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Published: February 1st 2006
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As usual I wasn’t very lucky with my flight across the ocean. This time it was the weather in Frankfurt that put an end to my dreams of the Chilean sun. As we were about to go down in Frankfurt we were informed that that they had closed the airport due to snow that had to be cleared away from the landing ground. After a while of circling around the plane was redirected to Cologne - less than half an hour away. Landing in Cologne I couldn’t even see the slightest snow flake, and did all of a sudden feel very cheated. As we were waiting for the plane to reful and take us back to Frankfurt, hopefully just in time for the connecting flights, we were informed that the plane was needed somewhere else. So instead ending up in sunny Santiago I was stuck at the airport of freezing cold Cologne, without winterclothes. Since my bag as usual took its time I ended up last in the long queue that had formed out of very angry and frustrated passangers that were about to miss weddings and importent business meetings, waiting to get new flighttickets and a place to spend the
night. Two and a half hours later when I finally reached the helpdesk I asked if I got a price for being the last. ”Well I’ll take you home with me”, Mister Moustache behind the counter suggested. Seemed more like a punishment than a price to me, and I was quite relieved to find out that they still had rooms left at the hotel and even more so to get the last seat on the flight to Santiago leaving following night.
Since I had to pass the following day waiting for my flight I decided to take a look around Cologne. Cologne freezing cold, windy and pretty grey. With my face tucked into the collar of my jacket and my scarf wrapped around my head (making me look a bit like mummy I can imagine) I was bravely making my way through the city, with a painful expression stuck to my face. All of a sudden I saw a familiar sign - Starbucks… I know that this discussion has been held before, but as long as Starbucks keeps crossing my way I can’t really get away from it. It seems as if I destined to face the ideological dilemma
of really wanting something for myself and at the same time being sort of against it in a wider, ideological perspective. I guess this is something we all have to face from time to time, but Starbucks has turned out to be sort of a frequent bug in my life. Probably because I’m such a great fan of their coffee. I think it’s a shame though when franchises like Starbucks take over one after the other of the diverse and colourful cafés in the cities it enters (like London for exampel),and therby taking away parts of their personality and charm. But still, the thought of sinking down in one of their confy chairs and sipping on a tall, skinny latte, when I was standing outside in the could streets of Cologne was too hard to resist. Once again I was saved by the Starbucks empire.
It was worth it though. What I didn’t know at the time was that that might have been the last decent latte I had for half a year. So far my experiences of the coffee in Chile havn’t been that great. I tried to order a cappucino at a café today and got a
coffee with a thick, white chunk in it, which after closer investigations turned out to be wipped cream (on the verge of being butter). I have also learnt that when people here ask you how you want your coffee they don’t mean if you want it with sugar or milk (which is kind of assumed that noone would be stupid enough to put in the coffee), but if you want it in a large or a small cup.
Anyhow, as you realize, I managed to get out of both the Starbucks café, Cologne and Germany in the end, and continue safely to the much warmer and friendlier Santiago de Chile, where nothing seems to be a problem. It doen’t matter wheather it is arriving in the airport of Santiago 24 hours later than expected where my friend Pablo was to pick me up, or joining my new flatmate, Ana, in Valparaíso, and her friends on a two week long roadtrip up to the Atacamadesert in the north of Chile. It has turned out that I had chosen quite a bad time to start my internetship here, since everyone is going on their summer holidays, for a few weeks, starting
from this one. I guess they could have told me, but to be honest i don’t really mind. We deceided that the only right thing for me to do was to go on holiday as well, instead of sitting alone in the office. So on Thursday we’re off.
Valparaíso is an amazing city in a beatiful setting and filled with really nice and friendly people that never seem to get tired of socializing, but I guess I’ll have plenty of time to get to know it better when I get back. I’ll of course get back to you with more comments and thoughts both from Valparaiso and the Chilean lifestyle. Til then; all the best!
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anna
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Hej babe Tur att du kom fram helskinnad i alla fall... Och att du har ett helt halvår på dig att ta igen ett missat dygn. I motsats till dig råkade jag få en halvdag extra helt plötsligt. Eleverna skulle ha livräddning hela eftemiddagen, så jag blev ledig. Kram!