It´s been really nice in Santiago lately. It seems every other day is blue skies and the nights are crisp and cold just how I like ´em. The birthday party on Friday went down fucking wonderfully, as all of my housemates heard me muttering repeatedly the whole night through with a glass of wine in my hand, "Best birthday every, best birthday ever..." I even got my hangover out of bed on Saturday morning at the shockingly early hour of 11 o´clock to go to the Bio Bio street market and got some books and some music and these carmelized almonds that are like crack they´re so good. I wish I had some right now. I´ve been reading this book called Tengo Miedo Torero by this Chilean journalist/author named Pedro Lemebel. He´s a transvestite who wrote this book about the 1986 assasination attempt on Pinochet by some university students through the eyes of the Loca del Frente, a transvestite who´s in love with one of the students named Roberto and lets him store all the supplies that were used to make the rocket that was used to try to kill the Chilean dictator. Sounds a right show, eh? It´s funny, I´m gonna head home right now to read some more of it.
In food news, yesterday I made the best batch of hummus that I´ve ever made in my life. I think only half of it is left now, but traditionally good hummus is supposed to be eaten quickly and give me gas, of which this hummus has achieved both with flying colors. oops, there I go again. Also, the vegan chocolate cake I made for my party on Friday went horribly wrong which was kind of frustrating considering I´ve made the damn thing 5 times with no problem. Oh well.
Lastly, at 2:30 this afternoon my housemate John boarded a plane heading back to Wisconsin. On board the plane with him was Puma. It´s sad, last night after we got home from the bar we sat around in the kitchen giving goodbye hugs to the cat since none of us will probably ever see him again. Our house is kind of falling apart. John and Kat (who leaves tomorrow) were part of our crew of this past 6 months who were known for spending countless hours watching soccer matches and playing hungover soccer in Intercomunal Park. Along with them you´ve got me, Reinhardt, Diego, Leo and Esther. Christina´s a new recruit who moved in a month or so ago and had made a nice late addition to Team Salvadore. Esther left a few months ago but she´ll be back for 4 months in March, Reinhardt heads north to Mexico in September, Christina´s off home on the 15th of next month, and this scares me because after Kat boards her plane to Germany tomorrow I´ll officially be next to go on the 13th of August at 3:45 in the morning. It´s kinda surreal. I´ve spent this whole year with the comforting thought of how much time I still have before going home, and suddenly I´m waking up every morning closer and closer to Reno. I´m gonna try not to get any more melodramatic here, but basically it´s saddening. Olivier the Frenchman who shares the first floor with me and I both agreed yesterday that the only cure for the Goin´ Home Blues is thinking a lot about the next trip. As for me, the next trip will hopefully be going to Ecuador in January for a couple weeks to meet up with Caro. I´m probably gonna have to pawn off some of my record collection to pay for it but god damn hell it´ll be worth it. Okay, off home to read and eat hummus.