Living in Chile x 3

Colo Colo

Colo Colo is the most popular soccer team in Chile and historically the most successful. My girlfriend and her family have the team in their blood, hence it wasnt long before I found myself with the clan at Monumental, Colo Colo's home stadium. Colo Colo, Chiles best team was playing La Boca, Argentinas most famous club. The experience was phenomenal and rivaled my last South American soccer experience, being Palmeiras vs Santos in the Paulista competition. South American soccer is something else and I doubt there is atmosphere at any sport anywhere in the world that rivals it if fanatacism/passion is what your after. The game started with fireworks, huge grandstand sized banners draped over our heads and bonfires lit throughout the stadium. The cheap grandstand - La Garra blanca - was absolute bedlum and the singing and delerium didnt falter from one hour before the game right through to the end. The crazed atmosphere is something to behold and is really another world from the relative tranquility of rugby for example in NZ. For me South American soccer is amazing and aside from watching my bro compete nothing beats it as far as atmosphere in sport goes in my opinion. Having said that it does have a big negative side, such as a huge military police presence, ever present danger of finding yourself in the middle of a fight especially on the way to and from the stadium - possibly robbed or even killed (rare but does happen), barbed wire fences and extreme security measures. The security measures are needed however, as evidenced at Colo Colo vs La Boca where fans from both teams squared off where the segregated stands meet and hurled abuse to each other throughout the game, seperted by a 10m glass wall, barbed wire fence and military police. The end of the game saw the Argentinian fans in an all in brawl with the riot police for about 5 minutes. Highlights from during the game included a song/chant that resonated throughout the stadium for 5 minutes or so which was as follows ¡¡¡Riquelme, conchetumadre, en europa, el Mati te cagó!!! Translated that means, Riquelme (La Boca player) motherfucker, in Europe, Mati (ex Colo Colo player) fucked you. The story being that Riquelme (an Argentinian) was replaced by Mati (Chilean) at Villa Real (Spanish premiership team). So anyway while this song was being sung by the entire crowd (40,000), all i could think of and it really cracked me up was listening to talkback back home when alot of people were incensed by the booing of the Australian team on to the field at a Bledisloe cup game. I don´t know if sportsmanship is a concept that has entered into the Latin American mentality yet, but hey the atmosphere beats anywhere else in the world I have been, so I´ll take the sacrafice.

Wine Festival in the Country

One of the things Chileans generally are most proud off, is their wine. I cant really comment on the quality of wine because if i did it would suggest I had an idea of what I was talking about. All I can say is that the wine tastes the same to me as it does anywhere else and its about 100 times cheaper, meaning wine festivals are alot more attractive to me here than anywhere else. We have been to a couple of wine festivals in the country surrounding Santiago which were alot of fun. Both had alot of food stalls selling chilean food, stalls selling handicrafts and indigenous and chilean musicians showing their wears. The highlight for me being the antichuchos (skewered kebabs) and pigs on the spit.

Santiago Half Marathon

Due to the copious amount of good food I have enjoyed in Chile, my gut had bulged to historically high levels. Hence I decided to sign up for the Santiago half marathon in the hope of shedding of some of the excess. As it turned out my body was so out of shape, that I spent most of my time preparing carrying some niggly running injury and I entered into the half marathon itself really not expecting to finish with two calf strains. However if you are ever stupid enough to run a half marathon with two calf strains, I have good news for you. After u get to the point (about 12-15km) where u can physically no longer run due to the pain, you gain a new pain threshold (u can no longer feel your calves) and the last 10 km is relatively easy. However the next four days is a lot of fun!!!

Apart from that

Apart from that I have just been enjoying the last remnants of summer. Have been to a few house parties and skate competitions etc. Am working quite alot more now (almost in the real world again), which means the bank balance is finally stabalising from its rapid free fall over the past months - a welcome change.

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