Sunday, 11.18.2012 - 5:13 pm.
Wednesday
Andrew, my friend Anita and I made it to Vi�a del Mar at 9 am. We'd travelled all night since 11 pm and sleeping on the bus was quite a pain all over the body. The knees, especially. We met Andrew's boss and friend J at the bus station. The four of us were staying at an apartment we were renting. It was on top of a hill, with a wonderful view of the city by the seashore.
We didn't have a lot of time, though. We were there to attend the national psychology congress. By this hour it had already started and I had to give my presentation at noon. We cleaned up and took the metro to Valparaiso, that's right nearby. The metro is by the coast line so is such a nice ride. Even though I made it on time, we were slowly learning that it wasn't easy to move around town and public transportation wasn't very reliable.
My presentation went ok, I got more questions and congratulations about it than I expected (I expected none). Then I realized I hadn't eaten since last night at 8 pm. It was almost 2 pm by now. We grabbed a bite nearby and walked around sighseeing until it was time for Anita's presentation later in the afternoon.
The city is built upon hills so you walk up and down (with a lot of effort if you're not a local). The streets are small and like a crazy maze. We walked around some more after Anita's presentation and the four of us went to the supermarket to fix quick meals at the apartment.
Then we took the train back to Vi�a and went home. But Anita, Andrew and I went out for dinner with a high school friend of mine. Unbelievable, I hadn't seen her in a decade, since we graduated. She's living in Vi�a and we found a place that was convenient for her and for us. The pizza and the conversation were great, I really enjoyed catching up with her, seeing how well she is doing, and introducing Andrew and Anita to someone else from my country.
However, after dinner, we said goodbye to my friend and we waited for a collective cab. And waited, and waited. We went to get a cab to the same spot where we got one earlier when we came from the supermarket. Nothing. We called three taxi services and nothing showed up. We were in this unknown and also suspicious neighborhood, not wanting to move an inch. A taxi arrived, finally. We'd waited for almost an hour and a half.
Thursday
We had a wonderful breakfast at the apartment, and then headed downtown Vi�a to look around and visit the amazing Easter Island museum. We also stopped by a store so Andrew could buy a jacket, because he didn't bring one thinking, hey, we'll be by the beach. We all thought the same but I still brought a jacket. Indeed, we didn't see the sun and the weather was very chilly.
And suddenly, we were late. We had a light lunch at the apartment and Andrew and I dressed up for our conjunct presentation at 2:30 pm. We went on our way to Valparaiso and the metro was 15 minutes late. That messed up our schedule. We made it to Valparaiso very late and then we couldn't find a collective cab nor a taxi to take us to the top of the hill where the congress was being held (in a former prison, by the way; it was creepy and cool). We ran a few blocks and Andrew crossed a street without looking. I spent the rest of the day traumatized by that because a bus was coming a few feet away; he wasn't in danger at that distance but shit, he was so out of his mind for being late that he just wasn't looking.
He was in charge of this symposium, he'd organized it. It consisted of a few studies made by our classmates in a class. And the professor teaching the class is Andrew's thesis professor and also his boss in the research project he's been in for years. Such an embarrassment to show up late to this gig and before her eyes. Luckily, first, one of our classmates took over and ran the symposium and second, the professor didn't show up. That made Andrew relax and we simply presented our own study at the end and not at the beggining as scheduled.
We got over that and went to lunch. Other people, fellow psychologist friends joined us, and the rest of the afternoon was to walk around, do some shopping and go for coffee. We decided to have a light supper at the apartment, to avoid getting stuck outside without a ride like the night before.
Friday
I swear I checked the weather forecast the day before we travelled. It said it'd be sunny and warm. Hell, no. It was cloudy, not a ray of sun was seen on wednesday and thursday and it was a bit cold. Then the forecast said it would rain on friday. Oh, but of course: it rained.
Andrew had a presentation at noon and we decided to take it easy that morning, not doing anything else. We left the apartment with plenty of time and we were punctual. He did his thing, all suited-up and handsome, but the timing was horrible and the whole symposium lasted like two hours.
Anita, Andrew and I went for lunch afterwards, to a beautiful caf� that had a table with real-size statues of poets Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral sitting at it, looking at the menu and having a cup of coffee. Then we headed to Neruda's house in Valparaiso, an impressive five-story house on top of a hill, with a view to the entire city. The view of our apartment paled in contrast. Not to mention the amazing treasures he collected throughout his life as a diplomat and poet that travelled all over the world and had countless equally resourceful friends. So I met my goal of visiting his three houses! I went to the ones in Santiago and Isla Negra a year ago. I fist-bump myself *fist-bump*.
Then we returned to the congress to pick up our diplomas. We had our bus back home at 9 pm and needed to go back to Vi�a to pack up our stuff. But we bumped into Andrew's professor, who treated her entire research team (and Anita and me) to coffee. I had an uncomfortable moment about my vegetarianism with someone at the table, because she asked questions not trying to understand my choice, it seemed, but to straight-up dismiss it. All because Andrew and I were not picking up meat bites from the dish and eating something else instead. Someone pointed out at that, Andrew said yeah, we don't eat a lot of meat, and he promptly moved on to talk about something else, but these people didn't. And thus: why, since when, and protein, and the teeth, and plants also feel. It was really uncomfortable and I was apalled by the way they just repeated pseudoarguments (Oh, plants have nervous system? Really, they are also in the animal kingdom?). Nobody was telling them they shouldn't eat meat, and yet here they had no problem grilling other people about their dietary choices. Fuck you and your fake interest in plants' welfare.
After that I was happy to leave for Vi�a. I remained upset for a while. I was also worried I had lost my temper in front of Andrew's professor and with her niece, the one saying these things (though other people would chip in saying other things, and that made it difficult to keep up with the ideas). Andrew said I lost it a little but that was it. He's always encouraged me to speak my mind, he once said it was a good thing because people otherwise walk about life not encountering any kind of resistance so they think theirs is the only side there is. What a man he is, eh.
Oh, and at last: the sun came out! We could see it from Neruda's house in Valparaiso, warming up Vi�a. Boo-hoo. So when we got to our apartment in Vi�a to pack up our stuff we were finally able to see the city under the sun. It was so much nicer.
And then we almost missed the bus because the taxi we ordered never showed up. And two other taxi services weren't picking up. No collective cabs were driving by. Shit, shit, shit. By chance, a different route of collective cab drove by and lucky us, it made a stop closer to the bus terminal than the one we'd planned to take.
So we hopped on the bus on time, I slept like crap and by 7:30 am Andrew and I were home. All rushing aside, the trip was a success!
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