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Published: January 6th 2007
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Just another stray dog
who thinks he owns the beach Steve has gone back to the states to study and take his test. We are getting to know Vina del Mar and Chile, and starting to settle in. We had another visit with Jorge and Yoya and their family. They are such warm and welcoming people. We try our first mate, thatś "mah-tay". It is very strong!! Mas fuerte! And the hot straw is a bit weird, but I could get used to it.
When asked what he likes about Chile, Oliver responded, “the ice cream!” Every corner has a popsicle/ice cream stand. You don’t see so much hand-made or scoop ice cream but you definitely see Popsicles. So we end up getting ice cream almost everyday. This is at least one of the foods that Ben and Oliver like here, since most of the Chilean foods they do not like so much. Chileans like to eat a hot dog here called a Completo - that is, a hot dog with mashed avocado and mayonnaise (and lots of it). We’re finding that Chileans really like mayonnaise. We are struggling with how to order a hot dog without the avocado and mayonnaise - we’ve been told to request it in several
Natural History Museum in Santiago
one big building meets two little boys different ways: perro caliente, Viennese con pan, completo estilo americano - each place has its own name. What is easy to find here are empanadas, stuffed in a variety of ways, these go over well with everyone.
Over the time of Steve’s absence, the weather has warmed up some, but we still have our foggy days when it is so cold we wear turtlenecks and fleece. Spring is definitely in the air. One day it rained so hard (we were told this would be the last rain of the year) the streets flooded and the water was up to Ben and Ovie’s knees!! Apparently it rains like this a lot in the winter but we can’t figure out if the streets always become so flooded. It wouldn’t have been too bad, but our apartment also leaked and we had to quickly do some furniture rearranging.
The boys go to school everyday for the morning time only, although some days they may stay into the afternoon if they choose. The school curriculum is focusing on geography and the continents which is working out well with the geology (plate tectonics) activities Theresa is doing with them and the traveling we
are going to do. At their school, each student has to make a diorama of one of the major cities in Chile, starting in the north and going south. This is difficult since we don’t know much about Chile yet! But luckily, Ovie was assigned Vina del Mar. Ben was assigned Punta Arenas (Sandy Point), the southernmost city in Chile. That city is now on our list of must-sees when we travel to southern Chile.
After feeling “different” from everyone due to the language differences primarily, the boys are starting to get used to hearing Spanish everywhere and are picking up little phrases from the kids on the playground at their school. Mainly “it’s mine” and “I’m full” - not too much, but it is a start and they are getting their confidence up.
After school, we do a bit of homeschooling, go to the beach or visit some other site to get to know Vina del Mar better. We have no car and can access everything by walking which is really nice. This walking is something we want to try to continue when we get back to the states.
We’ve visited the Fonck Archaeological Museum, which
Ben and Ovie at the playground
Parque Quinta Normal, Santiago has an impressive Easter Island statue out front. The museum also has an exhibit of shrunken heads from northern South America. It is amazing to think that a full size adult head can be reduced to only 3 inches high. Pretty gruesome stuff.
At the “entrance” to Vina del Mar there is a clock made of flowers in the landscaping. We visited this clock, had ice cream, and played on the subway mounds. When the subway was put in through Vina del Mar, they dug a trench, built the train, then covered it over (cut-and-cover construction). Then they made the land into a parkway with these funny mounds, which the boys find really fun to play on - playing king of the mountain, running up and down, and rolling down sideways.
Vina del Mar also has a little castle that was built out into the water during the turn of the century. It is currently an art museum, but it has a turret that is connected to the main building by a walkway with a glass floor. This place made for a nice visit and a nice view of the water underfoot!!
The beach in Vina is
quite nice. There are almost no trash cans, but people seem to pick up after themselves and there are people who walk the beach every morning picking up any trash left behind (which isn’t much). One section of the coastline is made up of giant rocks, which the boys love to climb. They have become quite agile at it. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of “wildlife” at the beach, just a few gulls, pigeons and sea lions. But every morning Theresa watches an oystercatcher (a black bird with a large red bill) searching the beach for breakfast. By mid-morning he’s gone.
The ocean here comes from a current off Antartica and is very cold. Even with their little wetsuits, the boys don’t venture in very much. But the water is slowly starting to warm up and Ben and Oliver have tried diving into the waves much to Theresa’s dismay! (She doesn’t want to have to rescue anyone) The boys spend much of their time making sand sculptures and combing the sand for the odd artifact to keep.
There are a lot of dogs here, and they all seem happy, although the happiest ones have to be
the ones at the beach. It is hard to tell which are strays and which aren’t. They walk with confidence, greeting people and other dogs in a friendly way. We have yet to see a dog fight or see a dog be aggressive in anyway with anyone. They don’t even seem to beg much, they just sort of hang out.
The people here are so nice to the dogs too. We haven’t heard anyone yell at or hit a dog. And we’ve seen guys lay fresh cement in sidewalks, the dogs run through it, and the workers don’t bother to re-smooth the cement. The military guys run down the beach in formation while the dogs run with them and bark playfully at them - the men’s response: to laugh and clap their hands at the dogs.
There are a few cats too. When you pet the cats, they purr immediately and want more and more and more. We don’t think they get much lovin’. Once we saw three big guys drop what they were doing to save a bedraggled kitten from under a car. The kitten was so scared, it was not an easy task, but it seemed
very important to these three guys.
We don’t know where they have come from - the bedding of a furnished rental apartment, the beach, being around stray animals, or just that time of year in Vina, but we are all covered in flea bites. Ben and Oliver have tried to decide who has the most bites. Ben has more it seems, but Oliver has itchier ones (so everyone wins!?). Theresa has started a maniacal campaign to eradicate the fleas - washing all the bedding, vacuuming the beds, keeping all the beach clothes quarantined, and requiring about 3 showers a day. This is all particularly difficult since there is no laundry facility in our building. But it looks like it has worked - no new bites!!
The last weekend before Steve came back, the boys and I took a took a trip to Santiago. . Of course, we had to ride the subway. It was very crowded which was a new experience for Ben and Oliver. We went to Parque Quinta Normal and visited the Museo Natcional de Historia Natural and the Museo de Ciencia y Tecnologia. Lots of stuffed animals - some looked pretty sad and goofy. We
were a little musuemed out so we just hung out in the park for a while - had ice cream of course!! It was really hot in Santiago - it was nice to get back to the beach climate in Vina. We are all missing Steve.
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Rachel Winston
non-member comment
Muy bonita!
Theresa, Thank you for the wonderful update. Your pictures are beautiful. You guys are my inspiration! Buen viaje!