Lauren: Gypsies.

These women are no joke. I tried finding an appropriate picture of a South American or Chilean gypsy and only found images of seductive, mysterious women with crystal balls, bandanas, and some kind of magical powers or who seem to have a kind of special intuition. Gypsies here look nothing like this. They have leathery faces, wear skirts that go down to their ankles, and look like old grapes.

I have to say that I've been warned about gypsies my entire life. My parents come from the Midwest where gypsies can be quite prevalent. My parents would say that they steal your children and chickens while trying to sell you patio furniture. Pishaw. I've rarely seen them in Southern California, but they've always looked like fine people to me. Eccentric maybe, but tricky no.

Well, I now have a far more intimate knowledge of the gypsy lady than I really have ever wanted to know. This sounds like Borat, but they are really some tricky ladies.

The other day Aneya and I decided it would be nice to read our books in the park, so I packed us a lunch. One peanut butter and honey sandwich to share (still on the doctor's diet), some cookies, and a bottle of water one quarter full with a nice big blanket to spread out so we could sit in the grass comfortably.

As soon as we spread out our blanket and had a seat an odd woman came over, telling us how pretty we were. I saw her coming, and because she looked old I figured she had some innocent question, or wanted to ask who knows what. I certainly did not expect her to start complimenting us, saying how pretty we are. Then, she said she was thirsty, and asked us to fill her bottle of water with some from out of our one liter bottle. I said sure, and poured her some. I've always been a bit of a "soft touch," and a woman asking for some water didn't seem like a big deal at the time.

Then she started asking for more. A bit of my sandwich, perhaps? For the baby she was with, of course. She was leaning over our blanket and gesturing a lot and at this point I just wanted to get her away from my blanket. So I gave her a quarter of my sandwich -- a small price to pay for silence.

Then she asked what else I had in my picnic bag. She was pretty audacious, and large and kind of intimidating. I gave her two cookies, and told her to get going. I had totally forgotten about these women until retelling the account to Daniela who told me that she may be a gypsy.

Which reminded me about gypsies. I thought this might have been a fluke. I hadn't seen gypsies before or since, but this Sunday, while everyone in Santiago was resting, I walked through a group of about five to eight gypsies. They all had long skirts and leathery faces and started telling me how pretty I was and getting closer to where I was walking. Sounded very familiar.

I just turned up the iPod and walked a bit faster. I would hate for one of those gypsy women to bully me out of the nuts I keep in my purse for emergency snack situations.

-- Lauren