My 25th Hour

I'm at a hostel in Santiago, Chile. Local time is 9 a.m. That's 6 a.m. in Washington, 5 a.m. in Alaska. It's my 25th hour in South America.

I left Seattle Tuesday morning, and arrived in Mexico City at about 5 p.m. I bought a map from the airport and walked to the metro. A fairly well-dressed man asked me where I was going, I told him I wasn't sure, and I only had 3 hours until my flight left for Santiago, so he told me which line to take and where to change trains to get to the central part of the city.

I followed his advice, metro tickets were less than $1, and good one-way. So I walked around part of downtown and saw the Catedral Metropolitan and some other shops. It was dark by the time I headed back, but I made it. Even bought some dinner and a little case for my new camera from a few different shops in the market...

***

I'm in Chile to visit my sister, Nicole, and brother-in-law Gene. They have been working in a school north of Temuco for the past few months, and I decided to pay them a visit when I left Alaska, so here I am. Estoy aqui.

The international flight from Mexico had individual TV screens and a selection of movies, music and TV shows in English, Spanish and Portugeuse. I watched Blood Diamond, but then crashed for a few hours.... I mean I went to sleep. Probably bad to say "crashed" as something I did on an airplane...

I forgot to declare a bag of trail mix that I was carrying in my bag when I went through Chilean customs, so it cost me an hour in line, and 36-thousand pesos! Well, it's only about $80 USD, and it was the minimum fine, but still not a good way to enter South America.

I have been getting along fine with the Spanish I know, and picking up some extra words. I'm staying at Hostel Chile, near downtown, so yesterday I walked around, went to a fine arts museum, saw a half-dozen churches, and climbed a hill nearby that has a great view of almost the whole city.

The Andes surround Santiago, and their snowy peaks look like distant clouds at first glance, they're so high. It's pretty foggy/smoggy here, but not that bad unless you're trying to see long distances. From the top of the hill, city seems to just disappear into the mist eventually.

I met two girls from Winnepeg here at the hostel, and we talked last night and watched An Officer and a Gentleman in the common area, then I drank wine with two other girls from Finland. They are visiting two friends from their country who are studying here on exchange, so their friends came over and we talked for a while, then went out dancing at a club a couple blocks away. (come on, I need the 'holistic'view of Santiago, right?) I tried Pisco before we left, which to me tastes something like tequila, but smoother. It mixes great with Coke for a Piscola...

So far my stomach has not failed me. We shall see.

One of the men who works at the hostel in from Ghana. He says he has been working here for one year, and wants to work one more. I'm sleeping in a common room with one other man. He is from Australia, but I forget his name...

I've been concentrating so much on speaking the language and finding my way around, that I have become horrible at remembering names, or anything else for that matter. One girl from Winnepeg is named Megan, but that's all I can recall. The Finnish girls tried to teach me to say "Hello" in their language, but I forgot it 5 times already...

One of the Chilean guys we were with was telling us stories of his trip to Colombia. It seems a little crazy: he said they sell marijuana and cocaine in the liquor stores. I'm not sure what the prices are like in the US, but he said it was about $4/gram for cocaine. (He also assured us that he didn't use cocaine.)

He did use the marijuana, and said that the police stopped him when he was trying to enter a national park. They found the 50 cigarettes he was carrying and insisted that he intended to sell them. There were five cops, and it cost him something like $80 to get through without being arrested... great South American police work, $20 each.

Hostels are interesting places.

On the way to the club I was talking to a guy from France who has been studying here for one year and wants to start working. He said most people get jobs by having a friend at the place they work. I explained the word "nepotism" in English. My Spanish must not be that bad because he was surprised when I told him it was my first day in South America.

***

I have been able to figure out the phones here, after some confusion, so I got ahold of Nicole and told her I'm staying in Santiago one more day before I take the bus down to stay with them. There are still a couple of things I'd like to see.

It's cold here. I'm wearing two sets of fleece at night, and one during the day. I'm shivering now, but it's still nicer than Nome, I have to say. :)

Alright, I've been writing for a half-hour, and this is too much English. It will throw me off, so I'll leave it here and get back to my walking and sightseeing. I bought a new camera before I came, so pictures and video will be forthcoming. Adios, cachay!