From the monthly archives:

December 2009

Monday post-Sandwich

2009.Dec.31 Thursday

After lunch, a short visit to the nearby sculpture park – an outdoor area with about three dozen contemporary art sculptures. Long term readers know I’m not often a fan of modern art, so I’ll leave it to y’all to guess if I liked any of these…. From there it was back towards the center [...]

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Do I hate Mondays?

2009.Dec.30 Wednesday

Monday morning started with a mission. You see, I discovered after two days of snapping a couple of hundred photos (I’m not subjecting you to all of them, trust me), that I didn’t have the battery charger with me, and I still have a couple of weeks of travel ahead of me. So, off to [...]

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The Good Boys

2009.Dec.29 Tuesday

I’d had it in mind to go to a “traditional” place called Doña Tina, that a couple of people recommended. But when I looked at the logistics, the cost of the taxi to go and come back would have run double the cost of dinner – it’s way off to the northeast part of the [...]

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Postprandial Wander

2009.Dec.29 Tuesday

From the mercado, one can see a huge hill rising off to the northeast. It appears to be a bit of a hike, and it is, but it was my goal for the afternoon, the Parque Metropolitano. First, it required a wander through Barrio Patronato, a community that, reminds me in many ways of the [...]

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Santiago Central Market

2009.Dec.28 Monday

Fascinating as Mercado La Vega is, and how much time I’d probably spend there shopping and eating if I lived here, I was truly looking forward to the fish market at Mercado Central. It’s one of the things I miss the most in BA, access to really good seafood. (By the way, though I’m waxing [...]

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Day Two in Santiago

2009.Dec.28 Monday

So hmm, what other stuff have I noticed here that’s different. Did I mention it’s clean? No dog poop on the sidewalks. There are street sweepers out early a.m. cleaning the sidewalks and streets, even on a Sunday morning. There are proper color-coded recycling bins every couple of blocks, and real trash cans to drop [...]

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More Santiago

2009.Dec.28 Monday

Hey, really, I’m just getting started, all this has been only half the first day! So, on to the afternoon – much of which I actually spent napping, not having slept yet (our last dinner of the year ended around 1 a.m., we still had to clean up, I had to finish packing, and be [...]

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Santiago, at first bite

2009.Dec.27 Sunday

So, what about the food here. Well, let’s start with everything I was told… no, forewarned, about coming to Santiago… Chileans aren’t friendly. They’ll cheat you left and right. Santiago is dangerous. Be careful, if not paranoid, about everything. Chilean food is so bland it makes Porteño food look spicy. What decent food there is [...]

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Santiago, at first glance

2009.Dec.27 Sunday

Out for a late morning wander to check out the surroundings of the hostel, as well as on towards the Estacion Central, the 1897 train station that was actually built in Paris to a design by Gustave Eiffel, the guy who designed that tower, and shipped over to Santiago piece by piece – wish I’d [...]

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