Another day of biking, work, and empanadas

We switched to daylight savings time last Saturday night, so now the sun doesn't rise until after 7. Today was overcast, so it stayed a little cold and gloomy. But of course it was still biking weather. My new route is more direct and requires a little more aggressive riding, but it's not that different from any other busy urban area. The first third of the route includes a ciclovia, which is incredibly well used. I snapped this photo while riding across Francisco Bilbao (I have found that you need to use the full name of the street to avoid ambiguity; I had been saying I lived on Yañez, but this didn't seem to help people. This may be partly due to influential families having many relatives be the source of street names. Like the peach tree family in Atlanta). One thing you may make out is the scarf across the face of the oncoming cyclist. Maybe a third of the cyclists this morning had either that or a surgical mask. I had read about the poor air quality in Santiago, and thought maybe I should look at it again. I went to the government air quality map, which was less than satisfying. A web search produces distressing statistics on the loose standards for declaring air quality emergencies, the impacts of contamination on children and on and on. The wealthiest neighborhoods, at higher elevations further from the center of town escape much of this problem. Santiago suffers this problem most in the winter, when inversions trap smog and particulates near the surface. Since we're moving into Spring, maybe I will be able to continue to live in denial of this. We're not going to move, I can't change where I work, and I'm not going to get off my bicycle. But maybe I will buy a surgical mask.

The national strike of this Wednesday and Thursday was again complicated enough where I can't say I really understand the nuances of the struggle. There was a crowd of union marchers in front of our apartment building who joined with a team of students at the intersection, where they banged pots, blew horns and whistles, and sporadically occupied the intersection. This demonstration was peaceful, though this was apparently not the case in other spots. There are competing accusations about whether these are a few bad apples among the protesters or if this is caused by the police infiltrating the protests (they admit to infiltrating, but of course not to inciting violence). Anyway, it makes for dramatic photos and stories on the international scene (even NPR picked it up). And again, I'll point toward the bearshapedshpere blog for a good personal account and amazing photos documenting the strike. On Wednesday I was advised to stay home, but Thursday, despite the strike, I rode the ~10 km to the campus because I just had too much to do, and I'm very productive at home. There were several spots of charred pavement where burning barricades had been erected the night before, and a heavy smell of smoke hung in the air. But mostly it felt like a normal day once I was sequestered in my office.