We had a really excellent night’s sleep and woke about 9 am to start our first full day in Chile. After lying abed for a few minutes appreciating the slightly chilly weather, we were jostled out of our comfortable nest of blankets by an unexpected knock at the door. We raced downstairs and answered, only to be greeted by a smiling Chilean woman holding breakfast. We had no idea that a complimentary breakfast would arrive without a specific request, but given that we had no food in the house at all (nada!), it was a wonderful surprise.
The meal consisted of two warm rolls, a slice of dense, sweet bread (basically pound cake), a container of hot water, tea, warm milk, and the staple of Chilean mornings, NesCafe Instant Coffee. David eschewed the NesCafe with the contempt he usually reserves for well-done steaks. I decided to try the NesCafe and found that I actually rather liked it with the warm milk. I imagine that it would be rather atrocious with hot water, but the whole milk made it more like an espresso-type drink found at Starbucks than a brewed cup of coffee.
We decided our goal for the day would be to pick up the car that Gemini was loaning us for the month and use it to find and explore the local mall and grocery store. High on the list of items that we needed were cat food for Puck, drinkable water for us, socks for me (I’d accidentally only brought one pair!), and something for dinner - particularly a side dish to accompanying the large pile of meat left over from the previous nights excursion to Martin Fierro.
We called a taxi to take us to the Recinto Privado, the small hill on the east side of the city where the CTIO and Gemini Headquarters are located. Many of the astronomers also live on the Recinto, in one of the 30 or so houses within the compound. We’ve been warned that we probably won’t get a house there this year, which was a little disappointing since it is quite beautiful. On the other hand, we think that not living on the Recinto will help us learn the language and assimilate more into the culture. Still, David and I couldn’t help but admire the view and take a few pictures (like the one shown above) and we agreed that if a house did open up we would most likely take it.
We met with Evelyn, who is in charge of many aspects of Gemini, including helping newcomers settle into La Serena. She told me that the person who was readying our car was sick and that no one would be available to help me for two hours. We decided to walk around for a bit, first visiting my friend Nicole who works at CTIO and then walking down the hill to the local grocery store, Deca.
Entering the Deca gave us a pretty good indication of the type of personal supplies, food, etc. we could expect to get in Chile, which roughly speaking, are about the same personal supplies, food, etc. one can get in the US. While this did not surprise us overly much, we were fairly shocked that some of the products were shipped directly from the US, English labels and all! One major difference was the produce, which was much, much cheaper than anything you’ve ever seen in the States. David found the exact same brand of Chilean Pink Lady apples he’d been buying for $2.50 a pound in the Fresh Market in Gainesville for about one fifth that price. Most of the fruit and vegetables looked absolutely gorgeous. The meat and fish looked very nice too, I had to physically restrain David from buying the entire hindquarter of a lamb (22 lbs) for $50. This was not because I didn’t want to cook and eat it, but because our freezer is about 12 X 10 inches.
Without a car we did not want to load up on groceries, however we were starving for lunch. Deca had a prepared food counter and we ordered fried chicken, beet and hearts-of-palm salad, and a Coke for each of us. The fried chicken pieces were gigantic; twice the size of portion you would get in the US; the meal cost about $7 total and was fantastic.
After lunch we walked back to the observatory, past a Nissan car dealership, a Blockbuster Video, and about four veterinarians’ offices (!). Once back on the Recinto, we were escorted to a rather nice looking Toyota Yaris. This is not the new, fancy kind of Yaris currently being sold in the US; this particular model was marketed as the Toyota Echo in the States. Still it’s in very nice condition, has a decent looking radio, and will do fine to get us around town until we figure something else out.
With our car in hand, we now had the independence to do some exploring. One of our biggest concerns was that we would have a really hard time finding clothing and shoes to fit us. I am taller (and rounder) than the typical Chilean woman and I have big feet. David is slightly taller than the typical Chilean man. We’d bought a good amount of clothing before we left the US just in case, but David was already down a pair of pants that ripped at his parent’s house and I had forgotten to pack socks in our luggage. So we set out to the McDonald-laden American-style mall to see what we could find.
For the most part the experience is what we figured. Electronic devices are expensive, about double what they might be in the states. An iPod Touch is $400, a cell phone about $150, and a digital camera, $200 - $300. A gigantic array of other things are very cheap, including jewelry, purses, and some clothing; although any American brand is ridiculously expensive. We found that my shoe and sock size are the last commonly available size found in many stores and that the Docker’s store has many waist sizes but only one inseam (33!?) which happens to fit David (normally a 32) just fine. Clothing for me might be more of a challenge, but given the state of my closet, I should be fine for quite a while anyway! So we bought a pair of pants for David, a pair of socks for me and struggled out of the milling mall masses to head over to the Jumbo, the premier grocery store in town.
The Jumbo is, in one word, ridiculous. It is a drunken SuperWalmart - simply replace the smiling yellow faces with a giant grinning grey elephant and add a lot of liquor. There is food, bedding, towels, kitchen supplies, pet stuff, wine, beer, school supplies, etc. Don’t get me wrong, it has a Chilean flare - fresh baked bread out of the oven, manjar and tres leches flavored ice cream (more on that later), about 30 kinds of chorizo and sausage, giant whole fish, and an entire aisle of non-refrigerated milk. This was the biggest shocker - like the Europeans the Chileans treat the milk with Ultra-High Temperature (UHT) pasteurization, which renders it shelf-stable. David insists it’s revolting, but it seems we don’t have much choice. My brilliant suggestion that we use watered down heavy or whipping creme as a substitute was thwarted by the UHT treated creme at the end of the aisle.
So, after exploring the dizzying aisles and coming to the realization that we would need only minor substitutions to recreate most of our best dishes, we set out to purchase some sides for our dinner. We found portabella mushrooms, fresh bread, and small balls filled with potato and (of course) ham (las duquesas). David bought a bottle of beer. He’d been told a decent bottle of beer might be hard to come by, but again the giant grey elephant provided; he found at least a dozen drinkable European and North American beers and a few Chilean microbrews. We also brought a bottle of Coke; by this time my stomach was a little on the fritz; probably from all the traveling and weird eating times.
So, we headed home to our little hotel/apartment and proceeded to whip up a dinner. Our cookwear is rather limited; we’ve got one rather flimsy frying pan, no wooden or plastic tools to use with it, and no cutting board. Of course, we have two Global knives that David wisely insisted we pack in the suitcase, our Magnum pepper grinder (nothing out-grinds the Magnum) and European Sea Salt. Yes folks, I can’t remember to pack socks, but we have European Sea Salt and professional knives. Cold feet be damned!
On the other hand, we also know where the Chileans priorities lie, we might not have a spatula, but we have a miniature grill that sits on top the gas flame. Yes, a miniature grill! David used it to toast our fresh bread while I happily cooked first the mushrooms and meat and then the potato-ham balls in fresh European butter. We put together our own steak sandwiches - to make up for multiple abortive attempts to find me a decent Philly Cheesesteak while we were in NJ.
Our First Attempts at Cooking in Chile
So ended our first day in Chile. We watched a few episodes of The Closer that David had yanked on to my computer and drifted off to sleep, already dreaming about eating giant legs of lamb, Chilean Sea Bass, and Pisco Sours while riding on the back of a giant, big-earred, grey elephant.
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