Sometimes being a stupid gringa reaches up, sort of slaps you in the face a little, and runs away with your cell phone.

Ringing in my new year of life I will not be able to ring anyone up. Hah.

I already bought a new one today, but last night my cell phone was stolen off my person. People had told me to be careful about talking on the street, but apparently sometimes one just has to learn these lessons for themselves. The entire experience left me with a sour taste in my mouth, but there is nothing I can do about it except be more careful in the future!

At any rate, I was going to attend a gathering of sorts in a bar that is a "typical Chilean" bar, which is in a slightly sketchy part of town. My friend and I arrive. The bar is extremely full. I look around and can't find who I am looking for, while the two of us meanwhile are transformed into the center of attention of an entire gaggle of drunk Chilean men shouting slurred English and Spanish at us. We decide to go outside to try and call my friends because we feel uncomfortable. I call. No one answers. I go to call again, starting to pace a little bit, but with the left side of my body toward the street and sidewalk.

The phone is next to my face, in my left hand, when all of a sudden I feel someone hit me pretty hard on my neck/shoulder. Thinking that it was one of my friends using very poor physical judgment in trying to surprise me from behind, I start turning. Understandably, the grip on my cell phone is loosened, and then all of a sudden the cell phone is gone. Stunned, I look on as a ten year old girl dressed in all denim runs away from me at top speed around a dark corner and disappears.

I feel like an idiot for not better heeding the advice of my roommates, but it is still a little unnerving to have a small girl rob a cell phone straight out of your hand on a street with lots of people on it. Add to that the issue of feeling uncomfortable in a bar where everyone was singling us out for noticeably being gringas, that I couldn't find my other friends, the difficulty I have understanding the Chilean accent, and my general discomfort with my Spanish since my arrival, and you have the perfect storm of my personal pity party realization that being a gringa in a completely foreign city actually really sucks.

Heading back toward the Metro, we talked to the Metro guards and they said that kind of stuff happens all the time; one ought not to speak on a cell phone at night in the street, particularly in those parts. Then he told my friend to step away from the metal grating that she was leaning against toward the street, because people would undoubtedly try to steal her necklace off her neck from behind as we were standing there talking. Nice. But, point being I am grateful it was just an old and inexpensive cell phone, that I have all those numbers written down, that nothing more important was robbed, and, most importantly, that I have learned to be more careful.

And on that note, cheers to a new year of life and learning.