26.11.01 - 5:34 p.m.

The lonely planet guide to Santiago is a piece of shite!! Wayne Bernhardson, if I ever see you on the street I�m going to kick your gringo ass! I'm so tired of going to places listed in the guidebook, only to find that they are closed or nonexistent or in a totally different place than where it says on the map. Here�s an actual quote from the book�s credits:

"Lead cartographer Chris Gillis drew and corrected the maps with little fuss. He reported to senior cartographer Tracey "T-Rock" Croom, while Guphy and Connie "Pugs" Lock lended a cartographic helping hand with map editing."

Generally speaking, it is unwise to trust maps that have been edited by people named "T-Rock" and "Pugs".

In other news, my spanish is coming along. Classes are mostly conversational, but sometimes we read dialogs. My favorite type of dialog is the one where a married couple is fighting. Here�s one we read today:

�Otra vez has dejado los cacharros sin fregar? (You didn�t wash the dishes AGAIN?)

�Ya estamos? �es que nos tenemos que pelear todos los dias? (This again? Why do we have to fight every day?)

Es que no te soporto. (Because I can�t stand you.)

My birthday is this Thursday. Julie & I are going to the Harry Potter movie (which I suspect will be much improved in Spanish) & then the drinking commences. Not so different from any other day, then... Friday is our last day of class, then we hit the road. We bought our tickets to Peru & the far south, only Buenos Aires remains. If I die in the wild, I demand to be preserved as a mummy and displayed in the precolombian museum of art. Thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter. TA