Lauren: Noise.

Today is May 21, Navy Day in Chile, and probably for the first time since we've lived here it's quite outside. Living between Bellas Artes and Centro we have the best (and worst) of both worlds. We're close to everything, but it is incredibly noisy. So noisy, that it's hard to sleep at night and the noise is the first thing that wakes me up in the morning. The loud buses, the people rushing off to work. And strangely being near the "fine arts" district, there are a lot of flute players and drummers who play deafening music we can clearly hear even from the 10th floor.

Navy Day in Chile is the day Chile conquered over colluding Peru and Bolivia, and I noticed this morning that there was no noise waking me up. I looked outside and it looked almost apocalyptic; no one in sight. It was scary actually. Did everyone else know something we didn't? Was there an evacuation of the city? No, it's Navy Day the first quiet day of the year. Even the kiltros seem to be taking it easy.

Among the astonishing noises we've heard while living here (not including our awful upstairs neighbor who drills holes at 11 p.m. and moves furniture until 1 a.m.), are the people in the streets before a futbol match, especially Colo-Colo fans.

One time I heard drumming and shouting, and thought it might be a drummer with his fluted friend walking down the street, when I saw that the noise was coming from inside a bus. Colo-Colo fans were banging things, waving flags out the window, and at least two of them were on the roof of the bus waving gigantic flags. This I couldn't believe.

If that had happened anywhere in the States, the bus driver would pull over and the person on the bus would be arrested, but not here. The bus continued speeding down the street, seemingly oblivious to the crazed soccer fan on the roof.

-- Lauren