Day 2, Family

(Sunday, the 10th of January, 2016)
Day 2 here we go, after a beautiful long sleep last night I was faced with a frugal yet delicious breakfast of coffee and toast, with some bonus dulce de membrillo (that orange stuff on the toast). We then packed up some stuff and headed for Santiago. I think it's a beautiful drive through valleys and mountains (truly through the mountains, as you have to go through a tunnel to get there) to get to Santiago. Some people in the neighbourhood hitched a ride with us to the capital. I spent the whole trip (granted, it's only 30 min) trying to get pictures from the car. They probably spent the whole trip wondering what I was doing. I fear that I'm on the way to becoming one of the hipsters that takes a picture of absolutely everything. I've been limiting myself to taking only one picture per meal, to avoid becoming a food blogger! (I do seem to have a penchant for graffiti as well.)

The first stop of that day was to a street market. We weren't really looking for anything specific, it seems like the market starts the Sunday routine. This wasn't an ordinary market trip though, because I was there, so my Grandpa hands me a bunch of pesos, (side note, the exchange works out to about 500 pesos per Canadian dollar), he tells me that I'm paying for everything so that I can get used to using the currency. So I'm following him down the street, he's buying nails, buying electrical outlets, buying saw blades, putting them in his bag and telling the shopkeepers to ask me for money. I'm following behind paying out and collecting change, the whole experience was quite hilarious.

We left and ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant which was quite delicious, we then headed off to a house of the family's that has Wi-Fi. This is where I've been doing these updates. We ended up staying there a little bit o get than I expected, we were waiting for my (step-?) Grandma to sell some hares to the locals around the neighbourhood.

At around 5:30, we hit the road for the house that my great grandparents used to live in. It has since been passed down, but no one from the family lives there anymore. Every Sunday, or anytime there is a family party everybody heads for to that house, to play cards, have tea and chat. There's a tiled inner courtyard that acts as a dance floor, also present in the back courtyard is a barbecue with rotating spit, seems like this place knows how to party!

I met about 15 relatives, most I'd never seen before save one family, they were all super friendly and surprised that I'd be doing something crazy like a 4 month trip alone to Chile. One thing that I've noticed in the short time that I've been here, no one really mentions that I'm still learning Spanish, I don't mention it unless someone asks, most people get it once they've heard me speak for a few sentences, except for the kids. Everyone under 10 doesn't clue in, they keep yammering away in rapid fire Spanish at me and I have no idea what they're saying. It has created some weird / awkward situations. But I survived those moments, and the rest of the day. In total, I do believe that today was another great day, it was great to see families get together for no other reason but to chat.

See all my pictures here!

After doing a little digging, it is quite a chore to add mp3 files of your own to Blogger but YouTube links work (of course), so I'll be choosing to feature a video of a live performance from the Congahead YouTube channel. It will mostly focus on Latino music genres, but it fits well with the theme of my blog. So today's featured song is 'No Eres Tu' by 'El Montuno Y La Cimarronada'

Edit: Added Title (Oops), added post music clarification, added pictures link!

First Post from South America

(Saturday, the 9th of January, 2016)
Hey guys, I've made it, I'm here. The flights had no problems and the customs and food safety officials at both the America and the Chilean borders were excellent and painless.

Apparently I was the only guy to use the stairs on the way down to get to the customs line, the rest of the pack got stuck on the escalators. So I just hustled down the stairs, aiming to get to the front of the pack so the line wouldn't be long, but there was no line, I pretty much just walked straight up to a booth, lucky day! I was surprised that I made it to the front, and I guess the customs officer was surprised by my super-speed as well.

I do believe that my Chilean customs guy was just waking up. He was still drinking the first sip of his coffee when I showed up in front of him. I was just going where the other officer pointed. He just turned around, scanned and stamped the passport and I was on the way.

It feels great to be back, by the mountains (or hills, depends on your on what scale you're talking, cause the ones around the city are quite small in comparison the the Andes.). I took some low quality shots with my phone and I'll try to get some posted.

After I arrived I took a long nap. Man, it felt like a new day after that. Sleeping and planes are a little hard for me when they're together, so I got maybe 3.5 hours, a 4 hour nap just doubled my sleep. I've met some cousins here today who don't speak more than a few words of English so I've had to get my Spanish game on a little earlier than I expected. Which has been fun and a challenge at the same time. We had a beautiful lunch together of homemade humitas and some salads, and dessert consisted of 1/8th of a massive watermelon. My God, I was stuffed and it was only 2 pm.

I spent some time bonding over Red Hot Chili Peppers with one of the cousins, coincidentally also named Nicolas. So he became Niko and I lapsed back to the traditional nickname of Nicky. But it was a fun time. Playing some knockoff Chinese version of Jenga.

We then some tea and freshly baked bread from the clay oven at around 6. The sun set around 9:30, and it seemed like we might have Evan had some dinner later. A few of the cousins sprung for some 10 o'clock corn on the cob, but I passed. If I keep eating this much I'm going come back massive.

All in all though, today was a great day, and I am looking forward to a great sleep tonight.

[The Internet speed is slow here, and I haven't had the chance to get a data plan or anything. Rather I'll link a Mega.nz folder with all of the pictures that I have, (sorry they are huge, as they are just transferred straight from my phone). At a later date I'll have time to compress some of them and choose the ones I like to post on the blog.]

More Pictures...
(Click here to see more pictures, I'll probably be changing this around getting it to a state of organization that works, making albums etc.)(Apparently not mobile friendly)

I'm looking to upload a random song from my library (that has an official YouTube video or official web source, unless I decide to toe the line) to provide some background music while reading. Since this is random, there is no guarantee of what genre it's going to be or if it is explicit or not this is more of a project for me and my friends... I'll try to accurately label it, but no guarantees.
Our test run today will be...
"Entre Cuerdas" by "Edmar Castaneda's World Ensemble" [Latin, Instrumental]
(Features some awesome trombone by Marshall Gilkes)

Edit 1: Fixed the Mega link.
Edit 2: Added compressed and relevant photos. Spelling.
Edit 3: Mega Description, Random Song of the Post

Test Post; The Return.

Hello again. It has been a while since I've used this platform, but it seemed fitting that I return. I'm travelling back to Chile next year and since this blog was all about my first trip, revival just seemed like the right thing to do. This post is mainly a test post, just to get myself reacquainted with the interface of Blogger. I've cleaned up the fonts and the background a bit (god, it was tacky) and updated some profiles, getting ready for the real thing.

This blog will be the online extension of the travel journal that I'll be keeping in notebooks during the trip. I will also be posting pictures here and perhaps links to albums of pictures that I'll be making if I have enough dedicated time. I'm not sure how regular the internet access will be down there, so no schedule for post as of now. Thank you for your time and for joining the revival of this blog. Although, it has undergone an evolution and has changed names. Meet...
A Remote Corner on Earth.

Nicholas Skoretz.

remotecorner.blogspot.ca