Last you heard I found some mountains. I guess I’ve left a lot out.

I’ve been skulking around Santiago for the past week. That’s just how it is sometimes. Even though I can’t stop coughing, I’m doing well.

The program I’m in divided us into groups and assigned us professors. They’re in charge of orienting us with Chilean culture and transitioning some of us into the language. We’ve been doing a lot fo (so awesome) guided tours and looking like gringos.

Monday I took a tip from another student about a pool hall off of the Manuel Montt metro stop. I made a fool of myself playing 8ball alone on a 10foot table in an enormous space or the ten of us that occupied it. I decided not to go back to that hall. It’s kind of sketch by night anyhow. Besides, they don’t have any real tables so I don’t have any business there.

Tuesday I pulled an awesome prank on one of the coordinators by stealing his suitcase and papers. If you had listened to him drone on about security for hours like I had (actually I napped), then you would understand how big a heist I pulled on him. Whatever, you weren’t there.

Wednesday I wound up at another pool hall in a shady basement somewhere close the University of Chile, and a church that I refused to enter during our tour (for religous reasons). Lots of smoke, and lots of men watching other men play. Lots of men. Women don’t play anything in Chile from what I’ve seen. I took a kid from the group for his pride, but he had “me playing on this ****ed up table…”

Oh, before the pool hall we did a tour of one of Pablo Neruda’s houses, La Chascona. Every room has its own building and view of the cordillera. Furniture from all over the world, generally eclectic decorations and oh yeah a Nobel prize in a showcase to the side of one room–not the center of attention at all.

While we were there I met the fastest Castellano speaker I have ever encountered. The latina girls in the trip were grinning with me while he rattled off facts about the bulidling he supervised and answered questions that our professor knew the answers to. I asked him if he spoke as fast in English as he does in Spanish. He responded back faster in English then I think I might speak sometimes. French, too, it’s all the same to him apparently. Must be nice.

Today we had a sociology professor speak on the integration of indigenous cultures into the urban populations, and observations about the Chilean population as a whole. It was a good segway into the movie, La Machuca we watched about two boys form opposite sides of the tracks that make friends. A few people actually cried. I gave Fearless Jenny a tissue.

I ended up buying it later in the day, but on VHS. I’ll try to find it on DVD. I bought two other Chilean films for a rainy day. At lunch, we talked more about Chilean cinema. Here, if a movie sees 250,000 sets of eyes it’s a blockbuster. There haven’t been that many. Apparently most movies are only distributed on a few reels and passed around the country. Post-production costs are prohibitve here, and when exported to Spain, for example, the content is lost in translation. I’ll get back to you on the other films.

Did I mention I found Chess? One of the plazas has a bustling Chess community. You pay 300 pesos (~$.60) for the right to play until close at 9pm. You basically rent pieces and pick a table. I’ll get better pictures eventually but you can see one in the the “Chilean” gallery of men huddled around an interesting game. The first time I showed up there were about fifty guys chessing, and another round number spectating. I lost all day long today.

I’m saving the last episode of LOST. I’ll still have Smallville, but I realize now that once I finish those shows, that’ll be it–I’ll be disconnected. At least until I can torrent the new seasons ‘-*.

I’m starting to slur my typing. It’s time for bed. I’m almost used to waking up early now. “A new fantastic point of view…”

I know the gallery script is corrupted. I don’t want to fix it right now.

Goodnight.