great weekend

Saturday I finally got lunch with Dan Schwartz. We met up and went to Patagonia and then Emporio la Rosa for ice cream and caught up. It's amazing how much he's changed, or maybe just how different he is from my memory of him. He talks a lot more coherently, he makes eye contact and gestures. All in all we were only together for about an hour and a half, but it was great to talk to him about Chile, his program here, how things are going in College Park, etc. After that I went up to Escuela Militar to meet Vale and take the micro all the way to her aunt and uncle's house (where I slept on New Year's). Spent the afternoon alternately relaxing and kicking her and her aunt and uncle's butts at Pensante, which is Spanish Scrabble. It was intensely gratifying. Vale had been talking trash and after the first game, she got so mad that she vacuumed the entire downstairs of the house. I couldn't stop laughing and had to avoid her for the next fifteen minutes because she said "Fuck you" every time she saw me. In the second game, I scored 222 (in a three-way game) thanks to a bingo (CANCELA). Third game, her uncle started to get frustrated, too, but that was actually kind of cool because he started making fun of me and such and it felt like a "Hey, welcome to the fold" kind of thing to do. We ate dinner, and then a few friends of her aunt and uncle's (their names are Cecelia and Rodrigo) showed and we commenced playing poker and drinking, which carried on for me until 2:30, at which point I'd lost four bucks and decided to call it a night. I played seriously for a while but literally could not have had worse luck (not to say that I'm any great shakes at poker, but really, I got shitty hand after shitty hand and the few hands I got that were good and bet on either someone else had a fantastic hand--four 10s or a flush or something--or no one else wanted to bet). Everyone else played until 3:30, apparently, but I fell asleep very soon after climbing into bed. Spent all day today at their house, relaxing, reading the New Yorker winter fiction issue, which MD brought from home (THANK YOU). Vale and I left around 8 and took the bus to MallSport, which is way up at the top of Las Condes (but not even close to as high up as Ceci and Rodrigo--they are WAY up there) in search of a frisbee. We were unsuccessful, and decided to walk to Alto Las Condes mall. We saw a beautiful sunset, had a great conversation (I spoke almost exclusively Spanish this weekend!), and walked and walked and walked. We ended up walking for about 2.5 hours, down to Tobalaba, stopping for a coffee in Parque Arauco. Dad, I'm very sorry I didn't call but I got caught up in walking and talking with Vale and just lost track of things like time and plans. I will call tomorrow. Anyhow I'd better get to bed, tomorrow is another paperwork day (let it be the last, please...) and then Tuesday, Grandpa and Marinell come and I have to get up early to go meet them at the airport. So good night for now!