the coriolis effect

Because my lit teacher is charming enough to assign books that are out of print (the publishing house burned down) and checked out of the library, I stumbled upon the hidden world of Santiago used booksellers today. (a more exciting discovery than the mall. more expensive, too- even used books aren´t cheap here). There are all sorts of little galleries that lead off of Avenida Providencia, and now that I was looking, most of them had one or two (or ten or twelve) used book stores (nooks, really). In one of them, between the owner and the towering piles of books all around, there was hardly room to enter. I finally found Donde mejor canta el pajaro (not El Pajaro canta dos veces, and by Jodorowsky, not Bello or this, or the other) in the galleria that was mostly bookstores, led to it by the wife of the friend of the third bookseller I asked (there, after many other places) who seemed to own two or three of the little storefronts. Do they sell many books? At 7500 pesos (12 dollars or so) for a used qp, I doubt it....
I bounced from there to the other end of the spectrum, Parque Arauco- the tony little mall next to Parque Araucano, where the cultural festival I was looking for hadn´t been set up yet. To get there, I walked from Escuela Militar, past the highrises and new condo complexes that is Alto Las Condes (I think. maybe Vitacura). It all had an outer Gaithersburg/Olney new development feel, which was emphasized by the mall itself, the first time since July 12 (Tysons Corner, the Great Jean Hunt) that I´ve been in an Americanized one, a la White Flint, Montgomery Mall, Cambridgeside Galleria. Yet the flip-flop sales and ice cream were so incongruent with the holiday wreaths and "Its the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." Is it really that close to Christmas? Do I (gasp) actually miss some aspects of Winter? (really though- what does a winter in June/July have going for it?). When the clothes didn´t do it (I`m too poor for Parque Arauco, and too rich for the Buses Jac office, where they asked if I´d like to pay my 15 dollar bus ticket in installments) I bought a cinnamon and sugar pretzel to console myself.
I am indeed leaving for Temuco tonight. back on monday...