Finding my feet in Santiago

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Hola,

I am sitting in a hotel lobby in Santiago right now! I left my house at 7am on Tueday morning and it is still tuesday 26 hours later!! Long journey to get here via auckland but am here and in one piece. I checked myself into a decent hotel for the first night - Hotel Orly, as tomorrow I will fly to Rio and stay in hostels. They got my booking wrong so have sent me to a hotel across the road which should cost twice as much and are giving me a free dinner to make up for it!

Already notice massive cultural difference. The macho attitude is ridiculous. Literally in the space of a few hours in the afternoon I have been eyeballed so obviously, I don´t know how many times and beeped at a hissed at (the equiv of whistling) and got chatted up by 2 waiters (i´ve only been to 2 cafes) one of which quitely told me he wanted me!! It is crazy. I am really glad that I don´t have blond hair as I am sure it would then be much worse. I think if you are a lone female it is the right of the guy to chat you up!!

This is also "make-out" central!! I took a walk in a park this afternoon and could not believe how many couples there were who were kissing and touching like they were in their bedroom. Not that I mind that bit at all it is just really funny as I have never seen it to the same extent before.

I guess everyone just has one thing on their mind all of the time!!!!

People here are also alot more direct than UK / Australia and almost what we would consider rude but it is just a different way. If you just look at a waiter and catch his eye at home they would come over to you. If you do that here they think you are giving them the eye. You actually have to wave your hand or say waiter.

I had forgotten just how much I missed seeing another culture. To walk down a main street in a place where everyone is speaking a different language is actaully amazing. It is also a bit daunting and I can´t wait to start my spanish classes. I got the menu off the waiter earlier but it could have all been in double dutch as far as I was concerned. I thought I would recognise some things but if you imagine that on a menu it doesn´t just say ¨pasta with tomato sauce" but rather Organic Italian tagliatteli with a home made sundried tomato sauce with garlic and capsicum (just made that up although it sounds quite nice) then all of a sudden it is really hard to translate when you are sitting there with your phrase book trying to translate a big list one by one! In the end I ordered Cheese burger and a lowenbrau but I will try harder tonight!!


Anyway - need to go and try to get some phrases together before I go to dinner. Hopefully from tomorrow onwards I will meet some fellow travellers and not have to rely on all of my conversation to come from lechy spanish waiters!!!!

Hope everyone is well - I will write again from brazil xxxx

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Photos

Just a water fountain..
But it quite sums up the vibe of Santiago!!

Taste of luxury before I hit the hostels.
I was upgraded to this room when they stuffed up my booking. Oh, it may be hard to go to hostels!!