Thursday, July 21, 2005

home

I got home yesterday around 2 PM. The flights weren't too bad since I had both a window seat and an empty seat next to me on both of them. It's nice to be home but also sad to not be in Chile. I'd elaborate but I'm about to go to bed - just wanted to let you know I'm home safe and sound.

Also, I got a new cell phone: (513) 435-1102. The bad news is that my old phone is dead, completely dead, so dead that it isn't chargeable . . . wait a second, now that I look at it again, it did charge and does have all the old numbers in it. But feel free to give me a call anyway.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

last exam in 2 hours

My last bit of school in Chile is just about over. The complex variable exam starts at 3 and by 6 it along with my formal education in Chile will be over. It seems that the semester started just a few weeks ago, and now it's over.

Thursday, June 30, 2005

presentation

In a few hours I have to give my final presentation for my translation class on the tranlation I did of a math text (well, 4 pages of it) from English to Spanish.

Tomorrow I have my topology exam, and my complex variable exam is on the seventh. After those, school will be completely over.

More amazingly, June is nearly over as well. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly time can disappear, even if you are looking.

I'm doing well, enjoying winter, etc. Now I need to make some lunch and finish preparing for this presentation.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

school's out . . . almost

Tomorrow I have my last class in Chile. It's sad, really. The semester has disappeared without my realizing it, which isn't surprising since it tends to happen just about every year. In any case, I have a presentation and two exams in the following weeks and I will be officially done. Crazy.

Also, I have less than a month left in Chile. Once again, the saying from my Peru trip comes true: The days are long, but the weeks [or, in this case, months] are short.

Now I need to work on my translation final project (due on Friday) since Friday I'll be working on the final group paper for my narrative class.

Monday, June 20, 2005

he llegado

Just got back to my apartment in Santiago a few minutes ago (or however long it takes to make a cup of tea). Now I have to go out to buy lunch, pay the power bill, and go to class. What fun.

Oh, by the way, Buenos Aires is an interesting city and I enjoyed my visit. More on that later.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Buenos Aires

I'm in Buenos Aires now. Just wanted to let you know I made it and whatnot. So far I've seen lots of old bookstores, which is exactly what I was looking for.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

travelling again

Tomorrow night I'm flying to Buenos Aires. Seems like a good idea, since Argentina is so close and the city is supposed to be amazing, more like a European city than an American one. I'll be there until Monday morning when I fly back in time for class. It's only a 2 hour flight over the Andes. Hopefully I'll get a window seat for the way back and be able to see the cordillera from above. I'll be sure to post something on Monday to let you know I made it back alright, and maybe I'll even write from there, but we'll see. For the curious, my flights are with LAN Chile, LA491 from Santiago to Buenos Aires and LA560 on the way back.

Monday, June 13, 2005

new photos

I've had internet again for almost a week now, but haven't posted anything here. It seems that I post more when I don't have regular access . . . weird. Probably has to do with me wasting time in internetland instead of using it for productive things like letting you know how I'm doing.

I don't really have anything to say at the moment other than that you should go look at the photos from my trip to the south that I finally got scanned and online. They aren't amazing quality since they are scanned from not-so-great prints, but it gives you an idea of where I was. Oh, and I put full sized versions of the other photos up too (and the scanned ones, but since they are smaller you get to see the full sized version right away).

It's late so I am going to be productive and try and get tired. Taking a nap in the early evening is not a good idea when you have to get up at a reasonable hour the next day.

Off to read Rayuela or study complex variables.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

still disconnected

Hopefully we'll get the internet back soon - it's debilitating when you depend on something for so many things, like news, music, dictionary abilities, etc., and then suddenly it's gone, or at least moved to a much less convenient and more expensive place.

Just wanted to say that last week I went and watched the director of COPA (the program I studied with last semester) do some simultaneous interpretation. Really quite amazing stuff. I found it hard to listen to the Spanish and English at the same time. Regardless, it seemed to be a fun activity, with all sorts of wonderful time pressure. It reminded me of theatre and mock trial from high school, just with another language thrown in. Oh, and I was able to help her out when she didn't know what "empaste" meant (it means binding, at least in reference to books). Interpretation is much more fun and challenging than translation.

Now that I've been here for 20 minutes I'm going to pay my less-than-50-cents and get home to make some dinnner.

Friday, June 03, 2005

internetless

There's no internet access in my house at the moment. Boo. So I'm posting this from an internet cafe. It's amazing how much I depend on the internet for communicating with people, even with people here in Santiago. Since my cell phone doesn't get reception in my apartment, I'm completely cut off from the world without the internet. But on the bright side that gives me more time to read.

I also have a cold at the moment. Yep, winter'll do that to you. But it isn't too bad, so I won't complain much.

My birthday went well on Sunday, nice and relaxing as opposed to the "let's get drunk because I can" attitude that would have existed in the U.S. Turning 21 in Chile just isn't that big of a deal.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

reading

Yesterday I went to the Contemporary Art Museum, or rather, to an exhibition by said museum in a different building since the real building is being rennovated, and has therefore been closed since I got here. Unfortunate, really, because what I saw yesterday was pretty interesting. The exhibition's called "Contrabandistas de Imágenes" (Image Smugglers), and has stuff from all over the world. There was a pretty interesting video display which was two screens which showed the set but mirrored, with mirrored camera movements which just repeated themselves endlessely. The action consisted of a man destroying and then fixing back up his aparment, the same man and apartment on both sides, but usually one apartment was messed up and the other orderly. Hmm. Sorry for the bad description - modern art videos are not meant to be paragraphs but rather moving images with coordinated sound.

Early this week I read La casa verde (The Green House) by Mario Vargas Llosa. A very good novel which I read surprisingly quickly considering its 400-page size. I read it for class, but so far the lectures have been less interesting than I had hoped, but maybe that will change on Wednesday (since Monday is a national holiday for some sort of Chilean military (naval, I think) victory).

Also this past week I made chicken parmesan, using the recipe my parents sent me. Oh so good, and surprisingly easy.

This afternoon was spent cleaning and going to the store to buy lightbulbs, and the evening drinking tea and mate while reading. I finished Amberes by Roberto Bolaño, one of my favorite authors who writes in Spanish, and read a bit of Notas de viaje: Diaro en motocicleta by Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and now that I've written this I'm going to read some Julio Cortázar short stories.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

tic toc

I went and saw some flamenco on Saturday. It wasn't bad, but certainly wasn't what I expeted. The guitar playing was pretty amazing, but the dancing didn't interest me too much. But it was fun to go and see anyway.

Saturday I went to Thelonious for some jazz music. Again, nothing amazing, but a nice way to pass the evening.

Turned in a group paper today in Narrative class. The whole thing went much better than I expected. In fact, I had planned on just writing the paper by myself so I could freely talk about whatever I wanted, something about the mathmatics implicit in Borges (the paper had to be about Borges, and one or two specific stories). However, the professor was of the mind that all the students should work in groups, and, as such, I was adopted by a group. We met and talked about what we were going to write before writing, which worked surprisingly well. Whodathunk that prewriting really did have a purpose. Our thesis was basically that the reader, in reading, is really recreating the text and the author, and the author, in writing, is creating the text and a (imaginary) reader, and that the text makes the author an author and the reader a reader, because it is hard to write nothing or read nothing and still be a writer/reader. So, if you take that literally, maybe too literally, there is no meaningful difference between author, text, and reader, or maybe I should just say that they are all equally important in terms of literary creation. But yeah, the point is I worked in a group and it didn't suck.

Now I'm going to get back studying for my complex variable test on wednesday and reading about Casa Verde, the novel by Mario Vargas Llosa I have to read for a week from Wednesday.


oh, and I almost forgot (actually, I did forget but there is an edit function): there are some new photos in my photo album if you are curious. and in case it isn't obvious, the "oldalbum" album is, well, the old album.

Friday, April 29, 2005

u of i fall 2005

I registered a while back for my classes at the U of I next semester, just though I should post them here:

4 Introduction to Computer Science - CS 125 AL2 AYC
3 Probability Theory I - MATH 461 C13
3 Introduction to Hispanic Literature II - SPAN 227 X1
2 Spanish Phonetics & Phonology - SPAN 402 X2
3 Spanish Syntax & Morphology - SPAN 404 D1
3 Spanish Literature II Works & Writers - SPAN 452 B2 (ie from Spain)

for a total of 18 hours. If everything transers like it does in my dreams, I'll be able to graduate after this semester. But I don't know if that will all work out. If not, I can drop a course to lighten my load a bit and learn more fun things in the spring, which might end up being necessary if these courses are challenging. We'll see how it goes.

Monday, April 25, 2005

smoothly slipping away

Once again, I apologize for not writing for such a long time. It's so easy to just do all those things I do in a day and not even think about writing here. Maybe that's some sort of sign that, as someone said to me not too long ago, being in Chile is no longer new and exciting for me. Rather, it is the status quo. And of course that person is right, to a certain extent. But on the other hand, there are still things that surprise me, or remind me of where I am. I went for a nice twilight (well, I guess you call it twilight after the sun has set and yet the sky is not black but rather a rich, deep blue) walk around the neighborhood. Well, not so much around as to the bakery (breadery, really, but somehow that word just doesn't work in English) to pick up some bread to go with my dinner (which I've yet to make - not because I'm following the Chilean meal plan, but rather just because I can eat whenever I want to, and I've yet to get around to investing the necessary energy to prepare a meal). Said dinner will consist, probably, of the aforementioned pan, corn on the cob I bought today (the two ears I ate for lunch were excellent), and pasta with tomato, garlic, green pepper, and onion sauce. That's if I'm as ambitious in the kitchen as I am now.

In case you didn't infer from my lack of writing, everything is going along very smoothly. I think I'm doing well in my classes (I got a B+/A on my first topology test) and they are actually pretty interesting. Chilean and Hispanomaerican Narrative is finally getting interesting now that we are reading Borges, who I quite enjoy despite his excessive intellectualism. Short stories really are wonderful. I've also been reading a lot of Roberto Bolaño, a Chilean who lived most of his adult life in Mexico City and Spain, who died in 2003. So far I've only read short stories (though I started a novel, I have to read Borges so it's on hold momentarily), and find him to be an excellent author. As for those of you who are reading this and most likely don't read Spanish, I'm not sure about the availability or quality of translations. While the concept of translation interests me, there is no doubt that I prefer to read things in the language they were written, and thus have avoided translations of English into Spanish and vice versa.

Of cultural interest might be the way the death of the Pope was covered in the media. Without a doubt it was followed here with much more enthusiasm and faith than in the U.S. Chile is a Catholic country. Of note, though, is that just as the conclave was convening, the headline of a major Chilean newspaper announced that a Chilean cardinal could become pope with the support of the United States. As usual, Chileans like to see themselves in world events. There was also excessive and extensive coverage of the Pope's visit to Chile in 1987. Though I didn't watch it, I am told the television channels were non-stop Popevision for days, with interviews of everyone who had been even remotely close to him while he was here (physically, as in "I was 10 feet from the Pope," not "the Pope and I had a lenghty conversation"). In all, there was, as far as I can tell, nothing negative said about the Pope or his sucessor. But that's to be expected from the conservative Chilean media.

Now the hunger as built up enough that I'm going to get cooking. Enjoy spring, those of you lucky enough to be in that part of the world.

Saturday, April 02, 2005

...going...

Just writing to let you know life is going well, i'm enjoying myself, etc. School also seems to be good - my first test went well - I got an A, well, not exactly, but the Chilean equivalent. In fact, the professor read a part of one of my answers (the test was two essays, in my Chilean narrative class) to the class when he was commenting on the test and his impressions of our interpretations. Granted, he prefaced it with, "This was written by a foreigner, and I think it's interesting to see the novel from an outside persepective," but still, it made me feel like I was in grade school all over again. But it is a good thing that he took the time to discuss the test with us rather than just hand it back and move on as some professors have the habit of doing.


Not much else new or interesting, so I guess I'll get back to being a student and read some more of Doña Barbara the Venezuelan novel I have to read for that narrative class. Enjoy the day of foolishness.

Friday, March 25, 2005

happy easter

classes are going well, as expected. nothing else much is going on, so i guess i'll say a bit more about those classes. my intro to translation class is nice, but pretty easy, or so it seems. the professor is really laid back, which makes for a nice classroom environment, especially for such an applied subject. it's probably one of the few classes i've taken that is meant to be "practical" that actually interests me. my two math classes are both sufficiently challenging, yet not overly so (at least no yet anyway), so that makes them enjoyable. and no, there isn't much difference learning math in spanish as opposed to english: it's almost exactly the same. and my other class, chilean and hispanicamerican narrative, is not a bad class (ie good professor, not bad material, etc.), but since it is literature, it can be a bit annoying. i like books and all, but they're meant for reading, not analyzing. oh well - i have to take it to graduate, so might as well do so here where the class is much better.


alright. goodnight.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

school

school started a week ago today. i think i've finalized my schedule with the following courses: narrativa chilena e hispanoamericana (chilean and hispanoamerican narrative), variable compleja (complex variable/analysis), topología (topology), y introducción a la traducción (introduction to translation). so far so good . . . i'm presenting to the translation class about machine translation on wednesday, which should be fun - the professor is cool, from what i gather considering i went to the class for the first time today.

time to read the paper about machine translation

Friday, March 04, 2005

the end of summer

yep. my summer vacation is just about over. classes start on monday. i have my course selection book now, so school has officially become a reality. that being said, the summer was a lot of fun, and i'm not so upset that i have to go to school now. it's the usual back to school contradiction: it's nice to do nothing, but sometimes the idea of learning something is pretty attractive too. moreover, school is also the potential to meet more people and practice more spanish, which is, of course, why i'm in chile.

i went and saw Emir Kusturica and the No Smoking Orchestra wednesday night. a very good show, music that i can't really put in a category. some crazy europeans, that's for sure. Kusturica also directs movies, of which i've only seen one (underground) which was really good. the music from his band is featured in many of his movies. i recommend you see one of his movies. really.

yesterday i finally got around to making a map of my travels. enjoy.

well, now that it's almost noon, i feel i should be productive, and maybe go visit my math professor from last semester to ask him a few questions. that requires going outside were the cell phone works, and where it's much hotter.

so it goes

Monday, February 28, 2005

places to sleep

i'm sure you'd like to hear all about my travelling, but somehow i find it difficult to sum up 37 days in any meaningful way. i could list all the places i went, but that wouldn't really give you much. i could post a map with a drawing of where i went, but again, there's so much lacking on a map (hint: if you actually want me to make said map, i can do so and post it here. just let me know). but i have to do something to satisfy you, so here's an attempt:

leaving santiago, i didn't really know what to expect, but since i am a fan of not expecting anything, that made my life easier. i took a bus from here to pucon. pucon is a really touristy town, just crawling with gringos, but surrounded by some really pretty naturaleza, so i had to visit. the first day there i rented a bike and went to ojos de caburgua, some pretty blue waterfalls. the bike ride was tiring, but nice since i took a dirt back road instead of the highway. the next day there i climbed volcan villarrica and got to see lava and eat lunch inside the crater and all that fun stuff. then i went to puerto varas, with the intention of travelling around the lake to some of the other towns. but instead i ended up heading immediately south to futaleufu, having to stop in puerto montt and chaiten along the way. chaiten is nothing more than a launching point, so i was glad not to stay there for long.

futaleufu was 2 weeks of my trip. a good two weeks without a doubt, but much longer than i had thought i would spend in one place. there i camped behind futaleufu explore, a rafting company owned and run by josh lowry, an excellent kayaker best characterized by his laugh, but since i don't have a recording of it, calling him an old hippie will have to suffice. i became a friend of his as well as of the guides who work there, so i had plenty of people to hang out with. this also obviously made the river trips a lot more fun, and made me feel more secure and thus enjoy the trips even more. i also met a couple of argentine brothers who live in esquel, argentina, just over the border from futa. they came to kayak, and ended up doing some rafting too. it was nice to spend time with them and talk in spanish instead of the english i was forced to use with the guides (who all come from the states, with the exception of matze, who's german, but speaks better english than spanish so there wasn't much difference). i guess i should explain a bit about the rivers i played in. the rio espolon is a really gentle river, not worth rafting in my opinion. so i went down part of it in a kayak twice (first two times in my life, and it showed. i need practice, lots of practice, if i want to call myself a beginning kayaker) and the whole run once in a ducky (inflatable kayak/canoe). kayaking was fun, but a bit rough, and the ducky was fun as well, and really forgiving. however, without a doubt, rafting was the highlight. i went rafting on the rio futaleufu, which is considered one of the best whitewater rivers in the world. by the time i left, i'd run all of the rapids on the river. the most common section, bridge to bridge, i ran 4 or 5 times. it is made up of 15 or so (i don't remember really) class IV, IV+ rapids in close succession. there's room to stop between most of them, if you head for the eddy right away, but it's mostly non-stop action. below the last bridge are 2 class V rapids, Mas o Menos and Casa de Piedra, which i ran twice. Casa is a long, big rapid, with a huge hole at the end. the first time i went through it an oar slipped out of the guide's hand just as we dropped into the final hole, and we turned a bit causing us to flip, making everyone swim, including the guide. luckily it was at the end of the rapid so there was no problem. the second time i went through the guide lost an oar (or maybe both) at the top of the rapid, causing us to come really close to the huge Casa rock, but luckily we were able to keep our line and nothing came of the problem. the rest of the rapids are above the first bridge, a part of the river i only ran once. the furthest upstream is canyon del infierno, a few kilometer long sheer-walled canyon. once inside, the only way out is downstream. it is considered a class V canyon, and with good reason. the rapids are huge and very close together. after the canyon is some flatwater, and then comes two rapids which are unraftable and hence portaged, Zeta (because it's shaped like a Z) and Throne Room. Zeta is very dangerous, with the walls on both sides of the river undercut. the rock there has been turned to swiss cheese by the river. just looking at the rapid was amazing. Throne Room is a huge rapid with one very large rock in the middle of the river at the end. the kayakers love to run it, but it's just to big for a raft. our raft when it was ghosted through flipped three times (ghosted means there's no one in it, just our spirit, so i ended up with a nice, freshly washed spirit). after some more flat water comes the wild mile, a mile of class III-IV rapids that are fun, but not quite as big as the rest of the river. next is Terminator, so called because the first run of the river stopped there. with over 60 holes, i can see why. when we scouted it, i was intimidated to say the least. but i had faith in our team: bret, the guide, the two argentine brothers (who are raft guides on a river similar to the espolon in argentina), me, and another guide paddling with us. we went through the mile-long class V rapid without a problem, so smoothly that i could hardly believe they call it class V. then there are 3 rapids all right next to eachother: Hijo de Terminator, Kyber Pass, and Himalayas, named for the huge 20-foot breaking waves. In style, we went right for the huge waves at the end of Himalaya which give the rapid it's name. the first wave was fine, but we had to highside in the second one (which we did successfully), but then the boat turned into the last wave, leaving us on the lowside struggling to get to the other side. one of the brothers and i made it to the high side and managed to stay in the boat (and maybe keep it from flipping), but bret and the other 2 paddlers got to go for a swim. fun times.


ok, sorry about that raft-geekiness, but i couldn't resist. from futa i went to the island of chiloe where i met up with icha. we spent a couple of days in the national park there, where i saw an unprotected pacific beach with huge waves. we also got to see some native forest, showing the sort of bogginess that used to cover the island before it became rolling farmland which looks like it belongs in england. from there we went to a smaller chilote island and spent the night in the tiny, calm town of achao. then we headed up to puerto varas for icha's mom's birthday since she was there on vacation. then we headed around lago llanquihue to ensenada and up to los saltos de petrohue and lago todos los santos. really pretty water, and good views of volcan osorno, but not as good as the view we got the next day when we went up to the ski lodge, as close as one can get to the top of the volcano without a guide. the volcano is almost a perfect cone, like mt. fuji. from there we continued around the lake to las cascadas and puerto octay, and then back to chiloe to go to the sunday crafts fair in dalcahue where artisans come from all over to sell the stuff they make. a very nice way to spend a sunday morning. then we went to ancud, where i took a trip to see some islands where magellanic and humboldt penguins go to breed. silly little birds, but i have pictures of them now. then we went to valdivia, which has a strong german influence, and finally to icha's grandpa's farm near chillan. he's dead, so her uncle now runs the farm, where they grow wheat, corn, and some really yummy tomatoes.

as you can see, i got tired and stopped putting in details, but you get the picture. it was a fun time, with lots of nice scenery and even nicer people. but it sure is nice not to have to look for a place to sleep at night.

Friday, February 25, 2005

santiago

back in santiago. got back last night around 9 or so. now i get to unpack, sweep the floor, pay bills, develop pictures, buy food, etc.

i'll tell you about the trip afterwards.

Monday, February 14, 2005

back on the island

so i'm back in dalcahue, though just for the today - there's a great artesania market on sunday mornings here, with people coming from the little islands around to sell their goods. a nice sunday morning to say the least.

after achao, i went to puerto varas, ensenada, petrohue, volcán osorno, las cascadas, and puerto octay. very nice scenery around there, some pretty views of lakes and, of course, the volcano.

now i'm heading to ancud, just for a day probably, and from there north towards valdivia, or at least that's the tentative plan.




happy valentines day

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

chiloe

now i'm in dalcahue on the island of chiloe, and about to go to one of the smaller islands, quinchao. that should give me more of a feel for what life is/used to be like in chiloe.

today and yesterday i was in the parque nacional chiloe, which was cool. nice to see what the island was like before people arrived and turned it into farmland.

of to the ferry . . .

Sunday, February 06, 2005

second biggest island in america

chiloé. the biggest is tierra del fuego, which i probably won't be visting, at least i'm not planning on it now.

just posting this to say i'm doing well, didn't die in the class V rapids i was rafting or anything like that. all the whitewater fun i had in futa was amazing. a great vacation in and of itself, but i'm not quite done traveling.

icha's going to arrive here in castro in little bit, so i won't be traveling alone anymore. so that's good - sokmetimes it's nice to share experiences.

time to go find her and then some good chilote seafood.


Wednesday, February 02, 2005

still in futa

still here, waiting to run the whole river. they say we are going tomorrow. if not, i'm leaving. in any case, i'll be in castro friday or saturday, where i'll meet up with icha. should be wonderful.

time to find the argentinian kayakers and go read a book by a beautiful river.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

futaleufú

so i'm in futaleufú, playing on some amazing rivers. went kayaking for the first time yesterday and rafting today. both boats flipped, but without any complications. i'm doing great and enjoying myself and the beautiful scenery.

gotta run. expensive slow internet.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

puerto montt

i'm in puerto montt (hence the creavtive title) for the day. tomorrow at 1 i take a ferry to chaitén, where i'll stay the night. monday at 3 or so i take a bus from chaitén to futaleufú, which is built next to some of the best whitewater in the world. there i hope to run the river 2 or 3 times, depending on how much they charge for such an amazing experience.


time to go explore puerto montt

Friday, January 21, 2005

first 2 days of traveling:

yesterday i rented a mountain bike and rode about 20 km to some waterfalls called los ojos de caburgua. very pretty, though i was pretty tired when i got there.

today i went to the top of volcano villarrica, and also made it back down. it took about 4 hours to get to the top - not technically challenging, but definitely tiring. it only took about 1 and half hours max to slide down. the biggest slide i've ever seen, and for that matter used, in my life. walking around the inside (and rim) of the crater was incredible. i saw real molten rocks. yay lova. and even sometimes the volcano spit some up into the air. let's hope the photos of that turn out. we also ate lunch there in the crater. such and amazing few of the area.


now i'm off to find food, and in the morning i head to puerto varas.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

travelling, finally

yesterday i bought a bus ticket for pucón. i leave tonight at 9:45 (7:45 EST), and will arrive about 9 hours later, or at about 7 in the morning. that should give me time to find a tourism agency and hopefully go to the top of volcano villarrica tomorrow. should be a fun time - if i'm lucky i'll actually get to see molten rock.

from there, the plans are just an outline. i'm going to go to puerto varas, but i'm not sure how long i'll stay. there i'll look into rafting on the futaleufú and maybe sea kayaking. if none of that pans out, i'll head on to chiloé via puerto montt. in any case, should be a good time.

since i'll be using the internet a bit to email a few people (those who are looking after me ;) i'll maybe give all of you an update.

for now, time to go get ready, buy those last minute items, pack, clean, etc.

Sunday, January 16, 2005

mmm cheese

i got my first package in the mail about a week ago (i suppose, i don't remember the date). the only negative was the postal worker waking me up at 10 AM on a saturday to deliver it. but the package was wonderful - sharp cheddar cheese (which i'd forgetten is amazing), swiss cheese, and colby jack cheese (also incredible), some nice pocket moleskine notebooks, and reese cups. so many wonderful things - thanks again for sending it.

promted by the cheese, i think, i made french toast for icha to try. thankfully, she liked it, and i was happy to have made french toast for the first time ever - it wasn't that bad, which is probably due to the utterly simplicity of the recipe.


i've gone to 3 or 4 street theatre plays this past week. one, called eureka! theatre laboratory was amazing. they did a good job of doing lots of things with limited props, while successfully conveying a range of emotions, with unpredicatble plot twists. so much fun to watch. the others i saw weren't bad persay, just not nearly as good.

yesterday i went to a feria to buy some fruits and vegetables. a feria is basically an outdoor, impromtu market set up on a block or two of a street. i bought a kilo of peaches (peach-bannanas, a variety that had whiter flesh than most peaches), 2 large tomatoes, lettuce, and a green pepper all for $1.15 or so. a nice deal, and yummy too.

alright. not much else going on. just enjoying the summer, trying to make travel plans. i'll keep you informed.


time to make a salad with the aforementioned vegetables, and the creamy french dressing i was lucky enough to find, and some of that amazing cheddar cheese. if only i could find croutons . . .

Saturday, January 08, 2005

address

a new discovery: chile does have postal codes, i just didn't know about them. so here's my address with the postal code:

Lucrecia Valdes 333
Departamento B
835-0485 Santiago, Chile

alright. that's all i've got for now. time to drink some ice water since i've got a working fridge.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

happy new year

yeah, i know it's been a while since i updated this. apologies.

there's new photos in internetland for you to look at, but i've yet to fix them up with photoshop or give them real titles and captions. hopefully i'll get around to that soon. if you have questions about them, just send me an email (note: excuse to get you to send me an email).

new year's eve was lots of fun - as i said, i went to valparaiso (port city, about 2 hours from santiago) for their carnaval cultural. i saw some interesting photo exhibits, a play Beckett y Godot, the band Congresso (one of those aging bands that was popular in the early seventies and forced into exile (in France) by the military regime), and a modern Baroque dance. great fun, and all free, of course. on the night of the 31st, icha and i went to a really cool cafe for tea (they have over 40 varieties of tea there . . . oh so hard to choose what too drink) and then watched the fireworks over the bay from a mirador (one of the places on top of a hill where you have a good view). there were fireworks in valparaiso, viña del mar, and reñaca, the three cities that surround the bay. there were so many people in the streets there to celebrate, and a wide variety of people: kids, teens, adults, and the parents of said adults. after the fireworks we went for tea again - just had to try a different one.


monday i went and saw the santiago symphony orchestra (for free), yesterday Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and tonight i'm going to see the nutcracker (also free).

the apartment is nice, i should be getting a working refrigerator within the next half hour.

oh, i went yesterday and got my formal letter of acceptance from la católica where i'm going to be studying next semester. sure is nice to know that that is finalized.

i'm working on making some travel plans, though still nothing definite.


alright. time to read some of this book my math professor lent me, and maybe do some problems. looks intersting . . .