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What does a taxi in Santiago say?
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 5 November 2009
Have you ever been unable to find an item in your house (keys, camera cable, that movie someone pressed into your hands promising you'd love it and you never watched it and now they want it back), only to rifle through your items like a B-grade detective and come across not the item in question, but the previous thing you'd given up for lost?
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Highlights of Latin America
Blog: Itinerant Londoner - 1 November 2009
I had such an awesome time in Latin America it’s pretty hard to pick out favourite moments. But I’m going to give it a go anyway. Here are the best things I’ve seen and done over the past six and a half months, along with links to what I originally wrote about them. Favourite City: Valparaiso, [...]
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De compras con las chauchas! Coin-fueled fresh market foray in Santiago!
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 1 November 2009
Sunday. Day of relaxation, of rest, of work (what? just me?), of move it or lose it re: feria visits. My best closest fresh market is on Sundays, down in Barrio Yungay. For a list of the ferias in the city by comuna (district/neighborhood), don't miss this handy website put out by the Chilean Ministry of Agriculture. Unlike estoeschile, they don't even have an English translation, so you won't waste a bunch of your time clutching your sides at the slips of word.
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Chile Round-up & Budget
Blog: Itinerant Londoner - 31 October 2009
Poor, underrated Chile. I didn’t meet a single backpacker in Latin America who reckoned Chile was their favourite country. Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia…yes, frequently. Chile? Never. They always start with a couple of obvious negatives that I must admit I have trouble disagreeing too much with – first off, it’s expensive. Compared to the [...]
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Snow play
Blog: Felicity Sees... - 26 October 2009
My latest adventures are joined together with a common theme that seems to have surfaced lately, all having been concentrated in somewhat colder circumstances than those in the deserts of the North. Dropping from 15· to 40· south does make something of a difference to the temperature! Difference enough in fact for some snow to fall and provide some great opportunities for fun and adventure!First up: Skiing (Valle Nervado, Santiago)
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Wickertown, aka Chimbarongo Revealed
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 17 October 2009
So, after Abby and I took our famous detour to the little hamlet of Pelequén, whereupon we saw the lovely onion-domed church and marveled at our inability to get off the train at the right stop, we set to the task at hand, which was actually seeing Chimbarongo.
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The story I shouldn't tell, re: urine sample in Santiago. Medicine in Chile, always surprising.
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 9 October 2009
In which I tell the story of my first urine sample in Santiago. Just so you know what you're getting into.
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Vamos al médico! Let's go to the doctor! Health care in Chile
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 7 October 2009
One of the questions that gets alot of play over on a board or two that I post on is health care in Chile. About which I can say, it is generally good. There are two systems of health insurance, public and private, FONASA and ISAPRE, respectively which I believe anyone can opt into, though the prices as an individual are higher than as part of a collective contract. I continued my health insurance from my previous employer when I went indie, and if you want to know how much that costs, email me, you know where.
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Santiago Street Dogs, or how to decide whether or not to say yes to an offer for a guest blog post
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 3 October 2009
Ah, complexity, and the formula of because I said so.Every now and then, somewhat less often than the frequency with which I receive spam comments regarding SEO, but more frequently than the advertisements for who knows what that come in the comments, I will get an email or a comment asking me to do a guest blog post.
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XV Feria Vinos de Chile, a wine and photo-filled report
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 1 October 2009
With the application of a little creative mojo and email grovelling, I went to the XV Feria Vinos de Chile at the Plaza San Francisco hotel in downtown Santiago this evening. (Quick deets: Sept. 30, Oct. 1, 2 6:30-10:30)The hotel looks like this:
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Going to Synagogue in Chile, the Yom Kippur version, with several remembrances
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 28 September 2009
I know I won't win any awards for Jewess of the year (offensive term meant playfully people, don't hate) by posting this on Yom Kippur, one of the two most important days on the Jewish calendar, the day that epitomizes Jewish atonement and judgement. However, since the self-denominated Hebrew Mamita Vanessa Hidary has already taken individualism meets Judaism to a new height, there was no chance I'd be awarded anything anyway, and so I write.
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16: "To the north, to the desert: Part 5"
Blog: Dispatches from the Provinces of Argentina - 24 September 2009
Lucy and I got into La Serena just before sunrise, Saturday morning. We took a cab to her house up on a hill high up in the city. You can see a peninsula in the distance lit with hundreds of street and house lights.
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Chile's Sept 18th/19th Parada Militar/Military Parade. In words and pictures
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 21 September 2009
I believe that it is safe to say that the 18th of September and all of the associated brouhaha (with tip of the hat to the Beastie Boys and bonus points to you if you know what song I'm talking about) is finally over. Which makes sense given that it's the 21st of the month already. But when the fiestas patrias mega day of the 18th falls on a Friday, se alargan las fiestas (the party gets drawn out).
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Bearshapedsphere goes skiing! Valle Nevado and fairy dust
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 19 September 2009
Have you ever lived your whole life in a house only to find out that there's a fairy playground behind the tire swing that you could have been peeping at for years? That's how I feel today.
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The dieciocho is almost upon us. Chilean Fiestas Patrias!
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 15 September 2009
Ya viene el 18. The 18th is coming!We're going to a wait a minute on the worst transit stories group blog (but get your creative juices flowing on that one), because the 18th of September (Chilean national holiday, or fiestas patrias) is practically upon us, half of Chile is already on vacation and the other half will be joining them soon. Since I mostly work for myself, I'm on the horns of a dilemma, continue all the zany workity stuff, or take a semi-deserved break? Probably a combination of the two.
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Santiago, Chile
Blog: Patrick and Katrina do the Globe - 10 September 2009
Santiago is best known as a capital city and a gateway for visitors to Chile and the South American west coast. At first glance, or more correctly at our first glance on an overcast day with no Andes in the distance, the city appeared as an urban jungle of tall, ugly skyscrapers.
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Sights to behold, downtown Santiago (and barrio brasil)
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 9 September 2009
Today I saw several things that gave me pause, and while I failed to see many more, as I still have not perfected that 360 degree vision, what I saw brought me joy, in some strange way. Maybe it will you, too.So now (and I'm allowed to do this, because I went to law school), I enter into evidence, the following:Exhibit A. Chileans dressed in traditionalish Japanese garb, accompanied by a man in some sort of an exaggerated mortarboard or tophat. Perhaps this is related to a movie I know nothing about. I often know nothing about movies. Any thoughts?
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Vigilante Privado for Hire. What would you make him do?
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 8 September 2009
Today I went to the bank, a fairly infrequent occurrence, given that I do most of my banking online, it's all very Jetsons-like (that's Los Supersónicos to you)here in Santiago, banking and healthcare being automated to a degree that the United States can only dream about.
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Santiago: You can't always get what you want, even if it's on the menu
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 6 September 2009
Here in Chile we like to play a little game. It goes like this: See this thing on the menu? Well, I'd like to order it. You can't order it. Hmmm, what about this other thing? Nope, that either.
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Traditional Santiago, La Piojera, or a gringa finally gets out and about.
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 2 September 2009
My friends have been taunting me with La Piojera since we first met. Oh sure, they say, let's go! La Piojera is great, it's traditional, it's messy, it's smoky, it's crazy, it's dangerous, it's fun. Let's go.To which I say, great! I'm on it.
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El mes de los gatos/ Kitty month
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 30 August 2009
So the end of August means many things to you. Perhaps it's the end of the blackberry season, time to dust off your pencils and books, looking forward to Labor day. I have been somewhat remiss in not educating you on the finer points of August here in Santiago, which is that it is cat month.
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Photos Galore! Santiago east and west on a beautiful sunshiney day.
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 21 August 2009
On a picture postcard day like this, one that comes after the rain, and before the next rain, and before the smog has a chance to creep back like a midnight-snack running houseguest who opens your fridge and moves stuff around, you can't help but want to hang out the window and take pictures.
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Brought to you from Electricity-free Wednesday (Chilectra vies with Telefónica for most hated service provider.)
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 19 August 2009
It all started last night when I came home around midnight, and noticed the lobby suspiciously dark and the elevator out of order.
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SAG uses frightening ruminant imagery to instill fear in travelers.
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 17 August 2009
Caution: You may spit out whatever you are eating somewhere around photo four. You have been warned.Four countries and seventeen hours later, I arrived to Santiago's spiffy airport and followed the usual hamster wheel to International Police, through the duty free shop and to pick up my luggage. Here, as is lately the case, I was asked on several occasions if I'd declared any food I might be carrying. Yes, I had, I responded (almond butter and grapenuts, if you were wondering).
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Confessions of a Travel Writer, the view from Chile
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 13 August 2009
I stumbled on the last fifteen or twenty minutes of Confessions of a Travel Writer on the Travel channel quite by accident. I happened to be in the United States, and relaxing after a long family-intensive day by turning on the TV as my mother, who'd had an allergic reaction and was resting up from that, sat beside me.
