wrap-up party, santiago

The last day in Santiago was eerie. Much of this was certainly caused by my lack of sleep. There was much rum - here in Chile I can stomach this kind of alcohol, it`s drinkable like water from an old faucet with its personal aroma -, there was much cold, and there were shifting combinations of friends in the famous apartment - I slept in between so I wasn`t too attentive.

Then we watched two movies at Festival "Cine B". Nobody has explained to me what the "B" stands for but I will wait to ask until my own, wilder theories have settled down a bit. One was a short film which abruptly and frustratingly stopped in the middle of things, and a feature filma bout a day in the life of a family of Chilean peasants, or "huacho" (that was the title of the film). This one had been at cannes, but I wasn`t smitten - it certainly had nice images but dragged on painfully - first we see the grandmother`s day. Then we see the mother`s day. Then we see the grandfather`s day. Then we see the son`s day...

The atmosphere was invigorating and energetic yet I almost dropped from lack of sleep. I had had to pick up my Ersatz passport at the German embassy on their generous opening hours 9-12, four times a week. This time the embassy was packed, including 10 nuns, all of them old, funny and German. "Ich kam fuenfundfuenzig nach Chile..." a ball.

Entering the Santiago streets after the movies felt like stepping into a war zone - or like Kreuzberg on the 2nd of May. Some Chilean socker team had won against some other Chilean socker team, and everybody seemed to think it was time for a statement. I blame partly the incessant loop of and the live coverage of Michael Jackson`s funeral. I saw that girl cry for her dead at least seven times, and it was surreal before that number. The guys of the apartment were watching transfixed and commented rather bitterly.

the idea was to get four hours of sleep before getting up at 4.30 to get to the airport. Yet the apartment hosted a friendly and lively political roundtable (or so it seemed from listening to them), which meant sleep between 1-3am, approximately. Remarkably, everything worked so far, despite the dazed state of mind and body (yes, I can hear the loud coughs of all you fresh parenting people, but I don`t have a baby - and hence the incentive and the hormones - so I am amazed..)