The weather: Floods, Volcanoes, Rain, Temperature etc

First of all, in case you haven't heard, Chile is in the southern hemisphere, which means while all of my loved ones are basking in the glory of spring and sun, I am experiencing the smog-um (autumn) here in Santiago, which is a fun mix of smog, rain, more smog, ickyness, and 40-50 degree temperatures without indoor heating. Those tempeartures are colder than you think and unfortunately are not tempered by beautiful, bright 65 - 70 degree daytimes like it was in Guatemala.

So I sit here in my concrete building staring out our slider windows at the dreary grayness that is fall and winter. The upside is that all this rain is slowly taking care of the severe drought problems that were plaguing the area throughout this summer and fall. The downside is that all the rain kind of brings down my outside world-relation motivation. Oh, that and it floods a lot because the city's infrastructure to deal with rain, for lack of a better word, blows. The other day I went to class after a solid day and a half of intermittent light rains, only to find an area formally known as "street corner" had been converted into a veritable seaway with its very own new shoreline and specific tide schedule linked not to the moon but rather the passing traffic in the middle of the road trying to avoid said water body.

Even worse, the really big rain storms found karate-kicking the central parts of Chile recently happened to coincide with the surprise re-activation of the once very-unactive (think to the tune of some-odd 2000 years of inactivity) volcano, Chaitén, in a region about 750 miles south of Santiago. The surrounding areas were forcefully evacuated as frequent earthquakes, toxic gases erupted from the volcano, and tons upon tons of spewed ash that clogged every single waterway made the situation impossibly dangerous for virtually anything living aside from cockroaches. The government is still trying to figure out exactly what to do about the upheaval of an entire town population and some surrounding areas, post-complete destruction.

And that's my weather update for Chile. Sweet. (Sort of not really at all).

Happy International Worker's Day

Who knew that in other countries, people ACTUALLY respect and honor those labor causes?!

Everything was actually closed today. People for real got the day off and rested.

Also, it was perhaps one of the most beautiful days in weather history I have ever experienced.