This week has been a short one, as far as work goes that is. Tuesday was a public holiday here in Chile so I took the liberty of cancelling my class on Monday to have a long weekend. I had planned to go away but the weather at the end of last week didn't really inspire me to book any tickets so I thought I'd stick around in Santiago. Sometimes its good to be a bit lazy and I was happy to have a few days getting up late and not having to work. The rain and colder weather at the end of last week meant that snow had fallen quite low on the mountains surrounding Santiago, the rain had cleared the pollution so the views of the mountains are pretty spectacular. An interesting aside on the industrious side to the Chileans. The first serious rain since I have been in Santiago and all of a sudden the streets are full of people selling umbrellas! Seeing the snow is getting me quite excited about the ski season which I think should start mid-late June. On Saturday morning I got up late and then went to the gym for an hour followed by a few hours in the local Starbucks, mainly for the free WiFi and the pleasant environment as the coffee is not particularly good. In the evening I had been invited to a party which not surprisingly resulted in me still sat chatting and drinking wine until the very early hours of the morning. Regular readers of this blog might see a pattern developing here.
A few hours sleep on Sunday morning and someone had the bright idea of cycling up San Cristobal, which is a small hill in central Santiago which offers some pretty impressive views. I have been up before, there is a funicular railway offering a less energetic route to the top. The road up is a long gradual climb of about 5 or 6 km that takes about half an hour if you take it reasonably slowly. I enjoyed the ride up and it was worth it for the views and provided a perfect hangover cure. I slept pretty well on Sunday night.
Monday afternoon I spent watching Manchester Utd - Manchester City in an Irish pub in an area of Santiago called Bella Vista. Watching English football with spanish commentary is an interesting experience, and I am sure the goal celebrations resulted in the commentators breaking into a song which is not something I could ever imagine John Motson doing. The deserved Man City win has made the title race more exciting
Tuesday evening I went to a very nice Italian restaurant, Tiramisu that is quite near to where I live in Las Condes. A couple of people have recommended this place to me and it has some really good pizzas. Good pizza, good wine and excellent company was a good finish to my long weekend.
Starting the working week has left me a little confused, Wednesday, which was yesterday felt like a Monday all day. Its a nice confusion as it means the weekend is actually closer than I thought. I am writing a funding proposal at the moment. There is a Australian government funding scheme, Council on Australia Latin America Relations (COALAR) that offers money for projects that will enhance and strengthen relationships between Australia and Latin American countries. The project I am planning aims to allow Australian and Chilean medical physicists to cooperate and collaborate in setting up a medical physics clinical training program in Chile. Australia has already implemented a good clinical training program so I am hoping we can pass on some of this experience to Chile by organising two workshops in Santiago and reciprocal visits by Chileans to Brisbane. This of course needs funding, hence the funding proposal.
More updates soon.
A
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