golem

Yesterday, I woke up and went to Rosie's apartment to pick up her computer for music-sharing purposes and see her and her mom off to Viña. I hung around for a bit while Rosie got ready for the beach, then said bye to the two of them and Gilda, who had woken up at some indeterminate point after we got there. I went to the COPA office next, to see Janet, the housing lady, about my family next semester! There was a steady stream of host family representatives when I got there, picking up their last check of the semester, including David Andrés, which was funny. Vale and I went into to the hall while I was waiting and chatted a bit, and with David, who invited me to a concert of a band that he knows (more on that in a bit). Finally, it was my turn to see Janet, and I went into the little room of the COPA office and said hello.

She's very nice, and had out her notebook of all the families' profiles. She'd read the email I sent to Isa a few weeks ago, so had a few suggestions, and we eventually got it narrowed down to two: one family of mom, dad and university student daughter a few blocks from Pedro de Valdivia metro (the frontrunner) and another of mother and 13-year-old daughter about 8 blocks from Los Leones metro. What I'd really like is to live with Durham's family, but I guess they don't take male students. I'm not sure I would, either, with two attractive daughters. But anyhow, she gave me their addresses and phone numbers and I'm going to go visit them before I make a final decision (by the end of January). Exciting meeting.

I left COPA, bought a napolitana empanada, and went to Gaby's, where we watched ER and then went down for a few hours of sun/pool time. It was beautiful yesterday, not too hot but hot enough, and super sunny. The pool was the perfect temperature, to boot. We played a little ping pong, too, although it's not Gaby's strongest sport (still, when she concentrates, she can be really good). I left and came home, read more East of Eden and then the power went out. It was out for 45 minutes or so before coming back on. No explanation given. As I write this, the power is out in my room but not the rest of the house. Odd. Anyhow, David called me around 8:30 to say, "Are you coming?" and I said, "Sure" and after some confusion about how to get to where he was, I walked to the metro and took it to Vicuña McKenna, got off and went upstairs. I had told David I'd call him when I got to the metro stop so he could tell me where to go. I started to do that as I walked towards Mall Plaza Vespucio, where the concert was, and heard, as I so often do walking out of metro stops, "¡Oye, huevón! Huevón, ¿dónde vas? ¡Oye, huevón!" This is what people trying to hawk shit to you or get you to take their taxi say to you, so I ignored it as usual, but on the last "huevón" I turned around and it was none other than David Andrés, laughing. He'd come to meet me, to reduce confusion. Problem not solved. Anyhow, we went to the concert, he took me upstairs to the tech booth and introduced me to all the employees and the band. The act playing when we got in was an unabashedly No Doubt-esque band (and by that I mean their second-to-last song was a No Doubt song), but they wrapped up soon enough and Golem came out. David does lighting, so he left me to stand and watch from the balcony of the concert hall, which was pretty nice, actually while he did his thing. It was a really fun show and afterwards we went and hung out with the band for a while, drank some beer, ate some chips and they all talked about plans for the party that's to be at our house tonight for the band and crew and some other people. Then we came home and I went pretty much right to bed. Long day. And now I'm off to Gaby's again for a few more hours by/in the pool. And, yes, Mom and Dad, I wear sunscreen. SPF 30.