Elections

Today were presidential elections. There will be, as everyone knew there would be, a second round on Jan 17 to decide between Frei (more left) and Piñera (more right). I went to the national stadium, where there is a massive congregation of voters, to check it out. It's an event! It's outdoors, with more than 100 different lines, dogs, lots of kids, vendors selling hats and water and parasols and cyclists driving rickshaws. Entire families go together, which seems quite different than in the US. Sunday is always the "day of the family" so lot's come after church or before family lunches or pass the day in the park together afterwords. Felix and I were interviewed twice, once by a news station and once by El Clinic, the equivalent of The Onion in Chile. I suppose we are interesting because we are obviously foreigners exploring, and we didn't see any other obvious foreigners. I think also in the US they would never let us wander through the voting lines taking photographs of the whole process. My favorite part of which was a man selling florescent parasols. (Trying to play Cartier-Bresson:)







Here's an appetite wetter from el Cajón del Maipo last week with Mom:



Trying to slow the spinning inside my head as I listen to the car horns chant election enthusiasm in the streets outside my window. Tomorrow I leave for Mendoza, Argentina and the bureaucracy, photocopies, and date restraints are crazying me.