The Fital and Our New Apartment

This weekend we went to the Fital, Talca's version of a state fair. It is advertised as an international fair, but the international elements seemed to be rather limited. Talca's agriculture side played a starring role. As soon as you walked in you found yourself in a lot of tractors and other farming equipment such as seed spreaders and pesticide applicators. There were rides of questionable working order. They all seemed a bit rusty and in varying levels of disrepair. Stray dogs chased the roller coasters and food stands dotted the perimeter selling beer, candy apples and cotton candy. They also had a Cumbia band and a Mexican Ranchero band which brought a large following from the countryside. You could see a lot of people walking around with their cowboy hats and boots. A cowboy in Chile is called a huaso, but the term is apparently somewhat derogatory and not appropriate for foreigners to throw around in the way Chileans seem to do. All of Talca and the surrounding cities seemed to be at the fair. I've never seen such large crowds in this city.

We spent the rest of our weekend scouring furniture and home goods stores to find all the necessities for our new apartment. We couldn't be more excited for the move. We are currently renting a room in a house, but this weekend we will finally be moving into our new apartment. It's in a new sector of the city, so we'll have to re-learn the bus and colectivo system, but it's still close to the university. The apartment is basically a guest house, semi-attached to a family home. It has two bedrooms (or a bedroom and an office) and a pretty basic kitchen and bathroom. It has the majority of the furniture, but we will have to do some shopping to stock the kitchen and fill in whatever gaps.

The best feature of the apartment is probably the fact that the calefont is outside. The calefont is a hot-water heater and anytime you want hot water you have to grab a match and light it. It terrifies me. Before leaving for Chile, I was told multiple stories about people who didn't know how to use them and consequently died. If you don't light it, but keep the gas running, your house will fill up with gas and basically suffocate you. Chilean regulations say the calefont must be outside for safety reasons, but for convenience's sake most are installed within the house so you don't have to go out in the rain with a set of matches everytime you want hot water. Lucas is slightly peeved that our calefont is outside, but I will personally sleep more soundly at night knowing that my calefont is less likely to kill me.

And below is a picture from orientation of me throwing a pot with some local potters outside of Santiago:

Valparaiso

This last weekend we spent Friday and Saturday nights in Valparaiso, which is due west of Santiago. As Wikipedia says, "built upon dozens of steep hillsides overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Valparaiso boasts a labyrinth of streets and cobblestone alleyways, embodying a rich architectural and cultural legacy." Enter Figure 1a. This image demonstrates the Pacific Ocean, a bit of the steep hillsides and a small degree of rich architectural legacy.

Figure 1a: A few of the hills of Valparaiso

There are a few less than 20 distinct hills of Valparaiso, all of which are situated around a flat area next to the ocean. The lower area is the commercial centre, and houses are stacked willy-nilly upon the hills. Our hostel for the weekend was in Cerro Concepcion. Cerro Concepcion was considered some years ago to be a good example of the "real" Valparaiso. This means it became attractive to classes of citizens with increasing amounts of wealth, turning "real" Valparaiso into what it is today: a pleasant, safe semi-bohemian area with some slick fusion restaurants. The hostel was quiet and rad, for it had three nice cats. These cats, while fully grown, were a bit small compared to what I'm used to. The cat that currently resides at home in California generally pushes the scale at somewhere in the 20lb range. And he's not fat, just big-boned. These cats couldn't have been more than 5lbs.

Many people talk about the bohemian nature of Valparaiso, but the only evidence I could see of that was some pretty street art. Figures 1b, 1c, and 1d were all on our walk up on down Cerro Concepcion. The cat in the window in figure 1b is a skinny doppelganger of the 20lb cat discussed above, by the way.

Figure 1b: Note the cat.

Figure 1c

Figure 1d

On Saturday we visited La Sebastiana, one of Pablo Neruda's three houses that are restored and administered as museums. The other two are in Santiago and Isla Negra, about 45 minutes south of Valparaiso. His houses are collections of the strange items that he gathered in a lifetime spent traveling around the world. Like a stuffed penguin he kept on his bar. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures inside the house, so we can't show you the awesomeness. But it was awesome.

The best thing to do in Valparaiso as a tourist, though, is to simply wander around and marvel at the brightly colored houses built on the hillsides. It is tiring to walk up and down streets and stairs, but thankfully the city built a set of funicular elevators to help citizens up and down the steepest hills. Called ascensores in Spanish, some of them are over a 100 years old, and all of them look like rickety death traps. They are fragile wooden boxes that are pulled upwards by steel cables at an angle between 20 and 70 degrees. Figure 1e shows the view looking up from Ascensor Espiritu Santo.

Figure 1e: Looking upwards from the window of Ascensor Espiritu Santo

Here are a few other images from the weekend. Figure 1f shows the five of us from Talca enjoying a stately boat ride around the Valparaiso harbor.

Figure 1f: Me, Stefanie, Sam, Kerry, Marianne

Figure 1g shows a fuzzy dog and his fuzzy sweater we found on the way to La Sebastiana. Clearly a stray, he still looked pretty comfy both days we saw him.

Figure 1g: Fuzzywuzzy wuz his name

Figure 1h is the of a plate of chorrillana. It is some red meat, stacked on a layer of fried eggs and onions, stacked on some french fries. We had it a couple times, including at a restaurant that only served chorrillana. Mmmboy!

Figure 1h: Matt, Chorrillana, me

I'll finish this post by mentioning that we did get to the beach. It was the first time I've been in the water south of the equator, and the Pacific seemed pretty much the same as home. Cold, clear, and there were the same little crabs burrowed in the sand at water's edge that we see in Carpinteria. Just like home.