Concepcion y talcahuano

I am sitting in a desk chair in an attic staring at the computer screen and listening to the ocean wind knock against the windows. Seagulls pass across the computer screen as it reflects the sky behind me. It rained this morning and now the sky is patched with grey clouds and open blue.

On thursday, I took a five hour bus to Concepcion with my Poli`s (pollo`s), one of my sisters, boyfriend (pololo). He goes to university in santiago for architecture but his family lives down south and he visits them often. I am stayign with them - a 25 year old sister, 20 year old brother, mother (named cecilia, as is my host mom), and jose, who is 23. They are all really nice and entertaining and, again, more hospitable than I can handle without feeling a bit guilty. The house is amazing! depending on how you count it, it could be 6 stories. It´s basically one big stair case, which to me explains why jose is studying architecture. many small wooden levels and twisting stairs and little doors that lead to other rooms and sort of other leves as well. each room is at a different level in fact. And it sits on top of a hill, of san francisco-esque steepness, looking over the port of talcahuano. There are swarms of seagulls and in the evening, if the wind is right or you are driving, you cant escape the smell of fish being processed. its very powerful, heavy, and you can almost feel the salt particles in your nose. its very windy too so the seagulls can pretty much pull up a chair, plop down, and stay aloft until the smell of sea creatures draws them to the water.

yesterday we went to quillon, about an hour and a half drive through forested hills. Actually its somewhat similar to what ive seen in vancouver where on one side of the road you can see pristine forest. out the other window are bald bounding hills. a paper factory owns a large portion of this forest, which is the largest in all chile. you can see it billowing smoke from a distance because no trees remain to hide its menacing stacks. they call the factory infierno - hell. we went to a camp ground that an uncle owns near a lagune. Jose was working to construct a new building out there, applying his fancy architecture computer programs to the project. alfredo, the 20 year old, and i hung out most of the day. he is really into capoeira so he taught me all about it. i am now invincible.

of course, a ton of food and i told everyone that i would never eat again but ive already had to recant. the stand out dish was a cazuela, which is a great brothy soup wit chicken and potatoe and cilantro. its definitely one of the national dishes, and i was reading that it is especially so because it blends spanish and indigenous elements. food and language both especially seem to separate classes. we identify with them very strongly and an almost constant basis, repeat repeat repeat until you dont notice them until theyre not there. everyone ive eaten with here so far eats really fast! i cant keep up. and a ton of sugar. i really like onces, which is tea snack time around 6 in the evening. they eat these flat frisbee shaped white bread rolls and yesterday in the country they made them in a little brick oven outside. really good when hot! sometimes i don´t know what im eating, which is highly amusing for everyone. in buenos aires i had a dish that many cultures make but that i hadn´t ever had. i didn´t know what it was so it was pretty good. dried blood. and yesterday i was afraid to eat this jelly looking stuff called membrilla because the cognate would be something like membrane. but i found out that its just a marmelade and that membrilla is a lemon like fruit. its now my favorite bread topping. they also eat palta, avocado, on everything. i was already really full before writing and now im about bursting. i hope the airline doesnt mind that on my return flight im going to weigh 25 pounds more.