the coriolis effect

Happy New Years everyone!
traipsing around at EL Mercurio, waiting for my parents to come, and wondering at the complete and utter difference of living in Las Condes compared to Ñuñoa.
see you in 2004:-)

Merry Christmas, everyone! (and Happy Hanukah)

in entirely other news, my Chile address (230 Rafael Prado) is no longer good, for me at least....if mail is in transit there (from Scotland, say:-) I'll have a chance to swing by and pick it up, but for all intents and purposes....I'm a bit scared because Saturday starts nearly a month of honest to goodness vagabundry, and we'll see how well I pull that off.

Im dreaming of a white Christmas, with ice skating at Rockefeller Center, gingerbread houses, Lord of the Rings at the Uptown, the Nutcracker...

When we arrived at the Panama airport (after the sweetest flight ever- I was behind the exit row with no seat in front of me and two empty seats next to me) the rhythm was different. Soon afterwards, I was thrown into the sea of people that is the Santo Domingo airport at Christmastime, and the arms of my worried mother. Real Dulce de Leche ice cream, empanadas, mangos and papayas and all the (Havarti, Gouda, Brie, Jarlsburg) cheese I want. Having mom buy me a shirt on her credit card, and losing some of the money anxiety thats dodged me the past 5 months being more of a present than the shirt itself. But the differentness that is the DR, not Chile, not the US, manifested itself in full form tonight, when my cousins and I went to see Freaky Friday at the mall (supercute movie, lousy production values). Though the stores were closed, the mall echoed with din from the food court, and the movie theater lobby was packed with socializing Dominicans dressed to the nines. Slick hair, tight pants- and 13 years old (verifiable fact- one of them being the older of my two cousins). I didn't have to worry about being picked up by the guys; not only did I probably not look smart enough in my Chilean skirt and flip flops, I most definitely looked too young for the high school ones. Its fascinating to watch these kids though, thnking back to the UA life I never exactly led, and sideways to the fact no one I know would dress half as nicely to a night out at Landmark. Different worlds.

Which, I realized, is one mistake I made about Chile. I pictured it somewhere on a continuum between the two cultures I knew, the DR and the US. But its not, and can't be; they're all their own encapsulated worlds, with some mutual cultural references (Harry Potter) and some slopover , but not enough to assume comfort in one emerges naturally from comfort in the other two. I denied the process of aculteration, I think, and it hit me hard. So now I'm in the DR figuring this out, and without even my ex-host family's email to tell them one of my shirts vanished mysteriously in transition (I didn[t take it out of my room the whol semester, is why the mystery). But , no budging on one point- at least I can ponder cultural assimilation while my tar covered lungs start the slow process of recovery. In all that crowd, not a single cigarette seen inside or outside of Acropolis Mall (though two heart stopping fireworks went off)

The concert time was changed and the museums were closed, so I went to the centro, ate mote con huesillos and maracuya ice cream, and got sunburned. and thought, I really like it here. not a magical city, perhaps, but a predictable one, in a comforting way.
I didn`t really learn salsa, and I wasn`t swept off my feet (for good or bad), but I didn`t fail my classes. I can`t speak spanish, still, but I think I can read it, and sort of write it. thats a start. I got to travel a lot though, for which I`m lucky (and now, very poor:-) as a recent attempt to describe my post graduation plans demonstrates, no passion yet...but a loose idea for a thesis topic. not bad, not bad. pretty darn good.

I´m leaving in less than 16 hours, leaving for the airport in 12....there are things left to do, and things that will be left undone. I took my first taxi colectivo in santiago today. I never went to the visual arts museum. I´m arriving back in Santiago at 4 AM December 28, with nowhere to stay. talk about adventure...um, right. but its sunny, and green, and I´m sort of packed (fitting as much as I can) and its off to bellavista for a concert, then off to a squash game....

Easter Island, Isla de Pascua, Rapa Nui....was just a different place. Not, perhaps, the farthest west I`ve ever been (on the map, no farther west than California), but Polynesian, with only slight Chilean overtones. The moai, of course, and petroglyphs, but also that an island so small can have a culture so strong. And that we were on an island in the Pacific Ocean for a week. sigh (starry eyed). climbing ancient volcanos (accidentally and on purpose) and walking miles and miles, and ending up with very brown arms and very white legs. ready to go home, enough traveling, but...not quite yet....a singing Christmas tree (and another one in town, considerably larger, that they say is the largest Christmas tree i nthe world) the only thing to remind us in a tropical rainstorm that Christmas eve is a mere 10 days away....happy holidays.

the shuttle comes to pick me up in 4 hours, and I haven`t even started packing yet. this is Trouble. TROUBLE!
the day started turning in my last work of the semester, then running around like a madwomen (or running in place- in the time I spent waiting at the travel agent today, I could have made all the arrangements myself).
I met up with Scott and his parents, but had to abandon them and a neat crafts fair for more waiting, and zooming over to pick up an HI card, and a hunt for stuff. though these words sound strange coming out of my, well, mind, I missed Walmart- the cheapest sunglasses the department store had were 40 dollars, though a place across the way had some for 15. (my dad feels like 15 is big bucks for sunglasses. when he accidentally took my cousin`s oakleys, he couldn`t understand why it was so important to call my uncle and tell Cian we had them. though granted, our sideswipping an Opal was top priority at the moment).
but I couldn`t find bug spray. or, what they had was an aerosol can, and when I asked for something else they (multiple places) gave me an antiseptic/anesthetic itch reducer, and assured me I could spread it over my body. of all the things I could have asked my mom to send me with the rechlers, it didn`t occur for me to ask for bug spray at all.
and drinks (juice, though drink lists are becoming increasingly attractive, I`d like to think just because they have juice in them and I`ve become a total juice hog. the naturally made juices here are really good. otherwise, turning 21 will be really expensive) and tapas at a snazzy lounge way out Vitacura direction, called Lama Lounge. in a little complex called Rio that reminded me in concept of a dressier Rio in Gaithersburg (minus Target, and Galyans). but leaving (after surreptitiously slipping the coaster magnet off the table, and then being offered our very own to take as we walked out), we passed a women dissing Washington buildings for all looking the same (in English) and all 4 of us Dc-ites stopped in our tracks (the Rechlers do really live in DC proper) before deciding it wasn`t worth it and moving on. but you never know you might overhear your conversation...
Easter Island. I hope I remember all my stuff, I am totally in a too tired to be frazzled state right now. But complaints? none:-)

I just emailed my final paper to myself. done done done. two whole months of freedom freedom freedom. I`m...confused. it happened so fast- I see my parents in 12 days, in 12 days I`m at my grandfather`s, struggling to speak in spanish, eating mango and papaya and picking up the thread of my life that was left, dangling, when I boarded the plan with Scott in July. exactly 5 months earlier. even though I`m not coming home home til January 22, home enough, more and more, is the Dominican Republic, because thats where my parents and familiarity are. Easter Island, Isla de Pascua, Rapa Nui, is almost being eclipsed, by the enormousness of the semester behind me, the strangeness of the return to come- and thats not right!

I promised James before I left that a blog would be incisive and insightful commentary on Chilean life and culture, and not personal ramblings. But well, I feel like it. and he`s probably not reading anyway:-)

La Serena! serene. I ended up going, just went to the bus station and a practically empty bus took off 30 minutes later with me in it. The closer I got, the more I wondered what the heck I was doing, going alone (Scott, meanwhile, had a parallel adventure in St. Martin de los Andes, though his involved Jews and hiking while mine touched upon Aussies and penguins). only was momentarily distracted by Parque Nacional Fray Jorge, a remnent of Valdivian cloud forest about 1000 miles north of where it should be ecologically. But when I got to the bus terminal, I was swept along by Andres from Maria`s Casa, and fed strawberries and bananas with condensed milk, and given a pretty room, and met two Australians, Marcus and Jerome, and translated tour pitches for them, and bought hallulahs and cheese in the supermarket thinking of what has become trip routine...and was on a van bound for the Observatorio Mamalluca in Vicuña. While there are bigger and fancier observatories (the area is known for its clear skies) in the others you can`t see the moon soclose up- it was incredible.
Monday I stumbled out of bed and went on a tour of Reserva Nacional los Pinguinos de Humboldt, a long car ride and chilly boat ride away. Most of the little magellanic penguins were up in the caves nesting (so they said) but the sea lions were gorgeous, lolling about on the rocks. The islands were pretty too- three small ones off the coast near tiny Punta Choros. Upon return I walked in the direction of La Serena`s Japanese Gardens, totally overshot them, and got to the beach by sunset. Back at the hostel, the dinner table group was comprised of the Australians, a New Zealander, two English girls, a South African couple, and a girl from Switzerland. All on their way or back from the Bolivia Peru circuit.
Tuesday, a swing by the market, then a bus to Vicuña again, this time for a tour of the Capel pisco factory. On my way there I met two more Australians, Amanda and Mirella, who had been working in Dublin (!) and were on their way back from Peru as well. Vicuña is the birthplace of Nobel prize winner Gabriela Mistral, and we walked through the museum devoted to her before dinner. Back in La Serena, I took advantage of Dia de la Cinema in Chile and saw El Amor cuesta...caro (aka Intolerable Cruelty).
Wednesday, the archeological museum, and an early (and rather boring, but for finishing the wonderful Mrs. Dalloway) bus ride home. feeling guilty for the trip, on the eve of what was supposed to be my relaxing end of semester blow out trip. but hey- I wanted to see the area. I wanted to prove I could travel by myself, and I didn´t have all that much to do in Santiago....now that I`m done done done, but for printing and turning in my not so master opus on the Chilean parliamentary elections of 1894.