the coriolis effect

I was determined, and we went, and it was fun though more time was spent in travel than was reasonably expected....(buses run between Valpo and Santiago every ten minutes or so, and we managed to get what seemed like the last four tickets of the day, and not even direct/ Vina del Mar. THAT many people at the bus terminal). New Years in Valparaiso. Despite the immense crowds headed that way, the city seemed to absorb them all. Despite the thousands of people, I saw two kids who had been studying at la Catolica. and though we got to supermarket right after it closed, champagne was had, in the form of opening our mouths and catching the spray from bottles being opened all around us. So many fireowrks that, in the finale, the sky was so bright with shimmering white it could have been mid day. and, after not having eaten much at all, a dangerous run in with a rum and coke that was saved by a completo (closure, maybe?) my only other completo in this hot dog mad town was the first day of school). Even though there was no ractual countdown, and we figured out it was the new year when we started to get doused, a solid start indeed.

Scott, his girlfriend Sarah, and his brother Jeff and I, returned to Santiago during the day, after a very short night in the Casa Familliar Carraso (me sleeping under a creepy postcard of the Entel Tower superimposed in various places, like New York City, and the Pyramids.)
La Moneda, Plaza de Armas, Cerro Santa Lucia (in the process running into Scott's friend Pedro, and a chilean from my history class. its becoming a small country). Jeff and I were spirited away (after cheese and mortabella because it was cheap sandwiches) to the furthest reaches of the city to watch Lord of the Rings, feeling bad Scott couldn't make it (though he probably could have caught the million endings- I now know what people mean!) Trying to wean myself off a really nice apartment tonight by going over to the hostelling international hostel. other side of town. No tweeting birds and mountain views...