Flushing...

Yesterday I tried to go to spinning twice- the first time I was an hour early, so I went home, when I went back, I got there too late and there were no bikes left. So when I came back home, I made Sylvain do a pilates video with me I had gotten in Boston- I had done this video with Schuyler's sister in law and I had remembered it being somewhat challenging. I remembered wrong, it was the pilates equivalent of yoga in Chile. But it was fun to do together, Sylvain is as sporty a person I know, but was not stretchy or flexible at all.

When I moved in with Laura in brooklyn I noticed that the toilet often went unflushed- as in: "if it's brown flush it down, if it's yellow, let it mellow". As green as I aspire to be, this was too much, sad, but true, I couldn't handle pee in the toilet. Once I arrived in Chile, I change my mind some. People that don't move out of the way and walk properly annoy me most, but the flushing situation is a close second here in Chile. The flushing situation is somewhat distinctive to our apartment, but here it is- we don't have much water pressure in house, of course for each flush we have to turn it on and off, but the reality is, if it's brown, its hard to flush down... I haven't lived here long enough to know one way or another- but the bottom of the toilet is completely dirty brown- I once asked why it wasn't clean since we have a cleaning woman and Sylvain suggested the water was heavy with iron- but I knew this wasn't the reality because our cottage had iron water and our toilet turned rusty but then we cleaned it back to white again. I'm pretty sure the bottom of the toilet stays brown to mask the lingering deposits that haven't been able to push themselves through the pipes... but I'm not entirely sure which came first, the chicken, or the egg... Since the toilet bottom is brown anyway, we don't throw paper in, and flushing means bothering to turn on and off a pump, I have resorted to considering flushing yellow a needless endeavor. That's just two more germy handles I didn't have to touch.

One of the weird goals I had in coming on this trip was to live less materialistically I guess- I mean thats not exactly it, but I wanted to bring just enough clothes, and to not need to bring more than a handful of clothes back because they had mostly been worn out or donated. For the most part I can see this is going to be a successful exercise because already I only have one pair of jeans left (the first to expire were white and died a sad death of wine stain last week)- this morning I took my second pair of pants out of the dryer to discover a larger whole in the bum. I've also worn out a cashmere sweater that I bought for Char's wedding in April, and then pretty much didn't take off. Most of the other clothes I brought with me can be considered lightly soiled- the kinds of things I wore to work a lot as an art teacher- a skirt with a small paint stain, a shirt with a small paint stain, well, they're all paint stains so I need not elaborate. After packing my apartment up I realized with disgust, just how many clothes I had, and I had decided not to buy anymore (really) until I had worn through (not just brought back to my parents for storage) at least half- or one garbage bag. The same can be said for shoes, it's pretty clear 3 or 4 won't hit American soil again. The sad part of all this is- to me, it feels so good to wear out my clothing, but even my worn and stained clothes would likely be mended or bleached to death to be worn until almost threadbare.

I know most people that read my blog haven't been to Chile, but I'm wondering if there is anywhere I have to see before I leave. Sylvain is being super annoying pinning down an actual Mendoza itinerary and I was hoping to go to Buenos Aires or Salta on my own after spending a couple days in Mendoza with him. But in the meantime I'm thinking I should try and find some interesting day trips or overnighters in Chile... Any suggestions???