la chascona

...paz para los crepúsculos que vienen,
paz para el puente, paz para el vino,
paz para las letras que me buscan
y que en mi sangre suben enredando
el viejo canto con tierra y amores...
("que despierte el leñador," canto general)


^graffiti across from la chascona, showing parts of neruda's poetry and the incredible chilean landscape that inspired him^

pablo neruda has always been my favorite poet, and today i came to love him even more. becky and i enjoyed a spring-like saturday afternoon walk in bellavista, with la chascona as our main destination. la chascona is the name of neruda's santiago house, built as a secret retreat for he and his then mistress, matilde, who was called 'la chascona' for her wild curly hair. the house was absolutely in every way reflective of neruda. nestled into the side of cerro san cristóbal on the edge of funky barrio bellavista, la chascona's various different buildings are connected by crooked staircases and hidden patios. neruda brought his love for the sea to urban santiago, building his home around a small spring so he could always hear the sound of water, and finding old ship furniture, wood, and windows to fill the rooms. la sala del capitán overlooks the front street to see what's ahead, the study's walls are covered with old nautical maps, the living room is circular with full-length windows like a lighthouse, and the dining room's too-low ceiling makes you feel like you really are out to sea. the creaky wood-floored rooms are filled with paintings gifted to neruda from his artsy circle of friends and an eclectic hodge-podge of objects from his world travels, that somehow inspire creativity rather than clutter. in short, a house so unique it could only belong to a poet. seeing la chascona just makes me even more anxious to visit isla negra, neruda's most favorite and most beautiful house.

other things:
--today i encountered the first and only sign of recycling that i've seen here thus far:

on the one hand, i'm glad to have found any hint of effort, but on the other hand i can't believe this is all i've found.

--yesterday i discovered that it only takes about 30 minutes to walk from my house to the metro, so now i plan to swap walking for the bus whenever time and weather permit. with not a lot of free daylight time/lung capacity for running, my hour's worth of walk today felt wonderful.

--also not a far walk from my house, there is a starbucks that is bigger than any i've ever seen, which is saying a lot. analis' and my new amigo chris the barista informed us that it also boasts free wi-fi, so i think i'll be spending a lot of my study hours there :)

--yesterday i got to know a new part of santiago, courtesy of my chilean amiga alexandra who invited analis and i to her house to cook almuerzo and charlar de la vida. with the lovely music of violeta para in the background we had a really interesting conversation about education/social classes/politics in chile, then headed to a previa (pregame) at her friend's apartment, and then off to a fiesta cubana put on by la chile. unlike cultural events at georgetown, huge amounts of people came out for the $500 peso ($1 USD) mojitos, live cuban salsa band, and after-hours reggaeton dj. all in all a great night of dancing and meeting new chilean amigos, all de muy buena onda and incredibly welcoming. only bad part: my voice today is literally raw from the amount of second-hand smoke i inhaled. cigarettes are very much socially acceptable in chile- no, more than acceptable, extremely common. i guess chileans haven't yet gotten the memo about how smoking kills you, hmmm. but even among people my age, the vast majority smoke, so i'm trying to find the happy medium between not breathing and dying of lung cancer. we'll see how that goes. i feel very very lucky that my host parents don't smoke, and that i have a smoke-free house to come home to where i can immediately chuck all cigarette-smelling clothes into the laundry basket and shampoo the smoke out of my hair (even if it may be 4:30a.m.) before getting into bed.