I like big b***s and I cannot lie...

What on earth are they advertising in this photo? No, not giant Italian asses (sadly for those who arrived at this site because they googled that particular phrase). In fact, these are sandwiches. Which may of course give you a giant ass if you eat enough of them, although I doubt they'll be able to turn your tush Italian.

Things Chileans Like 2: Bad Customer Service

Actually, that's a little unfair. I don't know if Chileans actually like bad customer service, but its certainly a possibility given its prevalence here.

Lets take the dinner I had last night as an example.

We're in a nice restaurant in Bellavista that serves the most awesome sandwiches which, amazingly, are not of the completo style, but rather of the pan-American gourmet style - think sandwich of aji de gallina with salad or lomo saltado complete with tiny potato crispies. Ok, it might sound a little weird but take it from me, these sandwiches are the real deal. As in, delicious, and not at all like a completo.

We sit down (after being told that the table we wanted was for six people and us only being four made us ineligible for it..). So we sit down at a crappier table, for four people. Menus arrive. There are lots of drinks in a big long list headed 'tragos', which oddly enough, means 'drinks'.
O turns to waitress and points to one of the drinks.
O: 'Que es esto?' (what's this one?)
Waitress: "Uh.. Son tragos.' Waitress turns, and walks off.
In case you didn't get that, her response to his question was "They are drinks". That was it. Then she left.
Well, thank you for that. I think that counts as Strike One.

Food arrives. O wants another drink. He asks the price of the beer.
Waitress: 'I don't know'.
Long pause. Waitress stands there.
O: "you don't know the prices?'
Waitress: 'Well, they've just changed them.'
Another long silence. O eventually asks for the menu. Strike Two.

Finally, I order a beer from the tap. It arrives two thirds full.
Me: 'Sorry, but this beer isn't full.'
Waitress: 'Well that's because the foam has gone down.'
Me: 'Erm... well can I have a full one then?'
Waitress makes face and tomps off with the beer. It comes back full. Probably with saliva.
Definitely Strike Three for Chilean Customer Service.

And you know, that interaction wasn't even that unusual.

Oh, and the table we originally wanted and weren't allowed to sit at because we didn't have six people? Yeah, it ended up hosting an enormous party of ... two.

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

Random Piñera Spotting in Puerto Varas

When I decided that I wanted to work in TV, I had several friends who went into being 'real' journalists. A couple are now political reporters, and at least one spent the last Australian election 'on the campaign trail' following in the steps of some god-awful politician as he toured around the country kissing babies and doling out soup to the homeless.

For a while, as I sat at my desk surrounded by people playing guitars and pondering the tough decisions such as whether to send our next shoot to Morocco or Madagascar, I wondered whether I was missing out. Last weekend in Puerto Varas, I discovered the answer to that question.


Puerto Varas is a small town on the edge of a lake in the getting-towards-being-in-the-South-but-not-quite-there-yet region of Chile. We were there more or less by accident - after a super early flight to Puerto Montt, our planned bus to Bariloche never showed up, and after several hours waiting in the always-entertaining Puerto Montt bus station (nice to see you Ruth and Charles!), we decided to blow that particular popsicle stand and head to Puerto Varas for the night. We´d heard it was nice, and that you could see volcanoes, which is all I really need to be happy.


Because we are focused on our stomachs precisely 100 percent of the time, and because we had got up early and LAN´s idea of breakfast is three chocolate biscuits, we dumped our bags and headed straight for the nearest German cafe, of which there are about a gazillion in Puerto Varas. After rendering my I-don´t-eat-sweet-things rule a lie (although I still maintain that delicious küchen is not in any way in the same category of sweet things as say.. manjar, which is the work of the devil), we discovered that this same cafe also did what looked like a roaring business in empanadas, judging from the industrial-sized parcels of the things that locals kept staggering out the door with.

We purchased two of these delicious Chilean 'snacks' (read: Chileans consider them a snack, pronounced 'esnack', but anyone in the rest of the world might more accurately suggest that they are more akin to a complete meal) and headed off to the pier to take in the view of the lake and volcanoes.

Unfortunately, Chile lived up to its shitty weather reputation, and there were no volcanoes to be seen. Fortunately, the lack of volcanoes was more than compensated for by the announcement over a loudspeaker that shortly Presidential candidate Sebastian Piñera would be gracing the town with both his presence and the whitest pair of chops that have been seen in provincial Chile for a long time.

Pause for a bit of (I dare say ill informed) info: for those not in the know, Chile's about to have an election. Its a big deal here, and although a fair percentage of the young people that I know haven't actually enrolled to vote, there's still a lot more round-the-dinner-table debate than I'm used to seeing in Australia. There are two 'main' candidates (of course there are more running but from what I can tell most people expect the election to go to one of these two men): Frei and Piñera. Frei is from the Party currently in power (centre-left coalition), and Piñera from a centre-right alliance. Despite Chile´s historic problem regarding right wing governments I´m told that many will this time vote for Piñera because they are sick of having the same party make government every time - with all the corruption, crony-ism and old-boys-club thinking that that implies. That may be, all I can say is that they´re not exactly spoilt for choice here. Frei´s about a zillion years old and he´s already been President once (and he didn´t do a very good job the first time round) and Piñera looks like he´d sell his own grandmother to make a buck. Chile needs a change but I don´t think its coming in this election. Ominami?

So, enough of that. Back to the campaign trail.

Not wanting to pass up an opportunity, we stuffed our half-eaten empanadas still oozing their meaty goodness into my backpack (a decision for which I´m still suffering the consequences) and headed off to meet the man himself.

Now, I´ve not seen many Presidents in my time, or even Presidential candidates, but there were several things about the whole Piñera show that struck me as a bit odd. See if you can pick which ones:

First, on arrival, he was literally mobbed by the crowd. There was hair-pulling and clothing grabbing on a scale not seen outside a Bolivian prison. Not something that I can really see happening to Obama. Admittedly, this wasn´t terribly odd, just one of those details you wouldn´t see at home.

Secondly, while on stage Piñera has a mariachi standing behind him... a new kind of secret service perhaps?





Thirdly, and most bizzarly, at certain points in the rally, Piñera breaks into song. Its like a Presidential campaign come open air karaoke session. The crowd love it. He also makes his son sing, and the deputy for the district sing. Out of the three, we decide that Piñera is the best singer. His teeth are also the whitest.



So on reflection, I'm happy to work in TV, because if it were my job to make this kind of che make sense, I might be donning a mariachi costume and grabbing a mic myself.

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.