trip continued

This is going to take me a few days to do because things are kind of hectic right now: I'm in the middle of packing and moving out of Luz María's and into the Pilars'. Sorry to be so slow with the posts. Things will hopefully get a little easier tomorrow, but then again all the new kids get here tomorrow, then Cori gets here on Saturday, and blah blah blah shit is crazy. Okay, the next five days will come soon, and then the next five and the final five. But not this instant.

wow okay

I'm back in Santiago now, having arrived home yesterday at 4:30 a.m. Yesterday was great, I got to spend all afternoon with Anita and then went over to Gaby and Katty's and had some birthday cake for Gaby's 19th and watched some soccer and "Magnolia," which I liked. But now I have to start writing about my trip and that's a pretty daunting task. I'm not exactly sure even how to go about it, because there's just so much to put down. I think I'll try to do a day-by-day thing, maybe breaking it up by country. Let's start with that. Here goes:

Jan 29
Left for the airport from Rodrigo and Cecelia's at 4:30 a.m. No trouble really getting on the plane or anything, flew to Lima, waited in the airport, flew to San Jose. In San Jose, a guy from the hostel (Hostel Pangea) was there to pick me up, but I ended up waiting around for a while because someone else on his list was a no-show. But that was all right, I talked to some guys who worked for a tour company with about 40 Statseans on it and saw me chase a guy down who'd left his ATM card in the machine. Eventually the person didn't show up, but a family of three did: Andrew, his partner whose name I forget and Delphina, their two-year-old. I think I wrote about them before, but to recap, they were planning on spending six months living in CR, camping out on the beach or finding a cheap apartment somewhere, just to get away. Nice people, and Delphi was really cute. Spent the night at Pangea.

Jan 30
Woke up, showered, got dressed and left for the Pacific-side bus station (the terminals are broken up in San Jose by destination, because there's really no convenient place to put one big enough for the whole country), where I bought a ticket for 2 p.m. and settled in to eat lunch and wait. That day I had a typical Tico (Costa Rican) lunch: a chicken casado, which consists of chicken, rice, salad, black beans and fried plantains, all served crowded together on one dish. Very tasty. Got on the bus, rode to Manuel Antonio to meet April and Katy. The ride was very pretty a lot of the time, but we arrived after dark and towards the end I just wanted it to be over, even though it hadn't been THAT long (about 6.5 hours). Finally ended up in the hostel, said hi hi hi and ate the dinner that Katy had made (pasta with tomato-and-mango sauce). Quick side note: I didn't really know Katy before this whole trip started, we'd met a few times and had some mutual friends but basically decided to travel together during a random conversation in the Diag in March. We got to know each other pretty much entirely through the emails planning this thing starting last May, and then of course on the traveling. I'm still kind of in shock that it all worked out so well.

Jan 31
Up with the sun to make it down to Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio (the main attraction near town) before the crowds and sun hit, and boy was that the right decision. The place is so beautiful. We set up shop on a deserted, perfect white-sand beach by ourselves, lazed around, went swimming, took pictures and when the place started to get super-crowded (i.e. there were more than ten other people in sight) we packed up and went a-walking into the jungle on some beautiful forest paths. Apart from the views, which are reputedly the best coastal ones in CR, we saw at least two different kinds of monkeys! In great quantities! Like ten feet away from us! It was really cool. We were out of the park by lunch time (it's small) and after eating we hung out in the shade for the heat of the day then went and I swam for a while at the beach that's right in the town itself. I forget what we did for dinner that night. Here are some pics of Manuel Antonio:




Feb 1
Spent all day traveling from the Pacific to the Caribbean by bus. Long, long day but could have been a lot worse. The buses in CR aren't as nice as Chile, but they're fine. In Puerto Viejo de Talamanca we stayed at Rockin J's, which is a Lonely Planet pick, but which we were all kind of meh about. It was weird, there's a tent city with about 60 tents lined up in neat rows that you can rent if you don't want to pay for a room. Anyhow our room was cool: a three-tiered loft bed with a really high ceiling. We all got very, very drunk that night on the beach with a bunch of locals.

Feb 2
Moved to a hostel a little ways down the road, which turned out to be a really good choice. This day we wandered around town, read on the beach, Katy worked on a big scholarship application and April and I just chilled. We ended up in bed pretty early after our big blow-out the first night.

fiesta de la virgen de la candelaria, puno

I'm not going to write a whole lot, but I just needed to put down something right now while I'm still gushing to myself about the titular festival, which is among the coolest things I've ever seen. And I'm only catching the tail end! I can't even describe it right now because this keyboard sucks and my hands are freezing and I'm too excited to slow my mind down to match my fingers. But fuck it, I'll have pictures up as soon as I get back to Stgo and will probably be a little calmer. I literally cannot stop smiling. Also, I had the most amazing drink tonight: red wine, pisco, orange juice, cinnamon and sugar, served steaming hot. Mmmm. Anyhow for now here's a link to some videos of the festival. Good lord, what a great day. I also took a boat ride out to some floating islands made entirely out of reeds and made friends with a hilarious group of women from Lima and Puno. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

panama!

Is where I am! I'm leaving tomorrow, having been here a couple of nights already in Bocas del Toro. Anyone making a trip to Costa Rica, plan this place into your trip. It's absolutely great.

Before this we were in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca for four days and before that in Manuel Antonio for two. So far, so great. Katy and April left early this morning for San José because their flight to Lima is early tomorrow morning. I, however, don´t fly out until the ninth, and so I'm sticking around here an extra day and will head on back to San José tomorrow. I've seen some beautiful places (lots, actually) some unbelieveable plants and wildlife and met some really interesting and cool people. Also being with Katy and April has been great, we're all pretty compatible travelers and people. Time to cut this off, because this internet café charges an exorbitant amount for its computers, but I promise some good long posts about the highlights when I get back to Santiago.

san jose

This will be short, as I have to get to the bus station in order to meet April and Katy in Manuel Antonio. Yesterday was long. I didn´t sleep a wink Sunday night, then all told was traveling for something like 12 hours (door in Stgo to door of hostel in San José. I really like San José, I´ve taken two long walks now and met some cool people in the hostel and basically enjoy the vibe here. It's kind of shabby and run down and cloudy (rainy season, I guess), but the people seem happy and open and everyone I've asked for help (trying to find a place to change my Chilean currency or how to get home when I got lost yesterday) has been really nice. The currency thing is a bit annoying, though. Nowhere in the whole country will give me a fair rate on pesos. None of the banks will take it, and the only currency exchange wanted to give me the equivalent of $34 on the $100 I have in pesos. I guess demand here to buy pesos is reeeally low. Oh well, I´ll just put it in an envelope and at the bottom of my bag and save it for when I get home. Anyhow I´m going to check out now and then maybe have another cup of (good, free) coffee in the hostel. On the hostel: it is called Hostel Pangea and I would recommend it to anyone coming down here. The staff is friendly and today I met my first-ever "Latin American person whose English is better than my Spanish" since I got here. He works at the front desk. The restaurant attached is good and pretty cheap (dinner last night was 5 bucks, breakfast this morning 3) and the dorms are 10 a night. Here´s their website. Bye for now!

contrariness

I'm going to start keeping a list of things I avoid or hate when they come out because everyone falls all over themselves to laud them, then come back to on my own, by accident, years later, and actually enjoy. Case in point: "Last Night" by the Strokes, which is currently playing on the radio, is not a bad song. It didn't deserve the lovefest it got from everyone five years ago, but it also didn't deserve my militant opposition to it. Go figure.

gross injustice...

...is what I will do to the past few days, given my state of tiredness and the fact that I won't have time to write anything more before I leave at the crack of dawn on Monday. I had a wonderful time with Grandpa and Marinell. We saw some great things, had a good time in Valparaiso in Viña, and ate good food. It was also great just to spend some concentrated time with them; I so rarely get to do that. They left on Friday afternoon, dropping me off at la Católica metro stop on the way out of town from our final lunch after Concha y Toro (whose website ought to be taken out and shot, or at least corrected). I finished my end of the FAFSA Consortium Agreement crap (finally) and left them for Katty to finish and fax on to Jennifer Myers on Monday. Ugh. This would not be a problem if anyone, anyone at all, had told me I needed to fill out such a form BEFORE I left the damn country. You'd think being in a program like the RC would take care of a bureaucratic oversight like that, but not this time. Oh well. Then I spent the past couple of days pretty much with Vale, walking around and watching movies and following the Pequeña Gigante (YouTube of her in London). It was really cool but less cool because there were more than 50,000 other people there, too, and so it was kind of hard to see sometimes. Tomorrow I'm going to get up, pack, go see her again (and hopefully take some pics) as she looks for her hidden rhinoceros, which wreaked havoc on a couple of buses the day before she showed up to look for it (Grandpa and Marinell, what we saw was caused by the rhinoceros escaping). She dances, showers, sticks her tongue out, swings kids on her arms, dances to music, blinks, moves her eyes, eats ice cream, pees, changes her clothes and sleeps--and her chest moves as if she was breathing. Amazing. Thank you, Royal Deluxe. Anyhow bedtime now. 'Night!

grandpa and marinell

Well, today was really nice despite a slew of minor annoyances. Grandpa and Marinell ran into trouble at customs, getting into the right line but in the wrong order, and didn't come out until more than an hour after their flight landed. The rental car thing went relatively smoothly; they got upgraded to an SUV. Then getting to the hotel was a bit dicey, even though we took the right way into Stgo (sorry MDLJ, it should have taken us two minutes to get onto Alameda) because of all the one way streets. Then we had to fill up the tank because it was almost out, which took forever because we couldn't find a gas station. Then we finally parked the car and got them checked in and went to lunch at Los Corrales, the Argentinian steak place. Then they went to take a nap and I went to the office to talk with Katty and see if I could take my own nap at Vale's. She actually suggested it before I could, I talked to Katty about the FAFSA mess (yes, Dad, progress is being made on that front, it's just confusing. I'll have it resolved before I leave) and then I went to Vale's apartment. After some trouble with the key, I got in and fell almost instantly asleep. She woke me up at 7:15 by ringing the doorbell and we sat and talked for a while and she made us both sandwiches. At around 8 I called the hotel as planned and they patched me through to Grandpa and Marinell's room, and we agreed to meet up in the lobby at 8:30. We went to Liguria, which ended up being a great choice. They both really liked the environment and their food and even though Grandpa wasn't too fond of the pisco sour he ordered we had a good time. And now I'm home and tired again, but want to watch a little of the state of the union if I can catch it on CNN. 'Night!

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!

HAHAHAHAHAHA if only lynn swann didn't suck so much...

Stephen Colbert on the NFL Playoffs

Just click on it. Stephen Colbert, you are the greatest thing since sliced bread (thanks to GorillaMask for the link). BRADY RULES! GO BLUE!

john scofield.

Oh my, what a show. I think it goes on my top-10 "Best 10 dollars I have ever spent" list. The opening act, a Finnish group called the Tube Factory, were good but kind of boring. But then Scofield and John Patitucci on bass and Kendrick Brown on drums came out and blew all 8,000 of us away. Whew.

In other news, I talked to Nicole today and am going to have lunch at her office next Wednesday. Also, went over to Dur's old family's house (I guess I should call them the Diazes now, it's shorter than "Dur's old family") to return a bunch of their CDs that I'd borrowed and also give them the Bill Evans Trio and John McLaughlin albums I bought at the beginning of the month. Just the mom and younger sister, Rocío, were there, and the mom had to leave about ten minutes after I got there to go to her son's practice baptism or something (he's marrying into the Greek Orthodox church...they're doing the full Big Fat Greek Wedding deal, it sounds like). So Rocío and I ate humitas and watched Chile's sub-20 national team absolutely destroy Columbia until I left around 7:10 to meet Vale and head over to the show. Good day.

yesterday blogger was being stupid

Also, yesterday we had an earthquake and I felt sick all day. I tried to go to the concert (day two in the Festival Internacional Providencia Jazz: Escalandrum and Contracuarteto) last night but left early. My chest hurt and I had a headache and it was getting cold. Of course, the instant I was out the gates I started kicking myself because I really should have just sucked it up. I'm sure the concert was awesome and I'm really pissed at myself still for leaving. But at the time it seemed like a good idea; I really did feel like crap. I'm a lot better today, and I'm getting pumped for the Tube Factory/John Scofield show tonight. Also, yesterday I called Nicole--she was in a meeting but I gave the guy who answered the phone my number and hopefully I'll hear back from her today about having lunch sometime in the near future. AND, more importantly, I finally worked up the balls to call my new host family. The daughter, Pili hija (mother and daughter are both named Pilar) picked up and said that she'd talk to her mom about me coming over this weekend! Pili will be at the beach but it'll be nice to see the apartment and meet my new host mom! So here's hoping both those things come to fruition.

In other news, I'm pretty pissed off at Stephen Colbert right now. His appearance on O'Reilly Factor SUCKED. This is the man who absolutely demolished Bushco and the entire mainstream media right in their faces, and yet got too wrapped up in his character to really do anything but a few subtle jabs. O'Reilly on Colbert Report was a lot better (including a much better stab at O'Reilly's phone sex scandal), but still! This could have been Stewart-on-Crossfire-eating-Carlson-and-Begala-alive good. And it wasn't. I guess I'm not pissed, really just disappointed. Oh well, it's okay, Stephen. I still love you. Anyhow lunch is served and I don't want to keep Luz María waiting, so bye-bye for now.

al di meola band

Today was largely uneventful until about 9:15. I woke up earlyish, went to COPA, filled out my portion of the Consortium Agreement, emailed my adviser about what to do about his portion (or if it even IS his portion, and if not, whose is it, blah blah blah), waited around for him to respond, did some Peru and Costa Rica research (hostel reservation for first night in San José, CHECK), and chilled with Vale until about 6:15, when we closed up the office and went over to her apartment, where she cooked up some Spanish rice and beef and a salad and we ate and then left for the lynchpin of the evening: See title of post and time mentioned in first sentence.

We got to the western entrance to the sculpture garden and the line to get in was around the block. Vale and I went up to the ticket counter, where they told her they'd just sold out, and that I was on the wrong side (I had lawn seats, which are split into two groups there by the expensive seats in the middle). So she walked me around to the other side, where we said see you tomorrow and I waltzed on into the jammed lawn. There weren't very many chairs left, but one of the luxuries of being alone is that finding one chair in a sea of people is about eight million times easier than finding two next to each other. So I got pretty close and the magic started just about on time. They opened with a few more recent electronic songs and then he introduced the band and himself and he and his percussionist, whose name I'm forgetting at the moment, did four duets while the rest of the band joined the audience in noisy appreciation. They were unreal together, and so obviously having a blast that the energy infected the whole crowd. It was great. They played a bunch of other stuff afterwards (2 hours in total, including three curtain calls), but the show peaked for me with those acoustic duets. Wow. After the concert ended I walked back to Providencia and found myself with a craving for sushi, which was easily remedied by a trip to Miyoshi. American sushi restaurants should learn from the Santiaguino "everything 50% off after 6 p.m." discount. Anyhow I didn't sleep much last night due to the Coke I drank with dinner (which David brought from Burger King! What!?!?! But lord it was good...), so I'm going to try and fix that right now. Tomorrow I'll likely be back down in the COPA office to finish off this blasted FAFSA crap. Ugh, I hate it. Oh well, life could certainly be worse. 'Night!

back from algarrobo

Spent the past five days at Algarrobo, staying with Katty's mom, Blanche, who lives here half the year and in northwestern PA half the year. It was wonderful, I did nothing productive except call Grandpa and Marinell to talk a little about plans for when they come down (in less than a week!) and email Katy and April my final itinerary. I talked to Rosie on her birthday, which was nice. It sounds like she's having fun back at school, and that's good to hear; she was worried about the transition and coming back together with all her friends. I lay on the beach, went kayaking, took a long walk with Vale along the beach all the way to Mirasol, the next town to the north, watched stupid TV, finished The Woman at the Washington Zoo, by Marjorie Williams, which I generally really liked. She was a very insightful and observant writer, and I enjoyed reading her pieces, especially the ones about feminism and her cancer, because those are two subjects I am interested in but don't know enough about. But the footnotes by her husband, who edited the book, drove me insane. I'm sorry, I know she just died and that this is his labor of love for her, but I wanted to tear out every cutesy little comment about his own involvement in her stories, or what had happened since then (which were so scattered and informal as to seem random--sometimes there, sometimes not, as if he hadn't been paying attention to a lot of the news and only put a comment in when he had to look up what had happened himself and then assumed no one else had been paying attention, either), or snide remark about some politician or other. I also made it up to the start of WWII in A Treatise on Poetry, Dad's Christmas gift to me, which is Czeslaw Milosz's long poem about Poland and particularly Polish poetry in the first half of the 20th century. It's beautiful and makes me wish I spoke Polish and also that I knew a lot more about Polish history.

In other news, Boston Legal is on at 10 p.m. on Friday nights. HOLLAAAAA!!!!!

Anyhow I'm going to start looking at Costa Rica and Peru activities and lodging now, so time to stop this post. Hope everyone who's reading this is well. Bye for now!

more pics

And here are some more. Sorry they're not in order, Blogger does that. God knows why.

ofoto sucks

Trying to use Ofoto Express to upload pictures made me want to kill someone, so I'm just going to use blogger's horribly inefficient uploading thing to put these up, as per Mom's request. I'll get that other piece of crap figured out sometime but for the moment I'm taking deep breaths and trying not to yell. It's almost 2 a.m. after all. So here are some pics from the vacation, sorry for not posting them earlier. Enjoy!

no ross or dan

Dan called me around 10 to say they hadn't ordered yet at the restaurant and could we hang out tomorrow or something. I'm leaving for the beach tomorrow about noon, after taking care of some more paperwork at COPA, and they leave for Valpo on Sunday, so that's kind of disappointing. But they get back from Valpo a week from Sunday, and will be in Stgo for a couple of days, so we'll just have to hang out then. So tonight I'm going to watch V for Vendetta (which I've always wanted to see despite iffy reviews).

In better news, I can go to Peru and Costa Rica after all! THANK YOU DAD AND MOM!!!!!!!!!! Sorry, I'm not usually one to overdo the punctuation like that (except ?!?!?!?!?, which I really like). However, here I think it was merited. Also, tomorrow I leave for Algarrobo! That ought to be really nice, I'm actually going to finish packing as soon as I finish this post. Which will be soon, right after I gleefully point out that Stephen Colbert and Bill O'Reilly will be appearing on each other's shows in the near future. Bill O'Reilly is a disgusting moron and Stephen Colbert is a bona fide genius. This ought to be fun like when Jon Stewart went on Crossfire and basically destroyed Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala. I look forward to the inevitable YouTubing of the shows, because I obviously won't be able to watch down here. That's all for now, sorry to be so boring this post. 'Night!

tim left

Last night was Tim Wilkins' last night, so we (me, Vale, Gaby, Tim and his friend from Emory named Sarah) went to Thelonious and saw an okay act and then went to CRAZY BAR, which has reopened months after it closed. I guess it must just have gone under for a while, because they sure hadn't spent the time doing renovations or coming up with a new business model. Same old kind of crappy place, reeeeally slow service and a guy playing covers on the guitar. It was just as close to empty as always, but still, it has the best name of any bar I've ever seen (wouldn't be funny in the States, though) and we came here so much at the beginning that it had a nice feeling of closure for Tim. We had a lot of fun and there was even a couple who came in at one point who had just gotten engaged! That was fun and kind of weird: A) They chose to celebrate their engagement at a nearly-empty; and B) The guy was really excited and drunk and kept coming over and talking to us, going up to sing with the guitarist, and so on, and the woman was just sitting there, smiling occasionally. I got home at around 5 and fell asleep as fast as I ever have.

Today I went to the office for a while and chatted with Vale and got the ball rolling on this Noyes descendants-of-WWI soldiers scholarship and wrote some emails and researched things to do in Stgo over the next month. January is really cool, all this open-air theater and music and cinema, all for really cheap (I'm hopefully going to get to see Al Di Meola and John Scofield for about 5 bucks each! That's an errand for tomorrow, to the ticket office). Also read my daily dose of blogs and came across a post on Hullabaloo (link at the right, check out the post called "Moral Hazard"), which has a section about this new stupid book about how every American is a swing voter and you can tell someone's tendencies by certain lifestyle choices. The book has a website which features a questionnaire that allegedly tells you where you fall on the political spectrum. To give you an idea of its accuracy, it put me in the red camp. Smart fellas, those authors. Here's the poll, if you're interested. Anyhow I've barely eaten anything all day and I'm not hungry, but it's bad not to eat and so I'm going to fix myself some dinner and force it down.

mozart's librettos

I just read the first half of a New Yorker piece from this past week about new books on Mozart's librettist and the ongoing debate about how much of a role Mozart played in the writing of Marriage of Figaro, Cosí fan Tutte and Don Giovanni. And I thought, this could not matter less. It's like arguing whether Mom or Dad had the greater hand in deciding what color to paint the kitchen. Who cares? And yet, for all that inconsequentiality (if that's not a word, it should be), it's so interesting to so many people. Why?

new jazz club

Tonight I met up with Gaby and Vale in Patio Bellavista and we went to this new-ish jazz club (first time any of us had been there) called Perseguidor, across the street from Off the Record. Cover and prices were about the same as the Club de Jazz but the place was nicer and the band ROCKED. It was a quartet: drums, piano, stand-up bass and trumpet, and the trumpeter was very good. He'd studied at Berklee and the Manhattan School of Music or whatever it's called and really know how to play. The drummer we'd seen before, at the other Bellavista jazz club, Thelonious, which we didn't like as much. Good to know about the new place, it's a hell of a lot easier to get to than Club de Jazz, which is still worth going to when it has really cool shows like Valentín and Pedro Amat Trujillo. Anyhow now I'm tired as hell and going to bed. Also, Bill Evans Trio kicks ass.

good-bye, peru

I'm about thiiiiiis close to giving up on the Peru section of my trip with Katy and April because I just don't think I can afford the flight. Oh well, Costa Rica will still be tight and maybe when I get home I can go up to Bahía Inglesa or one of those other northern beaches. Fingers still crossed that this travel agent lady can hook me up with a sweet deal, but I kind of doubt it. And now, to run.

flight 93

So I sat down to eat lunch today and turned on the TV, watched a little of the Chilean coverage of the inauguration of the new Congress and then channel surfed my way to "United 93," which had just started. I had never seen it when it was in theaters in the States; I think I was scared of it. Turns out that I was scared with reason. I had never, ever in my entire memory cried during a movie before but I cried just now right here in my living room. It is without a doubt the most powerful movie I've ever seen. I'm not sure what else to say about it at the moment, I'm still a little dazed. So that's all for now.

bill simmons can go to hell

One of my favorite weekly readings in Bill Simmons' column The Sports Guy. But this week he got lazy and republished a column from 2001 about how we shouldn't all worship Cal Ripken so much because, after all, he wasn't THAT great of a player and his streak was counterproductive for the Orioles and there was really not much but dumb luck and stubbornness involved and all this other crap. Well, Bill Simmons, I get goosebumps every time I think about exactly two (2) sports events. One is Duke's 22-point comeback over Maryland in the 2001 Final Four. The other is Cal Ripken's lap around Oriole Park in the middle of his 2131st game. So screw you, Bill Simmons, I'll bounce my grandkids on my knee and tell them about getting to see Cal Ripken play because of that memory alone. And just because you're soulless doesn't mean you should try to spoil it for the rest of us.

Lyric of the year to date:

I been thinkin' bout Alicia Keys, couldn't help from cryin'
When she was born in Hell's Kitchen I was livin' down the line
I wonder where in the world Alicia Keys could be
I been lookin' for her even clear through Tennessee
-Bob Dylan, "Thunder on the Mountain"

finally posting again

Well it's been too long, there's so much to tell and I'm going to end up giving a wayyy too short summary because to try and reconstruct the last two weeks in their entirety would be a mighty and probably impossible attempt indeed. The day after my last post, I went to pick Lincoln up at the airport in the early morning and then spent the day with him and also with all the leaving people. Saying goodbye to Rosie was very hard. Lincoln and I had a great and very relaxing two days and then MDJ came and we spent a couple of days in Stgo, a couple in Valpo (as the first real guests at the very nice new B&B Yellow House Hostel: their site is here) and Zapallar (where we had Christmas day) and then finally a few days in Pucón in the south. We had great weather overall and even in Pucón, which was lucky because they get a lot of rain down there. It was really wonderful to have the family down here, they got to meet Vale and Gaby and my host family and we had a great time. Traveling with family is very different from traveling with friends, I realized, because we can fight all the time and in the end it doesn't really matter; we still have a good trip. I got to talk to Mom and Dad about things I never really had before and that was also cool, it felt like a big growing-up step. I was very sad to see them go on the 31, because I realized then for real that I won't see them again for longer than I hadn't seen them before. That sentence was pretty tortured, I'm sorry.

But I didn't have too much time to be sad because I had to hustle over to Alcántara, where Vale and her aunt picked me up to get ready for a New Year's party at some friends of her aunt's. It was a costume party and I went as a sultan thanks to Vale, who rigged me up some fancy pants and bought me a very nice sultan hat complete with brooch and feather. It was a fun party, if a little weird. Everyone there would be in the ex-frat/sorority mold were they from the States, they were all really rich and knew it and for one of the songs we danced to the chant started, "Whoever doesn't jump is Bachelet!" That is, if you're not dancing, you're a dirty socialist. HAHAHA...oh, wait. Well anyhow they were nice to me and we all got really drunk and everyone hugged everyone at midnight and then we watched the fireworks downtown, which we could see because we were high up enough on the hills (you basically don't live high up unless you're loaded). They were great. I spent the night and all the next day in Vale's aunt's house, recovering with the adults from the night before and playing Playstation with their kids. I didn't leave the house or even really a prone position (with breaks to change location) until about 9, when we went to Bravissimo and her uncle treated us all to heaping amounts of ice cream. I got home around 11:30, exhausted, and found Francisco using my computer for a work report; his has finally pooped out, it seems. So I went to bed and woke up this morning and took my blood pressure for the first time also in too long, which reminds me that I need to put the readings from this morning onto my spreadsheet. So I'm going to do that, and cut this off. Sorry again for not posting at all the past couple of weeks and I promise to get more regular again starting now. Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

yesterday and today

Yesterday I bought our bus tickets for Temuco in the south and then met up with Vickie and Dur and Gaby in Patio Bellavista, where they were doing some last-minute shopping (well, not Gaby) for people back home. We walked around for a while, I got a delicious frozen ice cream-type-thing made from frozen raspberries and confectioner's sugar and a big frozen bar of chocolate all smashed together into the consistency of frozen yogurt. With sprinkles and chunks of honeydew, to boot. Delicious. Then Dur and I split off (Vickie had to go pack and Gaby had to work on college apps) and went to another feria so she could get her last two presents, which she did, and then we went to Emporio La Rosa and I got a chocolate milkshake and all was right in the world. Luz María's niece was here when I got home, and we chatted for a while and she recommended a terrific-sounding seafood place near Viña that maybe we'll get to when MDLJ are all here. We (the shoppers plus Vale, Tim B and his ex-boyfriend Raúl) went to the whole-wheat empanada place for dinner (verdict: deeeeeelicious) and then got a bottle of wine at another Barrio Brasil place for Vickie's last night in Stgo! This whole goodbye thing is the weirdest of my life to date, because in high school I knew I'd run into people when I came home, and could keep in touch with the knowledge that I'd see my friends again, and in college the vast majority of my friends are my year or younger, so I knew I'd see them all again when I came back (not the seniors, which was sad, but I have so many OTHER friends at Michigan that it wasn't as big a deal), but here I'm saying goodbye with the knowledge that the soonest I'll see ANY of my friends here again is hopefully Rosie, next summer, and after that I might not see anyone again for years if at all. Well except hopefully her.

Anyhow, today I woke up, ate breakfast, lazed, wrote various emails to Mom, ate lunch, ran (wonderful wonderful wonderful), stretched and showered, and now I'm here writing this. And in just a little bit more than 12 hours, I'll be meeting Lincoln in the airport! And in about 26 hours I'll be saying goodbye to Rosie and Durham and Tim B! Shit! The next 24 hours are gonna be nuts.

i hate turbus.cl

Chileans still have not figured out how to make online reservations easy. North American companies like Orbitz or NWA have easy to navigate websites that make sure you register before you start trying to make reservations, that make it easy to change plans within the reservation process, like for example if there isn't space on your first-choice flight, it's easy to just look at the next one. The lovely people at www.turbus.cl do not provide such graces in their website, and as a result instead of being relaxed and ready for bed with five round-trip bus tickets from Stgo to Temuco, I'm feeling just "Sinnerman," which I'm listening to, and have no tickets. Fuck it, I'm just going to the bus station tomorrow. Ugh. 'Night.

david's party

So the party last night ended up being really fun. I got back from giving Rosie her computer and going to get bus dinner for her and her mom around 9:30, and no one was there yet (the party was supposed to start at 8). David said, "They're musicians" and that pretty much explained it. People did arrive eventually, and it was a little awkward at first for me because they all know each other and they're Chilean, so it was kind of hard to find a way to insert myself into the conversation. But everyone had a couple of drinks and we moved outside and sat in a circle and they started talking about English/North American music, and I thought, "Ha! My chance." And I seized it, with gusto, with a well-timed joke about the fact that Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, named his daughter Apple and is married to Gwyneth Paltrow, and therefore doesn't deserve anyone's respect. The musicians found this hilarious, and I was in. Good job, Luke. Anyhow the conversation ebbed and flowed and I talked to various people over the next six hours (we didn't eat until 1 a.m. and I finally called it a night around 4:15. The Chileans left at 5, after I'd fallen asleep. I ended up having a really interesting conversation with a guy whose name I'm blanking on at the moment about Chilean culture/identity or lack thereof--this topic seemingly never becomes boring for me; it's as if I'm having it for the first time every time it comes up with a Chilean because they all have different ideas about it and are fascinated by North American and English culture. He invited me to the Chilean soccer club championship this week at the Estadio Nacional (Colo-Colo vs. Audax Italiano) but I'm not sure I'll be able to go because I think it's after Lincoln gets here, and even if it's not, all the COPA kids are leaving on Wednesday and I'm never going to see them again, so I'll probably be hanging out with them. They get back today from Rio, actually. (By "all the COPA kids" I mean "all the ones I care about.") Anyhow, it's breakfast time in the Ilabaca household, and I'm hungry. Bye!

Actually, it might be kind of cool to take Lincoln to that game. If he wants to go.

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.

delicious dinners

Today I did nothing of note at all. Honestly. It felt terrific. Except when I was trying to take a nap and the girl next door played "Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira five times in a row at top volume and belted along with the lyrics. Then my slow-burning dislike of Shakira turned into pure hatred. To tell you the truth, I'm surprised I lasted this long. She sounds like Kermit the Frog, for crying out loud. Why does ANYONE like her? I don't understand. I mean, to each his own, but seriously. I hate her.

I finally got off my butt and left my house around 8:40 to meet Rosie and her mom for dinner. I did this on Tuesday, too, and neglected to write about it then (sorry, Rosie!). We went to R on Lastarria on Tuesday and I had a really good stuffed-pasta-with-ham-alfredo dish and then tonight we went to Los Corrales, the same Argentinean place that Ian took Izaak and Karla and me a little while ago. I had the rarest steak I have ever eaten--practically raw--and it was delicious. Too rare, though, I'm going with "a punto" instead of "inglesa" as my cooking time from now on. Thanks for two delicious meals, Mary Lou! Tomorrow I have to get up and go pick up Rosie's computer from her so I can take her music and add some of the music that Paloma gave me to her library. After that I'll go to the COPA office to talk to Janet (the new housing lady) about where I'll be living next semester! I get to choose my family! Very exciting. Anyhow all that entails an early start because Rosie and her mom are going to Viña/Valpo tomorrow, so it's bedtime for bonzo. 'Night!

colo-colo lost

Went to the fire station tonight to watch the finals of the South American Cup, Colo-Colo (Chile) vs. Pachuca (Mexico). Not sure why a Mexican team was playing for the South American Cup, so don't ask. Neither was anyone else that we asked (we being me and Gaby and Vale). Anyhow it was a good time, but Colo-Colo lost, 2-1. It should have been at least 2-2, but the ref made two absolutely atrocious non-calls in the penalty box that would most likely have led to Colo-Colo goals. Not that it would have mattered at 2-2, because Pachuca's two road goals would have beaten out the one that Colo-Colo scored in their tie in Mexico two weeks ago. If they'd tied 1-1 it would have gone to penalty kicks. So that was kind of a downer, especially since like any good mildly dedicated United Statesean soccer fan, I hate Mexican soccer. Anyhow now i'm super tired. Tomorrow looks to be another relaxing day. I love vacation...

i am woefully out of shape

'Nuff said. But i'm working on it, as of today.

new music

Yesterday, I woke up, ate breakfast, watched SportsCenter, showered, ate lunch, watched Pinochet's funeral, read a bunch of New Yorker and NY Review and news, and finally around 7:15, left for Durham's family's apartment to pick up my iPod, which I'd left there last weekend before Dur left for Rio. I got there about 7:45 and her family invited me to sit down, eat some pan de pascua (Christmas bread, a lot like coffee cake) and drink some cola de mono (monkey's tail, a little like Bailey's but not as thick and a lot tastier), both of which the mom had made. I ended up talking to the older host sister, Paloma, for like two hours, about school and classes and what we'd like to do with our lives (she's 25 and a teacher, but is trying to create an organization for feminist teachers as well and also dances on the side--busy girl) and politics and other kids in the program and, in the end, music. My knowledge of Chilean and Latin American music is still pathetically small, and so she ended up making a stack of about 30 CDs for me to upload and get to know. I only took 11 home because I already had stuff in my backpack, but as soon as I get these up I'll take them back and get more, the two albums I've loaded so far are really good. They are "Grandes Exitos" (Greatest Hits) by Los Prisioneros, which is one of the most important Chilean bands of the 80s, and "Esquinas" (Corners) by Djavan, a Brazilian singer, which consists of a lot of soothing love songs. Good stuff, especially Los Prisioneros. So today, my activities will include uploading a lot of music, and going to the Colo-Colo vs. Toluca (Mexico) game that, if Colo-Colo wins, will make this the biggest party week in recent Chilean memory (Pinochet dying, a Chilean club winning a huge international soccer match). I'm going to try and watch it at the fire station that Rodrigo, Katty's boyfriend, works at. I'm pretty pumped. And now, onto breakfast and my day. One more thing: If it's nice this evening like it was yesterday, I'm going to run. I gotta start getting back into shape. Okay, that's it.

funeral

Sixty thousand people went to see Pinochet's body in state yestserday in the Escuela Militar, and thousands are there right now for his funeral service, which is wrapping up. Meanwhile the communists and socialists and everyone else who hated Pinochet are rallying downtown for speeches and all that. There's no violence today that I could see in the hour or so of news coverage I watched, which is great. Walking down Diagonal Paraguay yesterday Rosie and I passed shop after little shop with shattered windows, and thought, "What the hell is wrong with people, that they would take someone's natural death, no matter who that someone was, as an excuse to break their neighbor's windows?" That's where those people have to make a living, you stupid kids, that's where you go to buy your empanadas or your cigarettes, that person might live next door to you, might be your uncle, and you've decided that your id, your stupid selfish desire to break things and go wild is more important than others' livelihoods. Get the fuck over yourselves. It's the same way I feel about the kids in College Park rioting after the Final Four in 2001, or the Black Block people in the WTO protests in Seattle a while back, or the dumbasses who threw a rock through the window of the locally-owned Subway franchise that opened on Carroll in Takoma Park a few years ago. There's no need to break things, throw rocks at the police, light cars on fire, tear down street signs. No need at all. It's just senseless, stupid vandalism that accomplishes nothing and damages many people. And so it was a relief today to see that same group of people that came close to rioting yesterday because of the actions of a disgraceful few--those people whose politics are closest to my own of the two deeply divided groups here--marching peacefully rather than embarrassing themselves with another display of senseless violence. I can't make any judgment at all on the anger of people here, I don't know anything about it, I have no perspective that might allow me to say anything other than that it appears just. But destructive, pointless vandalism like the kind that happened over the past couple of days here is just wrong.

this is how bad it's gotten

Just saw this Back in Black clip from the Daily Show and wanted to share it. Click here

good bye, pinochet

Well, Pinochet died yesterday of a heart attack at the military hospital in Providencia. I was sitting in Plaza Brasil around 2:45 with Rosie when a guy who had been sitting near us came over and said, "Are you from here?". We said no, and he shrugged and said, "Pinochet died. Cause for celebration," and walked away. It took us both a second to process what that meant. Almost immediately afterward, people started driving around the Plaza honking their horns and shouting. We went to lunch then, but on the way to Gaby's apartment in Las Condes, we passed through Baquedano, which is one of the centers of any big demonstration, and a TON of people got off the metro as we got on, waving huge flags and honking horns and banging on drums. There were demonstrations all day, and it was fascinating to watch the news coverage of the pro-Pinochet demonstrators outside the hospital and the anti-Pinochet demonstrators in front of la Moneda and in Plaza Italia (where Baquedano is). The police were in riot gear at both places, but by the hospital they were just standing around, as were most of the people after a couple of hours of screaming and throwing bottles and whatnot at the cops. But downtown, the "encapuchados" had made their presence known by starting fires, repeatedly running up to the armored trucks and throwing bottles at them, beating them with sticks, etc. They wrap tshirts around their faces (hence their nickname) and really look like they're just playing. A lot of them laugh and run around and make the whole thing seem like a game, which is probably is to them. It's a shame that they did it because it ruined what could have been a peaceful and powerful demonstration of solidarity against the regime's legacy (the marchers convened around the monument to Salvador Allende behind la Moneda in the Plaza de Ciudadania). The same guys (and they're almost all young men) wreaked havoc during the "Pingüinos" protests this past winter (summer up there in the other hemisphere), which were led by very passionate high school students against the injustice in the education system here, but which often drew ludicrously disproportionate police responses because of the small group that just likes to fuck shit up cause throwing things at cops who are just doing their job is a bit of a rush. Bastards. Anyhow, today I'm going to eat breakfast and then go help Rosie pack(!), and hopefully there'll be enough still going on down around there (she lives three blocks from Plaza Italia) that I can snap a few photos but avoid getting tear gassed. Wish me luck!

everyone left for rio

Yesterday afternoon I went over to Rosie's to meet up before heading over to Durham's for some trip-story sharing and to gather the troops for a trip to the whole wheat empanada place in Barrio Brasil. But at Rosie's the visit turned into a full-blown asado lunch, complete with multiple kinds of meat, rice, pisco sours and salad. Her host mom's ex-husband was over and had whipped all this stuff up--it was delicious! I'd eaten lunch at home not long before, so I didn't have a whole lot of room, but man I wish I'd had more. Oh well. We went to Dur's, shared some stories, the best by far being "Tim fell of a cliff." Solid gold, that one. Dur almost crapped her pants, she laughed so hard. Vickie came over and we hung out a little while longer before heading to Barrio Brasil. The empanada place was, of course, closed, for unexplained reasons. But we had met up with Vale and she knew of another cool place, so we went there and got some really good pasta and sandwiches and whatnot. Amalia was there too, and Tim B and his friend Gretchen came a little later. The Rio kids (Vickie Dur Amalia) left around 10:30 to catch their flight, and Vale left early to go be with her sister, who's in town from Concepción to visit her. But me and Rosie and Tim and Gretchen hung out a little while longer, paid and went to Barroco, a cool and cheap bar that's right on Plaza Brasil, for a drink. We didn't linger too long, though, cause everyone was tired. Got home around 1:30, just minutes after Luz María got home from her lunch at her friend's house (yes, I did say lunch, and yes, that was 1:30 in the morning), and promptly fell asleep. And now, the un-boring part of this post: a few highlight photos from the trip south.


Volcan Osorno


Me with the 700+ year old Laurel


View from our restaurant the first night in Castro


Palafitos in Castro--little houses built into the sides of hills so that they look normal from the street but actually rest mostly on stilts in the water.


View of Castro from the Mirador Ten Ten

tim fell off a cliff!

I got home around two hours ago from an amazing, wonderful, fantastic, insert-laudatory-adjective-here vacation with Rosie and Tim B. Really it could not have gone much better than it did. We saw beautiful and interesting places, ate great food, did a ton but still managed to relax, and took about 500 pictures. About 482 of them are of Volcan Osorno, but more on that in a bit. Here comes the day-by-day breakdown, which I will write over the course of the day in pieces, so the two hours in the first sentence might turn into ten by the end:

Saturday night, I left for Baquedano, where I was going to meet Rosie so we could ride the rest of the way to the bus station. I left plenty of time, which turned out to be a terrific idea because I left my ticket on my desk. Realized this around Los Leones, started to panick, called home, got David on the line and told him what had happened. Before I even suggested anything or asked him, he told me he'd find it and drive it to me, and to get off at Baquedano and come up to meet him on the street. This host family...unreal. Wow. So anyhow, Rosie had gone on ahead to the bus so she wouldn't miss it even if I did, David and I met up without a hitch, he passed me the ticket through the window and I more or less sprinted down into the station, got on the metro, got out at U de Santiago and again sprinted to the platform, where they were just closing up the luggage doors and Rosie and Tim were about to get on. Made it, but with zero time to spare. So, that little melodrama past, we settled in for the overnight ride to Puerto Varas.

Sunday morning, we arrived in Puerto Varas, which sits on Lago Llanquihue across from Volcan Osorno, which is almost a perfect cone, around 9 and walked downtown to find our hostel, which wasn't hard because Puerto Varas is small and compact. Upon arrival, we found out the electricity was out in the whole town, so our room wouldn't be ready and they couldn't even confirm our reservation until 3. But we left our stuff there and went looking for breakfast, which we found in the form of apple empanadas (delicious) and yogurt and such. We sat by the lake and ate and watched a bunch of men fish with line wound around cans. Afterwards we went back to the hostel, moved our stuff into the triple they decided they could give us, and went for a walk with the goal of climbing the hill, topped by a huge steel cross, that overlooks the town and the lake. After a little wandering we found our way up and then kept going, a little trail started behind the cross and then led into a meadow with what was less a trail and more a narrow path of beaten-down grasses. We wandered along it for a while, stopping periodically to look at the gorgeous views of the lake and volcanoes (Osorno and another one whose name I forget but is also across the lake) and admire the plants and allow the gigantic bees to pass. We sat in the shade of some trees for a while and Rosie made some nature art before heading back into town. We found a bus to Puerto Montt, which is the biggest town in the area and the main port to all points south in Chile, ate lunch at a little place under a hotel and walked around. It's not a very lovely place, but some of the craft stalls we walked by had cool things and Rosie and Tim bought some stuff. Back in Puerto Varas, we got dinner at a REALLY nice place (it was expensive as HAIL, but almost worth the price) called Sirocco, went back to the hostel, where people were playing guitar (well) and trumpet (badly), and crashed.

Next morning we got up, ate, paid for the night, and caught a bus to Saltos del Petrohué, which are spectacular and crawling with retirees near the end of their Patagonia cruises. We found a secluded spot down the river a ways, though, and sat separately for a while before walking a little farther back into the woods to find a spot to eat the stuff we'd bought in the grocery store that morning. It was all delicious and pretty and we were all in pretty high spirits when we headed farther down the dirt road to the "town" of Petrohué, on Lago Todos los Santos. This lake, my friends, is stunning. So gorgeous. It was windy enough to whip up whitecaps on the lake, but I really wanted to go kayaking, so we got three kayaks for 7 bucks an hour and put into the water. Rosie and Tim were game but not as prepared as I was to have a good time regardless of the circumstances, which ended up being soaked and exhausted from battling the wind to get back to shore. I had an absolute ball, and Rosie had fun enough, too, but Tim was not happy. Still, the day was warm and we went to the black, volcanic-sand beach and sat for a while. Tim laid out while Rosie and I threw rocks and pushed each other around like 8-year-olds. It was fun. The bus back to Puerto Varas would have been more fun if we weren't all still wet, but it wasn't so bad. Back in PV, we got on a bus pretty much right away to Frutillar, a tiny hamlet (I can't believe I just used the word hamlet) 20 or 30 km north on the lake. Checked into our hostel there, which was run by a very cute old lady who Rosie decided we should refer to as "Nana." And we did. Found a restaurant as it was getting dark and realized just how German the whole place is. Tons of good beer, German words on the menu, etc. Rosie and I got an amaaaaazing crab dish and Tim got locos, for which I forget the English name. Little shelfish of some kind. Anyhow Tim and I got a little microbrew called...something. But it was good. Tim and Rosie kept the labels from the bottles.

Slept like rocks that night, but Rosie's and my room faced the sunrise and we had white curtains, so we were up reeeeal early. But that was all right, Nana's breakfast was probably the best we had the whole trip and afterwards Rosie went to finish writing one of her finals (yeah, she wasn't done and still isn't, poor girl) and Tim and I went to the native forest preserve run by the U de Chile that's right on the outskirts of Frutillar. It was really impressive, lots of interesting foliage and a great map/guide to the trail through the park. And a 700+ year old laurel tree. We found Rosie sitting where we'd left her, on the beach, having mostly wrapped up her writing, and went to catch the bus to Chiloé. Sat in the bus station for a while, I went in a colectivo (shared cab, like a bus but in a car) back into town and got some sandwiches and drinks, got on the bus and were on our way to Castro. The ride was, as all our rides were, spectacular. Once in Castro, we parted ways because Rosie's and my hostel didn't have enough room for Tim, checked in and were very disappointed in our hostel, which had gotten high marks in one of the guides we read. If you're ever in Castro, do NOT stay at Hostal Kolping. Just don't. Then we met up again to explore the city a bit. Which brings me to the title of this post. We wandered down to the water and saw a muddy little path that some Chilean kids were walking out of, and decided to walk along it. It was very wet and slippery and I, who was in the front, paused at one point to examine a particularly treacherous-looking spot before going across it. Tim said something along the lines of, "It doesn't look that bad," and I crossed the spot. Next thing I knew Tim said, "Oh, no!" and burst out laughing as he went backwards-somersaulting over the 85 degree drop for about 12 feet! Once we made sure he was okay, Rosie and I could barely contain our laughter. Especially her, who had seen the whole thing. I'd only heard and caught the very end of it. It looked like he was stuck, too, surrounded as he was by overgrown foliage and an almost-vertical, muddy slope covered in shallow-rooted grass unfit for handholds. He found his way out eventually and was miraculously practically unhurt, but quite muddy. Good story. We walked around Castro a little more, found a place to eat that was in Lonely Planet as having the best curanto (local seafood specialty) in town, but didn't actually have it. Still, it was a good dinner, and we parted full and happy for the hotels.

The next morning, I called another hostel to make reservations there, both so we could all be in one place and because all three of us were unhappy with our current hostels. We paid and moved our stuff to the other place, which is run by a super-nice woman, is clean and well-lit and has a kitchen you can use and very comfortable beds, none of which were true of the first hostel. It's called Hospedaje or Hostal Cordillera, I forget which. Anyhow if you're ever down there, DO stay at that place. It was great. Rosie went to an internet cafe to type up her paper and email it to her professor, and Tim and I went for a walk around Castro, which was nice. He's really an interesting guy and I wish I'd had more time to talk to him about things; we don't see eye-to-eye on everything, as I found out in Bs As a few months back, but we both seem to have the attitude that pretty much anything is interesting and worth talking about. We bought tickets back to PV, because that's where our round-trip bus tickets were for, and went to the cafe to check our email and Rosie. Then we found a delicious-smelling lunch place, got some food (quarter chicken and fries for me, deep-fried hot dog and fries for Tim) and then picked up a little more for Rosie and met her by Castro's main church. She was relieved to be done but exhausted. We found the rural bus station (which has big vans that go all over the island and actually the whole Chiloé archipelago) and found one to Dalcahue, the point of departure for Isla Quinchao, which has on it Chiloe's oldest church, Santa María de Loreto de Achao. I don't think I mentioned this before, but it's worth mentioning now: Chiloé is famous for its churches, 15 or 16 of which are UN World Heritage sites. They're wooden and covered either in shingles or painted corrugated steel, and they're unique and beautiful across the board. Anyhow, Isla Quinchao was nice, and we came home and went to the store and got stuff to make dinner with in the hostel. Bowties, tomato sauce, onions, garlic, oregano, sausage, avocado, cucumber and tomatoes, for pasta with meat and a salad and beer. The kitchen was great and we were a good team, the dinner turned out delicious. We were all tuckered out and ended up in bed pretty early, after Tim and Rosie got some time in watching E!...not my favorite channel. Oh well.

The next morning, Tim had to leave bright and early to go meet his friend, who had been studying in Argentina (but not Bs As...Mendoza instead) and traveling around Chile a little, to take the bus back to Stgo together. Rosie and I got up to say goodbye to him and eat breakfast, but we were exhausted and went back to bed after he left. We lazed around a little and then took the long walk to the Mirador Ten Ten, which has a great view of Castro and the Castro Bay. It started spitting before too long, so we headed back down and back to our hotel, where we lazed around some more while it poured all around us. The rain had slowed up a bit by the time we went to eat dinner, around 8:45, at Años Luz, a really cute little restaurant around the corner from our hostel, which is also in Lonely Planet (along with our final hostel and the first place we ate in Castro, Sacho). Lonely Planet was spot-on in Chiloé. We had a bit of an argument at dinner, but cut it off before it got out of hand or dragged on too long, which our arguments tend to do (drag on, that is). Back in the hostel, we turned in early again, anticipating our 11:45 departure for Puerto Varas.

We got up at 8 on Friday, ate breakfast, and I went to go withdraw money for both of us and get some lunch food for the bus ride while Rosie showered. Somehow that took until 11:30, and we paid the dueña (owner) quickly and hightailed it to the bus terminal, which thankfully was exactly one block from our hostel. We had a few hours to kill in PV, so we ate lunch at a little VERRRRRY German restaurant (tri-lingual menu) and found an internet cafe and Rosie discovered she'd lost her wallet. Sucks. We went back down to the lake for a while, where Rosie sat and journaled and I wowed the little Chilean kids with my rock-skipping skills. There was a black lab stray that tried to chase down my rocks when I threw them! It was cute and kind of sad, someday I think I'd like to have a black lab. We got a little more snack food for the overnight ride home and went to the bus station and caught our bus. Things were going without a hitch, except that I was having my typical trouble sleeping in moving things because you can't lie down, until our bus stopped by the side of the road about 2 a.m. and we were told to get off. Apparently it broke down or something, I was a little too groggy to tell or make much of a fuss. Most of our bus got on the next one that passed, another Ejecutivo, but Rosie and I and a couple others had to wait for the next bus, which was a Salon Cama! So I finally got to lie down, and the bus stopping was a blessing in disguise as I got six solid hours of sleep.

Got into Stgo only an hour later than we'd thought to and went home. I showered, checked my email and facebook and so on, and started writing this bad boy. And now I'm done. No meditations or thoughts or anything on the trip, methinks, I'm too tired from typing this much and this post is already super long. A few pictures will also come, but later. Those with facebook can check out my new album, and sometime soon I'm going to get a photo site account so I can share my photos in large volume for free. Blogger is just too hard to upload to. Anyhow, I'm going to cut myself off and go find some lunch, I'm starving.

going south in two hours

So I finally got all my shit together and in a little less than two hours I'll be printing Rosie's paper (she doesn't have a printer and the COPA office is closed), putting it in my bag and dipping out to meet her and Tim at the U de Santiago bus terminal, from which we will depart at 9:30 for Puerto Varas. Not sure how much I'll be posting in the next week, so here's a few thoughts before I leave:

-Lunch today with Julia was wonderful. First of all, we met up without a hitch. Second of all, the food was delicious. And third of all, it was really great to talk to her, however briefly, just give and get the rundown on what's been going on for each of us, how we're feeling about the semester being over, and everything. She's a really good friend and I'm lucky to have her.

-Right now, Chile's Teletón is going on, the 48-hour continuous spectacular, hosted by the incomparable Don Francisco (Mario Kreutzberger), who is Chile's greatest and most famous TV personality. It's so different from telethons in the US because everyone is so together about it. The goal is to raise money for physicall and mentally disabled children, and pretty much anyone who's anyone in Chile makes an appearance, whether to give a speech or sing a song or whatever. I saw Bachelet give her talk last night right after a segment about a super-energetic, ebullient 8-year-old girl named Kelly whose legs don't work normally, and she got choked up, along with everyone else in the audience (parts of it are live from a theater somewhere). It's really a wonderful institution, the solidarity is so evident in a way it's often not here; taxi drivers paint "Teletón 1 y 2, con todo el corazón" on their windows and people all over wear stickers and pins with the Teletón logo. Plus everyone, but everyone, gives money. I wish there was something like it in the states, but I'm not sure we're together enough as a country--too big, too many divisions.

-It is hot as blazes in Stgo at the moment.

That's all for now, I think. I'll post when I can, but at the very least, by next Saturday. Wish us a buen viaje!

it's alive!

The internet started working again, so here's a super-short post:

Tonight I will watch the third and final movie I have to write about (Hero, after Kill Bill vol. 2 and The Seventh Seal), and then write about them until I'm done or pass out on my computer. Then I will wake up, finish what I haven't finished, print upstairs and meet Julia for lunch at Patagonia. Figured out that the problem with meeting up on Wednesday was that she thought I'd told her to go to U de Santiago when I'd told her to go to U Católica. Oh well. Tomorrow things are super-duper clear (fingers still firmly crossed against mishap, though). Then I will turn my blasted final essay in, take a shower, pack and hightail it down to the bus station. Beautiful south, here I come!

from copa with love

The internet in my house is broken (it´s been spotty for days but the modem finally bit the dust yesterday), so I´m writing from the COPA office, having just finished my Spanish final. I passed for sure, and did well on the vocab/writing section, but how far above passing I´ll get on the grammar section...I have no idea. That leaves just the final essay for Lenguaje Cinematográfico, which I´ll get started on tonight by renting a couple of movies. Not the worst assignment in the world, and I got an A- on the midterm despite writing way under the required amount, so I´m not too worried about it. It´s due a week from today, but I´m going to finish by Saturday so I can travel with Rosie and now Tim B. I can´t believe the semester is over, that tomorrow it´ll be December! Everyone is going to leave so soon, and I won´t see most of them ever again. It´s a weird feeling, no matter how many times you have it (high school graduation, leaving school every year, etc.). Anyhow there´s a line for the computer, so I´ll cut this off. Almost done!

lots to write about, not a lotta time

I'm in the final crunch for finals and make-up work and everything, so I'm sorry for not having posted at all this weekend. Quick summary: Friday night would have been really fun, and was for a little while, but ended with me very upset, much like last Saturday night. I'm not really going to elaborate beyond that, in the interest of time and comfort. Suffice it to say that I ended up hurt and furious both times, and both times had to do with Rosie. But Saturday, I woke up, really hung over, and began to make my pumpkin bread in anticipation of the COPA kids' pot luck Thanksgiving, at Amalia's house. It was a lot harder than expected, due to the paucity of bread molds in the house (I ended up using a 7.75x5 cake pan and a bundt cake pan) and to the fact that in lieu of temperatures, the oven dial has, "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8," written on it. So I had to improvise a little, and both cakes ended up burnt, but Luz María fixed that right up with a little grating and I was on my way to the party. It was fun, even though I was still thinking very heavily about the previous night and ended up just being very quiet for a lot of the time. Amalia's house has a pool and it was a beautiful day, so we sat outside and some people (myself included) went in and that was very nice.

Sunday morning we had a mandatory meeting at the Ñuñoa fire fighter's company 3 station at 9:30 in the damn morning, where we filled out paperwork, got back the letters we'd written to ourselves during orientation, etc., and then...this is so cool...wait for it...got to ride in a 1949 fire truck around Ñuñoa and to the company's practice facility, where we got to shoot the fire hoses (at full pressure!) and have competitions and everything, and then back to the fire station for some quality empanadas and play ping pong. Everyone dispersed and Rosie came back to my house, where I changed clothes (we were dirty from all the mud the fire hoses churned up). Things have been very strained and weird between us for a few weeks, and we ended up having a good talk about it and then started planning our end-of-year trip to Chiloé, which we both got really excited about.

Today I met up with Julia (!) and her friend Ian, who are done with their Bs As program and are visiting Stgo and Valpo, and walked around with them for a while. We tried to go to a couple museums, but I had forgotten that they're all closed Mondays. So we ended up climbing Santa Lucia and then going for lunch at the place across the street from COPA. Then they peeled off and went to San Cristobal, I went to the COPA office, talked to Tim and said happy birthday to Vale, went to my last Spanish class (oh yes...oh yes) came home, talked to Luz María, whom I will recommend for canonization the next time I find myself in a Catholic church, and her friend, went to Indian food for Vale's birthday (the place is super pricey, but I just ate some paella and fish and a salad beforehand and got an appetizer and rice and a juice at the place...still cost me 12 bucks). The food at that place is really good, I had a few bites of other people's stuff and Rosie's was absolutely amazing (some kind of lamb thing) and Vale's was hoooootttttttt. Delicious. At the end she ended up passing the bowl back to me for more and more bites...so painful, so tasty. Anyhow, then I came home, had a really nice talk with Dad and Jack and Mom, and now I'm writing this and so tired and have to write essays. And Julia is town, so I have to meet up with her tomorrow, then take a make-up Spanish test...Gosh. I think I'll just go to bed right now, get a good 8 hours tonight, wake up, write a little, meet her and Ian, take my test, come home and write more and just not write tomorrow. Good plan. Time to put in action. Ready, go. I promise more in-depth blogging sometime in the not-too-distant future. 'Night!

exam

So despite not enough sleep and practically no studying, I got a 6 (A-) on my Europe/Latin America final. Good news.

tired

Slept hardly at all last night. Probably the lowest amount I've gotten since I came to Chile. Not exactly sure how long, but I lay down at 5 a.m., lay there for an indeterminate amount of time, and woke up at 9, hit the snooze, woke up again, worked on my essay, ate lunch, went to Spanish, finished my essay, went to class, turned it in, barely made it home awake, at dinner and now here I am, about to pass out. 'Night.

today/keith olbermann on msnbc

Today was good, I went to bed early-ish last night and woke up a little after 10, worked a little on my essay for Chile chilenos, ate lunch, went to pronunciation (with my new iPod!), got Grandpa and Marinell's letter (thanks so much, you guys) and after a brief stop at Rosie's apartment I found myself in Starbucks, trying to work some more on the paper. And guess what. I met a girl from Michigan! Jessie R-something. We chatted for a while and she seemed cool, she's on Michigan's own Stgo program (along with three other Wolverines and two kids from Wisconsin) and will be here through next semester, too! Very exciting! Anyhow, the internet cut out there and so my work ground to a halt after I finished reading something my professor had written about the importance of art and culture, which actually pissed me off because of the contempt it showed for "erudition" and its fawning love for the few "great artists" as the greatest products of any society. Well, I am erudite, for a 20-year-old (started to write 19 there...) and the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is one of my greatest joys in life. So fuck you, Gabriel Matthey Corea, I love erudition. It does not mean that I am afraid of engaging with culture, it just means that I like learning things for the sake of learning them. Back to the play-by-play: I got the girl's number (thinking to call her this weekend to meet up with other Michigan people!) and came home, ate dinner, and now I'm here, about to start working once again on this damn paper. But first, something important.

Part of my routine whenever I come back to my computer is to read various blogs--WWTDD, Hullabaloo, Informed Comment and, more recently, Latin American News review and Crooks and Liars--and today I came across something on C & L, via Hullabaloo, that absolutely staggered me. Thank you, Keith Olbermann, for being more eloquent than I am, and having the balls to say what needs to be said with all the force and rage that your subject merits. He talked yesterday on MSNBC about Bush's visit to Vietnam and the real lessons to be learned there, so different from the "We'll succeed unless we quit" that Bush took as his lesson from Vietnam. Here's the link: Olbermann comment. Click on it, if you've got a few minutes. It's worth your time, I guarantee. And with that, I'm back to work. 'Night.

UPDATE: Apparently the direct link to the video that I put in takes you to the C & L front page instead, so just scroll down a ways, you'll see the headline.

birthday!

Today was pretty much a normal day, with the exception that it was my birthday, so everyone said that to me at least once. I woke up, exchanged my last traveler's check, went to COPA, chatted, bought lunch (double napolitana, as usual...everyone who visits will be treated to this at-least-twice-a-week meal of mine), went to Spanish, which was fun because I got three papers back and did well on one, really well on the most important one, and FANTASTIC on another one, and because we played Escrupulos. There must be an equivalent to this in English, but basically there are a bunch of questions with moral dilemmas on them, and you have to say what you'd do. If everyone believes your response, you get a halo, and if everyone doesn't, you get a pitchfork. I'm not sure how scoring works. But anyhow, a couple of the questions were actually pretty interesting, if a little tired or cliche, for example: "If a technology existed to edit your as-yet-unborn child's genes to make him or her more attractive, smarter, etc., would you use it?" I would say absolutely not, but I feel like we're not far away from actually having that technology, and it will be very interesting to see how society responds to it. Anyhow after Spanish Rosie and I went to Patagonia, a cute little restaurant near the COPA office with wi-fi and Rosie worked on her final essay for Spanish and I did a LOT of back-reading for Chile chilenos class. First about Chile's "hidden culture" and the conflict and mutual misunderstanding between Santiaguino culture and rest-of-Chile culture, then about the negative effects of quadrature (direct translation of the Spanish word "cuadratura," but I have no idea if the connotations are the same...oh well, I'll roll with it) on Chilean society. That is, the idea that we are all born with unique potential, but modern society "squares our circles (or blobs, in the case of the article's illustrations)" and so robs us of our potential to grow and mature as human beings, instead forcing us into the producer-consumer vicious cycle in which the only good is to HAVE. I found it very interesting and well-written. Our professor (it's basically a transcript of a talk he gave some years ago to a forum organized by the U de Chile's engineering school) seems to have a simple view of the world, and has no trouble making sweeping generalizations, but he is insightful and eloquent and I really enjoyed the piece. The illustrations (which were copies of ones he drew on a chalkboard during the talk) were funny, too; he's big into simple, repeated images (I cannot describe to you the number of times I have seen an iceberg this semester). After that, I came home, ate with David and Luz María, and opened MDLJ's presents! They are wonderful, and I was utterly floored by the iPod nano. Jenny and Jules' book was in there, too, and the neurobiology report Mom worked on last summer for Howard Huges Medical Institute. All terrific presents. The iPod is ready to roll tomorrow and I can't wait to start the books. Then MDJ called, we talked, it was good, I ate (a third) cake with Luz María and gossiped about our neighbor, who's a very public figure at a very important environmental advocacy group and recently got sacked very loudly by his board of directors, and has been in the paper the past few days. He's apparently a huge douche bag and hasn't talked with his daughter, who's a year younger than me and still lives with him, in three years. Sheesh. Anyhow, that about wraps it up. I'm going to try and work on some of these blasted essays now, wish me luck. 'Night.

weekend

Saturday sucked from 5 p.m. until I went to bed at 3:30 a.m. I will not elaborate beyond that.

Today I got a weird sunburn at the beach. Now I'm home and have to shower and do homework. I am broke again. This has not been a good weekend.

birthday party!

Well, last night almost everyone came over and we ate delicious completos and mil hojas (thousand leaves) cake and drank beer and piscola and listened to good music and danced a little and basically just had a fantastic time. I'm not sure I can ever thank Luz María enough for making it happen the way it did. I've said it once and I'll say it again: I got really lucky with this host family. They're terrific. It was the best birthday party I've had in a long time, maybe since Lyle the magician. That, I think, takes the all-time cake for me. Fire into doves...man. But anyhow, it was fantastic and I was just incredibly happy all night. We ended up at a bar in Plaza Ñuñoa afterwards, and that was fun, too, but the party in my house was just great. I'm a little hung over today, but not badly and as soon as I've showered and eaten some of the surely dozens of dogs we've got left and drank a little more of Francisco's delicious green tea (he's a bit of a tea snob, which is great for me because he's also really generous), I'll be golden in time for the Biggest Game Of All Time, which Colin Keiffer accurately describes in his away message as the national championship. You go, Colin Keiffer. I've been flipping out about it for the past 24 hours and now it's less than 4 hours to Armageddon. Oh man. Well, I'd better go shower, but before go, I'm going to sing for you the first of many renditions of the Greatest Fight Song Of All Time.

HAIL! TO THE VICTORS, VALIANT!
HAIL! TO THE CONQ'RING HEROES!
HAIL, HAIL TO MICHIGAN, THE LEADERS AND BEST!

HAIL! TO THE VICTORS, VALIANT!
HAIL! TO THE CONQ'RING HEROES!
HAIL, HAIL TO MICHIGAN, THE CHAMPIONS OF THE WEST!

GO BLUE GO BLUE GO BLUE GO BLUE!