad a process. In and out in a few minutes. But the fact that I have to go to the notary so often makes it a bit irritating. In the last week alone, I think Doug, Mark and I have been to the notary approximately 20 times for different tramites (errands). Maybe more, I lost track.

If I were to consider a well-paying job in Chile, I would seriously consider becoming a notary. The real notary, the one whose name appears on the seal and stamp and signature they affix to your papers, is a completely unseen entity, hiding in some back room or upstairs office. The real work is done by approximately 6 workers in the reception area, who receive documents and identification papers, who type common forms such as contracts and powers of attorney, whom you pay for the "service" of legalizing your papers. I wouldn't want to be one of the workers, but the notary him/herself seems to get by pretty easy. It might be the only job in Chile where you could wear shorts to the office with flipflops. Everyone else wears a suit. Everyone.

The thing about the hoops is, once you jump through the notary hoop, you still have to actually go do the job you needed done in the first place. Always another hoop. So when you think of me in Chile, you can imagine the real work that I do here: hop, hop, hop; hoop, hoop, hoop!