I am on the 12th floor Sky Bar of the old Pedro de Valdivia Hotel in Valdivia Chile looking down on the river Calle Calle through rain dotted panes of glass. It is winter here, and raining constantly. I ran on the boardwalk down a few miles and into the neighborhood where I lived 21 years ago. I lived in this city 7 months and ended my LDS mission here. The good news is I brought the perfect running gear for wet rain. The bad new is, it's never going to dry out between runs. I forgot how out of place I am here. No one in their right mind would go outside today in this rain. People practically stop their cars to see who is running on the streets. Chile is like someone took cute clapboars housed neighborhoods of rural Switzerland, and then dropped them into south America and then never repainted. In the grey rain, I remembered the South of Chile rivals Russia for highest percentage of alcoholics. It feels like a sin to stay in this hotel, but free is free. It's amazing what love does. Twenty one years ago, I never noticed the peeling paint, the downtrodden-ness of the winter here, or the poverty (though 100 steps above Peru or Bolivia). All I saw were faces of people I loved and still do. I was wisked from home to home, from party to party yesterday until late into the night until finally I had to tell my friends and family that I hadn't slept in 2 days...so after 10.5 hours of sleep I got up and made a strange spectacle of myself wearing my fancy running gear past people waiting for the bus on the corner and people running out of cars into thei houses to escape the rain. It's like I'm an alien from another planet. Once I take off the running gear and go sit by the stove foe a cup of tea, I'm human again. It's been fun though. The great thing about Chileans, is that they all WANT you to do something extraordinary just so they can shake their heads and say stuff like "Did you know Luz ran 12 Kilometers today?" And then 5 people turn to you and say. "In this rain?! Are you crazy?" I didn't think it was so crazy before I got here, but suddenly I'm a local legend. It's ok, it's what they expect from us crazy gringas. AP 9:38 --PS I'm blogging from my blackberry so I apologize if mu writing is crazy, it's hard to write and edit on this thing! | 