I peaced out of work early on Friday and, with my friend Jessica, headed to the booming metropolis of Santiago for the weekend to museum-hop.

In true Jessica-and-Monique style, we also pretty much ate our way through the weekend as well, downing fruit salad from the fería, completos, lattés, alfajores and white wine during our 3-day stay. Our excuse is that this is our last week and Chile, so we´re going to eat as much Chilean food as possible before we return to the states... where I can bet money we won´t be able to find 3-completo-italianos-plus-two-drinks-for-$2 deals.

But back to museums. The first stop Saturday was Museo de Bellas Artes, situated in the indie-trendy Bellas Artes district of the city. I have to note the building itself was worth the 300peso (60 cents) entry, though the exhibits were less than captivating.

Next was the natural history museum, which was pretty much in the sketchiest part of the city. We got slightly past the point with the preserved 8-year-old (he was a tribal sacrifice or something that was locked up and froze to death... it was pretty gross and morbid)... and then we decided to get out of there. Luckily admission was free.

Then there was Yarur´s new Museo de la Moda, which opened in June, featuring vintage clothing from the 1700s to 1990s owned by this super-loaded Chilean family. I don´t think it was worth the $5 admission, nor walking in freezing cold rain for 20 minutes... but it was neat to see. And the New York Times raved about it in a full-page article.

After being thoroughly soaked to the bone by Mother Nature´s rain spell, we sought refuge in the apartment, where we ended up spooning by a space heater and watching episodes of Papi Ricky until we were warm enough (and our shoes dry enough... I was dumb enough to wear Converse) to buy completos. It was pretty cute.

Sunday required a trip to the artesan/book fería at la Plaza de Armas to buy chocolate, fruit salad and gifts for our friends and family. Then we booked it back to the apartment to watch the World Cup finals, bought completos at half-time, and made it home by 6.

During the finals of the FIFA U20 World Cup yesterday, La Rojita took 3rd place with a 1-0 win over Austria. The goal is accredited to Martinez, but the overall stellar performance and professionalism demonstrated on and off the field has to go to Cristopher Toselli, goalie/my personal favorite. He also broke a U20 record for number of minutes without a goal scored against him (492... so he only beat the record by a minute or so, but who´s counting?!)

It´s been interesting to see the difference in press coverage over the incident in Toronto following the Thursday slaughter by Argentina and the fights that broke out with Canadian police. The same AP story I see repeated over and over in Canadian and US publications says the players were completely out of line, attacking the cops to the point where they had no choice but to whip out the taser. Chilean news (which, by the way, every major news station and newspaper in the country was in an uproar over this for all of Friday and Saturday... if there was any other news going on in the country I´m not aware of it because this was basically the only story covered) said it was more or less a case of discrimination... the players were only trying to meet-and-greet with fans when the police came out of nowhere and attacked them, treating them "like animals." And last I heard, I think FIFA said the players were only responsible for their actions on the field... but don´t quote me on this.

I love the media.

As for me, I think they were young, rowdy, frustrated guys who stepped a little bit out of line and the police totally overreacted. I don´t think there was need to attack , taser and injure 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds whose careers (and physical well-being) could be put in jeopardy. I think a few of the hotheaded players made some bad decisions to act up, and this could come back to bite them in a few years. I feel bad for their parents who had to watch their sons in the spotlight like this, and i feel really bad for the players who felt the need to stick by their teammates but didn´t want to get involved and now may face consequences in the future.

But overall, I´m really pleased with them this year. So they acted up a little, and perhaps they wanted to be world champions. But they played an incredible season that totally compensated for the failures of La Roja in the Copa America. And I am so stoked to see what some of these boys will do in the future.