Sandy´s South American Adventure!: My first days in Chile!

Welcome to my blog! I wanted to start a blog to keep everyone updated, and also to record my own experiences so I won´t forget them later. Sorry about my bad spelling, the keyboards are differnt here, there is no english spell check I have found yet and I am not the best typer as it is! This first post will be long, my apologies. On February 23rd I flew from Calgary to Tornoto, where I had a 10 hour layover. Then I fley to Santiago, Chile. Santiago is the capital of Chile and is known as a dirty city. I could see the cloud of smog laying over it when we flew in; gross. It was a neat flight, I saw some of the Andean mountain chain, and lots of ocean. I sat next to a VERY old couple that come down every year for ´the past 20 years´ to do some tango dancing. Good for them! I spent the day wandering around Santiago.The next day I bused to Valipariso and Viña del mar for the day. Valipariso is Chile´s prinicpal port, and Vina del mar, is toruisty with nice beaches. This is where Davy Shine is going to study on his exchange. These ocean side cities were pretty neat. They are known as Chiles most vibrants cities. Valipariso was very hilly, with antique ´funiculars´ scattered around the city, whch made wandering up and down its skinny lanes a lot of fun. There is a 10 minute train that connects the two cities which was convientent, and I was able to explore both of them by foot in a day. I went to some markets, went to the beach, saw some HUGE boats and checked out the amazing view. On Friday I bused southernly to Temuco to meet up with my freind Jenny! Jenny and I met in Scotland when I was doing an exchange there. She is from Aland, Scandinavia, and studies in Scotland. She is on an exchange in Chile, doing reseacrh about the Mapuche (the aboriginal people). Its been two years since I have seen her so I was really excited to meet her again and pumped to get out of stinky Santiago. Jenny has been living with a host family in Temuco, who I stayed with as well. The night we met, at about 3:30 in the morning was the earthquake (terremoto). In Temuco it was about a size 7.5 on the ricter scale. I was sleeping upsatirs in a room with Jenny. I thought I was having a bad dream... but I woke up when a picture fell off the wall and onto me. I think I was in shock, as I didn´t move. I couldn`t see anything, but the sound was so strange and horrible and the whole house was dancing around. when I didn´t move from bed, Jenny yelled at me: For Gods Sake Sandy!!! Its and earthquake!! We all got outside, or to doorways safely, and it was over after a minute. Definitly an interesting expereince. There was a lot of aftershocks (even a week after), but mostly minor aftershocks in temuco. ecervy night after then you would wake up for a tiny one. The familys house was well built for such natural disastors and was in one piece, except for a flower vase I believe. We had no runing water or electricity for 2 days. The phones worked and didn´t worked. We had the car radio, but we had no idea how big the earthquake really was. Jenny and I even wondered if it would make international news - should we call home to let peopel know we were alright? We were very lucky, and Temuco was not hard hit, as is not near the ocean. I was very very very happy that I had decided to bus down to Temuco, if not, I would of been stuck in Santiago, which was much worse off. The footage of other locations, such as Conception, Santiago and all of the oceanside towns is really devastating. I felt bad, and feel bad for being a tourist in a now torn apart country. I stayed in Temuco with Jenny for a week, as travel was not adviased unless it was absolutely neccessary. I tried to learn and study as much spansh as I could. We went for many walks about town, and hung out with the family and all thier childeren and grandchildren! Family is super important here. It was really a great expereince being with the family. I think I have a more accurate view of life in Chile now becuase of that. The ´mom´blew my mind. She was so imaticulate I almsot thoguth she had OCD, but apparently thats just the way women are here, as a lot of them are house wives. The hardest thing for me are the meals! breakfast is tiny and at 10, lunch is huge and at 1-2 and dinner is toast with avacado and tomatoes! Also, the verbal harrassment women walking on the street revcieve is almost childish. Men whistle, yell compliments, wave and try to say hi. Buses (even public ones!) honk at you, and some cars even have ´WheeWhoo´ horns built in. It´s so excessive it´s almost funny, but you can´t smile! Smiling at people means you are interested in them. Another thing that took a whle to get used to is all the ´wild´ city dogs. I like to call them the lost boys. There are so many independant and smart city dogs, its strange seeing dogs that are so inteligent. They sleep everywhere too, and mid-day as well. Dogs will be sleeping on the side of the road, or the middle of the park, dogs just everywhere! I sampled ´Pisco Sour´Chile´s popular hard alcohol,a dn went to a massive family BBQ (Asaado) where we all ate too much meat and had too much red wine. It was a good time in Temuco, eve after the earthquake. Anyways! I was getting quite ancy sitting around the house, and talking little walks around town. I was in Temuco for more than a week, and then I bused farther south to Orsono, where I transferred and went to Bariloche in Argentina. I will post pictures soon! :)

Pictures: I don´t know how to flip them on here yet...

A graveyard in Temuco... Apparently Tennents Families pay per month for their remains to rest here.