Fade to Black
Well, my once-loved but now abandoned journal, I suppose an update is in order, as there has been something of a change of plans since last we spoke.
I decided, after a semester’s talking about the international Chile-to-California trip that I was going to do, that I will instead be going home. After months of planning and researching and dreaming and scheming, I’m currently sitting in LAX to catch Part 4 of my four-part trip home, about to rejoin the “real” world significantly ahead of schedule.
And, in between wondering if I’m making the biggest mistake of my life (so far), I couldn’t be more thrilled. › Continue reading
An Appeal For Good Judgement
I apologize for the double pun in the title to this post, but as Bill Campbell says in True Blood,
“You have to remember that most vampires are very old. Puns used to be the highest form of humor.”
While this is no doubt true, I’m not entirely sure what vampires have to do with the subject at hand except that I’ve clearly been watching too much True Blood, so… segue segue segue segue.
The Election, The People, and the Ley Seco
The second round of the Chilean presidential election has commenced today, shutting down the whole country and making today the perfect excuse to sleep in, lounge around, watch tv online and, perhaps, update the blog. The title of this post refers to the “Dry Law” imposed on Chile during election day, which prohibits alcohol sales. I was planning on writing about the election, but I’ve done way more than enough of that, so let’s talk about something else. Really, anything else.
The current plan, as it shapes up, looks like I’m going to be heading to Rio de Janeiro with a friend in early February and ending up in Salvador for Carnaval, which starts on Feb. 12. We’ll spend a few weeks traversing Brazil and then head down through Uruguay, Argentina, up through Chile and to Peru, all somehow within about a month and a half. If all goes to plan, I’ll be back in California in mid-March, just in time for the beginning of baseball season!
My new vice is something called iTunes U, which syndicates lectures from certain (often very prestigious) universities to listen on an iPod. I’ve been listening to an Intro to Psychology from an MIT professor, and I’ve been loving it.
That’s it, I think it’s going to be a short post today. I’m working on getting my Visa for Brazil and organize my trip there, and I’ll talk abou tthat when it’s more concrete.
Ciao ciao.
Podcasts and Other False Predictions
The last two days have been pretty brutal transport-only days, with something like 9+ hours Thursday and significantly more today. Why did I go to Argentina for 15 hours, you ask?
I originally came to Chile on a student visa, which was a long and circuitous process I’d love never to have to repeat (think FBI background checks, HIV test, reams of paperwork, and a nice cash deposit in the Chilean consulate’s bank account). That has unfortunately run out, and in an effort remain as legal as possible, I’m on a bus right now to Mendoza to pick up a new tourist visa.
Mendoza is the border town just on the other side of the Chilean/Argentine border, and quite a beautiful wine-filled area, though I’m only staying the night before heading back. The Chilean government is notoriously apathetic about their visas, and basically anyone willing to pay the entrance fee can get a stamp for a 90-day tourist visa. The “Mendoza run,” then, has become a ritual for foreigners and quite a nice and easy way to stay in the country.
Etcetera, and Such
The last few months have been a bit crazy, which would be an excellent excuse to account for my lack of blogging, but the truth lies somewhere between inertia, laziness and malaise, though I’m only about 2/3 confident about the definitions of 2/3 of those words, so who really knows?
School is long over, though I haven’t the slightest idea how I fared, considering the generally disorganized nature of the University of Chile. I legitimately really enjoyed each of my classes in their own way, and learned a lot, but I find myself complaining about the dysfunctional nature of its administration and habits of its faculty more than lauding the classes, which is too bad, but it’s interesting that that’s really what stuck with me. I’ll do my best in the future to acknowledge the good with the bad the next time an anecdotal discussion of the comparative merits of Latin American public higher education comes up which, knowing the crowd I tend to run with, will probably be pretty soon.
Making Finger on a Big Little Island
Sorry for the oddly timed updates, Internet access has proven to be scarce in this part of the world as I’ve been continuing traveling in the south; my friend Jenà left for a few weeks of sun, family and a bounty of Mexican food.
Our second day on the archipelago of Chiloé was one of the more amazing and memorable of my travels. We left Ancud after sleeping in later than we should have, vowing to visit the town of Degañ and Quemchi in the day, with plans to continue traveling south on the island over the next few days. People we’d been talking to throughout the island had been telling us about the ease of hitchhiking throughout Chiloé, owing to the relative proximity of everything on the island, as well as the friendly nature of the islanders. It was easy and utterly safe, they said, to “hacer dedo” (literally make/do finger) throughout Chiloé.
And the winner is…
Piñera: 44.03%
Frei: 29.62%
Enríquez-Ominami: 20.12%
Arrate: 6.21%
Whatever, close enough.
Understanding the Chilean Presidential Election
Or, how I learned to stop worrying and compare everything to California
People have long compared Chile with California, and for good reason. They are both (relatively) thin, long countries, with every climate imaginable just a few hours away or, to put it simply, where you can ski and surf in the same day. And though I’m especially partial to spicy East Asian food and the occasional (daily) burrito, neither one of which Chile really has in any great supply, its undeniable that the politics between the two areas bears more than a striking resemblance.
That’s right folks, today is Sunday, December 13, 2009: the day of the Chilean presidential election, when millions of Chileans will be streaming to the polls, against their greater apathetic inertia, to cast their vote for the man that will be leading Chile for the next four years. And while the matchup between Chile/California was more similar before Gavin “Golden Boy” Newsom dropped out of the governor’s race, here’s a quick rundown.
Going South for the Summer
With the semester officially over and almost everybody I know gone from Santiago, my friend Jena and I decided to go down to visit the south for a brief time: she´s going home after a week and I´ll be down here for another week after that.
We flew into Puerto Montt on Sunday, arriving around 9 am and immediately blowing that popsicle stand to get to Puerto Varas, a nearby town. Puerto Varas was a charming, touristy town with a surprising amount of German influence: the architecture, the food, the people, everything. Jena, who comes from Austrian stock and is nearly fluent in German, was in heaven when we sat down to a breakfast complete with omelettes, empanadas, and some apfel struedle (delicious). › Continue reading
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