Salud!

Got my bearings in Santiago. Apparently that takes me 4-5 days (Hence why I have taken so long to blog new posts). I suppose I’ll try and sum up the highlights of the past couple days for you insatiable readers. Also, I apologize that I got a jumpstart on the entries before sending out the link to my blog…for the life of me, I could not figure out how to type the @ sign using a Chilean keyboard and hence did not have a convenient way to type in a bunch of addresses.

I will start off by saying that I kicked off my entrance into the country by lying to the officials of the Chilean government. They saw my container of granola buried in my suitcase with the security scanner and asked me about it. I told them I had no food in my bag. The ornery woman with the hairy lip said, “Bah!” and waved me through. I also smuggled in a jar of crunchy peanut butter.

Back to my busy update. All of the volunteers were picked up at the airport by our program coordinator. Turns out another girl on my Toronto flight was also in the program. She is 6’2’’, platinum blonde, has shoulders like Schwarzenegger , and introduced herself as, “Graaaayce. From Al-uh-bay-muh. Roll mother effin’ tide.” Her handshake caused me to drop my 50 lb suitcase on my left foot. The fact that she was wearing hot pink emphasized her abrasive introduction. Needless to say, our cute little Chilean coordinator named Claudia was rendered speechless when the pair of us rolled out of customs.

There was a bus waiting for us that scooped us up and took us to the charming Hotel Montecarlo. All 20 of us were paired off and hauled our respective 3-4 bags up anywhere from 5-7 flights of stairs (Strike 1: no elevator). At least I was only on the fifth floor. Throw in Santiago’s current 90 degree afternoons, the Chilean aversion to household AC units, empty stomachs, and you’re left with a group of very disgruntled, world travelers. Luckily after that, it was lunch time.

Lunch in Chile is a multiple course, 3-hour affair. After dal bhat galore, I am A-okay with this cultural nuance. After one meal, I am already dubbed the “sarcastic girl who takes pictures of her food.” There are worse things. At least I’m not the blonde Hulk from Bama…? Anyhow, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll bold all of my food descriptions so you can skip them if you so wish. You can’t, however, stop me from posting hundreds of food pictures.

Café Lastarria

Appetizer (Entrada)- ceviche

 Entrée (Plato del fondo)- roasted chicken with the most amazing couscous that I have ever eaten

 Dessert (Postre)- leche asada (a dessert similar to flan) with blackberry sauce

After that we did lots of fun things that I’m sure I can sum up in one sentence. No- a sentence fragment. Ready? Wandered, exchanged money, got lost, found a park, heladería with homemade ice cream (yum), bought an adaptor. Boom! Also- my first peso exchange with a Chilean resulted in me paying double for a bottle of water. Apparently the bargaining skills that I acquired in Nepal have gone dormant.

Since lunch is the big meal in Chile and lunch had been our first meal together, we had thought that it was an extra special fancy welcome shindig. WRONG. Dinner was at the wondrous Café de Opera, a fancy schmancy restaurant where a table for 20 was reserved for us on the roof patio. In addition to multiple courses, we were (aggressively) offered drinks during the intervals of feasting. In one sitting, I tried the famous pisco sour, some Chilean red (tinto vino), and some Chilean bubbly. Oy. When in Rome? You say “Salud!” in Chile when you make a toast. Salud times three and I was ready for bed.

Café del Opera

Appetizer (Entrada)- cheese platters and dumplings

 Entrée (Plato del fondo)- tilapia over a root vegetable pureé 

 Dessert (Postre)- maracuya (it’s a local fruit that tastes like guava) meringue and the girl next to me’s chocolate gelato (nobody’s perfect)

So apparently that’s what my volunteer fees went toward. Staying in a nice hotel and being wined and dined on rooftop restaurants. No complaints.