Sleepless in Santiago.

I don´t know where to begin. The beginning, right? I am loving Santiago! I can´t bear to leave just yet.
My flight from Punta Arenas to Santiago with two stops was eventful. First, the vicious wind. Turbulence kicked all of us around the cabin, inciting prayers and last rites. While we waited on the tarmac to unload and load new passengers, the plane was shaking like it had Parkinson´s. I had been talking with a mathematics professor from UNC while we were in the airport in Punta Arenas, and the poor guy sat next to a woman who had obviously flown for the first time. It´s not quite an uncommon thing I guess, because plane tickets are so expensive here. She was sick the entire flight.
I got dropped off at my hostel, an old 19th century mansion, in the early evening. If anything, my first impression with Santiago is that it looks even more like Barcelona in some places. Cobblestone streets, old buildings meeting new society. I was starving so headed off on the metro to the Bellavista part of town, where all the restaurants live.
The main street in Bellavista was already packed by 10:30, the time I arrived. All the sidewalk tables were overflowing and I was a bit intimidated to find a seat among the crowd, and plus I was in search of Middle Eastern food anyway since I heard this was the place to find it. I did finally stumble across a Turkish restaurant and had one of the best Doner Kebaps in my life, and have been eating at the place every day since then! I didnt talk to anyone, but there was great entertainment outside. An older woman with her husband and kid had passed out in her chair at an outdoor table near mine, and it took two waiters to carry her, in the chair, to a waiting taxi. The woman was so huge that they first couldn´t figure out how to get her out of the chair into the backseat. One lifted her around her belly and backed into the cab, but he tripped and in he went, backside first and her on top of him. Keep in mind during this entire time, she didn´t even stir. Everyone watching burst out laughing, it was the funniest thing I´ve ever seen. So there he was, trying to wiggle out from under her. He finally managed to push her onto the seat, but this time she was facedown on the seat, knees bent on the pavement. It took the two of them again to push her in farther, but then her legs were sticking straight out. Finally after an interminable time, they got her in a sitting position in the backseat, and off the taxi went with her kid and husband. Lord. Hilarious.
After dinner I went in search of a drink, in particular the specialty of Chile, a pisco sour. Pisco is grape brandy and the pisco sour drink is made from it, sugar, lemon and egg white (yea, i know, but it´s surprisingly good). I ended up at a ridiculously hip place where you had to ring a doorbell to get in, with loud deep house playing from the DJ booth. I was so in need of some house so it was the music that drew me in. I nursed my drink for about an hour, people watching. I found it amusing that people were paying these insane prices for Asian food. And being the only Asian in the place at the time, you can understand why I was enjoying myself so much there.
Took a cab back to the hostel and conked out around 3 a.m. The next day, I went sightseeing. But the city was DEAD. Who knew that such a major place as Santiago keeps its Sunday tradition like the smaller towns? Goes to show you how Catholic this place is. But I was heading to the museum anyway. On the way, passing La Moneda, where the president´s office is located, I discovered I had missed some huge parade with la presidente. That´s right -- la. Chile´s president is a woman, and moreover, a divorced woman with kids. It´s quite a departure from the usually conservative population, as I came to find out later.
The Museo de Bellas Artes was an interesting museum. They had an exhibit on a Chilean artist named Pilar Ovalle who creates these intricate, time-consuming works from wood. I was so impressed. There was also a Botero statue outside, of a voluptuous horse. Beautiful. There´s a swathe of park that runs horizontally alongside one of the major boulevards in Santiago, so with this backdrop, the museum really stands out, stately and elegant.
I walked to Cerro Santa Lucia nearby, a tall hill that´s been turned into a lush park. Got a panoramic view of the city and then went in search of lunch. Ended up at a chic place with a lunch special of lasagna, fresh juice and espresso (i had it changed to a cortado, which is espresso with milk). The lasagna was decent but it was too cheesy and the pasta was cooked 5 minutes past al dente. I ended up talking to a guy at the table next to me named Juan Carlos. He was telling me about the more sinister side of Chile, which I was quite enjoying. As a tourist you don´t really get to know these things till you talk to a local. That was the beginning of my information lesson.
Juan Carlos was telling me about the rich here and how they live. He wasn´t nice about them, but his sarcasm made him so fun to listen to. Apprently the rich here dress in Tommy Hilfiger and think it´s quite smart, but they don´t donate to the arts or culture, and the women all dye their hair blond. He was telling me about Santa Lucia, the neighborhood we were in, and how he likes it so much because it´s the gay neighborhood of Santiago. He told me about his exboyfriend in Paris, how he wants to leave Santiago soon because he doesn´t like its ways. He took me on a tour of the center, telling me so much: about the president, his old misogynistic boss who has a happy family on the weekends but has no qualms sleeping with prostitutes on the weekdays, the history of Santiago and how the former president Allende committed suicide in La Moneda rather than be killed by Pinochet during the latter´s murderous coup in 1973, the specific church that used to deal in slave trade, his friend who is part of the Hilton family, the place of a memorial plaque to anotehr former president, Allessandrani, who was rumored to be gay because he never married, the gay-club mecca of Santiago in Bellavista, the city´s library, the best place to get a good salad, the tourist open-air market versus the locals-only one... for 6 hours we hung out and talked about politics, Chile and life. I love traveling! OK, but then you have to deal with shit, like the freak who grabbed my hand and hip when I was passing him on the way back from the Turkish restaurant to the metro. The mofo and his friends just laughed when I shot him the dirtiest look I could give. What the hell is up with men here? I´ve been getting so annoyed at the attention, which I still can´t figure out if it´s because Í´m getting checked out or that they´ve never seen an Asian girl before. Which is strange because the city is swarming with Chinese restaurants.
In the evening I met up with Gustavo near my hostel. He took me on a drive to a bit outside Santiago, to -- get this -- a strip mall that looks like it was transported right from the ´burbs of America. He wanted to show me the other side of Santiago as well, so it looks like some people here have a really cynical view of the city, a view I always enjoy hearing about because the gloss of a city gets boring. But this mall, I swear to god, had a Tony Roma´s, a TGIF, a Haagen Daaz and a STARBUCKS. Just to make the experience even more weird, we got drinks at Starbucks. Christ. It was exactly as if I were at home. The place had the same look and smell. I´ve been in McDonalds all over teh world but still, this was really eerie. The menu was the same, but in Spanish. Same fonts, same colors. I started to ask for nonfat milk and no whip cream but realized I didn´t know how to ask. No problem though. When I started to stutter, the clerk knew what to say. "Nonfat milk and no whip cream?" I was so flabbergasted that he knew what I was going to say that I asked him if Starbucks taught them that Americans order their Starbucks drinks like that. He said no, but I really dont believe the guy. Starbucks has really trained their employees well.
Gustavo took me on a ride up to Farello (or something like that), which is part of the Andes. The curves were vicious climbing that mountain. Instead of deer on the side of the road, it was cows. We were having a lucky night -- the moon is almost full, so you could see how high up we were getting. During winter the place turns into a ski resort, but it´s so expensive that it´s something most Chilean´s have never experienced. Going for a day is basically the same price as Mammoth, and with the low wages here, you can see why it´s an inaccessible sport for the population. Gustavo and I shared stories about our mutual friend Davide (Davide, now I know that I am not the only one who thinks you´re crazy. We think it´s the pasta that does it), told me about his work (he´s an architect who designs churches... in the next year they are planning 14 new ones in the expanding city!), his girlfriend who is a lawyer for the gov´t, Santiago in general, traveling and other things so interesting of course I forgot them already. We finally got to the top and whew -- amazing view. Santiago was a series of tiny dots. If it were daytime I might have gotten vertigo. You could see the stars. Amazing.
So, the happy news is that I was able to change my ticket back home. I actually had a year from my departure! But I extended my trip to only a few weeks later, to July 31. I´ve got a bit more breathing room and it´s such a relief! I think 6 months is all I can take not sleeping in the same bed for more than 2 or 3 days...