What I learned on my recently concluded trip to South America

• It was very clever to tilt the Earth's axis in relation to its orbit, ensuring a fair distribution of summer. Not all planets have this feature.
• Doesn't the fact that some countries have better ice cream than others, and that these discrepancies can endure for decades, disprove the efficient market theory?
• It's frustrating trying to find the bathroom light switch when you're someplace where they put the switches outside the bathroom instead of inside, but kind of funny to watch someone else go through it.
• Hot-bloodedness is a lifestyle choice and I think I could do it with enough practice.
• Breakfast is about the right time for a party to end.
• I wonder how many ball-point pens are in my house. (This has nothing to do with the trip, but it is something I wonder about.)
• While I'm not a convert to the Eagle Creek packing system, I respect the right of others to practice their packing faith.
• Yes, there are the Starbucks; the clean, quiet and efficient Metro; and the plentiful examples of forward-looking graphic design by public, private, and public-private entities. But what really distinguishes Santiago from other Latin cities is that it has sidewalks that can be walked on.
• Horseback riding in the Andes is very cool.
• Sometimes service is included, sometimes it isn't. It depends, but on what, I couldn't say.
• All buses should be first-class sleeper buses.
• Just because a person is from someplace doesn't mean they know what they are talking about. The laundress from Viña del Mar who told us that Valparaíso and Santiago are dumps to be avoided at all costs is really good at laundry and should stick to that.
• Dulce de leche: the condiment of now.
• My Spanish has improved to the point where I can discern when my wife, instead of saying "Excuse me, where is the bus station?" says, "Excuse me, I have a small question, would it be all right if I ask it? We're tourists from the United States, me, my husband, and the two children, who go to a special school for the arts in the state of Colorado, where we're generally pleased with the schools though we do wish there could be more funding for them, and we're visiting this place for the first time. Oh, how we love it! It's beautiful, my goodness, just beautiful, you must love living here. Did you grow up here? My parents were from Buenos Aires -- well, from Lomas de Zamorra -- well, my father was born in what was then the Free City of Danzig and is now the Polish city of -- yes, that's right, Gdansk! Do you have family from there too? They escaped when he was seven, first to Paraguay and Uruguay and finally Argentina after his grandmother, my great-grandmother, I was named for her, bribed the Nazis with a life insurance policy backed in gold. She rapped on the floor with her cane and said, 'In my day, when a lady was present, an officer offered her a chair!' and the Nazi got all embarrassed and got up for her. I guess that's where my daughter and I get our nerve from, huh? My parents spoke Spanish to my brother and sister and me, except when they didn't want us to understand, when they spoke German or Yiddish, which explains why I only know curses like 'Go crap in a lake' in those languages. We visited Argentina several times as kids but this is my first time back in, what is it? Goodness, 12 years. And as I mentioned it's our first time in this particular place, where the people are just so very nice. If you don't mind my asking, where is the bus station?" but not to the point where I can ask for the bus station myself.