Simple Pleasures Take 1

I am not entirely sure where the last month (!!!) has gone, but here are a couple of updates I wrote in my last week in Santiago and never got around to posting...

Degu trapping has finished, Tina has returned to the States, I have moved out of our apartment- our home for the last almost 5 months- and am now in a hostel in Bellas Artes. I have 2 fellowship applications, and 7 graduate programs to get out and 4.5 more days. I’m a frenzy of typing essays, requesting transcripts and GRE scores, and trying to organize a few more phone interviews before I leave the very civilized city of Santiago for the unknowns of Arequipa, Perú.

Even though I’m feeling the time crunch, I haven’t been able to kick that habit of luxurious multi-course lunches, one of my favorite things about this city. I have been getting a lot of questions in the hostel- what is there to see in Santiago? What do you do all day? Do you really like this city? Don’t you get bored here? I’m still at a loss of what to tell someone to do who has a week in the city. There are the hills of Santa Lucia and San Cristobal, the museums and parks to walk around, a day or weekend trip to Valparaíso and any of the 3 houses of Pablo Neruda… and beyond that, I don’t know what I would do as a tourist here.

But I can, without a doubt, say that I have loved my time here. I am well aware of what a luxury it has been. Sure I was doing work- though to many the idea of watching cute little animals for a few hours a day doesn’t sound like bad work, and I have to agree with that. I suppose it is the data analysis and writing up that I will eventually get around to that will be more taxing. But the rest of my day really was broken up into what café we should go to and work on dissertation and publications (for Tina) and applications and degu data (for me). It is the kind of thing we would normally do in the office, and did spend some time in the lab here, but really… why not mix it up?

I haven’t been to a Starbucks in 5 months and certainly don’t miss it. I think it makes it more fun to know that Café de la Pausa has a good cappuccino, De Las Artes has a ridiculously rich mocha, at the Flower Shop Café you get a cortado AND slice of cake with lunch, Emporio La Rosa has great coffee (because it must be made with heavy cream) but only for days when it is too cold to get ice cream! SNS is the only place with 100% reliable internet, and of course the nicest people in town. Café Soho has great asthetics and friendly servers, and Tomodachi is the only place to get iced drinks. I love pondering the decision of where to go at what time and on which day. Even more than a coffee addiction, I have developed a café addiction!