fleeing the country

I am definitely loving Santiago and Chile a lot more than I was post-Buenos Aires. Still, I need a vacation! The Transantiago mess is just getting crazier here, with riots and demonstrations all the time. I'm getting tired of hearing President Bachelet make promises to end the madness, because I feel like a lot of this is her fault. The smog was so bad earlier this week that the government declared a pollution emergency. Today it is sunny and warmer, but for the past few days it has been cold and gray. I finally finished and turned in my last midterm, so it's time to go to the beach. I'm flying to Rio tomorrow morning and coming back on Tuesday morning (Monday is a holiday here). I definitely want to see lots of sites, do lots of shopping, and party at lots of clubs, but if I just end up laying out on the beach and enjoying the sunshine for five days, that's fine with me. No more exciting news here, except that almost half of the Stanford group is sick in various ways and I have managed to evade it (knock on wood). So, today I'm finishing up some work, exchanging some money, and saying goodbye to Santiago for a few days.