First blog

All right everybody - here I go, trying to write a blog while I'm in Chile. My hopes or rather, my ambitions are that I'll write something every week... But let's just see how that works out haha :) I've decided to write the blog in English because I have many non-Danish speaking friends who would like to follow my blog - or at least I hope so! haha

The 21 hour flight

Thursday I took off from Copenhagen Airport and off course I had packed too much in my suitcase (24,3 kg!!! UPS!), but the woman at the check-in counter was kind enough to tell me that if I could take out 1 kg, I didn't have to pay for overweight! Nice! So in the middle of Copenhagen Airport I started to repack, leaving the clothes in the capable hands of my younger brother, Niels. 

All of my 4 flights went smoothly and without any problems - expect for that I was so exhausted on my last flight from Panama City to Santiago which took 6 hours! :/ When we arrived at Santiago Airport we had to fill out immigration forms. And here came the dilemma: I had no student visa, because I had been told by my coordinator at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez that I could apply for student visa in Chile after I had arrived but on the immigration form I had to explain what my intention with my stay in Chile was going to be - and I do not want to lie! Especially not to the authorities. So with a trembling hand and a galloping heart, I handed in my immigration form at the passport control point. I had prepared a looooong speech in Spanish explaining why I didn't have a student visa but the woman just looked at me and reminded me to apply for a student visa before my 90 day tourist visa ran out. Later on I found out that Julie (Danish girl, CBS, also going to Adolfo) had done the same thing as me, but the authorities had pulled her aside asking why she didn't have a student visa. Julie had kept her cool, but I thank my lucky star that it didn't happen to me, because I had probably broken down crying... hehe.

Santiago

From Friday and until Tuesday I lived with my friend from CBS, Sanna and her boyfriend Arne (they have a blog as well http://chileeventyr.blogspot.com in Danish). Arne has a job in Santiago for a shipping company and Sanna is going to study at Catolica in Santiago. They live in the modern and rich neighbourhood of Las Condes where the skyscrapers keeps popping up live mushrooms on wet field.

Sanna and Arne in the neighbourhood of Bellavista in Santiago

They were the best hosts anyone could ask for. They had prepared a bed for my at their apartment and every time I tried to buy them a drink, they'd refuse and say: "You can just buy us a beer when we visit you in Viña del Mar".. Just so you know, that is going to be A LOT OF BEER :D haha! 

Since we are on the subject of alcohol, I want to stop of a second to talk about Chileans and their drinks. Here you really get your money's worth. If you order a gin and tonic, HALF of the glass is gin!! So it's going to be easy AND cheap for me to get drunk in Chile! haha. My second night here I tried Pisco Sour, a Chilean drink, which I definitely can recommend. I read in my guidebook that Peru and Chile have a fight over who really invented the liqueur Pisco. In order to undermine the Peruvian claims, president Videla renamed the town La Unión to Pisco Elqui - right, that settles the dispute! 

Other local specialities I can recommend are Pastel de Choclo which is kind of like a pie, Empanadas (even though they are not Chilean originally) and Mote con Huesillos which is a cold drink of the juice and bits from preserved apricots and/or peaches with barley at the bottom. I know - it sounds weird but it is actually very delicious and refreshing :). Apparently Chilean cuisine is not very good and Peruvian cuisine is to them as what French cuisine is to us Danes/Europeans. Well so far, I've liked what I've tried :)

I had Mote con Huesillos when I, Julie and two of her friends Nick and Sophie (two exchange students from New Zealand and the US, respectively) went up on Cerro San Cristobal to see the view of Santiago. It was amazing - an absolute must-see for anyone visiting Santiago.

View from Cerro San Cristobal

Following in the spirit of local specialities we went to La Piojera to try the drink Terremoto (= earthquake), made of pineapple ice cream, white wine and fernet or grenadine, but the place was closed :( So that's another thing on my to-do-list when I return to Santiago. Other things I did not get to see were:

- Pablo Neruda's house La Chascona, apparently you have to make reservation to see the house..

- The neighbourhood of Ñuñoa

- Walking up to the viewpoint of Cerro Santa Lucia.

But in my opinion there is not a lot more to see in Santiago. It's a very big, modern and polluted city (the smog is so apparent - especially from Cerro San Critsobal) with a few must see things. I really enjoyed the neighbourhood of Bellavista, but unfortunately this is only a small part of the city. 

Viña del Mar

So yesterday Julie and I were off to Viña del Mar where we are going to study and live until December. Today we are going to look at two apartments and meet up the a potential roomie from Spain :) We saw the city yesterday. I don't want to write about Viña just yet - I'll wait until I have a better impression of the city - but so far I am loving it here! :D

See you until next blog.

Besos Mette

P.S. If you want to see photos from Santiago, go to my Facebook profile under look at the album named "Santiago" :)