We went with Gabi who is now living in his step-father's apartment here in Valparaiso. There were lots of kids and young people and the area for spectatorship was filled by the time the fights began. The first two were girls, fighting what was called "light fighting" and the 2 girls from Sylvain's gym were way under-matched by two girls who looked to be about 14 wearing karate gear and were about as willing to throw a punch or get a kick in as they were probably willing to give up a Saturday at the mall. They just tucked away in the corner ropes and went into a defensive ball. Later I saw them taking a bunch of photos together smiling like teenagers do, and I thought, why did you even bother? When the boys started they were equally gun-shy; what was supposed to be kickboxing was more like scraping, there were skinny boys, and chubby boys and neither were very technical. The third round was a lot better, the guys fighting had visible muscles and were jazzed up, it was really interesting watching them fight, and the technical fighters (even if their level was about what I imagine good high school seniors in the states were fighting at) were exciting to watch.
The last round of the night was wrestling- WWF style- I had watched Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant when I was a kid- I didn't have much interest in it, but I had seen The Wrestler which held serious water as a movie. This however, was ridiculous, their moves were silly, it was pumped for the drama and the entertainment value but it fell flat and we left.
Today we woke up and went to visit Pablo Neruda's other over-priced house which had a beautiful location but wasn't as interesting or nice as his house in Santiago. The coast here is stunning, over-powering and similar to the coast in California- to wake up every morning and see and feel the sea crashing into the rocky terrain below would inspire anyone to greatness in writing or any of the arts.
Afterwards we had a nice late lunch (everything is 3 or 4 courses here- I love it) and we discussed both who we would like to have dinner with in both the dead and alive categories. I said Buddha of course, and Sylvain said Jesus, and neither of us could think of anyone to eat dinner with so I decided I'd settle with someone I thought could make a really good dinner, and so French Chef Paul Bocuse who I take on recommendation from Sylvain, and Sylvain, having similar difficulty deciding on someone settled for Woody Allen- I figured we could make it a double date, because frankly I wouldn't mind having dinner with Woody either.
No comments:
Post a Comment