A bit of culture

Time seems to be passing very quickly. I can't believe that this week we will be into June already and that I have been in Santiago for over 3 months. I am fairly sure the next 5 or 6 weeks will fly by as well before I have to return to Brisbane.

Probably should mention a bit about my movements last week. On Tuesday evening I went to a book launch by Raul Sohr who is an international journalist. He has written a book on the Chilean energy policy and essentially how wrong it all is. A number of people gave a short talk followed by the author himself. I am sure it was pretty interesting but unfortunately it was all in Spanish so my understanding was limited! On Thursday I went out for dinner at a French restaurant in Barrio Brasil called Boulevard Lavaud which is in a pretty old building above a hairdressers Pelluqueria Francesa. I have to mention that they serve one of the strongest Pisco Sours I have tasted, excellent,but strong. I finished mine and ended up having to also finish my friend Karin's as well. The food was really good as was our choice of wine and I'd recommend it as the atmosphere is really nice, an old building with lots of old and interesting things on the walls.
  It pretty much rained most of the weekend which hopefully means that it will have been snowing in the mountains which bodes well for the prospect of skiing before I leave. Despite the weather I still seemed to have a pretty busy weekend. I was pretty tired after work on Friday so thought a trip to the gym might sort me out and get me ready to go out later. With hindsight a powernap might have been a better choice. The occasion on Friday was a leaving party in a small bar in the Lastarria district of the city. The party was for someone who I have only met a few times, and was returning to Germany after spending a year in Chile. Needless to say, the party went on until the early hours and was followed by an afterparty in someone's nearby flat. So it was around 4.30 when I finally got to bed.

On Sunday it was the National Heritage Day so many old historical buildings were open to the public in Santiago. The weather was pretty awful but that wasn't going to stop myself and Karin taking in a bit of culture. We started off with the  British Ambassadors Residence which is actually at the end of the street where I live. This was actually a bit disappointing as the ambassador wasn't actually there. Next up was the National Library of Chile, this was more interesting, particularly some of the old wood panelled library rooms, there were also demonstrations on the art of paper making that was quite interesting. Not too far away from here is the Teatro Municipal which is the main concert hall in Chile, a wonderful old traditional opera house. The final visit of the day was to the old US embassy, now the Chilean chamber of commerce. The US embassy moved to a new fortress some years ago. This was not particularly interesting. We also tried visiting the Argentinian ambassadors residence but they had decided to close early, I guess the comments about the Falklands and Maradona being a cheating bastard didn't go down too well :-) . It was quite tiring walking around all day but interesting to visit parts of Santiago I probably wouldn't have normally visited.

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