Valparaiso

Finishing work early at 2pm, I headed home to grab my bag and head to the bus station to meet Meera, Joanna, Katie and Amber.  We quickly purchased our tickets and hopped onto the bus for the 1h45 journey to Valparaiso.  Now buses here in Chile aren’t like our rubbish local buses in the UK but more like business class on a long haul flight!  The seats are amazingly comfortable with loads of leg room and plenty of room to recline without annoying the person behind you.  They come complete with blankets if you so wished and on-board toilet and mini bar (this is the standard class bus- there are two/three more classes above this).  What’s more is that tickets are dirt cheap just around five pounds one way- BARGAIN.  Arriving in Valpo, we were met by our hosts for the weekend and headed on one of the fast and crazy local micros up Pleasure Hill (where they live) to drop off our bags and chill. Later in the evening our hosts showed us their uni, which they were so proud off.  It was a weird uni.  The buildings resembled old mansions or castles- a bit like colleges at Oxbridge- but yet it seemed really new, almost as though the buildings had a plastic coating on them to make them look older.  After taking several photos of the sunset over the bay we went to a fish restaurant by the beach and had some amazing food- Valpo definitely is the place for fish and seafood lovers!

Saturday, after getting up late morning after a night out, we headed on our epic tour of the town.  We climbed the Cerros (small hills); took funiculars up the steepest slopes you’ve ever seen; ate in a fab café; went on a boat tour; took an old school, Victorian looking trolley bus; and took endless photos of the graffiti everywhere which is amazingly artistic and really brightens up what I think would otherwise be a pretty depressing city.  One thing you notice in Valpo is the stench.  It really is one of the smelliest places I’ve been, at times making me feel quite sick, but I suppose this is all part of the experience.  After a long afternoon, we headed back to the houses to freshen up before going out for food- OR so we thought.  Not long after arriving back there was a blackout. It was weird- I was looking out across the bay when I said to everyone “look, all the lights have just gone out across there!”  Next thing we knew all the lights in a Mexican wave style went off sector by sector around the bay.  Being without electricity hampered our plans to go out, and we soon got news that 96% of the population were without electricity- now that’s what you call an epic fail!  So instead we headed to buy some booze and a slap up meal of bread and butter in the pitch black.  What an experience!  The footpaths and roads aren’t the best in this area and Meera and I nearly fell over several times, and I nearly stepped on a dog sleeping on the footpath- luckily at the last minute a car’s headlights lit up the path.  So in true British style we carried on the party in the dark, and finally after 2.5 hours or so the lights came back on.  We headed out to celebrate Meera’s 21^st birthday to round up a fab weekend.

Overall, it was nice to visit Valparaiso to say I’ve been and although I really enjoyed it, it wasn’t my favourite place.  It was also my first time out of the big smog since being here, and made me realize I should do weekend visits more often.  Time to book Mendoza :D

3 weeks in photos

Mercado Central with Meera and Jonty

La Piojera- home to the famous Terremoto drink

Pablo Neruda's house

Concha y Toro vineyard

The office ready for the Fiestas Patrias

Office party at Los Buenos Muchachos

Me ending up dancing on stage- token foreigner

Polynesian dancing

All my workmates giving it large haha

Asado for Independence Day at Pablo's house- Puente Alto

Drinking some ponche

Fab asado.

Fiestas Patrias

Thursday 15th  

So after work I headed to la Yein Fonda with some workmates, which was provided free for those working in the media industry.  We arrived in Cuidad Empresarial, after hurtling down the bendy hillside road on a jam packed micro, and entered into the massive big-top like tent.  Having 3 free drink and 3 free food vounchers, I wanted to try a bit of everything on offer.  I ate some empanadas and anticucho, and drank some chicha and of course some piscola.  There was a live band and singers performing the traditional cuecas and cumbias for everyone to dance to and there was a great atmosphere, with everyone ready to party for the weekend.  Afterwards I headed into Bellavista to my favourite haunt En Secreto- the karaoke bar.

Friday 16^th

Having the day off work was a god send and meant I could catch up on all my chores before the weekend really began.  Friday night I spontaneously headed out about 10pm to meet some friends in Plaza Italia, not knowing what they wanted to do.  My two friends decided they wanted to go to another fonda, but I wasn’t too bothered so I ended up going to En Secreto with the other two people there who I had briefly met before.  It was a good choice too, as those at the fonda soon came to join us for a bit of cheeky singing before heading to a club.  I ended the night a true Chilean having made it till 5am when the clubs closed, and I headed back with the others to their houses in Puente Alto around 20 miles away on the very outskirts of the city.

Saturday 17^th

After only a few hours sleep and a bit hungover I headed back on the hour journey on the metro and micros to my house.  It made me realise how different the various comunas of Santiago are.  Puente Alto is full of small, humble houses of just 4 or 5 rooms with tin roofs, and after dark can become quite dangerous.  There are small shops and street sellers, and nice community feeling.  Las Condes, which is where I live, couldn’t be different.  Full of some of the tallest buildings in the whole of South America, is it very americanised with Starbucks and other American chains.  Nobody knows anyone else and at the weekends it’s like a ghost town being a mainly business district.  It made me realise that Chileans are more proud of their possessions than us British!  They really have to work hard and save to get the things they want- such as a basic phone or laptop- but at the same time this makes them such nice people to spend time with.  Nearly all of my Chileans friends live in Puente Alto, and I love spending time there (in fact, if I could I think I would buy a house there).  The rest of Saturday was spent chillaxing, and watching some movies getting ready for Independence Day.

Sunday 18^th

Independence Day- the main day of the Fiestas Patrias.  After having a much needed lay-in, I headed back to Puente Alto, as my friend Pablo had invited me along with two German girls I know to his house for a traditional asado with his family.  We arrived to a really warm welcome from the family!  After starting the asado (BBQ), Pablo’s dad made a bowl of Chilean punch called ponche- it consisted of chirimoya (a sweet white fruit that looks like a pyramid), sweet white wine, scoops of pineapple ice cream, and some sweet liqueur.  Needless to say, it was very potent  but delicious all the same.  An hour or so later the food was ready- chicken, pork, beef, sausages, salads of various styles, rice, bread- there was loads!  The German girls had also cooked kuchen, an apple and cinnamon style tart.  I was stuffed!  After some cueca dancing and a bit of cumbia with the family we sat down to talk about difference between cultures and people from different countries (we were also with a Peruvian) and it was extremely interesting to hear other peoples perspective on the various nationalities.  We also had a discussion about whether pisco was Chilean or Peruvian- also an interesting conversation!  A bit later on some friends came over and we headed back to my apartment, which seemed to be in a ghost town with everyone else in the area travelling away for the celebrations.  At 3am we caught a micro into town to head to the clubs- in the UK we would be heading back home normally at this time, but the clubs were open to 7am!  I had another fantastic night and am slowly learning the words and dance moves to some of the most famous/popular songs here in Chile.  After being up for nearly 22 hours I caught the commuter bus back home to finally head to bed after such a fantastic weekend with such fantastic friends!  A big thank to Pablo, Arturo, Ricardo and Memo!

Monday 19th

A day to relax and do some more chores before having an early night ready to head to work today!  Most people seem to be on diets and detoxes, and I certainly am after the high food and alcohol consumptions of the last few days.  I’m off to Valparaíso this weekend to celebrate Meera’s 21^st birthday, so that will no doubt be my next blog along with some photos sometime too!

Office Party and My First Earthquake!

September 18th 1810 Chile officially became independent from the Spanish, and so every year around this day, the whole country celebrates with the Fiestas Patrias.  This year it falls at a weekend so I have a lovely 4 day weekend.  Chileans go mad celebrating this event- think Christmas style in the UK plus a bit more.

Tuesday was our office party, which saw us head to Los Buenos Muchachos show restaurant.  We had a fantastic 3 course meal with wine, chicha, piscola etc watched an amazing show full of traditional dances, and songs with everyone dressed in traditional costume.  Obviously it wouldn't be a how without audience participation! And which token foreigner got picked up to go dance on stage? Why, me of course.  Luckily it was a pretty easy dance/ run around the stage- but all the same it was good fun to get involved in the Chilean culture.  Luckily I didn't have to dance Cueca (the chicken dance) and I do not have a clue how to dance it!

After the show, there was a live band playing more modern reggeaton, cumbia, salsa and whatnot.  Everyone had a fantastic night, and we headed home very happy.

At 4am, I awoke to a strange sensation.  A bit tired to begin with, I didn't know what was happening but I felt like I was on a giant water bed and someone had kicked the side of it, resulting in me bobbing up and down and side to side like a buoy in the sea.  I soon realised it was my first earthquake, lasting for around 15 or 20 seconds.  The day after I read that in Santiago it was the equivalent of 4° on the Richter Scale- so pretty small. At least I now know what one feels like and have been told if there is a bigger one that I should run to the main door of the flat and hide under the door frame (apparently the only thing that remains standing in case of the building collapsing).

So, here I am at work with a bit of spare time updating you all.  I finish work today, and shall be heading to my first fonda of the Fiestas Patrias.  A Fonda is a place you go to eat, drink and dance.  Luckily it's free for me through the agency I work for.  But I will blog again after the weekend finishes with photos and all! Take care x

A Busy 2 Weeks

So I thought it was about time I wrote another blog to update you all on the going ons here in Chile during the last 2 weeks. 

First off we changed our time zone here so that we are now an hour closer to the UK, which is all good but it means I’ve lost 2 hours of my life so far this year which I probably won’t make back.  Normally we change the clocks in October like in England but the Chilean government decided to do it early to save electricity by allowing people to enjoy the sunlight hours- can’t say I’ve noticed any difference apart from it being dark and cold when I wake up in the morning! 

I also had my first good-tasting coffee in Chile albeit at Starbucks.  I don’t know what it is but Chileans do not do nice coffee- and here I need coffee to get me through the long working hours!

Last week, we had two days of national strikes by public sector workers, students, teachers and many other workers.  Unfortunately, I had to work throughout although we did get to finish work slightly earlier as the city basically went into shutdown after 7pm.  There was lots of violence again, resulting in one teenager being shot by the police and eventually he died.  Chile is going through the most civil unrest the country has seen since the overthrowing of the Pinochet regime.  You can really see the discontent in Santiago as people struggle to make a living with so much injustice between different segments of society.  I can completely understand why people are protesting and definitely support them- even I feel some injustices after being here for only 7 weeks.  Let’s just hope things start on the road to improvement soon.

I also got my first proper client/project last week.  I am now in charge of Goodyear’s Facebook fan page and blog website.  I have to update them daily with articles, photos, videos etc, which was hard to begin with but now I know where to find all the media it’s pretty easy, so Im ready for another project to add to it.

Last weekend was also very busy!  I went to 2 house parties on Thursday and Friday nights, one on the top floor and one on the roof of apartment blocks with simply breathtaking views out over the city.  Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera but it was like something you only see in films and for a while a felt quite rich and important, which was a really nice feeling and I suppose an inspiration to do well in life. 

On Saturday I met my course mate’s step-brother, Jonty, visiting from Argentina, and for the rest of the weekend played Guide to him.  Both of us along with Meera headed of for a typical lunch of Lomo a lo Pobre (steak with fried onion and egg with chips) in the Mercado Central.  It was a really nice experience eating in the middle of the bustling marketplace, with venders trying to sell us all sorts of fish and other seafood delights.  The food was really good and was followed by a trago (shot) of Fernet.  When I say shot, it’s more like 3 shots.  Fernet is also 45% proof and definitely has an acquired taste described as black-liquorice flavoured Listerine (luckily I like both liquorice and Listerine!).  We then headed to the very famous La Piojera just next door (I will make a separate blog about the history of La Piojera).  This old, very basic bar, resembles somewhere you would expect to keep animals, but is renowned for the traditional Chilean Terremoto.  A Terremoto (Earthquake) is a sweet white wine based drink mixed with Fernet and with a scoop of pineapple ice cream dropped in.  Needless to say the name describes how you feel after one of these drinks- it is VERY potent.  As we went to the bar to order them, local men were telling us to be careful and not have more than one so we knew it was going to be strong, but we couldn’t even finish it!  Jonty and I are pretty used to drinking but this was something else so we all decided to head home for a nap!

Meeting up later that night we headed to Bellavista to my favourite karaoke bar where I have been every weekend for the last month.  We met up with some of my workmates and their friends and had a fantastic night!  Cheap beer lots of singing along, hand clapping and dancing always makes for a good night.  Sunday I met up with Jonty and we climbed Cerro San Cristobal, had a walk around the city centre and headed to Museo Bellas Artes, which just happened to be free on Sundays.

This week has been quite slow at work as all the managers have been in meetings ready for the arrival of the CEO this morning to the office, so I haven’t had too much work to do.  However, I have been teaching my housemate English every night this week which is actually quite exhausting seeing as I’ve had no time to myself to relax.  All I can say is that I am ready for a more relaxing weekend this time, and Saturday I should be going to the Concha y Toro vineyard for a tour and some wine tasting.  But I’ll update you all next week on what happens this weekend!

Sorry for the very long blog this time but I hope you all enjoy it (and I'll post some more photos soon).