Tom Foolery (More SxS in S. America)

Once upon a time I wrote a sparkling piece about my experience reading a Chelsea Handler book and how it was teaching me to laugh at myself more. It was witty and sarcastic and disarming and self deprecating and endearing all at the same time, and even I was proud of it (which is saying something because we all know how harshly I like to judge myself). Anyways, I can't find it and I'm too lazy to write another one.  But let's just all agree that it exists, okay? Cool.

I wrote the post in the first place because laughing is, without a doubt, my favorite thing to do. I think that being able to laugh at yourself is one of the single best things you can learn to do in order to get through your life and maybe be happy for a little bit of it too along the way. And yet! I have a tendency to take myself too seriously at times. Particularly at times when just laughing would serve me best.

The best and most pertinent example of me taking myself too seriously is with regards to tourism. I think I have mentioned before that I used to think being a successful traveler meant that nobody could tell you were a tourist. I used to strive for that in my day to day life at the beginning of my time here, and I would even forego optimal photo opportunities and silly poses for fear of being identified. But no matter how Chilean I look or act, the second I open my mouth the jig is up so there's really no point in trying so hard to blend in in the first place. It's especially futile when you're traveling with two other unabashed, shamelessly cheesy and photo-opportunistic tourists. Allow me to show you what I mean.

Exhibit A. Nope... they don't look touristy at all. Downright cool, in fact.

Then we move onto these gems:

 The photo that sparked it all. After this photo was taken they insisted on imitating the pose of just about every statue we came across thereafter... even after I tried repeatedly to explain to them that the photos didn't look half as cool as they had convinced themselves. But alas it is my plight as the younger sister to be the accomplice in my older sister's shenanigans, no matter how pathetic. Enjoy!

(rolls eyes)(shakes head from side to side) 

Oh, believe it!

This was the third or fourth version of this photo that I took because they wanted to get it just right. 

 So as you can plainly see trying to pretend I wasn't a glaring American tourist was utterly impossible in the company of these two. But even without them in tow it's a pretty silly thing to try and pull off anyways. Returning back to our original theme of trying to learn stuff, lesson #8 that I've learned here is: You are who you are. Don't fight it and don't take yourself too seriously.