srah blah blah

Day 9: 18 June 2002 - "Overspecialization leads to death."

So says the main character in Ghost in the Shell. I like to think that that's what Liberal Arts is all about. End rant.

I woke up a little before ten in the morning and lazed around for a bit. After a while, I realized a soft vibration and couldn't figure out why the bed was jiggling. Then I heard something else rattling in the house. Voices called from the other end of the house. "Do you feel that?" Pato asked. Then I realized that it was one of the seismic tremors Pato had told me about. They happen quite often in Chile - the earth is never completely still, but a few times a month you can actually feel the movement. When it settled down and we turned on the TV, we found out that it had been a 6.3 earthquake in Region IV.

We went out into downtown Copiapó and I admonished Pato for succumbing to what we call "The Martin Effect". It comes from Me Talk Pretty One Day, when David is on the Paris Metro with a couple of Americans who mistake him for a Frenchman. One of them, Martin, talks loudly about David, assuming that David can't understand him. In the book, David points out something along the lines that it's not like English is a language spoken only by anthropologists and small groups of cannibals. We keep finding ourselves walking down the street, talking loudly about things we wouldn't normally say so loudly in the US, just like Martin. Ah, Sedaris. You are so useful in everyday life.

I also remarked upon the school uniforms. All public and private schools here have their own distinct uniforms. I think that would be quite fun in the US, but I'm not sure it would fly. If anything would make it work, I think it would be the connection to Harry Potter, because every time I see a Chilean schoolkid with a little crest on their sweater, I want to look and see if it says Gryffindor.

We went to Pato's friend Froilan's house. They did a lot of talking and reminiscing, and I wandered off in my mind. I often do that when the topic strays from What I Know How To Say. I went somewhere else in my mind and let them catch up. This is a fine system, until someone addresses you and you have to admit that you weren't following anything.

We came home and I started working on typing things up for the blog. When I typed about the toilet water in Chicago, we realized that we were nine days into the trip and hadn't checked it out in Chile yet. So we went and flushed it and realized that Chilean toilets don't really go in a circle. It's more of an in-out kind of thing, with less spinning. So we plugged up the sink and tried that and discovered that the water went clockwise, opposite of the Chicago toilet. So there you go, Bart. You were right.

srah - Tuesday, 18 June 2002 - 10:11 PM
Tags: chile, travel

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