homeward bound: The Final Chile blog

28 Aug homeward bound: The Final Chile blog

It was another late lazy morning. Hey, give me a break. We were on a tight schedule for 6 days! Breakfast at 8am!

I sat in our windowsill, read, and drank the complimentary coffee. It was peaceful and relaxing looking out at the mountains and down on the people going about their days. There wasn’t too many people out…probably because it was Sunday.

Eventually we wandered next door to a breakfast type spot and had some brunch. I had a quiche and salad. The salad was sliced tomatoes, avocado, and iceberg lettuce all neatly arranged like the slices of a pie. The tomato and lettuce were pretty gross. Perhaps it’s the wrong season for them? The avo tasted super good on the quiche though. Of course we each had cortados. It had been pretty clear that this was going to win out as the trip’s “Official Beverage.” (narrowly beating out rehd-büll)

We took a walk to a park I’d seen on the free hotel map. We saw a place to hop over the fence and in the spirit of adventure took it. The park didn’t seem to be a normal park, we saw a few clay tennis courts, then a few more, then a gated entrance. Oooooh maybe it’s a private tennis park? We shot a little film of people playing on these brilliant brick red courts w/ the grey Andes looming behind them. Then we sauntered out.

Along the way back I started taking picks of all the footprints, tire tracks, and paw prints in the sidewalks. I’d NEVER seen so many. All around Santiago people just walked through wet cement. They weren’t even writing their names or drawing bad anarchy symbols – they were just wandering through.

Somewhere along this road we also saw a guy trimming his lawn…with hand shears. really?

We got back to the hotel and were a little early for our airport departure…but we didn’t really have enough time to do anything besides check the intertubes and leave. So we did.

The route back to the airport was super easy. No losties.

Along the way, we drove past that section of river w/ all the trash on its banks. And there were multiple soccer games going on next to it. And the people watching the games must have been cold…cause they were burning the trash. Multiple open trash fires in a major city. Hmmm…might have something to do with why the air is so polluted.

We were too early for Delta. We couldn’t check in. The girl told us to come back in a couple hours…not that there were CLOCKS anywhere or anything. sheesh.

So we went to a little cafeteria type place and played some table football. It was a pretty close game. heh. I don’t think I’ve played that game in at least 10 years. It used to be the default thing I’d do whenever I went to a restaurant.

Will ordered a pepsi and a milkshake. They were both pretty gross. I had a glass of water and a beer. The water was totally undrinkable…probably why the other drinks were so foul. The water in our hotel was good…and the water in Farellones was awesome…but not at the airport.

Eventually we could get in line. It was a pretty massive que…since no one could check in early. Thanks Delta. We met a painter named Steve. He split his time between Studio City and Santiago. We chatted about a variety of things. One of the more amusing moments was when we told him about the Chileans complaining about other people’s Spanish. He laughed and said they had it all turned around. THEY spoke bad Spanish. If you wanted to learn it, he recommended Columbia.

Past security we had a pretty sweet meat sandwich and papas fritas meal. Some young American kids came up and talked to us. They noticed us in line with our snowboards and wanted to know about our trip. See – that’s a normal travel sort of experience.

After that we had just enough time to buy some Lucky Strikes and head for the plane. We’d be waking up in Atlanta.

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Atlanta was pretty miserable in the morning. Hot, muggy, and we waited in line after line. It took forever to get our bags, then to get through customs, then to get ALL my film and their cardboard boxes individually swabbed for explosives.

One guy did come up to us and ask if we were Pro Skaters. That was kinda cool. The rest of the time we occupied ourselves by planning what scams we could run to get to “Easy Street.” Most involved slipping and falling and then suing “Atlanta” or “Chile.” There were some other ideas…but I’m not posting those on the internets for people to poach!!!!

We were really pushing the time to make our connection…we didn’t do the “Home Alone” run through the airport, but we moved as quick as possible. We didn’t get food, go to the bathroom, have a smoke, or get coffee.

On the escalator up to our gate there was a woman blocking the entire step. I said “excuse me.” She turned and looked and me, then turned around and didn’t move. I said it again.

Then we tried it in: French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Japanese.

That’s SIX languages. She didn’t move.

We got off the escalator and walked quickly past her. I walked a *little* too close and “accidentally” ran over her foot with my rollie bag. Oops.

Will was proud.

Buuuut. We missed our flight. Epic fail Delta. Epic fail.

Well at least I rolled over her foot. And we now had time to get some good ol ‘Merican breakfast; bacon, eggs, and grits!

Delta squeezed us on the next flight. The guy next to me freaked out whenever we hit turbulence.

Soon we were back in 90+ degree Los Angeles, sweating our balls off. It was just a little bit confusing to go to sleep in Winter and wakeup in the middle of Summer.

A cab ride home, a shower, a short rest, then I took Will back to the airport. On the way home I stopped at the Apple store and got a new iPhone.

Bitchin’ Eagle bro. Bitchin’ Eagle.

-Lukw

p.s. Stay tuned for the Super8 film coming soon…I think I finally found a track to use…