La Recova

On Thursday we decided to go to downtown La Serena and get the passport-like pictures necessary for our permanent visas. We got directions from Evelyn, the human resources specialist at Gemini who has been helping us get settled in, but that didn’t prevent us from getting turned around anyway. We knew where we were and approximately where we wanted to be, but we couldn’t figure out how to get there (David refuses to say we were “lost”). We ended up driving around in circles for 20 minutes before giving up and parking wherever we could. Upon exiting the car to get our bearings, we realized that although we failed to find the parking lot that Evelyn had suggested, we did manage to park about three buildings down from the photo shop.

We went in and had our pictures snapped and printed. The whole process took 5 minutes - about 1/4 the time it took us to find parking. We decided to spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the downtown area, particularly La Recova. The Recova (see the picture above) is an outdoor market where local artisans sell crafts, flowers, and homemade preserves, baked goods, and dried fruits. David bought an all-important change purse while I admired (but refrained from buying) a really gorgeous alpaca scarf. We’ve made a pact not to buy many non-perishable items until we are out of the temporary housing situation, since every single thing we purchase now is going to have to be packed up and hauled to our new place in a few weeks! Given that I have done nothing but pack things for the last two months, this seemed a wise choice to preserve my sanity.

After our browsing adventure, we were both hungry. A woman in the Recova, whose main job is to round up potential diners for the restaurant upstairs, easily persuaded us (with promises of a free pisco sour and excellent seafood) to partake in a little late lunch. After perusing the menu and asking the waitress for a suggestion, we decided on the Congrio con Mariscos. In all honesty, we weren’t able to truly understand exactly what our server was telling us, but since she rattled off a copious list of seafood ingredients, it seemed like the way to go. Being that this is Chile and we are not totally insane, we ordered one portion, which we asked to split. After about 15 minutes the server delivered two plates that looked like this:

This is exactly why we ordered one portion. Add this to the two baskets of fresh bread, pebre (a condiment with diced tomatoes, onion, olive oil, peppers, and either cilantro or parsley), and two free pesco sour and you get why half a portion in Chile is enough. We learned our lesson about Chilean portions our first day.

Having avoided purchasing a meal for everyone in the marketplace, we could settle down to eating. The conger eel (which is in reality just a type of fish) was really nicely prepared. It was smothered by an excellent seafood sauce with muscles, clams, scallops, and shrimp. Typical here, nothing special for a regular Chilean diner, just absurdly fresh fish well sauced and accompanied with saffron studded rice. For us, the fact that a tiny cafe over a small market could make food this good was really exciting, especially since this was David’s first taste of congrio. A bonus, even as the most expensive thing on the menu, our bill was only about $15 especially considering our two bottles of mineral water cost about half the main dish.

At this point, I have to stop and apologize, because I’m not exactly sure when this turned into a food blog. I guess it was inevitable based on the fact that everywhere we go, one of the constant reminders that we are NOT home; that we are somewhere foreign and exciting, is the food. When we see things that are the same but slightly skewed, like the Progressive Soup in the “International” food aisle at the Jumbo, we feel simultaneously strangely out of place, yet comforted by the familiar. When we are branching off into slightly newer territory, we feel excited and adventurous; Dick and Jane are not sipping pisco sours at 2 pm and eating conger eel. Don’t get me wrong, the language (certainly our not knowing it!) is always a huge reminder that we are “not in Kansas anymore” but sooner or later we’ll overcome that. On the other hand, one never really forgets the smells and tastes that are uniquely home.

It’s not necessarily a bad or good thing; one can both LOVE trying new food and adore old standbys, but regardless three times a day it does hit you that you are not in your own backyard. That being said, David and I were more homesick after a week in Florida than we are here. So far we are really enjoying Chile and everything it has to offer.

Also as an alternative explanation, David and I are a couple of huge foodies, which may also have SOMETHING to do with our food-centric journaling. Either way, we suppose we might (sooner or later) write about something other than our meals.

Palta, Palta Everywhere

Today we decided to take it easy. Our breakfast arrived like clockwork at 9:15, we ate it and then stayed in bed for a few hours reading and relaxing. We both needed to recharge our batteries after the long trip and the previous day’s running around. We decided that we had to go back to the Jumbo and actually do a little grocery shopping for “the basics”. By the time we got around to buying food the night before, we were pretty tired and we only managed to get some beer, water, and the ham-potato balls; and you know what they say - one can not live on ham-potato balls alone.

By the time we arrived at the Jumbo, we were both pretty hungry. We decided to stop at the little in-store cafe for lunch. The sandwiches in Chile are fairly homogenous; chicken on white bread with all the crusts cut off. We noticed that besides the chicken sandwiches they had hot dogs. We decided to give them a try.

Now the other day, in the mail, David and I both saw a glorious thing. We saw a waiter serving a hot dog..with avocado on top. Yes, avocado. In Chile, it is known as “palta” and it is ubiquitous. It was even on the neatly wrapped, crust-cut-off chicken sandwiches (just like mom used to make). We ordered our hot dogs and went to the condiment stand. BEHOLD next to the ketchup was a giant pump container of palta. How could something so wrong be so right! Tony Bourdain, our favorite acerbic TV chef would be in heaven. We certainly were.

After finishing off our palta, ketchup, and hot sauce topped dogs (on fantastic fresh buns, by the way) we continued our shopping trip. We knew that we could find practically anything one might find in an American grocery store, but the extent of this perception was yet to sink in. We discovered the “International” food aisle, which had a wide variety of Indian curries, Chinese sauces, Old El Paso taco fixings, and Shure-Fine Macaroni-N-Cheese (in case we go insane and suddenly yen for the south). We found Heinz ketchup (good liberal ketchup, as David put it) with Six Flags Great Adventure discount tickets on the back. We found Hellmann’s mayo and French’s mustard. So, as far as basic supplies go, we were set.

We actually had much more fun exploring the non-American parts of the store. I had to physically restrain David from buying the entire Argentinean beef case. If you’ve spoken to David in the last two years, you’ve probably heard about the Two-Steaks-A-Day blog that he subjects everyone to - it was that kind of pampas-fed, Argentine meat. It was $10 for a pound of filet. Several months ago, I mistakenly had the impression that we would be able to save money in Chile, but now I realize that we are going to single-handedly fund the Argentine ranching industry for 3-5 years. We also discovered some good old Chilean meat, particularly ostrich, in filet, burger, and (notably) carpaccio. We’re thinking of bringing out the carpaccio as a “big gun” when we have Steve over for dinner, but we’ll try it first and make sure we don’t die from either toxins or pleasure. For now, we settled for the burgers.

After completing our second shopping trip, we came home and decided to take a walk to the Vina del Mar, the A1-A of La Serena. The sunset there was absolutely gorgeous, the sand was freaking cold, and the restaurants very tempting. We however, still had about 3 pounds of excellent BBQ meat in our fridge, so we went home and fixed a simple dinner of leftovers and apple sauce.

Before dinner, we got Skype working and called both sets of parents to say hello. It was really neat to see everyone “face to face” and we only had minor technical difficulties. I think it will be even easier to keep in touch with friends and family than it was when we were in Gainesville!

Exploring La Serena

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.

Meat

After arriving in Chile in the early afternoon and crashing for a good six hour nap, we awoke at 9pm, right in time for our first dinner out in La Serena. Fortunately, in keeping with our late-night eating habits, people in Chile like their suppers late at night. When I’ve eaten out here on previous trips to the country, I found restaurants practically empty at 8pm; only old people and those with young children would bother going out that early for dinner!

It was very easy to find a place to have our first Chilean meal. Through some twist of fate, our hotel, the Gran Pacifico, is located right next to a meat restaurant - I don’t know how else to describe it. If anything could win David’s undying loyalty and love, it would probably be giant chunks of meat. This particular restaurant, Martin Fierro, was a Parrilladas, roughly translated, a BBQ. The meat is cooked on an open charcoal grill, located within sight of all the tables. Given the relative chill in the place, it is apparently the only heat source as well. This was no matter to us, the cold crisp air was a really wonderful change after the strangling heat and humidity of Florida.

The Gran Pacifico Hotel and Apartments

Our waiter and the menu arrived together - David immediately noted with delight that the menu had fur on the outside cover. The waiter spoke no English and we speak practically no Spanish, however we managed to easily order two waters (sin gas) and two pisco sours (I’ll write more about this later, it’s a very famous drink in Chile, particularly in the nearby Elqui valley where some of the best pisco is created). Then the waiter left us alone to puzzle out the menu.

With our pocket dictionary we managed to decipher a good amount of the side dishes, but the meat remained somewhat of a mystery. When the waiter returned, we pointed to diners at another table with a large pile of yummy looking meat on a miniature grill and asked “Que es eso” or “What is that”. He pointed to something on the menu, the house special, meant for two. We ordered that and one side, a bowl of potatoes with olive oil, mushrooms, and something else that we couldn’t translate.

A short time later a giant miniature grill brimming with meat arrived. GIANT. Perhaps 10 - 15 large pieces of steak, pork, sausage, and (as David puts it) other steak. We’re not totally sure what animals we ate, but it was all good. Gorgeous smelling potatoes also appeared and we discovered what the previously untranslated ingredient was, BACON, reinforcing our general perception that no dish in Chile comes without some form of animal on or in it.

This meal was not a meal for two; this was dinner for the Spanish, Euro Cup-winning futbol team. Even David’s best efforts barely put a dent in the pile-o-meat. We were fairly convinced that this was not exactly what the people next to us had ordered. They had apparently only ordered dinner for half the Spanish, Euro-Cup winning futbol team. We think we were probably slightly taken advantage of by our waiter, but really we couldn’t be mad. We have no food in the house and until we get some shopping done, the meat will last us as lunch and dinner tomorrow (and dinner for the cat, who had his food taken by customs). In the end, our first dinner out in Chile, with plenty of pisco sours to grease the wheels and dissolve the meat in our stomachs, cost roughly $70; a lot for a single dinner in Chile, but not a lot for dinner, lunch, and dinner again in Chile, and certainly not unreasonable for a celebration of our triumph over LAN airlines.

Tomorrow - a more mundane day, picking up our rental car and shopping for food and socks, since I forgot to bring more than one pair!

Puck's Adventure

Well, he did it. Our cat Puck is now a world traveller. After enduring a never-ending 16 hour car ride from Florida to Maryland, another 3 hour trip from Maryland to New Jersey and back again all in a month’s time, he flew from Baltimore to Chile today, officially earning his stripes as an international cat.

Yes, I know I’m already making the first stereotypical blog faux pas, writing about my cat, but the fact of the matter is, our trip to Chile was pretty much dominated by trying to keep him feeling relatively safe and happy - mostly for our own sanity. Along the way we learned something fairly interesting about Chilean bureaucracy.

Checking Puck in and getting from BWI in Maryland to Atlanta was a breeze. We paid the pet fee ($100) carried him through security, and boarded the plane with no problem. Honestly, he didn’t make a peep the whole trip, mostly because he was scared to death. Our first flight was delayed and we just barely made our connecting flight to Santiago. This sort of screwed up our master plan to let him run around for a bit in the bathroom between flights, but we didn’t have a choice.

We were seated next to a couple with a baby for our long (10 hour) international flight. We were perfectly happy about this. Any smells or noises could easily be attributed to the baby, keeping us out of trouble with our fellow passengers. Surprisingly, the parents of said child were very good ones, they rigged up an ingenious hammock for the baby using a blanket stuffed into a magazine holder on the bulkhead and managed to keep their child happy, quiet, and clean. Apparently, we are also good “cat parents” because Puck was also fairly quiet and clean (I can’t say much about happy - he looked pretty mad the whole trip).

The only bad part about this leg of the trip was the “premium” cat carrier we purchased from Sherpa. With some “help” from Puck, the zipper separated from the bag creating a rather large hole that we couldn’t patch. Puck “discovered” and exploited this hole within three seconds. He rabbit kicked the top of the carrier, making the hole larger and larger until he could almost stick his entire head through. At this point, we were faced with the possibility that Puck would destroy the whole top of the bag and escape creating a “CATS on a PLANE” type panic that only Samuel L. Jackson could verbalize.

Puck and his "premium" bag

Keeping the panic out of my voice, I told the flight attendant that one of our bags had ripped and we’d like some tape. On a good day, she would have brought some duct tape; on this day she came back with masking tape. We grabbed the carrier, ran into the bathroom and began furiously taping around the entire bag, sealing up Puck’s only means of escape. We couldn’t close the hole, but we could keep him from popping his head out, which was good enough for us. After sealing off the hole, he pretty much resigned himself to the situation and settled down to sleep. Hours (and hours and hours) later, we arrived in Santiago.

Masking tape saves the day!

Getting Puck through customs was pretty much a breeze; I just handed over 20 different official looking documents, which made them feel that all was well and they let him into the country. Hilariously, while they were OK about allowing our live animal through customs, they were pretty unmoving about his dry cat food, which they seized with relish.

At this point, we felt that the hardest part was done. Little did we know that our frustration was just beginning. We went up to the LAN desk (Chile’s main airline) to check in for our short (1 hour) hop from Santiago to La Serena and were almost immediately issued boarding passes. However, when we mentioned our cat, we were told by a helpful agent that we needed to pay for him in a different area. We walked over to the payment desk, where another very helpful man took our $35 and filled out a dizzying array of computer forms for ~45 minutes, only to hand us a small, 4 inch X 8 inch pass for Puck.

We walked back to the first desk to check him in and were met by confused looks by a bevy of agents - no less than three separate confused looks per person. After an aborted attempt to load him as checked baggage (NO!) managers came over to explain to us that they DO NOT allow animals as hand luggage. This came as quite a surprise to us, given that we called no fewer than 4 times to confirm Puck’s “reservation” and had asked each time (to be sure) that we could bring him on the plane. Apparently, the rules had changed September 1st, someone had screwed up when we made our reservations, and now, we had a serious situation on our hands.

The managers seemed very willing to help. I took this as a good sign. This is when we slowly started to learn a bit about Chilean bureaucracy. We waited at the ticketing desk for about an hour, watching as two shift changes at the desk took place. No one spoke with us. No one assured us that the problem was handled. I would try to ask for help every so often, only to be met with a very helpful “Let me find my manager”, a dutiful call on a walkie-talkie, a complete inability to locate anyone in charge, and a shrug of the shoulders. Another hour of this and I was starting to get fairly frustrated.

Managers finally started approaching. Unfortunately, every single manager had a different story of what they were going to do for us. One was going to put Puck in a hard-sided carrier under the plane. Another was going to tape off a section of the aircraft for us. It sunk in that none of these people were really planning on solving our problem.

Finally, we were told that we would be on the next flight to La Serena, that they would find a cage for Puck to put him under the plane, that we would get boarding passes when check-in for the flight “closed”, and that someone would come to get us and escort us to the gate. At the appointed time, not a single manager was around. No one came to get us. I took things into my own hands, walking up to each desk, demanding to see a manager. 10 minutes after the situation was supposed to be “handled”, a manager appeared, ticketed us and told us to go to gate 21 with our cat and board the plan. What??!!

At this point, the flight was almost done boarding. We were still at the ticket ing desk. We sprinted through security, flying passed in about 1 minute. No one blinked at us as we sloppily made our way through the metal detectors with the cat. We ran to gate 21. It was the wrong gate!!! We sprinted to a monitor and found the correct gate, arriving right before the flight closed. No one asked for a pass for Puck, no one even noticed our existence. We found our seat and arrived in La Serena, tired but victorious, 1 hour later.

Throughout the process, I got the overall feeling that the airline staff thought we would just “go away”; admit defeat, take the cat and rent a car or something to get to La Serena. I don’t know if they were surprised with my persistence, they all seemed completely flummoxed by the fact that we didn’t disappear. The solution to the problem was, at the end of the day, no different from what was planned in the first place, but we had to endure 3 hours of bureaucracy to make it happen. Furthermore, we both got the sneaking suspicion that the managers REALLY didn’t want us to make that flight, hence the last minute tickets and the incorrect gate information.

The most interesting lesson that we learned was that if we had just kept the cat’s existence to ourselves, we probably could have boarded our initial flight with no problem; the security people and flight crew couldn’t have cared less; only the front desk managers had a problem; it’s almost as if they created a major situation and they ran around trying to solve it to give themselves something to do. Something to think about in the future!

Overall, the trip was a success. We got here with all of our belongings and our cat. Henry, a very nice Gemini scientist who I met during my interview trip, picked us up from the airport and took us to our new temporary apartment/hotel. Puck immediately got into trouble, finding a hiding place in the gas oven (we blocked that off as soon as we lured him out) and discovering an open window in the bathroom that we hadn’t noticed. After Puck-proofing the place we crashed, ending our first part of our first day in Chile.