MeMag - Me Magazine

I spend more and more time by myself in my room. I like it there. Ideally I would wish that I could find the energy to read a little in some of the books I have brought with me to study, but I mostly just sleep, eat and watch movies on my laptop. I did go out once today to a library café in a stylish building in a small park. People check out books and study either inside or outside while having coffee. I stood for a while studying the sign over the café counter which said “SILENCIO” in large angry letters, wondering how I would order something without speeking. I then changed my mind about the entire study idea and went home and back to bed instead. I’m on vacation. i can do that.

I then made a tuna salad lunch, warning labelled the bowl so that vegan Susy wouldn’t accidentally become an accessory to my dolphin murder, and then finally baked a cake for us both. All day I forced myself to wait for her to return before attacking it. Around 10PM I remembered that Susy is never home on Saturdays as she takes care of her invalid father all weekend. Good persons apparently do things like that. So I ate cake alone which wasn’t nearly as lonely and sentimental as it sounds. Just as I was finished, Susy came home anyway so I felt a bit stupid since I hadn’t waited. Luckily there was some left over.

Susy’s eating habits are centered around new agey type foods. There is a loaf of stale bread baked by rastafarians which I haven’t dared try yet. I call it Rastapan. It has a ballpoint drawing of a third eye or something inside a pyramid on the brown paper wrapping. Everything else is also pretty much hippie food. Everything has poppy seeds in it and comes from special places. A bag of salt isn’t simply salt. It is bio… something salt. There are countless herbal teas and vegetable meals containing mostly squash. I think it’s cute. Unlike certain other women I know here, she is not fanatical about my inclination towards dead animals. She even recommends meat dishes and restaurants where carnivores like me can hang out and sink our fangs into some defenseless little animal.

Susy’s sister came by with a girlfriend. They also appear to be feminists. Their car had started steaming just around the corner and they rang the doorbell to see if this strange foreign man now lodging with Susy could help. he couldn’t. Being an actual product of feminism, I know nothing about cars. I can however bake a decent cake. They discussed among themselves the strange fact that I do things like put things back into the refrigerator after I’m done with it. No Chilean man has ever done that apparently. “The Norwegians are all very orderly”, the girlfriend said. “It’s true, that’s how they are”.

As we went out to look at the overheated car, I brought an oven mitten with me. I though I might use it to unscrew something hot. There my contribution ended. I knew not what to unscrew. While the girls consulted a real man, one of the ones who cannot return things to refrigerators, I stood in the background, shamefully trying to hide my silly oven mitten behind my back. Not once did anyone in a trembling desperate voice cry out for cake.

Suspicious alien food item with warning label

I showed up at E17s yearbook ceremony in my new suit after spending at least an hour on my knees in front of the absurdly low bathroom mirror trying to shave with my new discount electric razor. M’s plan had been that I go to the apartment and meet the young one and then walk with her to the school, as M herself would not be home. This of course would not come to be. E17 had upon hearing the plan expressed a wish to go with her mother earlier in the evening instead of walking there with me. And M would be there hours earlier than me since she was helping with the preparations.

For some reason it was important to M that I arrive 45 minutes early. The reason for this was never clear to me, but why fight these things. There I stood outside of the school waiting for M to come out and collect me. Which of course she never did. Instead E17 happened by, thereby confirming that she had never arrived at the school earlier with her mother at all. Now she came over and stood obligingly beside me, her eyes scanning the area for a way out. We exchanged a few sentences which went fairly well. She looked thoughtful and serious. She then politely asked if it was OK with me if she went inside, which it was.

The yearbook ceremony wasn’t too bad. Boring speeches, but short ones. It didn’t take long. I also got to see M in something beside Birkenstock sandals and khaki, which was very strange. She also held a speech, the subject of which I didn’t quite catch. It was about something like spreading your wings and flying out into the world. Afterwards we hung around for over two hours. M talked to fellow parents, the kids signed yearbook photos and I walked around by myself, trying and failing to get some decent photos of the old beautiful school buildings.

Finally everyone went home. By then E17 suddenly seemed a bit hostile towards me. I gave her the bag with the graduation gifts and she basically said “hrmf” and walked away with it. I don’t know what that was all about. Perhaps she had seen me take photos of her school and students and was ashamed of me or perhaps she was just tired and in a bad mood. I’m a bit beyond caring about these things anymore. I will not see them again for a week I think, when there will be another graduation event.

Meanwhile I wonder if I will be allowed to look at this precious yearbook thing.

Some shots of the college and of kids signing yearbooks

I did buy a suit eventually. Susy kindly offered to go with me and thanks to her patience and advice I was able to look a little closer in the corners of some of the department stores close by.

I settled on an asian type suit where the buttons go all the way up to the neck. Not only does it make me feel more like Jet Lee than a banker, but it also had the welcome quality of being a $69 outfit. First I had tried an almost identical but far less attractive design without really falling for it. As I was leaving I spotted this one hiding in a corner behind some other clothes. By then I had also found that all the other ones I thought looked ok were impossible on me, arms not reaching much further than the elbows. And legs way above the ankles. So I really had no choice anyway.

It still had to be altered to fit me so we visited a seamstress nearby. She was very strict and business like, the queen of her shop, making people wait outside while she took her own good time to finish their orders. Still, when I later returned alone to pick it up she was suddenly very friendly and talkative. She wanted to talk about football (Soccer). As I ran out of interesting things to say about the sport after about two words, she started asking me about the sport in “my” country, Baseball.

I told her that I wasn’t from there and she was very surprised. “But you have a face like a g… like a… from there”. “You mean I look like a gringo”. “yes, you have the face of a gringo”. The alterations cost about $5. I will probably have to make new ones soon as I spend most of my time here eating. I really cannot stop. Gatsby up the street has 13 different cheesecakes on the menu and then there is Bravissimo with all their dozens of ice cream flavors and pancakes topped with various unhealthy things. All indecently good. I’m doomed.

The suit. And inside it a poser posing in his room. I’ll probably delete this tomorrow when it hits me how corny it is. Heavily color edited to disguise the fact that I am at the moment tomato colored. There is no end to my vanity

One problem I have with the graduation ceremonies I have to attend later this week, is the formal wear. I don’t have any. Now I have to buy a suit only for two nights. I could either buy a cheap suit and discard it afterwards, or a nicer more expensive one that I can bring home and keep using. The problem is that all cheap suits here are grotesque and all the expensive ones are not nearly as nice as the ones I could buy at home. And of course… I would never voluntarily put on a suit anyway unless something like my daughter’s reputation depended on it.

I have so far been to every place I can think of to look at suits, without finding anything I would like to present myself in. There is one I don’t think looks so bad, but it will cost me a few hundred dollars with a shirt and tie to go with it. I guess I will probably go for that one if it fits well.

My hunt for elegant clothing made me set out on an expedition to a shopping mall the size of a small country. I have been there before and thoroughly hate it and the people who shop there. Despite my previous visits, I managed to get completely lost on the way, even though I asked several people for directions.

I was first told that the easiest way of getting there was to walk from the metro station, about ten minutes. The young woman who told me this immediately switched the conversation to English once I had phrased my question in Spanish.

After walking in the sun along the highway for ten minutes I came upon a sign confirming that I was on the right track. I figured that a ten minute walk from someone giving directions equals about twenty in real life so I kept on walking. There was only one straight long road after all. After a good deal longer than ten minutes there was a fork and the sign for the shopping center now pointed to the right. I followed it and continued straight on in that direction for at least twenty minutes more before realizing that the jungle of glass skyscrapers that signify the right area, were getting farther and farther behind me.

By then I felt that I must be going the wrong way, but at the same time it would be stupid to turn around and go all the way back in case I was really close. I had after all followed the sign and kept on the one long street all the way. And there were no one around to ask as only a complete moron like me would walk for almost an hour by the side of a highway when the sun is at it’s absolute zenith. I walked on.

A bit later I finally saw someone but he turned out to be having a loud argument with himself while also singing and gesturing wildly. I walked quietly on. Most likely he had started out sane, looking for the same shopping center. The next guy seemed normal so I asked him and he explained in detail how to get there. In the direction I had come from. This he did in absurdly bad English even though I had asked in Spanish.

The directions included going through the park on the right hand side but of course the park was closed and I had to go all the way around it. It was a huge park. When I was halfway around it I saw something that had to be the mall on the other side. I had clearly started going round it the wrong way. Had I gone around the left side it would have been a great deal shorter. But now I was at the middle. I walked on.

Finally I reached the place after maybe 1 1/2 hours of walking. I was completely exhausted. Since I desperately needed something to drink I sat down in a café but after ten minutes I realized that they just didn’t want to serve me. I walked on. In the next café outside the mall I sat down and had a divine milkshake. I had a nice parasol over me giving me shade. Suddenly a oldish man and his wife appeared and just took my parasol and started hauling it away. I was speechless. They struggled with the heavy thing but eventually managed to drag it over to another table where they sat down under its cool shade. I was now in the sun again. I paid and walked on.

Someone I passed laughed openly at me. Rich people. I probably looked a bit worse for wear although the patches of sweat had now dried. Nevertheless I felt a bit too unpresentable to try on any suits in the most snobbish place to shop in town. I left, but of course I couldn’t find the bus stop. Eventually I asked someone who also immediately switched to unbelievably bad English. Apparently everyone thinks that my Spanish is so awful that they need to turn to the five words of English they know.

I also asked a guy if the next stop was the right one to get of on. And he switched to English. This phenomena persisted. In fact besides Susy and her boyfriend, I have only talked to one person all day who hasn’t immediately switched to non-existent English.

A fairly uninteresting shot of some buildings. This was more or less all the highway had to offer in entertainment. I saw some nicer ones later but by then I was too tired to take out my camera

On Sunday M and I went to the Feria (market) to look at weird things. You can find anything at the Feria, including in this case a full orchestra in tails amidst the dust and poverty and homemade shacks.

After a while M got really tired and in a bad mood so we headed home in a taxi. She had already nearly gotten us into trouble by pointing her fingers like a gun at a young man in a car, miming that she shot him. This was because he was parked and the car stereo was playing loud music. Ma said that people who played music like that was violent and should be executed. She also said that he was a drug dealer, something she could apparently tell from his taste in music.

The taxi driver decided drove really slowly so as to make sure that all the lights were red, or so M said. I didn’t really notice any odd driving patterns. Maybe he was driving slower than necessary and maybe he wasn’t. In any case she asked him to drive faster and he didn’t answer. Instead he slowed down even more. He kept staring silently ahead. In any case the journey didn’t come to more than $2 so for me it is fine if a few percent of that were due to the lights like M says. I think he probably just reacted to her tone of voice.

Speaking of taxis, I have discovered that the prepaid limo service that M had employed to collect me at the airport wasn’t prepaid at all. I just simply didn’t pay him. I wonder if that will have any repercussions. Even if it doesn’t, I feel bad for the driver who may have to cover the loss himself. $20 is a big chunk out of a driver’s pay check here. Chilean taxis remain a mystery to me. Some of them are regular taxis while others are shared among the people like tiny buses. They are all black with yellow tops. You’re simply supposed to know what type it is, I suppose. Although some of the collective taxis have signs on their rooftops stating their route if they have a regular one.

Buses are now completely impossible to take. Transantiago, the public transport company, hasn’t just decided to quit their buses and metros early in the evenings. They have also removed all signs from all bus stops so that there is no way to tell where any bus goes or when it arrives. Since there are many bus shelters on each street, each housing just one or a very few bus routes, you have to stand in one bus stop to see which bus stops there and then walk on to the next and stand there until some bus stops there. And so on. You also just have to know that bus number so-and-so goes the way you want since there are no tables listing the stops. Some metro stations have also taken down the signs saying which platform you need to go to in order to get to your desired location.

Back at the apartment, we had lunch. E17 sat down at the table wearing face paint, resembling a Chinese opera mask. Red and black. She was also wearing the dress I had given her earlier, so maybe it wasn’t a complete miss after all.

Admit it! You have always wanted a signed picture of Erwin Rommel for your living room wall. Get it at the Feria

And so it was time for the first of many graduation ceremonies, the Cacharpaya, which is an old Andean word for a send-off or farewell party. Each year the graduate students from various levels from the high school Liceo Experimental Manuel de Salas prepare their interpretations of traditional dances from various regions of Chile. These are performed by the students for their parents and schoolmates.

E17 was nervous about her upcoming dance performance and also troubled by the fact that her usual designated school dance partner had freaked out completely on campus a few months earlier and yelled various things at everyone before walking off never again to return to the school. She was talking to herself in the bathroom mirror. “I’m ugly and I can’t dance… but it doesn’t matter”.

We walked down to he school and found good seats by the arena. There were a lot of relatives there, but I didn’t find time to talk a great deal with most of them since I had to try to snap some pictures. However I was completely blinded by the sun and couldn’t see what I was photographing properly. There is also a delay with my camera when using the fill in flash so that virtually all of my photos were of dancers with their backs turned or already mostly out of the frame.

But it was a nice ceremony. I was left kind of envious of the students who are able to go to a school where there is some sort of community spirit. It’s like visiting a university campus in the late ’60s. Everyone seem to know each other well and cheer each other on. A gym teacher gave a speech and everyone booed him. Perhaps jokingly, I don’t know. But there is a kind of bold revolutionary spirit that is unheard of in Norwegian schools. You can see banners with slogans. If they do something they do it together and stand by each other. Something alien to me from my schooldays.

Someone offered to take my picture with my daughter which was nice as she went along with it without protest. I even got the feeling that she welcomed this excuse to have me put my arm around her. As did I. Two people have used my camera to take a picture of me so far and they have both decided to push the small button which says “power” instead of the large rather obvious button which looks like something you press to take pictures. I haven’t said anything in either case as I found it enjoyable to see them look at the camera lens suddenly disappearing, think for a while and restudy the power button and then conclude that yes, that was probably a successful photo.

After the Cacharpaya we went to a Sushi place where the women stuffed themselves with the awful cold fishy rice that Chileans adore. M enthusiastically made me try her new favorite beer which is a low alcohol beer, presumably for women. It has honey in it and tastes absolutely disgusting! It was almost as bad as her other favorite drink, Fantaschop, which is 50-50 beer and Fanta. Reach for your buckets.

Cacharpaya 2007

Cacharpaya 2007

Cacharpaya 2007

E17’s grandfather trying to keep a composed front while hugging her after the ceremony

I finally had an appointment to see my daughter (now referred to as E17) and M on the evening of day 3, but around 8:30 PM she called me and asks if I would consider seeing them the next day. She phrased this like we never had any appointment that same evening at all. “Are you doing anything tomorrow?” That sort of thing. The plan was now that I would go to their apartment and spend some time with E17 and her boyfriend, who is apparently quite nervous about meeting me, before M would arrive home from work. Bad idea. It would just be awkward for everyone. So much so that if such a scheme were to be laid out for the teenagers, they would probably just fly the coop rather than to be alone with me.

So the next day I arrived at M and E17’s apartment about 15 minutes after she had said she would be home. I wasn’t really consciously trying to avoid being alone with the teenagers even though I was reluctant to be so. I was simply late although perhaps not really, going by Chilean time. E17 of course pulled the same trick as me and arrived a safe half hour after me. hence awkward silences were avoided.

Unlike the last time when she couldn’t look at me at all, she seemed very relaxed and open now. Even smiling. I wasn’t nervous either for some reason. I had brought a few ice breaker gifts, but I felt that they perhaps missed the mark a little. Teenagers change tastes quite a bit in two years.

One would think that such a dramatic buildup of a meeting would lead to some great anecdotes of awkwardness and embarrassing moments, but it was all very natural and ordinary really. I sort of have a son-in-law now it seems. Really my first thoughts on this is that I like him. With a nickname that translates roughly to a trunk of a tree or a thick stick, I was sort of expecting some sort of greasy latin porn star. But he’s not like that. More like me really, only probably a nicer more mature person to be in a relationship with. He has really long hair and plays guitar in a band. I think the nickname refers to snoring or something like that. Even so, she should be fine with him if they do stay together. A lot of people here marry their high school sweethearts. She does seem to boss him around quite a bit tho, and if she doesn’t ease up on that she will eventually be alone like her mother.

M cooked raw aubergines with undercooked soy meat substitute inside and some melted cheese on top. Nobody seemed very hungry when this was served with proud gusto, but the obliging and polite boyfriend even had an extra helping while probably seeing his life flash before him. He looked worried but mother-in-law M was pleased. We’ve all been there. The perfect boyfriend routine. M milks that for all it’s worth and has the poor guy run errands for her. Anyway the meal didn’t taste nearly as bad ad I thought it would. After a few protests from E17 it went back into the oven for another fifteen minutes until it was actually cooked.

Nothing else really happened during this dramatic reunion. The kids went back to E17’s room after the meal and I talked to M for a little while and then went home. As the boyfriend also had to get home, I ended up walking beside him all the way to the metro station which is on the way to his house. So we got our awkward silence after all. I knew it was up to me as the parent to start any small talk that needed to be spoken. But I didn’t want to ask him what he was going to do now that school was over or anything corny and parenty.

We talked briefly about the subway system instead. Exciting stuff. He seems very intelligent. Also he attempted to speak English which I suppose is a gesture to show respect towards me. Unlike most people here who have suddenly switched to broken English, he manages to do this without making it seem like it is a last desperate means because my Spanish is so bad. Which of course it is.

Since they have modernized the public transportation system, everything now stops running at 11PM. All over the city. When I got to the metro station a little before that time, they were already closing it down. There was still one last train leaving ten or twelve minutes later, but they had cleverly decided to shut down the ticket office anyway and post guards at the turnstiles, thereby make sure no passengers without a prepaid card would jump over to make the last train. People with only cash were stuck.

There are some odd things going on with the public transport workers here since they will now for instance see someone approaching the ticket booth and then simply turn their back and start reading something for a minute so that the customers have to wait. It seems to be on purpose. Another thing they do is to count money, taking all the time in the world. Every day I see someone very slowly counting and re-counting a small stack of maybe ten bills while a line of stressed commuters wait. And there are buses not picking up passengers and so on.

I tried my non working card again and now suddenly it worked. I was one of 4 lucky latecomers to get home that night. I did have to walk the last 3 stops after my change, but that was just pleasant in the evening air.

People dozing on the last metro home, having probably worked all day and evening

My room is next to the elevator shaft and there are long filthy cables eerily scraping the inside of the well just behind the wall of my room, inches from my head when I sleep. It actually makes more noise from this side than inside the elevator. Luckily I still sleep like a baby, not counting the 4 times I had to go to the bathroom during the night. That has to be a record. I didn’t even drink excessive amounts of liquid yesterday. I only had two glasses of juice and two small coffees all day. Probably the early symptoms of some grotesque infection about to set in.

The shower appears to be designed for midgets. This is to be expected in a country where I could pass for a basketball player. I have to kneel down in order to get my head shoulders beneath the water level. The shower head is fixed to the cement wall and cannot be set higher. When kneeling down, half of me is outside of the tiny shower space. I keep trying to picture what it must look like from the other side of the curtain, should someone walk in. A hairy white ass sticking out of a bright green shower curtain. (I apologize for that image). Still, it is a friendly shower, quite comfortable for up to several minutes after the water finally gets warm and before it turns scaldingly hot. The solution seems to be to stand outside the shower for a minute, then jump in and shower as fast as humanly possible while halfway crouching down.

The toilet seat and lid cannot stay up. This either has something to do with the feminist propaganda posters all over the walls of this flat, or the fact that the bowl is leaning forward. It is so low that holding the seat up is impossible and if you sit down the seat falls and then lays across your back so that it feels like the clammy old toilet is trying to hump you.

Chilean restrooms are still a mystery to me. Especially the public ones. You can go to the finest restaurant and everything is kept at a high standard out front. But once you get to the bathroom, you will find toilets that don’t flush, doors that are ripped off, never any paper towels and various floating things that you probably don’t associate with a nice restaurant visit. Nobody is bothered by this however. Only the over-sensitive types like me. I think it is because the average Chilean family is so big that nobody is used to ever having any privacy anyway.

I’m already getting tired of certain aspects of life here. A woman at the call center around the corner gave me back far too little change today and when I politely commented on it, she gave me an indifferent “Yes I know, so what” type reaction. That was for a while enough to convince me that everyone in the city were out to cheat me. But really they are in no way any worse than my own countrymen.

My new subway card doesn’t work. It is a card that can be charged with whatever sum of money one feels like depositing. Mine says “invalid” when I try to use it, yet I am charged for one journey each time. There are places to complain but they are conveniently located outside of the central parts of the city. Everybody’s cards work except mine. I cannot help but take things like that personal and feel like there is something wrong with me. It is so frustrating to stand there like an idiot not being able to get inside.

My old enemy the cell phone is back in business after two years in a drawer, yet after three days I haven’t received a single call even though several people have promised to contact me. Either it doesn’t work or I am simply not very popular. I have tried calling out and everything seemed to work fine. Making a local call on a cell phone here is more than twice the price of calling another continent on a regular phone line. yet people are as attached to their celulares here as anywhere else. I’m convinced that I somehow have a phone subscription where the calls themselves cost a fortune but you get a free Llama every month or some other advantage I don’t need. It cannot be right that four minute phone call should cost the same as a hot meal with coffee and dessert.

Day three and my family still haven’t had the time to see me. I spend all day alone and the only place that is livable for an extended period of time is the apartment. I’m trying to read but it’s hard to concentrate while being tired all the time. There is not a lot to do when one has the energy to do nothing. The wireless network only works once in a while. Outside everybody stares at me and if I try to ask for something they look deeply worried because a strange foreigner is talking to them in his foreign accent. Things generally turn out OK, but I feel very unwelcome some places. Already it’s becoming more and more attractive to simply stay at home.

So far I have tried to have each meal outside and in a different place. It seems like there is one restaurant here for every five or so people. I wonder how they can pay the rent of their very central locales. You may for instance find huge places that have around three guests who eat very little and stays very long. One could easily fit five modern businesses in there and still find space for the three guests. Yet these old places seem to prevail. While out walking without a map, I stumbled upon the legendary Bar Nacional which I spent a lot of time looking for the last time I was here. Great food, great locale. It was suddenly just there beside me, far away from where I thought it should be.

Susy the landlord also showed me a twin of the best restaurant I visited in all the 4 months of my previous visit. A second branch. Two years ago I tried one bite of their vegetarian Lasagna that someone else had ordered and I have been fantasizing about it ever since. Now I finally had a chance to get my very own portion and it was just as perfect as before. The place is just up the street from here but I should probably fight the temptation to eat there every night as it is a bit more expensive than most places I’ve been to.

The bizarre looking ceiling lamp is now swinging back and forth after a tiny earthquake tremor. Time to go for another walk before the building falls down on me.

Various shots of Bar Nacional. One of two twin ’50s diners that offer a huge selection of popular dishes served by veterans in soda jerk hats and bow ties. Culinary life does not get much better

Spotted in: Santiago
Message: Unknown

The bars in front are real bars and not part of the piece. This was in an escape-proof private parking lot. Lots of high metal fences and chains and locks everywhere

My return to Chile took some 31 hours door to door, not counting the weeks of preparations. All in all a shorter trip than I had imagined and one without any noteworthy details, except for some general sleep depraved borderline madness. There was a five and a half hour layover in Frankfurt where I found a nice isolated corner to sit in with my back safe from any possible attacks by any figments of my imagination.

By then I had eaten my way through anything being sold at the Frankfurt Airport (with the exception of Frankfurters, by which I mean the hot dogs and not the locals.)

Corners are always points of attraction to people who are maladjusted. I was presently joined by an orthodox jewish man who looked like he could be in his mid twenties, yet waddled along like some sort of geriatric penguin. He kept staring at me, mouth half open like he had never seen people in the outside world before. it could of course have been the outfit since we were almost identically dressed, except that instead of rocking back and forth and praying like he was, I was attempting (and failing badly) to spin a playing card on the tip of my finger. I bet he can’t do that either. Maybe he was trying to figure out which branch of their religion allows for card games.

I thought of the possibility of the plane crashing into the Andes with no rescue party ever arriving. Discretely I was assessing my co-travelers to try to determine which of them I would rather eat after a few weeks of starvation in the icy mountain cold. No one looked especially appetizing.

The plane didn’t crash. Nor did I. I still cannot sleep vertically. This time I had an arsenal of eye masks and inflatable pillows and ear plugs. But the only effect was to make me feel like a very boring performance artist.

Upon arrival, just after I had successfully smuggled the cheese past the customs officials and their big sign warning of fines for master criminals like me, I was surprised to find that M had made good on her promise to send a driver to pick me up. There he was, uniformed and holding up a sign with something remotely resembling my name. I only stopped to read the signs because there were so many of them. Dozens of people were being picked up by dyslectic drivers with signs. I wish I had taken a picture.

My guy drove me to the correct location, even though the woman I’m lodging with had actually given me the wrong street name. My second surprise was when i found an over-enthusiastic doorman who had keys waiting for me. My landlord had told me in an email before I left home that she would not be there. Being a fundamentalist pessimist by nature, I had imagined being locked out and eventually collapsing in the street from exhaustion.

And there were instructions. Even a map pointing me to my room. It is nice and colorful. The curtains have red, green, orange and turquoise stripes on them. There is an odd lamp and a bright green beadspread. Somewhere an interior designer is laughing insanely. But I like it. Like all Chilean homes, it looks like an office with a few dots of strong color thrown in just to confuse you.

My building has two elevators. One, quite logically, only goes to the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 6th floor whereas the other equally logically gives you a free choice between the 1st, 3rd and 5th floor. This my mumbling doorman hinted enthusiastically to me by telling me that since the right elevator was occupied, I should take the left one and then go down one flight of stairs. Having said “huh?” the first two times he told me this, I smiled and nodded the third time. And of course, once the odd layout of buttons was laid out for me inside the compartment, I figured it out. WHY is still a mystery.

I think that to the doorman, my arrival represents the most exotic event he has experienced in his career of buzzing people in and out. We now have a little daily race going of who will get to the elevator button first. He likes to push it for me. I like to push it myself. Since I am several decades younger than him, he wouldn’t have much of a chance had I not decided to let him win. I’m not used to servants. I feel like I’m in a vertical version of Driving Miss Daisy.

Since all I have really done here so far is sleep and eat, I guess that I have Jet Lag. Which is fine. I enjoy both eating and sleeping.

Lamp, blinds and curtains. Colors are unedited. Honest.

Small photos: 1.Writing on my laptop in my room (shadow) 2.Green beadspread