Vamos Chilenos

A more detailed entry to follow, but for now, I NEED to do a bullet-point list of stuff I have seen/heard here in Santiago today that has pulled at my heartstrings:

• the Chilean futbol cheer -- Chi Chi Chi, Le Le Le, ¡VIVA CHILE! -- in the metro
• a little kid asking for a completo (hotdog smothered in mayonnaise!!)
• the funicular at Cierro San Cristobal -- so rickety, so wonderful, so Chile
• Tobalaba metro stop
• Che Legarto Santiago -- I didn't go inside because it was in a weird area and looked unfriendly so I just looked at the outside
• Escudo
• the clubs and bars in Bellavista with names like "Aliens Nightclub" and "Crazy Bar"
• empanadas -- huge, fried, dripping with oil and deliciousness
• zoo with crazy parrots and foxes and things
• a guy with two llamas that you can have your picture taken with!!! I resisted, but barely.
• YELLOW MICROS!
• paying billions of pesos for things -- a granola bar today cost $200 pesos... the bus costs $350.... have NO idea what the exchange rate is but I do know that I am confused
• lapis lazuli stores
• "Si po" and "aaaah, ya."
• Jumbo, in all its glory
• 2 hardboiled eggs and a cup of tea with Marg for breakfast
• CHULLETs galore -- for those of you out of the Chilean hairstyle loop, this term refers to the Chilean mullet, which can include anything from a full-blown, business front/party back, South American mullet to a slight, semi-mullet with assorted rat-tails/skinny braids springing from various places on the head. Men, women, kids, everyone here has a chullet of some sort, it seems
• Juanes "A Dios Le Pido" playing at a bar in Bellavista

Oh man. Lots of love for this city. However, I have decided that tomorrow morning I am going to Mendoza for a few days to meet up with Ambra, Tony and Marko, some peeps I met in Buenos Aires. As much as I love Santi, I don't know what I would do here for 4 more days, and I reallllly want to go to Mendoza and drink wine and see some people my own age. I am excited already.

I am near the Cierro San Cristobal (at the Baquedano metro stop) at the moment. Now I am headed to Tobalaba to check out the area where I used to go to school and stop at the supermarket for some palta, pan, and peru, just like old times. Chau chau.