The first week

So here is our Chile blog! We'll try to update this at least weekly, and particular events or trips etc may mean we add things more or less frequently...

We've been a little hopeless with photos so far but we'll try to include a good selection on this, and will also add a link to our picasa site which we'll update with all of the photos we want to keep.

We arrived in Santiago later than expected,  after an eventful journey as all our flights were delayed - our final flight from Madrid didn't leave until 3.30 am... we need to have a word with the travel agent though as we wouldn't have made the Madrid-Santiago leg if it hadn't been delayed. We had to go to a different terminal to check in and get our boarding passes, but only had an hour and a half wait for the connection and getting the passes took 2 hours in all! The LAN Chile check in line was hilarious, various Chicas sitting around pouting while (we think) being trained. The chica who checked us in spent ages tapping buttons, printing things off and ripping them up, then starting again. Eventually we asked if there was a problem, at which point she smiled sweetly and immediately completed the check in...

The flight was good, they still do glamour with flying in South America, and we descended into Santiago with an amazing view of los Andes in the morning sunshine.  

After losing each other for a short while at the airport in Santiago, and the inevitable mistake with our prepaid taxi booking, we arrived at Hostel Providencia. It's a fantastic place, very welcoming staff, and we have our own room (with bunk bed!). It was very cold when we arrived here though, and the hostel is a big old building with no heating and windows vaguely made to fit their frames... we've also now tried pretty much all of the showers in the place and realised that the one that we've been using since we arrived is defo the worst! A combination of boiling geyser and a piercing ice stream.

Our first night was a Wednesday, and they have an Asado (bbq) at the hostel every wednesday, which then moves onto a Chilean style night out on the town i.e. starts at midnight. After 30 hours travelling we decided instead to sneak into bed, but only after we had eaten a load of churripan (cooked chorizo sausage in small buns), lomito (pork on kebab sticks), and carne (basically beefsteak cooked medium rare and thick sliced) - all together with a bowl of diced tomato. Yum! We chatted with other people staying in the hostel, including an American archaeology student - yay!

Next day we went on a free walking tour of Santiago for about 5 hours with a great guide called Franco, a local musician who tour guides by day and plays in bars by night. Hopefully we'll find him again on stage sometime. It would have been a good opportunity to take photos but we've had a slow start on that - it was an excellent overview of the city though, and we got some great local and historic info. We'll redo the tour ourselves, or pick up various parts of it at some point and get some photos to post then. We'll also talk more about Santiago, but for now it's fair to say that the centre, and the older barrios to the west, and immediately east of the centre, have a very European feel to them (compounded by the spanish look of the locals). There is a mix of old and new buildings, particularly in the centre, and it seems that all of the newer eastern comunas out towards los Andes are very modern - these are the wealthier parts of Santiago and look and feel like North America.

The best thing is that the whole city has a backdrop of the snow capped mountains - we hope to get some great photos showing those views which just appear as you turn a corner.  

On our second night we went out with two American girls we met in the hostel, Tiffany and Joy, and an Australian, Alison, who is another member of our teaching programme who arrived the night before us. We went to a classic chilean bar called La Piojera and drank Terremotos (literally "earthquake" - a potent pint of half cheap white wine, half pisco sour (more later), topped with a blob of pineapple ice cream. No idea how this came about as yet). Strong, weird, but tasty and definitely a new experience!

Terremotos!

We also ordered some food to share and got this:

Lomo y papas - scary looking, good tasting

Basically, pork wrapped in fat, boiled, with boiled potatos, pickled vegetables, and a brava (hot/ spicy) sauce. It was amazing.

Jolly guitarist at La Piojera

On the subject of food, one of the big things to eat here are completos - basically hotdogs with various toppings. The classic seems to be el completo italiano, topped with diced tomatos, avocado, and a thick stripe of mayo. Yum, says Anna:   

Anna with a completo van

"Yum"

The photos above were taken in Bellavista, part of the old town now focussed on coffee shops, bars, restaurants etc. More on that later. That was friday, when we also took a funicular up Cerro San Cristobal, one of the urban parks in Santiago. It has great views of the whole city as it's the tallest thing in it, and a huge Madonna. We will explore this more as there is a Japanese garden and various other things up here (including morning yoga classes). We got some pictures but not with the new camera so we'll work on that another time.

See the Santiago smog!

On Cerro San Cristobal

Food is going to be a major feature here as it's v good! On Friday night we went to a Chilean restaurant called Galindo and ate paila marina, a broth with huge mussels, clams (ordinary and razor) and big pieces of fish in it, along with carrots, onions and other as yet unidentified mariscos.  It was delicious! It's defo on the list of places to go when anyone visits. On food, this dish is one that doesn't involve avocado - the Chileans have avocado with almost everything, even their Burger King whoppers...

Anna and a paila marina

A paila marina up close

On Saturday we met the other three TeachingChile teachers starting with us - all Americans. It's a good friendly gringo group: 3 chicos/ varones, and 3 chicas/mujeres - 3 Norte Americanos, 2 Brits and 1 Aussie. Speaking to them has been as interesting as Chile itself so far. On this kind of topic, many Chileans learn their English in New Zealand, which we didn't expect.

We visited the fish market, Mercado Central, together - piles of fish and mariscos - and had seafood empanadas (these are a kind of pasty, a real cheap staple which comes with various fillings - more on those another time). Later on we headed back to Bellavista with the rest of the team and toasted our new Chilean life over pisco sours at a bar frequented by Pablo Neruda (who had a house round the corner- more on that another time). A pisco sour is Chile's answer to the margarita- very strong sweet/sour cocktails made from fortified grape wine, sugar, lemons and a bit of egg white to give it some froth...

Struan with the World Cup in Pablo Neruda's bar!

Los gringos TeachingChile - Alison, Scott, Jessica, Warren, Struan, Anna

Finally for this post, a few pictures from wanders:

The "Mobile Phone" - built by Telefonica, designed as a (out of date) mobile phone, the possibility of design progress evidently not considered.

A mad street procession to celebrate Bolivian Independence Day - no idea

A group of actors who did skits on a pedestrian crossing timed to last exactly for the red light - complete with costume changes for every red light!

Chao y hasta luego!