Friday, October 17, 2003
The day started off with un "actividad con el intendente" in the Parque Metropolitana (Cerro San Cristobal) for all the estudiantes extranjeros. There were lots of us, and lots of video cameras hovering around too- Lewis very well may have been on the 9 o clock news. We got to see a presentation of "bailes folkloricos chilenos" and after downing a glass of what I thought was fruit juice with floating strawberries (and was actually wine) and mote con huesillos, Lewis and I zoomed down the teleferico and met with the other harvard kids and drclas people at El Huerto, a really nice veggie restaurant in Providencia. I hadn´t seen Andryka, for one, since the second week of class. We´re all in one piece, at least.
Biblioteca Nacional, where, thanks to a two book at a time policy I didn´t get all that much done- I found my mind wandering over a book on Southern Cone dictatorships(in french, of all languages). Stumbled upon a beautfiful photo exhibit outside La Moneda, while waiting to see Hijo de Ladrón, play version of a book we read in lit class, by Manuel Rojas.While sponsored by UChile, it was performed in the Teatro Nacional; extrapolating from a comment my host dad made about there being nothing after college choir, university art here really is central. Which is logical- there probably aren´t resources or people for much more. Another girl from my lit class and I went back to the exhibit after, which was SO Fascinating. Check out the website, I can´t describe...but I had seen some of them before in the book Earth from Above.
So I was gone all day, and its 11:30 and I´m home and I don´t know where anyone in my host family is. There definitely are some huge communications problems...I suspect theres equal chance all of them off doing their own thing, and all of them together, doing some family thing. Similar (its always food, isn´t it?) with meals- theres no concept of when theres going to be a real family meal or not. I never have any idea, and I never have any advance notice. It wouldn´t be TOO big a deal, but for the feeling that if I´m going to be a seldom seen boarder who scrounges eggs and bread and cheese, I really could have just rented, and for less. Theres only a month and half left. I don´t know how the guy here before me fared, but all around, its a shame.
Biblioteca Nacional, where, thanks to a two book at a time policy I didn´t get all that much done- I found my mind wandering over a book on Southern Cone dictatorships(in french, of all languages). Stumbled upon a beautfiful photo exhibit outside La Moneda, while waiting to see Hijo de Ladrón, play version of a book we read in lit class, by Manuel Rojas.While sponsored by UChile, it was performed in the Teatro Nacional; extrapolating from a comment my host dad made about there being nothing after college choir, university art here really is central. Which is logical- there probably aren´t resources or people for much more. Another girl from my lit class and I went back to the exhibit after, which was SO Fascinating. Check out the website, I can´t describe...but I had seen some of them before in the book Earth from Above.
So I was gone all day, and its 11:30 and I´m home and I don´t know where anyone in my host family is. There definitely are some huge communications problems...I suspect theres equal chance all of them off doing their own thing, and all of them together, doing some family thing. Similar (its always food, isn´t it?) with meals- theres no concept of when theres going to be a real family meal or not. I never have any idea, and I never have any advance notice. It wouldn´t be TOO big a deal, but for the feeling that if I´m going to be a seldom seen boarder who scrounges eggs and bread and cheese, I really could have just rented, and for less. Theres only a month and half left. I don´t know how the guy here before me fared, but all around, its a shame.
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