this morning i dropped off my uruguayan hostal-mate and his girlfriend at their new apartment here. they also offered me some mate, which tastes worse than it sounds…well, as far as i’m concerned, they could call it ashtray juice and it still wouldn’t do the drink justice. but it’s probably me, since i don’t like a lot of things…and they love it so much that, from uruguay, they brought a special goblet and silver straw to drink it with. afterwards, i walked around the center a bit, checking out a couple museums…and whatever else was open (it’s a national holiday, so 99% of the city is closed today). i’m not sure if it was the extreme-walkability of santiago or the miserable, gray, rainy weather…but, today, santiago reminded me a bit of boston. because it rains so infrequently here, it seems that many of their infrastructures are not as well equipped as you might think — take calle alameda (one of the major arteries), which is a good road (so people drive relatively fast), but has huge puddles, resulting in water splashing 10+ feet high; or the art museum, which has small pools of sawdust in the lobby to absorb the water leaking from the beautiful (but old) glass ceiling.

tonight at lunch/dinner, i started with a soup and almost realized that joke from the end of Coming to America…but afraid that it might not translate, i just asked for a spoon.