News Briefs -- "Father Time Dies While Waiting in Chilean Line...and Man Discovers that Exercise Hurts Body"

I had the first round of tests in school: Literature and Spanish. And they went very well. The next two weeks I have several papers due, so I´ve been reading a lot and studying more than I want to be.

I had an idiotic moment - maybe spurred on by the intense studies. I decided that I was getting out of shape and that it was time to do something about it.
A Note. I don´t really have much physical exercise at all. I walk around the city, but that´s about it.
So I elected to do as many sit-ups and push-ups as possible at around 10 at night. YEARS AGO, I did them frequently. But that was years ago. So probably after 20 or 30 minutes (it really was a long time, with frequent heavy-breathing breaks while slumped on the floor), I finally succumbed to my screaming body. I got up, started doing homework, and then began to feel a little funky. I luckily had the wherewithal to make it outside, stumble to the fence (all houses are protectively fenced), and fall over while nearly blacking out. Then I turned to my side and puked!

If you don´t already gather it from the preceding paragraph, it´s really demoralizing to throw up after merely doing push-ups. In fact, it makes one achieve a new low. It wasn´t after running for the first time in months. Oh no. It was from doing aerobics for 20 minutes. Well, I´ve been keeping it up and I haven´t vomitted again, at least not yet.

And I couldn´t move the next morning...or the one after.

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On a completely different topic - I won´t be deported anymore. I was in this gray area of having arrived, not having completed all necessary paperwork, and somewhat fearing deportation if they found me. The weird thing is that they could deport me, but I couldn´t leave the country on my own volition.

When I arrived in Chile I went and registered with the International Police (this was about an hour wait) - like I was supposed to do. They gave me this great little paper with cool stamps, a fun mug shot and all my pertinent information. And the paper said that I had fulfilled the obligation to register. Woo hoo! I failed to read the tiny writing on back of the paper or listen to anyone else in the group: YOU HAVE 30 DAYS TO GET AN ID CARD USING THIS HANDY-DANDY PAPER.

Well the 30 days passed really quickly. So last week I had the joy of waiting 3 hours to get another little paper which said, "This guy screwed up and now has an additional 10 days to get an ID." But the wait wasn´t too bad because I had a book, there were seats, and I simply watched the numbers slowly climb toward the one I was holding.

So to be daring I waited 5 days before trying to get my ID, of course having the extension at this point. The line was too long, so I came back on day 6 at 8:30 in the morning. At 11:30 I finally was seen. That was 3 hours in a line. Not sitting waiting for my number to be called. Hell no. My new physical endurance test will be constantly renewing my ID card. They were out of numbers so I slowly moved forward with the rest of the herd. It was horrible. But now I won´t be deported. And they now have all 10 of my fingerprints. I´d never experienced that one before. You just have to feel guilty for no reason at all when someone is taking your fingerprints!

Actually, I did all the work to get the card. But I must return in three weeks to actually pick it up. I´m hoping that´s the marathon wait I´ve been training for since I arrived! 1) Short time with seats. 2) Long time with seats. 3) Long time with no seats. 4) Who freaking knows!

And to continue my physical degradation I joined a soccer class on Friday. I had another thing coming if I thought the pains from push-ups were bad! It was great to play. I met quite a few Chilean guys who go to my college and it was some real physical exersion. We play in a gym with a miniature ball, which means constant movement. I had a blast. But I really did hurt while attempting to roll out of bed Saturday.
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The weekend was calm. I slept. I spent early Saturday reading, accompanied by rain. We´re in this fun stage of the seasons making poor decisions of what they want to be. Spring says "My turn to rain buckets and then be sunny and happy." But then Winter says "Wait a minute. I still want my random really cold days slapped in the middle of everything. And why don´t I made it impossible to figure out to wear everyday?" They just have crazy conversations, those two seasons.
On Saturday evening the weather cleared up and I took a long walk. Probably 4 miles or so. I stopped in several cafés to read and otherwise enjoy the walk. After several hours, I finally arrived at my destination: the Salvador fountain. I don´t know what its actual name is, but it is near the Salvador metro station and happens to be a large foutain.

This fountain is spectacular. According to my host-mom, the city spent something absurd like $80 million dollars on it. She went off on an angry rant about how the city spends tons of money on crap like that but not on impoving the roads. It was understandable but didn´t lessen my appreciation for the fountain. During the day it´s decent, but night is the time to go. There are couples everywhere. And Chileans love PDA (public displays of affection). And I hate PDA. You cannot walk through a park without being bombarded with thoughts of how many children were being or had been conceived in that location. Unadulturated face-sucking in every direction, with absolutely no shame. More of a pride thing, actually. I haven´t figured out how to correctly capture the feeling with the camera. But don´t worry, I doubt it will be stopping any time soon.

So at night there are tons of people, the lights are amazing, and I probably found my new favority place. I told you they make out.





Pretty much every bench is occupied. How cute. Sorry that they´re all roughly the same photo. It was hard to do much more than silhouettes given the lighting conditions.



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But I did learn something this weekend! Sunday was more reading and sitting. Quite wonderful. Then I went downtown for a friend´s birthday party, or small gathering. It was a nice time: stupid games, meeting locals, debating the differences between Chilean and Argentine dictatorships. The usual stuff! And Argentina´s military dictatorship from ´76-´83 was much worse than Chile´s Pinochet dictatorship ´73-´90. In my opion. 30,000 versus 3,000 disappearances. But Pinochet rule still had many horrible aspects.

But about me learning things. It was a fun night and I decided to hit the road a little after 1 a.m. The metro absurdly stops running at 10:30 most nights and I think 9:30 on Sundays. Not very practical for a city of 6 million. And I strongly oppose taking taxis. Micros, or buses, really don´t run at 1 in the morning on Sundays. I walked for about an hour before I caught one. Good thing to know for leaving a little earlier in the future!