some nothings in chunks

Today, I arrived in Santiago, Chile.

I woke up just as morning began to break, and looked out of the airplane window to watch the sun rise. The land started to glow red; slowly, a horizontal rainbow grew out of the horizon. The mountains glowed red, the sky glowed green and purple and molten, glowing orange. The rainbow started to stretch itself, arcing upwards in the middle, turning newer, more vibrant colors. The rainbow inverted itself: green was now followed by white, which was followed by purple, which was followed by cerulean. And then, I saw Homer's rosey fingered dawn stretch her arms out over the world and watched the world glow egg yolk yellow as the sun peeked its way through the clouds to illuminate the snow covered mountains.

We arrived two hours late due to some nebulously defined “mechanical issues” and I spent less time than expected dealing with the rigmarole of customs. And then, more time than anticipated dealing with the rigmarole of finding my ride, getting phone numbers, calling my mother, and making my way to my old apartment via taxi instead of Pedro's via his car. But in the end, all was well: I arrived, I hopped in the cab, and before I knew it, was in a place that almost hadn't changed since I'd left, my old room.

Flying in across the mountains, crusted with old snow that I somehow convinced myself was sand, I didn't quite realize where I was. When we exited the plane, we were greeted with the familiar smell of winter in Santiago: cold, with the distinctive overtone of largely ineffectual but quite smelly gas estufas, a smell that I recognized immediately as one tied to “novelty” and “adventure” (and sub-zero temperatures). Standing at a public pay phone, typing in the twenty digits required to call home with my calling card was so familiar a task that it was performed subconsciously, via muscle memory. But it wasn't until I was in the taxi cab, listening to the driver chatting away and watching the low-built shops, painted brightly but now peeling, pass by out the windows that I really realized where I was. I was right where I wanted to be: in this marvelous city where you're never far from a world class view of the Andes: