Cheers to That - Things Chileans Like No. 1: Speeches

I don't know whether this is an Australian thing, but there are very few occasions in my life where I have felt the need to impart my wisdom to a random group of people.**

Those in Australia who do feel that need I invite to proceed directly to the Speakers Corner at the State Library where they will be able to stand comfortably on their soapbox and spout off about anything they like (anything they like within the limits set by anti-terrorism legislation of course) and everyone will duly ignore them.

In Chile I don't know if the Speakers' Corner thing is a tradition. What I do know, however, is that there is in actual fact no need for a Speakers' Corner here, because that role has already been filled more than comfortably by a fundamental part of any Chilean social gathering - 'the brindis'.
Yes, its time to put your soapboxes away and sit down people, for its much more comfortable to give a speech from right here at the dinner table.
A long speech. Very long. And ponderous.

Brindis means toast, which to me is something that happens at a 21st birthday party when either your dad or your best friend uses their consumption of the entire contents of the open bar as inspiration for a series of hilarious anecdotes featuring you. I understand the same thing happens at 30th birthday parties, although with less cask wine and more brand-name alcohol. Either way, toasts as I know them are generally funny, irreverent, and most importantly not too long as even the toast maker wants to get to the end part where we all raise our glasses and get back to the real reason that we are there. That is, drinking. We are Australian, after all.

The Chilean brindis seems to be an entirely different beast. For starters, it's not confined to rare and important occasions such as big-number birthdays or weddings. Nope, all it takes to make an appropriate moment for you to start dinging your cutlery against your glass is a simple table-full of people, preferably the instant they have just been served the hot portion of their meal, which of course they will now have no chance of consuming as in Chile it is considered rude to eat while someone is toast making.
With regards to the length of your toast, short and sweet is definitely out - think quantity over quality. The longer, the better.
Furthermore, for prime toast giving, make sure you are middle aged and a man, as the Chilean brindis seems to be almost exclusively the territory of the Chilean Dad. I have NEVER seen a Chilean Mum initiating nor giving a brindis. Actually, I've never seen anyone other than the said Chilean Dads doing so (cue discussion on machismo and/or paternal societies). But any reluctance on the part of everyone else to participate in the toast giving is more than made up for by said Chilean Dads, as they are quite happy to make multiple toasts. Get two Chilean Dads together at a table and they will take it in turns to pontificate to the captive crowd, repeatedly, at length, one after the other. I kid you not.
Finally, in the Chilean brindis, while it is customary to dedicate your toast to the person in question, you are under absolutely no obligation to confine the contents of your speech to that person and his/her achievements. Actually, the wider the range of topics that you can incorporate, the better. Rhetorical questions are also good, as are philosophical ones. I was at a birthday celebration the other night where an all time classic brindis was given that started off with Happy Birthday and ended up with the speech giver's thoughts on evolution, with a detour to consider the question of love somewhere in the middle. Bejeezus. If we didn't all need a drink before that, we certainly did afterwards.

So with the silly season and no doubt multiple toast giving opportunities nearly upon us, I would like to take a moment now to dedicate a toast to the Chilean Dads, for only they know how lonely it is to be always giving the speeches, and never receiving them.
Dear Chilean Dads, during the course of many meals, and thus many of your fine discourses on life, the universe and all that, I feel that I've learned a great deal. What have I learned? Good question. I've learned to listen out for the melodic tinkle of your fork against your glass and to take it as a cue to immediately eat as much as possible while my dinner is still hot. I've learned that surreptitiously drinking while you are making your toast is a good idea and that if people think I'm a crazy foreigner with no manners, that this is at least preferable to being sober. I've learned that I understand your speeches better if I am not sober. And I've learned that it certainly ain't over till the fat lady sings, or till your wife tells you that enough is enough and takes away your glass.
And so I sincerely thank you for taking the time out of your busy social schedule to educate, nay, to enlighten me on these and any number of other topics. I for one am certainly more informed about love and evolution now, and for that I say cheers!
Salud!


**Except of course, on this blog.

Photo by Sebduggan on Flickr (note, person depicted probably not a Chilean)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joseywales/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Cerro Manquehue, or how we almost died of exposure just ten minutes from the city

Photo from Flickr by Rodrigo Martens

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rodtype/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Ask a Santiaguino about what they like best about living in their city, and chances are they won't mention anything about good public transport, friendly customer service or having clean lungs - and rightly so because these things are scarce on the ground here, if not actually mythical. Instead, chances are they will mention being able to leave your house and within a couple of hours drive be either skiing in the Andes in a fluoro 80s ski-suit or, if you drove in the other direction, be indecently exposing large amounts of buttock at a sea-side resort.
Yep, it appears that the best thing about living in Santiago is being able to get out of it.

With this in mind, on the recent long weekend O and I begged a car from his parents (as without one you are pretty well screwed here, or at the very least condemned to spending large amounts of time on rattle-trap buses / with your face jammed uncomfortably close to someone's armpit on the metro) and set out to enjoy what the city has to offer. i.e, we left it. For the mountains.

In a city surrounded by mountains, its funny that they are not a constant presence in people's minds, in fact, people kind of forget that they are there. (For a very funny example of this, see Sara's post on giving directions in Santiago). One reason for this forgetfulness might be the obvious: obscured by the thick smog you could argue that quite often the mountains aren't there.

 Peanut seller on Cerro San Cristobal; note obscured / non-existent Andes in background    

Yet on the weekend, all kitted up with our wheels and ganas de salir, we discovered perhaps another reason that Santiago's mountains are not on the radar here - its damn hard to get onto them.

Chileans love a gated community, and with the city in a constant state of expansion, it is gated communities all the way to the foothills of the Andes. And by gated I mean you may not under any circumstances enter. And by community I mean a group of houses with a big-ass fence all the way around them cutting off public access to anything in the zone plus anything on the other side ie the god damned hills.

Now, there's a lot to be said about this, about a culture of fear, the media, the aspirational middle classes and the fact that I damn well hate fences. Unfortunately for those who like the sound of a bit of semi-political ranting, all that will have to go into another blog post. Once I've slept off my hypertensive migraine.
In the end our first attempt to get out onto Santiago's mountains was, if not actually thwarted by the condos, technically it was trespassing. We spent a while driving around some of Santiago's wealthier suburbs, looking for the public park or hiking trail that I insisted must be there, and found only fences, private land and security guards. On our way up one of the subidas we gave a lift to a skater, who pointed us in the direction of a broken bit of fence through which we could squeeze, proving true the old adage that if you want to do something illegal, your best source of info is a teenager with a skateboard. Squeeze we did and our picnic was fine, the bad feeling in my stomach coming not from the food, but from the fact that we had to force our way into an area that should, in my not-so-humble-because-its-my-blog opinion, be available for everyone to enjoy, not just those willing to break property laws.

Not to be defeated, and slightly delirious after an all-night film shoot so randomly hilarious that it will get its very own blog post in the coming days, the next day we decided to climb Cerro Manquehue. As a disclaimer, and before you read the rest of this post, this undertaking was described to me, by Chileans, as 'a walk up a hill, although perhaps you shouldn't wear those sandals.'

Cerro Manquehue is the big volcano looking thing just outside Las Condes. You can see it from the city. Perhaps the fact that it looked like a volcano should have tipped me off that what we were about to do was not, essentially, the smartest decision. Yet strangely it did not. Thus I can now report that despite all appearances Cerro Manquehue is a) not a volcano and b) not a bloody hill. It is a mountain.

Its also the exact place we had been looking for the day before - I'm not sure what the legal status of the land is but I can say that there are no fences and a lot of paths, so I'm guessing that its either public access or that no-one cares much. Regardless, its a wonderful escape from the city, just a short drive from downtown. A walk in the park you might say. So did I. Incorrectly as it turns out.

At a certain stage (ie several hours after setting out and half way up what can only be described as a sheer cliff face) I wondered if we should not, perhaps, be using ropes. Or a helmet. Or at the very least have on us a larger supply of water that two 500ml bottles. I also wondered where the path was. This was a question that we were all contemplating. There was no way to find out, because there was also no cell phone coverage.

Now I've seen Alive, and therefore I know what happens when you get lost in the Andes. So as the prospect of us finding the path faded with every passing moment, I started eying up my companions as potential meals. O, ever the gentleman, assured me that if a reenactment of Alive was going to unfold here on the hillside with Santiago in full view, that at least I would not be first on the menu. Realising that I was not only more succulent but also somehow cleaner than everyone else, and that O was perhaps intending to lull me into a false sense of security before braining me with a boulder ready for first course, I promptly face-planted into a pile of dust and prickles. In fact, I'm fairly sure that Manquehue is Mapuche for Prickle Mountain, such is the prevalence and persistence of the flora. There were thistles god damn it. I thought those things only grew in Scotland.

Having given away somewhat the punchline, that we survived Manquehue and that no-one got eaten, by the fact that I'm still here to write this blog, all that remains to be said is that we scaled that god damned mountain in a way that no-one has before and no doubt no-one ever will again.
The true thorn in my side is that after staggering down the other side, three and a half hours later, filthy and dehydrated, in the carpark we bumped into the two friends who'd we'd been aiming to meet up with on the hill. They were fresh. They were clean. They had water left. They had spent the afternoon drinking beers and enjoying the view.

Oh, and they told us that the reason there were no other people on the hill was because the night before the news had reported of a masked mugger who roamed the trails and relieved hikers of their cameras and wallets.
Somehow, I don't think he would have chosen the path we were on. Small mercies, anyone?

Ram-Raiding and Other Activities.. or, Just Another Night in Santiago de Chile

The show never stops in Santiago. Just the other day, in actual fact in the last day of the old apartment, I saw two guys crash their ute into a tree directly outside my window*. It was like the apartment's final parting gift to me, complete with Crocodile Dundee delivering the line 'That's not noise.. THIS is noise' and a jump-cut to squealing tires and vision of truck careering off the road into said tree.
So I was pretty pleased to be moving.
Until Tuesday night, in which after a lovely dinner in lovely new apartment, a couple of glasses of wine and a viewing of 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' (which by the way I found somewhat enraging, given that it seems to suggest that the best way for a man to demonstrate love and commitment is to bugger off, and the best way for a woman to demonstrate it is to sit around literally wiping their husband's arse), we retired to bed, reveling in the lovely peace and quiet of the lovely new apartment.
Until.. CRASH.... (followed by several more similar crashes).
In my groggy half-sleep, my first thought was that someone's balcony had detached from the building and the noise I could hear was of it plunging to the ground. O later told me he had thought it was a crane falling off the top of a building.
We jumped out of bed, and went out onto the balcony to investigate, admittedly a strange choice given my prior concerns about its sturdiness, but by that stage I'd already kind of worked out that that couldn't be it.
No signs of fallen balconies nor cranes below.... but what we did see was a gang with two cars (red and white -see I'm observant!) - looting the fancy clothing and jewellery shop in the bottom of our very building! The crashes we'd heard were the shattering of the window, and as we stood there we watched them running in and out of the store, stolen goods in hand, transferring the stuff from the shop to their cars. It all lasted about thirty seconds, then everyone jumped into the two cars and sped off, the wrong way, up La Concepcion.
About a minute later, the crack emergency response looked like this:

 Plus three police cars (these in the pic are in fact not police but private guards from the security firm) that arrived a few minutes later. All the security guards and cops stood around for a bit, presumably investigating the crime though I saw very little evidence of that, then everyone went home.

After all this excitement, we went back to bed. Yesterday I saw on the news that the same gang had hit four different shops around the city in some kind of ram-raiding spree.

The weirdest thing is that the shop they chose to rob was selling some of the ugliest stuff that I've ever seen - the jewelery was all costume jewelery, the type with lots of sparkly and fake looking gems. And the clothes were kind of floaty hippy cheese-cloth numbers which haven't been fashionable since .. well ever. The piece d'resistance of this particular store (and this will give you an idea of the general aesthetic approach) are a life-sized pair of large Doberman dogs made entirely of purple plastic, which sit on either side of the door during the day like some kitsch re-invention of the guard dog of Hades.

Somewhat unfortunately, even the thieves didn't see fit to steal these.

So the moral of the story? Even the most blatantly taste-challenged stores are not safe from the aesthetically blind thieves of Santiago, but even they will draw the line somewhere.

* If you're concerned - both the tree and the guys survived. The car? Not so much.

New Horizons

 View from the new apartment - linda!

Life has all of a sudden got waaaaay more relaxing... Work is over (for the moment), on Wednesday Chile qualified for the World Cup (not that this was something I worried about but I sure didn't want to see the consequences of them not qualifying..), and yesterday we changed apartments. Rejoice. The days of bitching about noise are over; firstly because this new apartment is an oasis of peace, and secondly because I suspect O might be finding that hearing my complaints is not quite as cathartic as I find giving them.

There are lots of ways to rent in Santiago, so here's a few random things I discovered and wish I'd known earlier. If you're out there looking for an apartment in Santiago, I hope this helps:

1) The best site we found for advertising rentals was Portal Inmobiliario  where you can search for furnished / unfurnished apartments by district, plus places for sale.

2) Craigslist is good for short term rentals (from days to months) but the prices are generally a bit higher. 

3) If you rent directly from the owner you will avoid real estate commissions which are quite high (like half a month's rent). As a lot of owners advertise directly there is no need to go through an agent.

4) Neither of our rental contracts contained a clause about breaking the lease as they do in Australia. Plus the landlord keeps your bond (equivalent to one month's rent) directly, so beware of signing a longer lease if you think you might need to break it.  Landlords are not supposed to keep the bond in that kind of situation, but I don't know how you would enforce it.

5) If you live in an apartment (and that's pretty much your only choice in a lot of Santiago), then you'll have to pay condo fees (gastos comunes) which seem to range from around 30,000-70,000 a month, so factor that into your budget. This is in addition to your rent unless you have an all-inclusive deal with your landlord.

5) Santiago is noisy - look for an apartment high up / facing away from the main street.

6) If your apartment faces the street, look at the condition of the road directly outside - if there is a speed bump or the road is particularly uneven, it will be more noisy, especially given that speed bumps are rare and therefore unexpected for the Santiago motorist.

7) Don't live on a road that buses go along unless you like the sound of ancient diesel motors at 2am!

Now for a wine on the balcony.. bliss!

Melrose Living

So it might be mundane to say it, and small comfort if you're actually in need of the advice, but things really do have a way of working themselves out.
As ranting and raving in the 'all talk no action' approach to the noisy-apartment situation didn't seem to be making a great deal of difference to our quality of life, we decided to take my Mum's sage advice and do something about it.
So we're moving, and I LOVE our new place. Its on the 15th floor, the windows look straight out to Cerro Santa Lucia and it has an AMAZING pool on the roof, plus a sweat room, jacuzzi and gym. Its like something from the TV.
Its a far cry from the type of place I'd favour in Melbourne (terrace in Fitzroy.. or warehouse in Collingwood, those were the days!) but I think its just perfect for here. Firstly, because its high up and on an interior street so the noise is not (so much of) an issue, and secondly, because here, there it seems that the philosophy to the residential/business division of housing is exactly opposite to that which you get in Australia.
In Melbourne, high rises are for offices. Mostly they are in the central business district and don't make an appearance in the residential suburbs. And I'll say it again. They have offices in them.
Outside the CBD, which means about 15 minutes walk, are the residential suburbs, filled with gorgeous old Victorian terraces. People built them to live in. And excepting the main shopping/cafe strip that runs through each suburb, people still live in them.
They're wonderful - beautiful old houses with wrought iron balconies, with (if you're a student) an ancient sofa, or (if you've past that) some other kind of comfy seating on which to place yourself on a warm evening with a glass of wine, or a morning coffee; a yard or a paved courtyard to get some sun in. The last one I lived in even had a palm tree in the garden. The house looked just like this:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrob/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

In Santiago, it seems like the reverse philosophy is in place - gorgeous old buildings (of which there are plenty) are reserved for small businesses, and the people in the city live in apartment blocks. Its such a shame because the old houses here really are lovely but without people they are totally lifeless, and the apartment blocks are ugly 70s and 80s constructions. Because the apartments are built around the older streets, they generally front onto main roads with the aforementioned cacophony of noise.
I was walking through a district called Barrio Italia the other night and came to a beautiful square with old houses all around and a small park in the middle. There was no traffic. It reminded me a lot of East Melbourne.
Not one of the houses was being used as a residence. They were all shut up for the night, empty and dead.
A few blocks further on we came to the main transit road, with buses blaring past at 2am. Lined with apartments of course.