The beach and in...

Please, sit down. I have a lot to fill you in on!

So last Thursday was a whirl-wind of a day. Instead of class I went to a Hans Christian Anderson exhibit at the National Library. It was pretty bland. Just lots of details about a famous Dane´s life. But we did get a tour of the library and saw some archives, which was all cool. The library is really old, really big, and really pretty.

After a little walking around and having lunch outside of a small café (I insisted on this part and then came to dread the demand as bus after bus flew by us) a few of us headed to the touring exhibit of the World Press Photo competition. It was freaking awesome and I lost myself for hours in some great photography.

Friday
Thursday evening my friend Lisbeth and I caught an overnight bus north to Coquimbo, where my family has another house. We arrived at about 6 in the morning on and were greeted by Dino (the third and final brother). We slept and didn´t meet the rest of the family until we woke up around noon. Dino and his family live south a little ways but joined us at the beach house because we were coming up. The house is a 20 minute walk from the beach and the area is gorgeous.

Lisbeth, Dino, Paula, Daniella (his daughters) and I took a long walk on the beach, which was deserted because it was a Friday in winter. I love the ocean, and now that I know I have full access to a house near it, I think I will be making this trip again. Dino told us about the area´s history, the fishing industry and the way tourism is changing everything.

Daniella on the left, and Paula on the right.



Then after lunch Lisbeth and I took a colectivo (a cab that always runs certain routes and is cheaper than a regular taxi) up to La Serena, the main tourist city in the area which is around the bay from Coquimbo where we arrived. It was a nice city and we spent the day checking out artisans, grabbing coffees here and there, and sight-seeing. We had dinner in a little place where the cook only had goat cheese, which ended up making very good lasagna. We also hung out in La Plaza de Armas for several hours and finished off some pisco while people-watching. It was a great night...but nothing in comparison to the next.

Lisbeth having coffee with our view overlooking the artisans.



And us in La Plaza de Armas.



Saturday
Our early morning start for Saturday´s excursion was ruined by sleep. We again got out of bed around noon and took our time getting out of the house. However, we finally got on the road with grand aspirations.

We made our way into Valle Elqui, which is part of region 4 in Chile (there are a total of 13, going from north to south). It´s supposed to be the best overall region for climate, but I don´t know where that statistic comes from. But we did have great weather and our theme song was U2´s "Beautiful Day." On a side note, I´m really jealous of Lisbeth because she got to see U2 in concert. That´s still on my unaccomplished list of things to do in life.

Anyway, Valle Elqui is the main pisco producing region in the country. I´m sure I´ve mentioned it before, but pisco is the national alcohol. It´s made from grapes, and you can order it in many different ways. And it´s always fun to try it in different ways to better understand the culture!

We first went to Monte Grande, which is where the poet Gabriela Mistral was born and raised. She is pretty much a national hero, just like Pablo Neruda. Her face is on the 5,000 bill. It´s a bad picture, but she´s important. The town was tiny but the museum in her old home and school house was interesting.

From Monte Grande we walked the 6 kms to Pisco Elqui, which is nearing the far east of the valley. It was amazing scenery, even though our beautiful day had turned a little nasty at this point. The mountains seemed to trap some clouds right as we got into Monte Grande.

The entire valley is a vineyard.



So we arrived in Pisco Elqui hoping to get a tour of a pisco manufaturer, but it was closed. And the horses we planned on riding were put up for the evening because we arrived a little late (remember that we didn´t get started until like 2 or something and the bus ride takes several hours and then walking 6 kms, etc.).

So we hopped on another bus and bumped into others from our study abroad group. We hadn´t been wanting to catch up with anyone, but that´s the way it happens. Actually, that´s always the way it happens. I have run into so many gringos it´s unbelievable. We met 4 brits at the café on Friday night, 4 on the bus on Saturday, 3 californians at the observatory on Saturday, 2 at the hostel on Sunday, and 1 alaskan at the pisco plant on Sunday. It´s pretty hard to get away from them.

It ended not being too bad seeing the others from our group because we decided to head to El Observatorio Mamalluco with them, just outside of Vicuña, the main city in the valley. It was amazing. It was two hours of great information, fantastic sights, and freezing weather. Wherever we were up on some hill was horribly cold. We started with the telescope and saw a variety of things from galaxies to nebulas to bipolars to things I don´t remember. And there are certain constellations that can only be seen from the southern hemisphere, namely the Southern Cross, which is the smallest of all 88 constellations. Similarly, the big and little dippers (Ursa minor and major) can only be seen in the northern hemisphere. Chile is apparently one of the best areas in the world to stargaze. There are several observatories in the area, and what will be the world´s largest telescope is currently being built a little further to the north from where we were.

I need to get a tripod. Those are lights from Vicuña where we stayed Saturday night.



We got back from the observatory around 11:30, knowing that we couldn´t make the trip back to La Serena. So we found a Residencia Mistral, where the little lady answered the door, let us in, and locked it behind us. So not having eaten for a long time, we asked if we could go get something. She said we had to make it quick. What better than a whole chicken, fries and wine? I seriously wonder if anyone can come up with anything. And we only had like 20 minutes. So Lisbeth and I returned to the room to gorge ourselves. It was a whole, whole lot of food.



Oh, it was tasty. And now I don´t think I´ll be able to look at a chicken ever again. Notice in the next picture the completely devoured corpse in the foreground! We ate everything. And then watched some movies.



Sunday
We somehow drug ourselves out of bed, me vowing to never eat again. We met up with the others from our group and walk to Planta Capel. Capel has a monopoly on pisco in Chile - and it seems every town in Valle Elqui is sponsored by the company.

Barrels for some part of the pisco process. I´m pretty sure it was the long fermentation stage.



The facility was very different from what I expected: a lot of open-air areas and very simple machinery. The last tour I went on was Anheuser Busch, so you can understand the problem in comparing the two. But most importantly, the factory still spits out thousands of bottles of pisco every day. And the tasting was good as well. In addition to pisco, Capel makes a variety of desert wines and other beverages. Pisco comes in many different strengths and styles as well.

Finally we grabbed a bus back to La Serena and the house. We had a late lunch, packed some sandwiches, and went to the bus station. Dino had said that there were buses to Santiago at 5 and 6, so we weren´t worrying at all. Damn him!!! The last bus left at 4:30 and we just missed it or it was full. Regardless, there were no more buses until midnight. Actually we got the 11 o´clock one the lady told us about just to realize that she drastically rounds down. The bus left at 11:49. I wonder at what point she would have caved and admitted in was midnight...maybe 11:53?

So Lisbeth and I got to know Coquimbo. It´s a pleasant little town with a massive 200 foot cross sprawled across the main hill. The thing is ridiculous and has observation stations in the wings of the cross. We didn´t indulge. Instead, we went to the beach for several hours. Oh, and there was a funeral procession in which everyone walked along the hearse. If you think regular funeral processions are slow, wait ´til you see this. The line behind them was huge! I played on the beach (literally ran and took photos and splashed in the water), Lisbeth wrote some letters and then we still had about 5 more hours to wait. So we slowly went around Coquimbo, finding things we didn´t need to do, like waste time in a store looking for t-shirts.

The boat graveyard and birthplace...apparently the same location from what I could tell.



I don´t know how, but midnight finally arrived. And then our bus was late. So we got back to Santiago about 6 in the morning. Lisbeth woke me up to get out of her way as she ran to the bathroom to relieve her motion sickness. She then threw up again outside the bus, and I was afraid for the magic number three to come flying out on the subway. Luckily she didn´t.

I got home about 7:30 on Monday. It just happened that classes were cancelled! My friend Millie Munshi always said that and it took me a long time to realize that she was just skipping. So Monday I took it easy and slept...it was only the first time I had skipped classes, and it was gonna happen eventually.

The Old woMan and The Sea

Is there really a better way to start this? My grandma rolls with the best of them. She was seated on the ground at this point because she had already fallen out of her chair. It was hillarious. Grandpa was still asleep in the truck . We had planned on eating on the beach, but it was too cold for them.

This was during lunch of a long day of seeing the coast. It was my parents, aunt and uncle, David (a guy from my group who lives with my aunt and uncle), and obviosly my grandparents.

The earlier ailment of my knee has moved north to my ass. David and I spent all day riding in the back of our truck as we jumped from spot to spot. The highway wasn´t bad, but Santiago is full of both potholes and speed bumps! Luckily, we at least had pillows, a blanket and a camper shell.



So we went out because it was September 18th, or Independence Day. The 19th is too, but the 18th seems to be the main party day. We went to Isla Negra, where famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (he won the Nobel Prize in 1971) had one of about 4 houses in Chile. We didn´t actually make it to the house, but I hear it´s nice!

The weather was pretty nasty overall, but it was wonderful to make it to the beach. The waves were crazy, and we didn´t see many "safe" beaches. Most seemed to have rocks strewn closeby, which always seems to be the case with the Pacific.

Horse rides are available on most beaches, and this colt happened to be running after some other horses. How precious. And there were a few idiots in the ocean fishing. That doesn´t seem like a big deal to anyone in the northern hemisphere, but it´s still winter here. And they didn´t have any special clothing.


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Back to horses. On Friday I went to Club Hipico, which is Santaigo´s race track. It was a blast. I joined several friends and we played futbolito (soccer with a smaller ball) as we waited for each race. One of my friends won several thousand pesos, so a few bucks. It was my first track experience, and I hope that I can make it a regular thing.

Then on Saturday I went to a fonda with my parents and two of their friends. A fonda is just a large party where they drink a lot of Chicha (a maltish sort of wine/drink), perform the natinoal dance the Cueca, and have tons of asado (barbecue). It was interesting, but I´m glad I didn´t go to the main one, called La Yein Fonda (which sounds like the Jane Fonda). There were pictures of her everywhere as advertisements. But that one apparently gets pretty dangerous, especially for foreigners with all of the intoxicated Chileans.
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Also at some point last week I went to both the Pre-Colombian Art Museum and the National History Museum. They were both great. Probably the most interesting parts were seeing what´s left of Salvador Allende´s glasses - the left half, and the large stuffed dog of a former president. Only half of Allende´s glasses still exist because he died during the coupe. One of the most accepted stories is that he committed suicide in La Moneda (the national palace) before the opposition forces could kill him. Another idea is that he was simply shot when the opposition got to him. Regardless, only half of his glasses survived his demise.
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On a lighter note, I think this sign and I were separated at birth!

One Huge Virgin

I´m not even kidding, she is massive. From almost any point in Santiago, you can see the gigantic, white (it seems the appropriate color) Virgin Mary looking over the city.

Last week I finally made the trek to the top of Cerro San Cristobal (a large hill precariouly placed right next to the city) to let my own eyes glance from the Virgin´s vantage point. Getting up there was difficult, though. First, I rode almost straight up in this crazy trainish-car thing!?! I was hoping the ride would build character, but it merely instilled fear deep within me.



Quick side note - I had planned on hiking up to the top, but my right knee is killing me. It could have been from hiking last weekend in the south, but I bet that I jacked it up during dance class on Tuesday. Thanks to this dance class, expect me to not come back with smooth Latin American moves... but rather with a cane. It is grueling and I might have to drop the class out of sheer exhaustion.

Then, after finally reaching the end of the frightening Funicular (that´s what they call it) ride, I climbed about 8 stories worth of steps. If you read the previous paragraph, you´ll understand why I almost collapsed. When I finally looked at the Virgin, it wasn´t to admire the handiwork of whoever built it - Oh no, it was to beg her for the power to make it back down the steps if I could ever find the strength to stand up again.

Finally, when my leg went numb I had a chance to look around. It was really an amazing panorama of sorts. I say of sorts because the heavy smog blanketing the city doesn´t allow for the clear views I had envisioned. However, it was magnificent. I arrived late in the afternoon and stayed for sunset. Hopefully I can try the long hike up when my leg is feeling better.



While looking around the devotional area, I was stunned to randomly find a note signed from "Christopher" on a piece of "Hello Kitty" paper. I don´t like to read into things too much, but I was meant to see that. And it was tied around a tie, which just looked cool!



I like the single candle in the background. I bet less than 10 candes were lit out of several thousand. It was kind of creeping.

Finally some photos...

Here are some shots from La Plaza de Armas, which I am beginning to frequent because it´s just a fantastic people-watching location.

La Plaza de Armas houses just about everything: artists, evangelists, thiefs, homeless and just about everything else.
And there are insane amouts of pigeons. I like that the little girl in the background was perfectly between all of the flapping wings.

Chess can be found at any point. There are normally 20 or more games going. It´s great.

So it took me way too long to figure out, but I think I might have the photo thing down now.

My house with a view of the Andes.

Me at Laguna del Laja. 

MEMORABLE, EVENTFUL AND NUMEROUS ERUPTIONS

Quite the exciting weekend. Thursday evening I introduced myself to Chilean soccer. Two major rivals played at the National Stadium, so a few friends and I decided to enjoy the game. Colo-Colo sports black and white while Universidad de Chile wears blue and red. I felt most comfortable in green and orange. I also decided to leave all valuables at a friend´s residence because of the many shocked looks I received when telling people that I was going to the game.

Luckily I sat on the U. de Chile side. It was CRAZY. Nothing I say can do it justice. Maybe "Naked grandmothers practicing acrobats while spitting on one another." That´s a bad example, but it´s the closest thing I can think of.

ERUPTION 1: About midway through the first half we scored on a free kick from a little outside the 18-yard box. I say "we" because I was sure as hell cheering for whichever team´s side that I was sitting on. This was a simply decision based on fear for my life. Unfortunately, I later found out that one girl was shot and killed at the game. I don´t know who she was cheering for or anything other than that.

But the game was great overall and U. de Chile won 1-0. By the end of the game the Colo-Colo fans had lit over 25 fires (I counted) on their side of the stadium. The riot police were hosing huge amounts of the crowd, and we were chanting rather obscene things. Colo-Colo fans were let out first, and we had to wait for over an hour to exit.

ERUPTION 2: One of my friends was quite drunk and didn´t realize that we were locked into the stadium. He proceeded to lead us toward the exit, where we became several in a group of hundreds waiting to exit. The happy U. de Chile fans started trying to teach to gringos some of the cheers and it was a lot of fun. Then the chants became slightly different and it wasn´t too fun to be cornered with no escape. A few of the gringos with us didn´t understand that the fun chants had turned into things about our mothers and what we could suck! So we simply tried remain low-key although several from our group were still dancing and chanting along with all the Chileans. And it wasn´t all the Chileans, just 30-50 or so who were actually joining in on the negative chants.

Finally the gates were opened and we got out of the uncomfortable situation. There were 7 of us and we were among the thousands of lemmings leaving the area. Tony and I needed to catch a taxi to the bus terminal because we already had tickets for a bus that was supposed to head to the south about 30 minutes after we left the game.

ERUPTION 3: While walking at the front of our group, I notice that one guy is keeping step with me about 5 feet to my left. I continue to notice it. I suddenly slow down dramatically and so does he. I glance behind me in time to see about 6 guys coming up from behind our group. I yell "Watch out" and jump into the middle of the main crowd. The same guys who had led the chanting about us try to rob us. They had also been standing about 2 rows behind us at the game and saw a few digital cameras that my friends brought. They ganged up on 2 guys, Tony and Yurgen (a German whose name I´m probably butchering). After realizing that I wasn´t a target I shoved one guy off of Tony´s back and checked behind us to see if more were coming.

In the end, only Breanna lost anything: her keys and some ripped pants. We were quite lucky overall. However, I think the initial adrenaline rush still hasn´t worn off.

So Tony and I missed our bus to Los Angeles but luckily caught another one the next hour. I had only taken $4,000 pesos to the game, or $7 dollars. So it was a damn good thing that they didn´t get Tony´s wallet during the attempted mugging, because he had to cover me for the rest of the evening!

I slept the majority of the 6 hour ride to Los Angeles in the south. Tony and I met up with Scott and Mike and we set out for the weekend.

Eruption 4: After a bus ride and hitchhiking with a nun (Hermana Serafine) and her friends, we arrived at Volcano Antuco in Parque Nacional Laguna del Laja. Volcano Antuco dammed the River Laja hundreds or thousands of years ago with an explosion, leaving Laguna del Laja. It was a fantastic stay. We spent the day riding in the back of our new-found freinds´truck and seeing the area. We were helpful, too - digging, pushing and adding weight to the truck as we got stuck in snow time and time again.

Sister Serafine said that we were their guardian angels. But we thought it was more applicable to them, considering they provided: transportation, lunch, an attractive Italian girl our age, and a snowball fight that Sister Serafine started. A hillarious moment occurred during lunch when Scott asked Sister Serafine if she wanted more fries and then spilled about half a plate down the front of her. When the other 4 took off we had the restaurant and accompanying moutain to ourselves. We spent the night in a small refugio at the base of the Volcano. We were the only visitors that night, because skiers don´t usually come until the weekend and we stayed up late playing cards.

Early Saturday morning I went for a long walk along the lake before the others woke up. It was incredibly beautiful. The lake is now used for tons of hydroelectric purposes, but the section I was around was pristine. An interesting story is that only a month or two ago about 40 Chilean military members died in the park when they got lost in a storm while training. The commander was blamed for obviously poor judgement about facing such difficult terrain in the heart of winter without proper preparations.

This was an old refugio at the foot of the volcano and edge of the lake. It had seen better days, but I´m sure at one time it was a very cool little stop.



We hitched a ride back to Los Angeles Saturday afternoon after a little more exploring when the others got up. The second hitch couldn´t beat Sister Serafine, though.

Eruption 5: The bar was shut down except for us in Los Angeles. We asked if they wanted us to leave, but the bartender and his two friends were having a good time as well. After a few drinks I switched to water because I wasn´t feeling the stamina for a long night. However, when we tried to leave around 11:30 the bartender insisted that we take a shot because we had tipped him and been enjoyable patrons. It was an odd mixture of alcohols and it proved difficult to swallow. No problem, though, because I was already out the door heading to the next bar. However, they called me back for yet another shot at the bartender´s expense. Oh dear me. It went down and within 30 seconds was all over the street. I immediately knew it was coming so I casually walked outside, made my way to the other side of the street, and exploded with one single projectile vomitting show that was more impressive than disgusting...at least in my opinion.

We made our way to the other bar and enjoyed the rest of the evening while Tony and I watched Scott and Mike further intoxicate themselves. At one point Scott approached another table with 3 ladies who he proposed to dance with - they stood up and left the bar. It was great.

This is the dog and lemon tree outside our room in Los Angeles. The dog was too nice and kept coming over for attention - making it difficult to get a picture.



We slept until late Sunday morning before catching a bus to a different section of the River Laja.

Eruption 6: Saltos del Laja are described as a miniature Iguazu Falls (which are one of the world´s largest waterfalls located on the border of Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay). It was an awesome waterfall further downstream from the National Park. We spent an hour or so walking around the falls and getting soaked from the spray. There are 2 huge, separated falls that curve around the lower stretches of the river and create amazing drops of 70 feet or so. There are also innumerable smaller falls after the main cascade.



When I finally got back to Santiago I walked for about an hour beforeI finally caught a bus. The center was empty. September 11 is the anniversary of the Pinochet´s coupe over Salvador Allende in 1973. There are always marches, demonstrations and protests. There was one large fire downtown, and I could see the smoke as I walked home. Nothing unusual for the 11th. And next weekend is independence day. So hopefully there will just be more to come!

LOS BRASILEÑOS GANAN

Chile´s national soccer team suffered a very disappointing 5-0 butt-kicking from Brasil today. The game was really anticipated and everyone went in with high expectations. Oh how humbling it is to play Brasil. My brother, Nico, and I watched the game together at home. Chile really needed to win to help qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Things aren´t looking very good at the moment.

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The day was better overall, though. After the game, I joined my father Tallu on visits to both sets of grandparents elsewhere in Santiago. First, we met up with mom at her parents´place. As usual, I was fed. I think everyone can start placing bets on how much weight I´ll put on down here! They also showed me around and grandpa told me some stories about when he was in the marines and about how their piano (which is almost 200 years old!!!) was impossible to fix because no pianos are made like it anymore. So I played a few really out of tune songs and we passed the time quite easily.

Then it was over to Tallu´s family. Tallu´s mom is Russian and he was born in Europe. They came over to Chile when he was 2 following problems with WWII. Again, it was good to meet everyone, but I was getting pretty tired by the time we left.

Other than that I read a unch today. Now I´m working on The Mermaid and the Drunks, which is excellent thus far. It´s set in Chile, and I love that I know the vast majority of references thus far because everything has taken place in Santiago thus far.

Here´s a little about Santiago. It´s built along Rio Mapocho and the Andes feel like they´re about to fall on me from the east. They are so close, and so beautiful. The Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia pretty much conquered Chile and got Santiago started. History has a funny way of blurring things - now streets named after Spaniards and Natives who fought each other are simply a block apart!

The city is fantastic. It´s incredibly modern, has a superb public transportation system (even if I did have my watch stolen because I fell sleep), and still maintains many aspects of what one would consider Latin American flair: street vendors, native clothing alongside european styles, a great city square - La Plaza de Armas.

I´ve taken advantage of my free afternoons thus far to simply get lost while walking. There are tons of great places to discover, and my teaches recommend little-known gems during every class. Last class my Spanish track teacher, Marcella, suggested a tiny merengue dive, which I might try after some more dance lessons.

And to classes. Everything I am taking is taught in Spanish, or Castellano. I have a Spanish track class that meets Monday-Thursday and is wonderful. It´s tons of practical knowledge about the city, country, language and its many eccentricities, and so fourth. It´s been a really helpful class.

I also have a International Political Economy class, which has been incredibly interesting. The class is pretty much based on oil and how it was shaped international economies and in turn politics in the last 60 years. Every similar class I have had has always looked at major world events such as wars, but this takes another step and looks at why the wars happened due to oil. This one meets twice a week and will require quite a bit of work.

The final class is a Latin American literature survey course. I don´t have the correct book yet because the fotocopiadora screwed up. It´s interesting, regular text books aren´t used here. You simply copy books. I take a book in, give it to the person behind the desk, and come back for the copied version the next day. It makes things much cheaper overall. Regardless, I think that this will also be a great class.

The program has a lot of day trips scheduled for Fridays. This week we head to Isla Negra. The nice thing is that we then have the option of staying at the location for the weekend and simply making our way back on our own. It offers much more of an opportunity to really discover areas.

I FELT LUCKY!

The bus turned, causing me to fall out of the seat, jolt into the unfortunate state of awakened uncertainty, and glance around. I was alone. Literally the only person on the bus other than the driver. It was 6 in the morning. When last awoke it had been a completely packed bus. I had been dancing at a disco with friends until about 5...I think.

Anyway, when I woke up the bus was turning and I was about 5 blocks from my house. I felt lucky. Last night I walked about 30 blocks before finally catching the bus that I needed. Only after walking about 3 blocks tonight did I realize that my watch was gone. I quickly checked every other valuable. WOW! Everything else was still in place. I don´t even know if I got ripped off on the bus or in the disco earlier in the evening/morning! I think it was on the bus. It couldn´t have been that difficult. I slept through about 30 people exiting the bus!

So all I lost was a watch. Thank goodness - an ID, credit card, or cell phone would have been much more devastating.

Rewind - So to start the night I went to the final evening of the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour with my friend John. Not only was every movie in spanish and impossible to understand, but they were all horrible. And I didn´t even win the raffle to next year´s real Banff festival in Canada.

The movies were very poorly shot, lacked good commentary, and many were simply watching rich people ski or do other "extreme" sports. I was sorely disappointed. John left early, and I finally walked out during a film about the Patagonia region of Chile and Argentina that I was hoping to enjoy - it turned out to be complete crap.

After that I caught up with some friends. We went to a pre-party until about 1 in the morning and then headed out to a disco. It was a blast! I danced like crazy - and not that badly either...at least in comparison to other males at the club. I finally walked 3 female friends back to their apartment in central Santiago at 5 in the morning before catching a bus.

It was a good night overall.

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Last night (Friday) was fantastic. John, Gina, Melanie and I went out in Nuñoa, which is a very Bohemian area of southern Santiago. After a few beers at an outdoor bar we went to El Club de Jazz de Santiago. It was freaking amazing. This little hole-in-the-wall joint hosted some fantastic jazz. The band, consisting of 3 guitarists, a bassist, percussionist, and clarinetist, was simply wonderful. I hardly talked all evening because I was enjoying the music so much. I even recognized quite a few of the songs. The lead guitarist was easily over 60-years-old and still had it going like crazy. I stood up and clapped in the middle of many songs following some incredible solos that he churned out.

It was a great night. I ended up delaying the ski trip yet again because I discovered that the super price I found had to be reserved about a week in advance. I plan on it in 2 weeks. Next weekend in the anniversary of Allende´s death, which should be interesting. (Quick note - Salvador Allende was a socialist in power until he was overthrown by Pinochet in the early 70´s. Pinochet was helped by the U.S. and then committed horrific human rights violations. The thousands of people missing due to Pinochet are called "los disidentes," or unidentified. They´re also known as "los desaparecidos" or the disappeared. Pinochet now walks free in Chile. They say he is too old and "unstable" to be brought up on human rights violations and they are now trying to get him on tax evasion, something like $25 million that he supposedly took while in power.)

And the following weekend is Independence Day down here. I´ll let you all know a little more about what that means when I figure it out!

AS FAR AS I´VE HEARD...
The hurricane devastation is horrific. A lot of people have asked if everyone I know is okay and if my family has been impacted. Luckily, as far as I know, everyone is doing alright. It´s a major event down here.

I hope some of my photo friends made it south. I almost wish I could be at home to go and document some of this. MSN has some great slide shows. But I won´t bother any more aobut that because I´m sure everyone up north has stronger sentiments about Katrina.

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DALÍ Y CINE

I had quite the art-filled day Thursday. After a few classes I joined another class in heading to a Salvador Dalí exhibit. It was in the Centro Cultural Estación Mapocho, or one of the former train stations in the norhtern part of the city. The building is fantastic: huge vaulted roof, amazing passageways. The building alone was good enough for the trip. It had been restored/sustained beautifully. Now it is used for a variety of things: exhibits, parties, conferences like the childhood education one that was taking place in the majority of the area.

And if that wasn´t enough, the Dalí exhibit was phenomenal. The collection covered a vast spectrum of works and styles. I think the majority of the sculptures were from the Clot Collection, which Dalí did all around the same time when he lived with Gala. They were all bronze and breathtaking.

I have zero art vocabulary...for example - The majority of the paintings were specific groupings of collections. So 10 paintings inspired by hippies, another 5 from Mao poems. Stuff like that. Probably the most impressive were the over 100 paintings of the Holy Bible - La Sagrada Biblia. Dalí started with the Torah and then decided to do the entire Bible, or at least up through the Gospels. Pretty much every major Bible story was there. It was beyond any words I have. I was thrilled to see so many pieces that were completely new to me. I recognized less than 5 pieces out of several hundred . It was also amazing to see how aspects of Surrealism came in and out. The styles varied dramatically. So in short, it was freaking awesome.

So being exhausted from picture-looking, I hopped the Metro home and caught a quick bite to eat.

Then I ran back into town to head the the WORLD TOUR of the Banff Mountain Film Festival. It´s a 3-day festival highlighting extreme sports/circumstances/situations films. I was meeting Anne Claire and Gina, both from my group. However, they got lost, even though it was really freaking easy to find. So I went solo after waiting for quite some time.

The films were great. One about rock climbing in Spain, another about Base jumping in Mexico, stuff like that. The best by far was by John Muir, called Alone Across Australia. This Australian is crazy. In 2001 he was the first to complete a solo trip across Australia...the entire continent. It took him over 4 months and it was only him, his dog, and a cart with supplies for the 1,600 + mile trip. He would film himself every now and then until his camera equipment finally quit on day 122. It´s outrageous that a person could pull that off. Eating from whatever he could find along the way - a personal favorite of mine was when he sliced up some streaks from a bloated bovine! The carcass made a weaving noise as he cut it. It was disgusting.
And dammit, the whole place was crying when his dog died. The dog had eaten a poison pellet that people leave for Dingos. Muir filmed himself weeping as he holds the dead terrier.
Watching the emotions and gradual change over the course of those months was astounding. It included the fact that he found out about the 9/11 attacks months after it had happened.

Oh, and he walked to the North Pole 4 months after he was done with Australia.

To deal with all the emotions of the day I joined several others and went out to a few bars until about 4 this morning. Everything is so late here...it´s lovely. Actually, I got home at 4. I left the bar around 3, finally got a bus, and then had a huge walk when it changed course before the driver said it would. So I walked for about 20 or 30 minutes to get home then. Not as bad as some of the guys who ran out of money at the bars the other night and walked over 2 hours to get back to their apartment building. The sun was coming up when they finally got back. I laughed my ass off at them.