There´s definitely a nice vibe here in Santiago, even though the shouting French man skyping at my side - drama baby!- is highly annoying. But it´s definitely a different backpacker scene. I had a wine that was quite agreeable, which I´d grabbed before I had a sense of the exchange rate and it turned out that it´d cost me 2 Euros! Yesterday we went to the Hipodrome for horseracing and got promptly invited to eat, drink, or have basically anything we wanted (a French girl, an Australian-British one and myself). All my horses lost :( therefore I expect LOTS of luck in recompensation! It was pretty cool, and the trip there proved to me once more that I am SO cool when it comes to wandering around in foreign cities (even though I am the only one without any Spanish to speak of). I also acquired a new camera,mainly because my cell phone doesn´t work anymore andI can only deal with a certain number of problems simultaneously... The next day I saw amazingly beautiful pottery at the museum and bought strawberries for 20 cents and finally I went to meet Alejandra, my Chilean friend who I hadn´t seen for five years. by some lucky chance she also just arrived in Chile. On facebook she'd told me to go a certain metro station and call her from there, anytime. I was a bit afraid of how we'd get together, but I did not foresee the chain of bad luck that had me parting at 6 and finally arriving at the house 11 at night... A guy helped me to call Alejandra's parents' house several times but no-one answered. On her French cellphone which I called first from a phone, then from an internet place, "Celia" answered, a repondeur. Skype, for some reason, refuses to send text messages. There was no response to emails or Facebook messages after some hours and now way to reach me, as my phone did not work. I bought a Chilean sim card but my phone was a) dead and then b) did not have reception (and now, still, does not work, even though it's alive and kicking now..). There I was in a mall at a dodgy area of Santiago, it was getting dark and the shops started to close... On the other hand, people were very helpful...
When I got finally picked up and driven to this beautiful place, half an hour outside of Santiago, in Chilean campagne, my French returned miraculously, probably so I wouldn't try and torture people with my pidgin Spanish (which I do anyway). Even though I'm missing out on the whole "bon ben, bref, hein, quoi" spiel that makes the language truly cool, and it IS frustrating to tell a story and to ruin the pointe because one doesn}t remember a basic word like "sick." mais tant pis. My sense of order and perfectionism is having a nervous breakdown, which is probably for the best.
The place is gigantic, more than a hectar of land that the father slowly transforms into a giant garden of labyrinths (5 so far) of wine and roses, trees with automn-red leaves and roses, plans for an amphitheatre, tiny waterways, alleys of eucalyptus trees and roses. The family has suffered under the Pinochet regime; it´s great to see how they've managed to carve out a piece of paradise now. Rodrigo, Alejandra's handsome brother, cooked and showed us his paintings. They have a two funny geese, chicken, self-made marmelade, Chilean food, honey, fresh (scarily warm) milk, eggs etc here (again I realize how much of a city girl I am, almost having had a fit over some chicks) and a tiny puppy that immediately won even my dog-ambivalent heart. I'll post pictures soon, you'll see why... I've almost witnessed the birth of a horse today - bon, the birth was promised to me, but there seem to be complications, anyway the horse is no longer here... I picked a couple of fruits and altogether it was an extremely chilled day with lots of food. I think this week will continue to pass à l'improvisé. I'll try to go with the flow. and check out that horse tomorrow.
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