Day 118 - Santiago

---

Today was several chores and a walking tour. We did some shopping and sent another parcel home, and travelled into the suburbs to buy tickets for tomorrow's big game - the Santiago derby. Afterwards we did a fairly interesting walking tour around Santiago’s most interesting buildings, a pleasant stroll in the afternoon sunshine but not exactly rivetting blog material. Then, after a power nap, we hit the town. We had dinner in a 1940’s-styled bar (something we’ve not come across before in our collective 56 years), misunderstanding the Spanish menu and ending up with about a kilo of cheese each. This was washed down however with a very pleasant Chilean red.

They had ‘Kitty Fernandez’ singing and sounding like her proverbial strangled namesake, with a guy supposedly accompanying her on the piano. But the piano stayed untouched as he had an electric keyboard. His overuse of the synthesized sounds didn’t make you think ‘wow there’s now a guitar/drums/harpsichord playing’, it was more ‘how can I pull the plug without anyone seeing’. It was really, really crap. About as kind on the ear as an 8 year old who has just discovered the DEMO button on his new synthesizer. We got out of there sharpish - and paid the covert cover charge for the ‘music’ - and headed somewhere better, the Phone Box Pub. Yes you guessed it. It doesn’t have a front door; it has an old fashioned English phone box which you have to walk through. Clever.

---