Cocaine, cats and karaoke

Dear devoted readers, I remain grateful for the continued support for my little blog amongst it's now quite substantial circulation. This weekend just passed I spent in Valparaiso and Viña Del Mar which are on the coast about 2 hours from Santiago. Both cities are beautiful in their own ways although nowadays they are more or less as one city since the land in between has become populated also.

Valparaiso is a port city where a thick sea mist blankets the city all day and doesn't burn off until mid afternoon, obscuring the wonderful views that are possible from the various hills that make up the city. From the sea front port the city rapidly crawls higher and higher into the surrounding hills, the houses and shacks are built atop each other and funicular elevators which consist of train carriage type things on rails travel up the sides of the hills negating the need to walk from the bottom to top through the confusing streets. It really is very pretty almost as if something out of a fairy tale. Unfortunately though parts are quite dirty and where Santiago has an issue with stray dogs, Valparaiso has an issue with cats.

Viña del Mar although only a few kilometres up the road is like another world, the streets are clean, the lawns are neatly trimmed and someone has obviously made a point of rounding up all the dogs (and cats). It is very touristy and has a beautiful beach where if you squint hard enough you can just see the Sydney harbour bridge on the other side of the pacific. I am informed however by Leonardo that the water is damn chilly, so I didn't brave it (as it happens I don't have alot of luck with water anyway). Leonardo used to work with my Aunt and Uncle in Venezuela for the Danish shipping line Maersk. He still works for Maersk, however is now based in Valparaiso whereas my Aunt and Uncle are in Saudi Arabia and harms way (I think Leonardo got the better deal). I got in touch with him about a week ago and told him of my little sojourn to Valpo (as the locals call it) and Viña (as the tourists call it) and he kindly offered to give me a personal guided tour. We drove all day in his ute, up through the Valpo hills at suicidal speeds and then back down again and along the esplanade in Viña. I think Leo (as he wants me to call him) must have wanted to be a tour guide when he was a boy because he was obviously enjoying the whole thing a little too much. We had stops for photos at points that he believed to be the most picturesque, however he wouldn't permit me to be out of the ute for more than about 2 minutes before we barrelled up and down some more hills and over some cats (almost, don't worry cat lovers). Perhaps the most bizarre part came when he took me to see the local prison as though it is a "must see" on the tourist trail. The huge edifice of a building stands alone in a crappy old paddock with small barred windows dotting the whole thing, the poor souls inside (although they probably deserve to be there) lean out through the bars and wave at the passing tourists. I think I can say that I liked Valpo and Viña quite alot more than Santigao, and it was nice to actually see the sea for the first time in a few months.

Anyway back in Santiago now, the flat remains the same, Jesus or the "cocaine sniffing saviour" as dubbed by one of my readers (thankyou Luke) still makes an appearance (miraculously of course) every couple of days, stays a while, sniffs a bit, has dinner with Ed' and Jonathan, then promptly buggers off without doing his washing up. Most of Ed's other pals maintain this type of practice also, if they were only around once a week then I could understand it, but since they almost practically live there you'd think that they might make an effort to clean up after themselves. I mean really if you saw our kitchen most days you'd think there'd been a war in it (all 2 square metres of it).

Lastly, just thought I'd mention that the embassy shindig went well last week. Lots of free booze and nibbles, got to have a chat with the Ambassador and the Minister. Emil you'll be glad to know that I passed on your regards to Brendan Nelson (he really is a knob), he and you would have got on slendidly.

Until next time take care.
Ps. Just thought I'd mention that I have developed some sort of Karaoke fever, In Viña I sang at three different karaoke bars; "California Dreaming", "Horse with no name" and "Father and son". Got laughed at all three times!!

I'm a model, know what I mean? (probably not cos you speak Spanish)

Hello all, hope all are well. Chile continues to present new and interesting challenges everyday and naturally the food war continues with Eduardo. Despite a brief cease in hostilities he resumed his now normal practices over the weekend and helped himself to my loaf of bread (the whole thing, not just a slice or two!), god knows what he did with it. Needless to say I am marginally annoyed, especially since I am STILL awaiting the installation of a light fitting.

My salsa career has sort of leveled out- at a crap standard. I don't seem to be improving much, but the instructor informs me that this is because I don't practice between classes (he may have a point). The novelty of dancing with a westerner has worn off and all the girls in the class try to avoid being designated as my partner now as my standard still lacks a certain Latin flair; even the dirty old man sighs with dismay if he has to dance with me!! However, Jonathan; Eduardo's "partner" says that he knows a good Salsateca (salsa club) and will take me in the future, so that should provide some practice.

With my dancing career looking shaky, I thought I'd better explore other career paths last week and tried my hand at a little modeling. Actually I hadn't intentionally set out that day to become a model but by about 11 in the morning I found myself on a catwalk strutting my stuff. I had been walking down one of the main streets in the centre of town when I was accosted by a girl who appeared to be selling something, having tried to avoid her and then ignore her, then tell her that I wasn't interested I finally gave in and followed her into a building (see "101 things you simply don't do"). Once in the "studio" I realised what it was, next thing I know I am watching another girl demonstrate a basic modeling routine along a catwalk. Then it was my turn, the music is turned on, and I am expected to do what this girl had just demonstrated; it involved lots of walking up and down, putting hands on hips and doing dainty little turns. Needless to say I must have satisfied the criteria since I was then herded into another room to sign up. I then learnt that I'd have to pay and that the course runs until October, so I respectfully declined and left the premises with a smirk!

I found Santiago's premier karaoke club on Saturday night, or rather I was invited to it by a group of Australians from uni. These are the type of places that the next J-Lo's are found or at least thats what it looked like. One Chilean girl must have sung about 10 times and really loved herself, to be fair she wasn't bad with the old microphone but she could have done without all the grunts and screams inbetween lines. Anyway some of the Sydneysiders I was with got up and belted out a few English language numbers, quite nostalgic and almost brought a tear to my eye!

I have had my first Chilean haircut this morning. Upon first arriving here one of the first things I noticed was the profuseness of dodgy hair cuts and I held grave fears that I would come out looking like a native. However having tried to explain what I wanted to the hairdresser (without success) I resorted to a photo of the "goddess" and I a few days before I left Oz that I have and indicated that I wanted it like that. She seemed to understand, but then I panicked a bit and thought she may have thought I was referring to the "goddess" rather than myself, and although the "goddess" always looks stunning I am not sure her style would particularly suit my head. The hairdresser seems to have attempted what is in the photo, and it doesn't look too bad although it could have been better.

I have (along with other Australian students studying here) been invited to the Australian embassy tomorrow night for a ministerial reception. One of Emil's pals; Brendan Nelson (destroyer of HECS and peoples futures......aka: Aus Education minister) is coming here for a tax funded holiday and so the embassy are having a bit of a shindig for him. Should be good, free booze etc. Then over the weekend I will be in Valparaiso and Viña Del Mar, so finally will be able to give you an idea bout the beaches next time I post. Until then, take care. T.

Pistols Drawn

Farewell photos, originally uploaded by Thearley.

Dear readership, hope all are well. Some readers may (or may not) recognise themselves in the featured photo. Thanks to Smelly Krystle for contributing this.

Not much to report, although I had an interesting weekend. A party Friday night which seemed to be catering to a distinctly homosexual crowd....again(what is about this place?). Saturday night I was out for a few drinks with a friend and came home to find Eduardo and his friend Jesus (yes that is really his name) still awake and having a grand old time with cocaine. The dope habit hadn't bothered me but saturday night Ed' was really on another planet and wouldn't let me go to bed until he'd lectured me about the french revolution and why the British should behead the queen- a topic that in reality he hasn't a clue about. Asides from this he has been giving me the shits in other arenas also; I am still waiting for him to put a light in my room, currently I make do with a lamp, and recently he has taken to eating my food so that when I come home from uni I find things that I had planned to have for dinner missing.

Anyway we are at pistols drawn at the moment and I have been giving him the cold shoulder, I think he has worked out that I am pissed off but I am going to let him sweat it out a bit longer.

Enough moaning, however not much else to tell you. Take care all, be in touch soon. T.

Santiago Sleaze

Dear all thankyou for your continued patronage and the overwhelming response to the last post; most of it utter tripe, but keep it coming. For those of you not "in the know", Gebs was a fellow inmate at NMHS and now owns and runs a leper colony.

Anyway not much to report since my last post, although you may have a giggle to know that I stood in some wet cement last week; some workmen were putting down a new footpath and failed to take the correct safety precautions such as blocking the way to pedestrians. Still I managed to get myself out ok and only had to give my shoes a quick brush down; at least I have now left a more permanent mark on Santiago.

This past weekend, I took my second dance lesson which went as well as could be expected although I still have trouble working out when we are dancing Salsa and when we are dancing Merengue (I am pretty useless at it all). You may remember when I posted about my first dance lesson that I wrote of a particular dirty old man whose shirt seemed to come further undone as the class progressed. This week his shirt was practically completely undone before the class had even begun and I held grave fears that other garments would be discarded. Fortunately this did not eventuate however I am convinced that he takes too much interest in some of the younger ladies of the class. This is not uncommon in Santiago, since most Chilean males seem to have a negligible CCC rating (Charm, Charisma and Courtesy) and indeed it is not uncommon for trucks to slow down whilst passing members of the contary gender and the driver to holler profanities, make smooching noises and to grope at his own chest. This type of behaviour seems to transcend all walks of life, a group of us foreigners (2 males and 3 females) went to the Mercado central (central market) for a "cultural" exercise for class last week, where numerous fishmongers, butchers and bakers seemed to take great delight in holding their produce to their chests as if holding breasts and then proceeded to behave in much the same manner as the aforementioned truck drivers.

Furthermore there actually exist numerous chains of coffee shops (like Hudsons in Adelaide etc), which are described in Lonely Planet as "coffee with legs" as they are exclusively staffed by girls in very short skirts for the viewing pleasure of Santiago's businessmen. Anyway there is not much of this behaviour going on in the flat since it seems to be a South American homosexual haven, however there is always something else strange happening there; the other day I came home to find Eduardo, Jonathan and Raimundo (Bambi) all sitting like gorillas from a David Attenborough documentry going through each others hair as if looking for fleas whilst making what can only be described as orgasmic noises. Needless to say I have given up studying there (although not totally given up studying...yet!).

Be in touch soon.
T.