Gone fishin'

Tomorrow we leave at 6:15am for Torres del Paine, one of Chile's most beautiful national parks at the very southern end of the country.  Our roughly 4.5 hr flight lands us in Punta Arenas, approximately four hours (by car) further south than the park.  (That's the airport you fly into if you're traveling to Antarctica.... the map on the link above shows it pretty well.)

Once we get our rental car, we'll drive up to Puerto Natales and stay in a hotel for the first night.  Tuesday we have reservations for a boat ride that takes us very close to one of the famous glaciers.  The rest of the week we'll be doing a combination of 1- or 2-night backpacking treks and couple of nights of car camping with day hikes.  We've packed our bundles, because it's not going to be Santiago weather down there--upper 50s, low 60s for the highs, and low 40s and even into the 30s at night.  A lot like summer in the northern part of Norway.

Here's a detailed map of the area where we'll be:  http://www.torresdelpaine.com/img/portada/mapaPAINE.jpg

From the pictures Torres looks like one of the most spectacular places on the planet.  I may have been this excited once or twice before..... when I was maybe seven.  Absolutely CANNOT wait!!!!

Blog hiatus until March 2 or 3

Parque de las Esculturas - Sculpture Park

The girls and I have started a tradition: several times a week we do our reading in a park somewhere instead of at home.  These pics are from the sculpture park we discovered near Costanera Center.

The pictures pretty much speak for themselves......

El Gran Torre at Costanera Center  (tallest building in South America)

This was not a planned action shot:  Bugs was posed for this picture when the sprinkler unexpectedly swung around and nearly drenched her.  Right at the moment I snapped the picture, she screamed and jumped the other direction.  I love how her motion mimics the cactus sculpture, "bowing" in the "wind."  :-)  

Kidzania

Last weekend we took the girls to Kidzania.  They had already been there once with Antonia and were trying to describe what it was, but it was really fun to go see it for ourselves.  It's an indoor kid-oriented space that is set up like a miniature town, complete with cobblestone streets, shops, banks, restaurants, bakeries, a university, the whole nine yards.  At each location, the kids go in and play the roles of the various people.  For example, at the Jumbo (grocery) store some kids play cashiers, some play shoppers, baggers, or shelvers.  Here's Bugs as a shopper at the store.

The shoppers are given a list of items that they have to locate in the store.  The scanners that the kid cashiers use really work and the items appear on the computer screen.  At the end of the "transaction" the shopper receives a printed receipt (although no actual money passes hands).

Kidzania actually does use a special currency, though:  Kidzos!  On arrival each kid is given a check made out for $50 Kidzos.  They have to go to the Banco de Chile to cash the check.  The money is then used as entrance fees into certain venues.

There are also ways that kids can earn more Kidzos, although it doesn't seem to be entirely based on what society actually pays people for.  For example, in the art studio you can earn $10 Kidzos by painting a picture.

Meanwhile, onboard the airline (yes, they have part of a real jet plane in the building with the nose of it sticking out the side of the building into thin air so the kid who's playing the pilot really feels like they are flying!) the pilot has to pay $20 Kidzos to "fly" the plane, the flight attendants earn $10 Kidzos, and the passengers have to pay $5 Kidzos--but get real snacks onboard.  Parents aren't allowed on board the aircraft, but can view what is happening via the nifty b&w security cameras.

Bear in her flight-attendantly duties

It was a great flight!

There were opportunities for kids to work for Chilexpress (Chile's version of FedEx) where they actually deliver packages to other businesses in the village.  Kids could be a fashion model, or do nails and hair in a salon.  Others could work for various utilities and were seen riding the "utility vans" around through the streets wearing their hardhats.  Kids could be construction workers, police officers, or even fire-fighters--they had one building that obstinately would "catch fire" every half hour or so.  There were huge fire hoses trained on the building and the fire truck would come "careening" through the streets (at 2 mph!) with sirens blaring, the kids would hop out, blast the hoses upon the building until the "fire" went out.  The whole thing is cleverly set up like a fountain/pool so the kids can spray real water.  It's very well done and they even have some sort of steam machine so the building has "smoke" pouring out of it and is as realistic-looking as you can get for not being real.

Other venues include a university, a dentist's office, a medical clinic, architectural firm, various restaurants and bakeries, cooking school--wow, I'll never be able to list them all.  The whole thing is quite well done.  Here are the girls in the candy-making factory.

And at the bakery, where they rolled out real dough...

And in the chocolate-making factory..... (unsurprisingly, the girls preferred the activities where they came out at the end with something to eat!!)  :-)

All in all I was highly impressed with this place.  Maybe someday they'll build one in the States.  In the meantime, this link shows the current and planned future locations.

Santiago metro

I thought I'd put the Santiago metro map on here, just for fun.  Our closest metro stop is Salvador, on the red line.  We often shop at Costanera Center which is roughly between the Los Leones and Tobalaba stops on the red line (to the East of us).  Our usual pattern is to walk down there, and then take the metro back when we're loaded down with groceries.

To get to work, J takes the red line west to Los Heroes, and then takes the yellow line south to Parque O'Higgins.

Downtown is roughly where the yellow line crosses the green and red lines.  However, every time we've gone to that area, we've just walked from our house--it's about a 45 min walk through park the whole way until the last 5 blocks or so.

Truth is, we mostly walk everywhere, but it's nice to take the metro sometimes.  It certainly feels completely unnecessary to have a car.  The girls have gotten the metro totally figured out and know all the stops, and which direction we have to take it to get where we are going.  They also have the little recorded announcements memorized--warnings about the doors closing, and the notifications of the upcoming stop, etc.--all in Spanish, of course.

"Extreme" weather

Put a big X on your calendar, folks..... it was OVERCAST in Santiago today!!!  It even rained (we didn't realize it ever did anything like that here) and we had some thunder.  The girls were so excited that they begged to rush out and run around and play in the rain.  I did not get rained on during my morning hike up San Cristobal, but the city sure did look different than usual.

About mid-morning we noticed that we were all feeling chilly in the apartment--we put on sweatshirts, I was wearing long pants, and I even donned my wool socks.  At one point I decided to look it up to see just how cold it actually was.

Da-da-DUMM......  SEVENTY DEGREES!!!   Hahaha!  Let's just say we've "adjusted to the heat," which sounds so much better than the alternative: that we've become weather wimps.

Meanwhile in Pittsburgh it was so cold (I mean, actually cold for REAL) that they closed school.  We got the announcement by email.  -7 or something.  Brrr! I can hardly wrap my brain around it being that cold--nearly 100 degrees below the temperature here on the average day.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

While I was away in Atlanta, J held down the fort in Santiago with the girls.  He worked with them on their computer programming, made them pancakes for breakfast, and shirked the laundry.

On the weekend they also took a hike to a beautiful spot which is right in Santiago, reachable by public transit--El Parque Natural Aguas de Ramon.  The hike culminates at some cool waterfalls.  Sadly, Bear's foot was bothering her (they think she may have sprained it right at the beginning of the hike) so they weren't able to reach the end of the trail.  However, it looks like a great place that deserves a return visit.

Somewhere along the trail there was a zipline that the girls were quite taken with, although neither of them seemed to eager to sign up for it.....

The other thing J and the girls did was to plan an elaborate crepe brunch for me on my return from Atlanta (I arrived early on Tuesday morning).  It struck me that the last time I was coming through the Santiago airport I was thinking, "I wonder what our apartment will be like....  I wonder if we're going to like it here.....  I wonder if I'll be able to understand Chilean Spanish.... I wonder.... I wonder....."  and this time around, coming through the same exact corridors only one month later, I was thinking, "I'm almost home, I'm almost home!"

Atlanta

I had such a great time in Atlanta with Trio Nova Mundi, premiering Elisenda Fabregas' Triple Concerto for Piano Trio and Orchestra!

The first night we stayed at the lake house of Maestro Ramirez and his lovely wife Carol.

My flight came in hours before the others so I had plenty of time to practice on this lovely refurbished Steinway, with a spectacular lake view.  Later after we rehearsed a bit, Carol taught me to make corn tortillas from scratch, which I had never done before.  Yum!  I'm hooked!

Here's another view of the lake at sunset.  I couldn't really get over this place, it was so gorgeous!

Lake Arrowhead.... the Georgia edition.

The following day Elisenda arrived and also came to the lake house--it was our first time meeting her, although we've been playing her music for years.  We all hit it off famously and had a riot of a time!  In the afternoon we went over the concerto with her and with Maestro Ramirez, hashing out our notes, making small corrections and changes, and working out the kinks so we'd be ready for the orchestra rehearsal the next morning.

Saturday afternoon after the orchestra rehearsal Elisa and I went with Elisa's friends Doug and Mary for the rest of the day.  We had a lovely lunch, visited the impressive Atlanta Aquarium.......

..... enjoyed some of Atlanta's beautiful public spaces.....

.... and basically had a wonderful time!  After a tasty dinner Doug and Mary took us back to Kim's house, where we were staying in Atlanta (she is one of the violists in the orchestra we were playing with).

The concert was a big success!  The piece went better than rehearsal and the audience received it very enthusiastically.

We've posted a few highlights from the concert on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJeT4bWu0Po

I wish I had some pictures of the party following the concert--Kim hosted it at her house, and many of the symphony players came to celebrate with us.  We had such a fun time!  In fact, my stomach was literally killing me from laughing so hard!  (....That would actually characterize the whole weekend, now that I think about it.)   Maestro Ramirez had made a Mexican feast for us including homemade tortillas, multiple salsas, frijoles, and most importantly, his famous mole, which the others enjoyed over baked chicken.... and I just ate like soup.  :-)   Later in the evening we were coaxed to play the trio version of Ramirez's Huapangos, which he played with us on the guitar.  So incredibly fun!  Others also played and sang after us, and it was pretty much an all-around rocking party!  (The neighbors even complained about the noise from the porch and the police dropped by to tell us to pipe it down a bit.....  we almost felt like teenagers!)

The next morning as we were all packing up, Maestro Ramirez came to Kim's and made breakfast for us.

Everyone else was leaving mid to late morning, but my flight wasn't until 10pm so I traipsed around with Maestro Ramirez all day.   He very obligingly ferried me to do my various Stateside errands.  This involved finding an REI so I could stock up on backpacking fare for our upcoming trip to Torres del Paine, hitting a grocery store for our favorite brand of power bars....  all the various things we weren't sure we'd be able to find in Chile, and which we had indeed discovered we could not.

I had also sent Elisa on a grand treasure hunt in our house before coming to Atlanta so she could bring me some essentials--mostly things that we (inaccurately) assumed we'd have in our furnished apartment in Santiago.  Although the things she brought didn't take up much room, I had her bring a full-size duffle bag so that I'd have an extra piece of luggage going back to Chile.  I was able to pack it to the max with all my Atlanta purchases, which are all consumables and will presumably be gone in a few months.  In addition, we'll now have some extra space for bringing things home in April.

After carting me around for most of the morning, we returned to Ramirez's Atlanta house where I was able to take a nap and make some phone calls while he taught a student.  We then went with their son David (who is a fine cellist, just breaking out onto the job scene) and had some dinner before they took me to the airport.  On the way out the door, I spied an enormous collection of drying peppers in Ramirez's studio.  He has nearly every surface covered with peppers from all over the place.  Maybe these are some of the secret ingredients in his famous mole!

What a fun and amazing weekend!!

Pastel de choclo

Pastel de Choclo!  We used this recipe and the girls enjoyed helping with the process.

First we chopped the corn off the cob--the recipe did not specify that we should cook the corn first, so we didn't.

We pulsed the corn with basil in the blender. We really either needed to go way more low-tech (mortar & pestle) or way more high-tech (food processor) here.  The blender didn't really work very well at all, but we made do.

We added the milk slowly as we cooked the corn mixture, sauteing it in a bit of butter.  AND we learned about "salt to taste"!  :-)

Sauteing the onions and garlic

We added the soy meat (a.k.a. "ground beef") and cooked until brown, seasoning with cumin.

We greased the ceramica de Pomaire with butter

The beef mixture goes in first

Next come hard boiled eggs, pieces of chicken (we just omitted that completely, as we only have one type of soy meat here), and also (optionally) olives.  

The corn mixture goes on the top, spread out to cover everything below.  We didn't have a way to measure how much corn mixture to make.  We thought we made a ton, but it would have been nice to have even more.  Next time I'll allot about 2.5 ears of corn per pastel.  After the corn mixture comes a sprinkle of sugar to help the top of the pastel carmelize.

Here those babies are, baking away in the oven--the house smells AMAZING!

Finished product!  YUM!

Hopefully this will hold me over on the airplane tonight!  Off to the airport in less than an hour.  Breakfast in Atlanta!