Last night the earth moved for me

Sometimes you stumble across a phrase that is more useful than it should be. I have found this phrase in Spanish. 'Aprendo espanol' - two words that bring a smile to anyone and seems to break the ice. For those of you who don't know this means I am learning Spanish. Today I went to the barbers, normally a rather mundane exercise where you have to make a patter of  small talk that never changes and is so predictable, just cut my hair. When you have to entrust the process of cutting your hair to someone who doesn't speak a word of your language the whole process becomes far more of an anxiety provoking experience. Did he understand me? Is number three with the clippers the same in Chile as the english speaking world? Questions that go through your mind as you sit in the chair completely at the mercy of someone with a collection of sharp instruments. Anyway I used my killer phrase aprendo espanol which got a smile, I followed this with my new words for the day 'maquinilla electrica', 'numero tres' and pointed to the sides and back of my head. He did a very efficient and professional job, asked me the usual questions, where I am from and how long was I in Chile and we got on like a house on fire, all for less than half the cost I would pay in Brisbane. I think in future in Brisbane I am going to claim I don't speak any English and only speak Spanish.

Last night I had a rather interesting experience. Either I had a dream in which the earth moved for me or I was woken up by a small earth tremor. Sadly I think it was the latter. This is the first time during this visit that  this has happened, I am still talking about the earth tremor here. A quick search online has revealed more details that can be found here
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc0008pgw.php#details
Apparently it was a 5.1 magnitude at 160 km depth about 45 km from Santiago. I guess the depth would have weakened it significantly. I also guess that lots of small tremors are a pretty good thing, releasing pressure between the plates. Long periods without any serious activity are possibly not a good thing but I am certainly not an expert, thats just a hunch.
Enjoy your weekends and I hope the earth moves for you too.
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