the latest

So I don´t know why this keeps happening, but I´m getting to know the city by going places two days in a row, whether or not I really want to. So for instance, on Saturday, Sonia (my host mother) told me and Lelia that Las Condes is where it´s at, with this cosmopolitan feel because they have all this international food, etc. and all this "movimiento" at night, when the movies let out, etc. etc. WELL, I guess she really likes the mall or something, but I could have been spared the wasted taxi fare (it´s super-suburban, I should really explain this...but there´s not really any other way to get there at 12am on Saturday night) each way. Yikes. Yeah, it´s nothing I wouldn´t have seen in any US suburb, including the TGIFriday´s, Benihana, Starbucks, mutiplex movie theater...YUCK! So we got the hell out of that creepy place.

How do I explain Las Condes? You should get a map of Santiago, because the city is incredibly interesting, sociologically. The closer you get to the Andes Cordilleras, the richer it gets, so that, as my Lonely Planet guide puts it, that comuna is where "any Santiaguino with aspirations wants to move." It´s where all the high end hotels (they always talk about THE HYATT, THE HYATT!) are stranded, and all these terrible malls keep popping up. It looks nothing like the rest of Santiago, because, well, it´s ugly and car-centered, and sterile, and clean, and ABURRIDO!

Anyway, so the next day, I thought my friend Tae told me that we were going to meet in Providencia to head up to San Cristobol, which is a park overlooking the city, but I misunderstood, so I ended up going back to Las Condes yesterday, to TWO malls. It´s really the only kind of shopping, besides the street vendors, that is open on Sundays in this Catholic country (though I´m sure most stores were closed in the US yesterday, too...). So what did I do? Bought lots of cute Chilean-styled clothes at the many "liquidaciones" at the stores. I haven´t gone for the Chilean mullet yet (oh, but I will--it´s bacán, en serio!), but I´m definitely branching out. I´m sure you care.

Now, for something a little more interesting (CAN I JUST SAY HOW ANNOYING THE STUDENTS FROM THE US ARE, WHO ARE SITTING NEXT TO ME IN THIS INTERNET CAFÉ, YELLING ACROSS THE ROOM AT EACH OTHER ABOUT THE BUSINESS COURSES THEY PLAN TO TAKE HERE. ARGH. GIVIN´ US ALL A BAD RAP). In this ritzy neighborhood where I live (Providencia), practically everyone has a "nana," or cook/childcare provider/gardener/laundry mavan/general slave. It´s really weird, I´m not sure if I mentioned that there´s one who comes to Sonia´s departamento, too. She´s super nice and will do anything for me, but it´s so creepy. And all over town, you see these women (all of them more Mapuche-looking than Spanish, unlike the rich folks who hire them), taking care of these people who of course couldn´t bother to take care of themselves...OK, I´m being a bit harsh, but it´s WEIRD. The main reason I find it weird is that they all wear these aprons over their clothes, no matter what they´re doing; like a uniform. I dunno.

¿Qué más? Well, I started to plan my vacations, which are coming up right quick, I tell you. They originally told us we´d have two weeks in July, but now it´s just one week, so I´m planning a whirlwind tour of Perú, including, of course, a short trek through Machu Picchu. I also get a week in September, for Fiestas Patrias, so I´ll go to Bolivia then. I cannot believe I get to do all this! It´s very exhilarating, except that I wish I had more time. And of course I also have to find traveling companions. I´ve made lots of friends on the EAP program, but I can´t say I´m dying to travel to Machu Picchu with 20 people...There are worse problems to have; I´ll figure it out.

We have a long weekend coming up, wherein we have to travel outside of Santiago, and do some kind of cheesy investigations to report to the class when we get back. So five of us are going to La Serena, which is one of the oldest cities in Chile: very colonial and beautiful, from what I´ve read. And very close to the factory where they produce Pisco. Yeah, you have to try that. The national drink of Chile/Perú, but there´s some controversy about where it originated. Anyway. So that´s where I´m going this weekend. Which is good, because I haven´t left the city yet, and when we get back, we only have four more days of class, and then ¡vacaciones!