Farellones... or Kevin Bacon's Gonna Dance All Over You

OK so everyone knows that Santiago's not going to win any beauty contests, and I can't say I've noticed any personality features that would redeem her either. In fact, I think its safe to say that Santiago and I, were we both people and both at school, we would not be friends. Not at all. But that doesn't meant that I wouldn't on occasion go over to play at her house. Santiago might be ugly and unpleasant, but she has a pretty sweet backyard.

Ironically, its Santiago's spectacular natural setting that is the root of all her cosmetic problems in the first place. The soup of brown smog that hovers above the city and causes her red eyes, respiratory problems and prematurely aged skin is only there because being smack up against the Andes mean that the toxic haze doesn't have anywhere to go. Unfortunate.

So when O's parents suggested we take a family trip into the mountains for the weekend, the prospect of fresh air had me excited. Little did I know, even though this would have had me far more excited, that it would also entail a weird worm-hole like experience and time travel back to 1983.

We went to a place called Farellones, which is the closest ski resort to Santiago and is only about an hour and a half out of the city. Which given that I am used to driving at least 5 hours to ski (making a day trip something of an odyssey) I think is quite awesome, and I can tell you that if I had another winter and access to a car I would spend every single weekend there without question.

On the way to Farellones, we drove up a winding road through pea-soup fog. Actually I think we were just making our way out of the Santiago smog. Whatever it was, once the (toxic) cloud had cleared, it was obvious that the very fabric of space and time itself had been altered and that the mountain exists not in 2009, but in 1983. How do I know this? Look below..

Yep, fashion on the slopes was without exception in the Princess-Diana-circa-1983-fluoro-onepiece school of ski attire.
Also, everyone was Brazilian. Correlation? Maybe.
And no, while the first two pictures in this post are mine, I did not actually see Princess Diana at Farellones as depicted in the third shot, which is a shame, but not entirely unexpected.

To top off the weekend, O and I celebrated our three year anniversary by going to Santiago's one and only revolving restaurant. If it wasn't 80's enough that it merely revolved, it also sported a mirrored ceiling, and had automatic shoe-shining machines in the men's toilet.

And just because we're talking about style icons of the 80s, and not at all because I watched a movie featuring him last night (Frost vs Nixon: see it!), I'm going to treat you to a picture of the man himself, in pants that can only be described as glorious, but not quite as glorious as they would be if seen via a mirrored ceiling: