Blogs from Santiago Region, Chile, South America - page 158

It's actually been a sort of vacation this last week or so. You know the lie back and do nothing variety. We spent 3 nights in Valdivia with our daily itinerary revolving around sleeping, wandering arond town, though always ending up at the fish market to watch the sea lions, then after lunch somewhere we'd wander back to our hostel and spend the afternoon reading and watching cable TV. The highlight of the three days was when Christie stumbled upon a seven episode marathon of Arrested Development. Man were we in heaven. Our last day in Valdivia coincided with the Presidential Elections, and I spent the night recovering from my misery over Pinera's loss to Bachelat whils the rest of Valdivia drove around and around in their cars and pick ups honking their horns and shouting ... read more

We flew from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires on Christmas Eve, covering a distance of something ridiculous like 3000km and a 30 degree temperature increase. Having never had Christmas in the southern hemisphere before (or even anywhere other than my parent´s house in my case... how old am I??) it was very strange to be wearing shorts and t-shirts. We were treated to an interesting firework display at midnight. Argentinians firing fireworks out of adjacent windows in blocks of flats at other flats, cars, people, our hostel, anything available really! Added a certain edge to sitting on the hostels rooftop terrace anyway. Christmas dinner was predictably steak and red wine, at about 11pm when the temperatures had dropped a little. So really the only familiar thing about it was that we did very little. Buenos Aires is ... read more

We are in Santiago waiting for the celebrations to begin. They are just closing off the roads and a big sound system is being erected so should be a good night. We are having a meal with all the guys at the hostel at 9pm and then we are going out to the street party and fireworks display later on. We have lost our mobile phone charger and the battery is flat so sorry we cant send or receive any messages. So a few quick personals: Mr pallet have an excellent 30th birthday you old git! Dad Kelly happy 60th birthday you even older git! Sorry we cant be there. I hope everyone has a great night, we will be thinking of you all. Love and best wishes for the new year, Sue & Andy XXXX ... read more

After sadly saying goodbye to Argentina, and travelling back to Chile via The Snail again, we had a couple of days back in Santiago just before Christmas. Despite the huge Christmas trees everywhere and the hoards of people doing their last minute shopping, it just doesn't feel the same when you're in your shorts! We met an English guy called Gordon at our hostel who was on the last couple of days of his trip. Whilst sharing a particularly good bottle of Chilean red wine, he told us about Cafe Con Piedras - Coffee With Legs. It's a Chilean tradition. There are coffee houses all over the Capital, with coffee being served by ladies in very short shirts, with their legs on show! People (well men), from all over South America come here to go to ... read more

Lundi 12 au vendredi 16 decembre: Ca y est nous servons a quelque chose a Un Techo! Daniel (le directeur de l’Area Vivienda Definitiva) nous confie une mission assez fastidieuse mais au moins utile, pour nous occuper pendant la derniere semaine avant les vacances : faire une liste de toutes les entreprises de construction de la region de Santiago, qui pourront etre consultees pour le prochain projet de construction de viviendas definitivas. Un petit tour sur les Paginas Amarillas (eh oui ca s’appelle pareil !), et nous avons une petite liste d’un millier d’entreprises a trier et a classer proprement. Bon voila, on l’a fait, a deux, et c’est plutot rigolo de bosser ensemble, ca ne nous est pas arrive souvent ! Heureusement on peut se disputer discretement en francais... Pour nous sortir des tableurs excel, ... read more