FOREIGN AUTHORS
Today I finished two books: Gabriel Garcia Márquez´s Love in the Time of Cholera and Paulo Coelho´s The Alchemist. I finished Márquez at about 5 this morning after getting in from some bars at 2. Then I started Coelho this afternoon and just finished it tonight - constant rain helped me stay indoors.

Damn. Seriously. The books were amazing. Thanks for both, Em. If you haven´t read them - start now. For some reason the Colombian and Brazilian are way ahead of at least the stuff I´ve read out of the States, which shouldn´t set anyone back too much. The books were insanely deep and I doubt I´ll be able to concentrate on much else the next few days.

They both uniquely approach love and its many facets: time, distance, reciprocity, etc. While completely different, there are some cool similarities. Alchemist mixes so many religious/spiritual/worldy beliefs that you wonder how so many major world religions can have existed together for so long without simply blending into one. Questioning organized and hierarchical religion was at least one thing I came away doing.

But this isn´t a book review session for anyone - I only have one book left that I brought with me, and the rate I have gone through the others makes me think that I´ll need some new ones pretty soon.

So suggest away.

But I don´t want anything too heavy. These two will be plenty for at least several weeks.

I´m looking more for the Far Side or something like that right now. How about a moment of silence for the fact that Gary Larson doesn´t make us laugh as much as he once did. Not only that, but why the hell did Bill Watterson stop Calvin and Hobbes. I keep thinking it´ll come back from the grave, but I have yet to see Lazarus rise. But I do suggest some relatively newer comics in the absence of the greats. Zits and Get Fuzzy are both wonderful - but surely I´m only preaching to the choir with those two.

-------

Oh, and about Chile. It´s raining like crazy. Flooding like crazy. They shut down one line of the metro ( a completely private entity that is kept ridiculously clean, which I find crazy) due to flooding. And it snowed in Santiago today, which is apparently crazy. I am wearing many layers and earlier today realized I was watching my breath indoors. Luckily my parents bought a space heater for my room...in addition to the 6 blankets I use. And I don´t have class before 11 - crazy.

LOS GRINGOS HAN LLEGADO

You would honestly think that bars don´t exist in the US or elsewhere. They are apparently a phenomenon available only in Chile. So 50+ students arrived the other day and the future was made clear to me: we will drink a lot. I was a lightweight for heading back to the hotel at 1 in the morning. A few of them kept it up until 7...and several surprisingly made it to breakfast at 8:30.

Regardless of a little drinking, having so many of Americans simply reinforced my desire to meet more Chileans. We have a very diverse group in at least experience and world travel. Several Scandinavians spice up the mix a bit, and the Canadian is adept in losing himself in almost any situation.

Oh, and it´s a tiny world. Ken is one of the guys on the trip and we got to talking about whitewater rafting, and he´s worked with several of the same people I have met over the past several years. We have rafted many of the same rivers and we now plan to hit a few down here when we get the opportunity-meaning it´s just a matter of time before I´m flying down a river with very little understanding of what´s going on around me. I can´t wait.

Everyone moved in with their families, and I returned to mine after the short break. Nico is 22, Berna is 31, and my parents are great. I live in Las Condes, which is east of the city center and takes roughly 45 minutes by micro(bus) and metro(subway) to reach. The house is great. In addition to my own toilet to experiment with I have my own room off of the kitchen. The lack of heat in the house makes me the opposite of the princess and the pea story. I have 700 plankets on top of me whilst she rested upon 700 mattresses. Other than the inability to breathe it´s not bad. I´ve been going to bed in a good mood though. Luckily my mom has taken it upon herself to introduce me to as many Chilean wines as possible. I´ll try to reference drinking as much as possible to frighten my father into worrying even more that I´m an alcoholic!

------------

I´m sorry that there aren´t any photos up yet, but you can´t imagine how much they´ve been like,"You´ll get robbed if you tie your shoe...or even blink." Oh and mom, there was a murder here last week. But don´t worry, I heard the guy had short hair, so I´ll be fine.
So I´ve been slightly timid about heading out with my camera before I know the lay of the land. But once that begins, and once I figure out all of the correct things to buy to get my computer working, I´ll be throwing up pictures that don´t even have anything to do with Chile. You won´t know what to do then.

EL FIN DE SEMANA
For the first weekend here a few of us have large plans. I think we´re heading to a discoteque tonight and then hopefully heading to the mountains to ski and snowboard before classes begin on Monday. I´ll be attending Universidad Andres Bello, which is a private univeristy. Apparently all of the public universities are much better and people only attend the private ones if they have money. So, damn straight everyone, that means for the first, maybe second time in the past 20 years...I am in the upper class.
But it doesn´t really feel like that when it takes me half an hour to understand what to make of a cell phone offer at the mall. I think I pay 20,000 pesos and receive a phone and 20,000 pesos worth of calls. But I could be way off. To put that into context...500 pesos = roughly $1 ( depending on the strength of the Czech Crown versus the Yen at any given time and place). Luckily tracking money has been very easy at this point - it leaves my bank account. Making me a little less on the well-off side of things.

So that should make for a decent weekend.

Here´s a little ditty: if you could name a currency, what would it be? Because I am feeling like the peso is used way too much overall. Maybe we could mock Europeans and combine all of ours into the Amero, but it would still probably be weaker. I think some like the WOW would be cooler, though. "Man, that car is only 7,000 WOW. I can´t believe it." Imagine the marketing schemes.

THE SWIRL
Don´t act like you don´t already glance. Perhaps even more than glance. A polite individual makes sure everything is gone before they leave the restroom.
But if you still maintain that you don´t, let this serve as the impetus to give it a try. Once done with the duty, watch the water during the flush. Sure enough, in the northern hemisphere it goes counterclockwise.

EUREKA!!! My first major discovery in Chile - the water flows differently down here. The toilets drain clockwise. (I had my guesses, but I needed to know for sure. I even checked several times!)
I could think of nothing better to begin my year of studying and living it up in Santiago than to understand the physics of the local johns.


And another thing - DAMN THEM FOR THEIR NATIVE ANCESTRY.

I thought that the quick switch from 100 degrees down to 50 degrees here would allow me at least a few days of being one of the darker indivuals. But Irish heritage thwarts me yet again. First as a potato farmer and now by being the whitest white guy down here.
It´s actually very european here, but it´s still frustrating to be near the opaque end of the spectrum.

I meet the rest of the 50-some people in the study abroad group tomorrow because I arrived a few days early. Santiago is wonderful thus far, although I´m not directly in the city center.