tercer día -- parte dos

((read the first part of the viaje below!))

bueno...panamá hacia santiago. we flew copa to escape taca's four-part 24 hour journey that we took 2 years ago. this turned out to be more of an epic than before. at least they fed us. even if we didn't eat the food cause it was nasty. but at least they fed us.

got to panamá, no problem. casí no dormí but i figured i would sleep on the longer flight to santiago. tonta yo. just remember, when you agree on sitting in the last row, the seats don't recline, and there are ALWAYS people waiting to use the lavatory. they like to lean their elbows on your shoulder while they wait for the lavatory. pues, i didn't sleep much.
al fin, santiasco, lleno de smog. no really, it was rather endearing to fly over that city...the same way i feel when i fly over DF, a sense of nostalgia and fondness. tuesday evening. spent about an hour going back and forth between booths of bureaucracy in the airport attempting to argue our way out of paying another $100 entrance fee. americans have to pay this "reciprocity fee" when they enter chile by plane...the US makes them pay igual. however, we paid the $100 two years ago, and were told that it would last the life of our passport. now they said that since we had entered on a student visa two years prior, and now we were entering at tourists, we had to pay again. we tried our best, but after visiting 5 different booths and pleading our case to the immigation officials, we had no case. thus, we exited airport with $100 less and a recovery of my chilean accent. yay.

finally picked up our mochilas, loaded ourselves up like llamas and walked out the curb to catch the centropuerto bus i am all to familiar with. sivan was impressed with my recollection of geographical details and logistics. i feel like the geography of this city is so firmly etched in the folds of my brain i couldn't shake it if i tried. i think i inherited that patch of grey matter from my dad. the feeling i got on the streets of santiago was one i had not anticipated in the slightest. tranquilidad completa...as if i had just gone on a weekend trip and here i was again. excitement, yes, claro que sí, but more calmness. algo raro. trekked from los heroes station the 8 blocks to the hostel. we'd never stayed there but it remained like the last time i had been there, gigante, social and full of adventurous european, american and australian tourists. a few brasileños too. they lost our reservation (yay) and as we exhaustedly pondered the options (breakdown or regreso) they found us beds. we ditched the mochilas and went to eat empanadas (que rico) and drink real cocacola in the plaza.

wednesday was spent wandering the streets. cerro santa lucía. cafe cortado. jugos naturales. bellavista. micros. y el accento. i couldn't walk the street without giggling, hearing the accent that i had strangely missed in california. one major difference: the yellow micro buses of chaos were missing...in their place clean white buses with a green diagonal strip down the side. where had the micros gone? (our friend said those white buses were merely the only ones painted over "this is chile" he said,"what do you expect!") we arrived just in time to witness el gran cambio de santiago: transantiago. the micro system had been nationalized, and the chilean govt was attempting to organize and make sense of the mad anachic micro system. organize means reduce the number of buses and bus lines, regulate a schedule and bus stops - thus hoping to reduce pollution and present chile as a more civilized country though a regulated system of transportation. the result: complete chaos. there were not enough buses, huge crowds of people waited at every "stop" (there were never really bus stops before, you could flag down any bus anywhere on the street before), and the buses were full to the brim - we're talking people crammed against windows, bodies hanging out the doors. in addition, they didn't want people to pay in change on the bus anymore - they wanted people to buy a re-chargable card with money on it to speed the process of boarding the bus and making the job easier for the drivers. the problem with this: the card-reading machines were not working. thus, for the past five days, riding the micros has been completely free. the bus lines were cut to a quarter of the previous routes, thus people now have to take three buses to get to a destination where before they could take one. meanwhile they had created a new line on the metro that reached new neighborhoods "de la clase baja" como dicen acá...and there's propoganda all over the street picturing smiling fair-skinned chileans offering to share their metro with you. how gracious. however, the metro doesn't get you all the way home, and after cutting so many micro lines, people have to improvise and fight their way onto a micro just to get to work. on top of all this, they introduced the accordion buses to the avenidas prinicpales and they are getting in accidents left and right. i'm not sure if the conductores just aren't used to driving such long buses or what but at three people have be killed this week in micro accidents and many have been injured. thus, the word on the street, at all times, wherever you go, is what the %&¿! is this transantiago crap?? no sirve para nada. caos completa.

there's my editorial on the state of santiago. jeez i'm long winded. see i told you i'd make up for days of no contact, if anyone has read this far even.

how do i feel? stangely at home. sivan and i thought nobody really cared we were returning. when we started phoning friends and family wednesday night everyone was worried "¿que les pasó? ¿cuando llegaron?" -- and everyone wants to see us. so we've been running around seeing friends and it's been great. i was really worried about my spanish and about coping with the chilean accent/slur/lack of words de nuevo, but surprisingly i feel more confident than ever. i finally feel like i can throw myself into a conversation with chileans with little fear of being verbally trampled. don't ask me why porque no tengo ni idea de donde vino esta confianza but i'm glad to have it. i think the secret is not to focus on the words but the slurring. if you can fit an entire sentence into one syllable, chileans will understand you.

it's really wonderful, de verdad. right now, i'm happy. it's summer, i'm already sunburned, and we're in chile. all is good in this hemisphere.
thanks for reading all this.