Friday

I took things a little easy today. I was tired from staying up late the night before, and spent some time working from the hotel. I spent the afternoon visiting potential areas to live, and think if i had a choice i would choose padre hurtado norte between alto las condes and los dominicos. The metro goes all the way to los diminicos which has a very nice artesania, playground, and of course the mission dominicos. Alto las condes is just like a US mall. And it has Jumbo. You can buy everything in Jumbo, kind of like walmart, only the employees have all their teeth. I bought a bunch of kuchiflies and manjar to bring home.

For those who have not been to santiago recently the metro has been expanded. It goes to los dominicos, la reina, puente alto, and soon maipu (not your poo, my poo). This is what it looks like, but because they changed the way that you pay for it, tarjeta bip, you get free bus rides with a metro ride. For such it is full of people, at times you have to do a 32 buck trap or 54 full back dive just to get in. Since i have not seen Kelli for a couple of weeks, i have enjoyed the intimacy with the complete strangers, especially those sweaty construction workers returning after a day in the sun.

I spent the night with mis papis, Manuel and Maggie. We sat around the table and had a three hour "once" (I wonder if at one time it was 11 hours long, another mom joke). It was so fun to talk about life, religion and the pequena gigante (The giant puppet). A french theatre group has a 33 foot tall marianette doll that strolls through downtown Santiago. They were interviewing people about the event, and they asked one guy how much he was sending his souvenirs for. He repsonded rather quickly calling the reporter crazy if he told him, he didn't want to get robbed when he got home (asi es). After once, manuel and maggie walked me to the bus stop, it was a sad walk because it may be a while until we see each other again (though not 10 years). It was really hard to say goodbye, they will always be in my prayers.