I have this theory that one of the reasons travelling is so different from everyday life is that it demands a much more significant level of object management — you have to spend a lot more time keep track of all your bits and pieces, especially stuff like tickets and passports etc.
Anyway, today I had some good object-related fortune, and some bad.
The good news was that I finally got equipped with some decent rented snowboard equipment, after several days of hassles, thanks to Matt, the very helpful American guy in the ski shop here at Valle Nevado. With boots that just aboout fit and a half-decent board (both Burton), I had a pretty epic day of snowboarding today. I had a new experience today too — along with about 20 other people, I was dragged up a hill on a length of climbing rope by a Pisten Bully snow plough! This was because the lift lines in the more remote areas (where the best snow is, of course) are were huge, because they are the awful Poma-style drag lifts, where you put a little disk on a stick between your legs and it drags you up the hill (I HATE them!).
The bad object-related news is that the LCD screen on my digital camera got broken sometime over the last day or so, which will seriously hinder is usability (although it still seems to work otherwise, providing I don´t need to use any of the setup menus etc.). People that know me won´t be surprised to hear that I´ve lost/broken another camera!
Anyway, I´m excited that I have a decent snowboard setup, because tomorrow I´m planninng to try Heli-Skiing (I suppose that should be Heli-Boarding really)! For non-skiers/boarders, this is where a helicopter takes a small group of folks out to a remote mountain where the conditions are better than anything you can find in the resort, you ride down, then the helicopter picks you up and takes you back! It´s expensive, but I love helicopter rides and I love snowboarding, so why not combine the two!
Then it´s back to Santiago for one night before heading off to Buenos Aires in Argentina to meet my friend Nan. By happy coincidence she´s also a Spanish teacher, which is good because my Spanish is still pretty dire (although I am learning slowly).
That´s all for now, my time on this computadora is nearly up.