The dead of winter

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I am not sure what, or if anything, Chileans have against shorts, but the fact that it was 26 degrees today and most people were still wearing jeans or pants or maybe the occasional down jacket stood out to me. Perhaps I just have a thing about Chileans and shorts now since we went to the cross-cultural class and the facilitator said that you should always wear pants the first time you go to someone‘s house in Chile when they invite you. So now I am wondering if I just stored that in my head, and now I’m only noticing people here wearing pants, and not shorts, even though it’s 25 degrees and there isn’t any wind...like when you start talking about a certain car that you might be looking to buy, and then all of a sudden all you notice is that car everywhere. I might just have this mis-impression that Chileans hate shorts...and were perhaps all shocked at my naked legs as I strutted around in today in mine. It is, after all, the dead of winter here so maybe people are just dressing the part.

That aside, it was another beautiful day here in Santiago, and after another late start (the girls were up after 9, so they are still getting adjusted to the new time zone) we got out to the San Cristóbal teleférico and took that to the top of the mountain/hill. I had Zoe calling out the different colours of the gondola cars in Spanish (”rojo” she yelled, and then “verde” and then “azul” as they went by, and fortunately there were only three colours and she knew them all.) As we got to the top Steph wanted to treat us to a Chilean treat called a mote con huesillo, which was essentially a peach drink with some rice in it...which I guess does sound kind of odd, but was really quite good. Zoe tried some, and Maelle did too, although they were quickly demanding french fries once they saw the little tienda next to us were serving them. It was a fun adventure though, and we got to show the girls the top of San Cristóbal and a view over the entire city.

Tomorrow is a big day as Steph has her first “real” day of Chilean work...I put real in quotations since her job has been here for the last three months. That does mean that I will be solo con las niñas mañana - so I’m hoping that they won’t mind sleeping in past nine, or perhaps maybe ten, since she’ll be hard at work. It’s ok though, fortunately we are about a 15 minute walk from 5 or so playgrounds so I’m sure there’ll be lot of that tomorrow.

Anyway, should be muy interesante! A luego.

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Photos

San Cristobal telefirico
Fortunately we found some relief from the winter cold in this gondola car

Comments

[Kathleen Tansey]

The blog is a great idea. You will have all of us improving our Spanish along with you. Love.