Blogs from Santiago, Santiago Region, Chile, South America - page 124

What an amazing, amazing concert!! Not only did we manage to get tickets to see U2, we got to go to the official fan club pre and after party! Not only that, but during the pre party we won access to the inner circle!! We are so lucky! I have never won anything in a raffle before... so couldnt believe it when he read out my numbers!! We were in the inner circle with people that had queued for 24 hours, and they were pissed off with us for having wristbands and being foreign and at one point were telling us to go home!! (welcome to Chile!) Lucky we were with some locals and everything was ok.. but I suppose its understandable if you have been there all night with no sleep! Franz was support - ... read more

(Note: I am writing this the night before I leave for my fourth trip to South America. The stories and pictures are from other trips to South America between June of 2000 and July of 2004. The pictures are from old old digital cameras and aren't my best, but they go along with the stories.) A few days before I left for South America on my first trip, now almost six years ago, I visited my dentist. My teeth were fine, but he handed me a few extra toothbrushes. "Take these on your trip," he told me, "Maybe you can trade them for blankets or something." The comment was tongue-and-cheek, but the truth was, I had no idea what to expect from South America. Like my dentist, South America was for me something imagined out ... read more

OK, yesterday I managed to find 2 things that I like about Santiago!! The first is a cultural phenomenon that I guess was bred out of the fact that (I believe) divorce only became legal here within the last year or so. A Cafe con piernas (coffee with legs) is a place where I guy will go during his lunch break, or after a hard days work for a quick coffee before heading home. There´s nowhere to sit, you just stand at the counter and drink your coffee. Hence ´with legs´. Oh, and the waitresses are wearing the tiniest little bikinis ever. And because it was an important cultural experience we had all the girls who work at the school (including the director) telling us which they´d heard were best to go to and printing us ... read more

How to start... i know that´s cliche but that´s all i´ve got! This week has been great although I´m constantly reminding myself not to think of Bolivia. After arriving on Monday morning we went pretty much straight to Linares, this little town an hour or two outside of Santiago. There are 20 of us from ND, 2 from Marquette and 3 from Milwaukee. I almost feel like I´m at summer camp, although this happens to be at the foot of the Andes and takes place in a new culture and involves fun new Chilean modismos.. it´s a new group of people getting to know each other, amazingly warm days, plenty of down time for soccer, cards, a swim in the river, napping, journaling, talking, whatever. The classes are great because we´re learning all the double meanings ... read more

We finally left Patagonia and felt like we were starting on the next stage of our adventure. And it shall be called the "Hot City" stage. Mendoza was a pleasant enough city, but most importantly we were in beds again. After spending half of our time in Patagonia camping we were saying goodbye to our tent, and hello to space and new clothes. That was the plan anyhow, but the Argentinian post office had other ideas. We tried to post the tent in Bariloche first, and after a mere hour of queing were told that we couldn't post it on that day; only packages of less than 2kgs were allowed. We checked when we could post and if it was the same for the whole country and were assured it was possible the next day. Our ... read more