Brr

The weather in Santiago is suddenly very cold. The last few days have seen morning temperatures of only a few degrees above zero. This has been accompanied by clear blue skies which I far prefer to the greyness we had previously. My apartment is not too cold despite not having any central heating. There is an electric convection heater which so far has done the job. Santiago is a bit like Brisbane in some respects in that everyone is in denial that it actually does get cold in winter and warm insulated buildings are needed.

Anyway, a short summary of what I've been up to the last 7 days. On Friday was the second British and Irish Lunch, regular readers ( I like to think I have regular readers) might remember the first one I went to a few weeks after I arrived. This one was in a restaurant Coquineria which is underneath the Hotel W. The service and food was not too impressive unfortunately but I think a good time was had by all anyway. Needless to say after a pisco sour and couple of glasses of wine I wasn't too productive for the remainder of the afternoon. Saturday was a pretty lazy day. I then went out for dinner in the evening to a local Italian restaurant Tiramisu, they do really good pizza's. I've realised that you have to be careful in Chile when ordering long drinks. My friend Karin ordered a vodkas and tonic. In Chile that means 3/4 of a large glass of vodka with a bit of ice and a can of tonic water.

On Sunday we had arranged a trip to Isla Negra which is best known as being the favourite home of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, he also had homes in Valparaiso and Santiago. Apparently he had an obsession with the sea which explains his love of the house. It is located right on the coast overlooking the windswept rocky coastline. You are able to do an audioguide tour of the house which was quite interesting. I have put some photo's up here. Sorry that there aren't any of the house.

Andrew