Hola,
I arrived yesterday morning in Santiago and made it to the hostel after surviving the bus ride. The flight was on time and everything went smooth.
I met a couple interesting people on the flights, one guy, Migueal, is a Chilean fighter pilot that was flying back from training in Texas and the other guy, Jesus, (I never thought I would ride a plane with Jesus!) was a Cuban who worked with the CIA during the Bay of Pigs to oust Fidel Castro. He has not been back to Cuba since, moved to Costa Rica for 20 years working for the the first color TV station in Central America. Got a divorce and moved to Miami. We spoke Spanglish.
It is definitely interesting over here, mostly because of the language barrier, of course, everything is in Spanish and most people only speak Spanish. The hostel is pretty nice, just had a free breakfast of bread, jam, and instant coffee. I was kind of waiting for the eggs and bacon but it never came.
Yesterday, I felt like I was one of a few among several million with blue eyes and light hair, definitely got some second glances. I was eating alone at some random place and an cute little girl about 6 or 7 comes up and starts speaking fast Spanish, the main theme being ´monero¨. After several minutes of realizing this gringo isnt Santa Claus she headed back into the street and got swept away by the huge crowd. A few times people stopped me on the street wanting to show me this or that, give me a poem, etc, always with an story about how they need money. Reminded me of getting hassled in Asheville, except for the poetry.
I´m about to go get lost in Santiago... again.
Here is a pic of Santiago:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagen:Stgo_Abril.jpg
Jack
I arrived yesterday morning in Santiago and made it to the hostel after surviving the bus ride. The flight was on time and everything went smooth.
I met a couple interesting people on the flights, one guy, Migueal, is a Chilean fighter pilot that was flying back from training in Texas and the other guy, Jesus, (I never thought I would ride a plane with Jesus!) was a Cuban who worked with the CIA during the Bay of Pigs to oust Fidel Castro. He has not been back to Cuba since, moved to Costa Rica for 20 years working for the the first color TV station in Central America. Got a divorce and moved to Miami. We spoke Spanglish.
It is definitely interesting over here, mostly because of the language barrier, of course, everything is in Spanish and most people only speak Spanish. The hostel is pretty nice, just had a free breakfast of bread, jam, and instant coffee. I was kind of waiting for the eggs and bacon but it never came.
Yesterday, I felt like I was one of a few among several million with blue eyes and light hair, definitely got some second glances. I was eating alone at some random place and an cute little girl about 6 or 7 comes up and starts speaking fast Spanish, the main theme being ´monero¨. After several minutes of realizing this gringo isnt Santa Claus she headed back into the street and got swept away by the huge crowd. A few times people stopped me on the street wanting to show me this or that, give me a poem, etc, always with an story about how they need money. Reminded me of getting hassled in Asheville, except for the poetry.
I´m about to go get lost in Santiago... again.
Here is a pic of Santiago:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagen:Stgo_Abril.jpg
Jack
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