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: