Lagged and hung over in Santiago

I am lost in this country...culture shocked and lost and tired...but boy am i having a good time!

I´ve tried a couple times to write something deep and inspiring about my travels so far bit it just drags on so i am just going to tell you what i´ve been up to...

Day 1. Arrived in Santiago 2 hrs after i left Sydney, a 16 hr flight and took a taxi to lilly´s (a friend of my mothers) Taxis over here are very cheap, for example a trip from the airport to the outer suburbs, think sydney terminal to hornsby... about 20 bucks. There we were given some lunch and a drive arround town, a visit to lillys mothers house and then back home... lots of spanish... couldnt understand a word. Watched some spanish televison, luckily there is some english programs with spanish subtitles as the simpsons in spanish is not funny at all, especially the voice changes which i found the south americans actually prefer...to quote one ¨marges voice is just way too annoying in the american version´. Fell asleep for only 6hrs, woke up at 2am. Sat by the window which looked up at the andes, most of the city sits looking up at these gigantic mountains.

Day 2. Moved into my hostel, its nice, some strange stains on the bed but im just going to imagine they are milk....ahem. Went for a walk round Providencia, the upper class suburb which i am residing. Mum came too which meant a lot of shoe shopping... dissapointment. Had lunch at Dominos, a food chain specialising in ´Hot Dog Completos¨ basically a hotdog with salsa, mayonaise and avocado... amazing, i never thought a hotdog could be so good, i ordered seconds. Juice is also big over here so i drowned it with a side of Strawberry juice. Went back to the hostel and crashed, jet lag one that round... Woke up a couple of hours later and went out for coffee with mum, she was hanging out at the hostel before she went to her reunion. Coffe is called Cafe´ here and its really good,  most people at home own some sort of instant stuff that makes nescafe sound tempting. Got back to the hostel and watched some more tv. A guy named Diago came in and asked if i wanted to go to another hostel nearby for a bbq and cervesa, i couldnt say no.
Walked over to the hostel and chatted with Diago about things to do in Santiago, he asked if i wanted to go on a free tour the next day, i accepted. Got to the hostel and met a guy whose name i forgot...but he was cool and plays a bigger part later.
Had some awesome bbq, salads and a popular beer named Cristal which was horrible and then began chatting to some argentinian guys who were in the country for a ninjitsu conference, then other guys turned up from bolivia from the same conference.We drank and talked about heavy metal (Andy do i have some bands for you to check out), nijitsu itself (Demonstrations!!!) and then they had to go to sleep so i walked over to the hostel bar and met some beautiful women who introduced me to my first Pisco Sour. There was one girl from the US teaching english here and another holidaying from Brazil. We chatted for a while until the guy from reception came in and asked if we wanted to go to a discotech, and so we did.
Me another american chick (the other one declined) the brazillian girl (names are lost on me) a pommie guy and the reception dude went out to a local nightclub and danced to 90´s hits... i should point out at this time that music here seems to be very focused around 90´s hits from the US, real mccoy got cheers. Got home at 5am and couldnt get into the hostel... a guy came running down the street and asked if i needed to get in, looks like the buzzer is connected to another hostel where he waits... lucky me.

Day 3. Went on tour of downtown Santiago with Diaz, the brazillian girl, the hot americal girl and a guy from the netherlands. Saw giant churches and some traditional dancing set up for the independance day thats coming in a week or two. Chile is very strongly catholic and so the churches all remind me of the cistene chapel. Tour ended with a trip up a giant hill known as Santa Lucia, overlooking the city below, beautiful. Drank some Motte a drink made of peach and barley and went home for a siesta once again caused by the jet lag. Woke up just in time to shower and get ready for the Santiago pub crawl i had booked.
Took a taxi to bellavista, the part of santiago where all the big clubs are.The taxi driver didnt know where to go and tried to offer me other places i could go, i had to try and explain that this was a paid tour and i didnt care how much better the place he mentioned was i needed to go... Got to the pub and met some new people, a couple from Canada, a guy from poland a whole truckload of brazillians and what we thought were a couple from melbourne... from here its a bit blurry but what i remember is... Game of flipcup (A drinking game like boat race but harder) drinking shots, talking with melbourne ¨couple¨.... blank.... finding out that melbourne couple are brother and sister... tour guides eyes light up!... go to another bar.... tour guide making out with melbourne girl....stumbling.... dancing to bag raiders and cut copy (Must have been an aussie DJ). getting back at 6am... drunk chatting online to Sarah... not sure what i said... sleep.

Day 4. Got picked up from hostel hung over by mum and lilly to go shopping with lillys daughter suzanne. Picked up some empanadas and chicken and chips and went to lillys house for a big lunch... did not sit well with hang over. Went to shopping mall... it was big but i wasnt overly amazed. For once i am actually uninspired to shop, mostly because its too much work to tell the shop assistants what i want... everything is so cheap and it annoys me that there is no motivation for me to get new clothes and shoes etc... Got home feeling crap and crashed early... hangover begone!

Day 5. Met up with mum again and went to mercado central which is a big seafood market, lots of amazing things i have never tried, went to a small restaurant on the outside of the market and ate my weight in seafood. Walked across some very suss looking neighborhoods to the produce markets, the meat market was an interesting one, so much meat and the smell made me almost turn vegetarian... then i realised i wasnt stupid (hahaha sorry ing). Bought some sunglasses for 2,000 pesos which is abut 4 bucks australian, bought some beer from the local supermarket and went back to the hostel which is where i am now ready for a restful night....might go try the german restaurant nearby.

wow.... that sounded kinda like the rant from ¨rules of attraction¨ but with a lot less sexy times....also sorry about the spelling mistakes as this keyboard is kinda tough and the spellcheck is for spanish so pretty much everything i type is a mistake....
Coming up i am booked in for a wine tasting tour and a couple more markets and then this weekend a trip to vina del mar.

Hope you guys are all good back home although ill probably speak to you online soon.

Adios Amigos.
Will

Sleep? who sleeps?

Well i´ve officially arrived in santiago! Flying in over the andes was incredible and the temperature isnt nearly as cold as i thought  it would be. I dont check into my hostel until tommorrow so i am making a quick post from my mums old school friends house. At the moment i am running on no sleep, the flight was 16 hrs and so its effectively 4:30 am in sydney, time i should be sleeping, but in chile its only 3pm so i have to stay up another 7 hrs to get the pattern right. Add onto that the fact that i dont understand a thing people are saying and that i feel rude because they are so accomidating to me and i dont know how to let them know how much i appreciate it. Saying Gracias a lot doesnt seem to cut it. Anyways this is more of a bitch than a post cos i havnt done anything yet... but i just wanted to vent. Adios

Adios Australia.... Hola Santiago!

If there's one thing that annoys me its Travel blogs, I pin this down to one of two things:
a) who wants to read about someone having more fun than you?
b) i have never been travelling overseas and so jealousy ran supreme.
And so as I now do as I have despised in the past I first of all introduce you to my no offence policy, which is that if you don't want to read this I take no offence and will not hold it against you.
If you do however want to read more here's an intro to where I'm going etc...

SANTIAGO!!! (a fitting intro i feel)
That's right, for two weeks i am back in my Chilean heritage that i have never been in before. On my own (Well mum's coming but she has friends there and so I'm practically on my own) and out of my depth, and with a total of 1 week prior knowledge of the trip i feel that i am quite well prepared.
Passport all good, tickets all good, health (gonna risk it, Chile has some health system etc), Itemised home-made travel guide...check.
I have basically set myself two goals, to party it up and to eat my heart out, of course i plan on going to some museums and artisan markets, maybe do some wine tasting and skiing, but as long as i complete my two main goals i feel i have done my trip proud.

Throughout my trip i will taking photos as best i can until my camera gets stolen from me (something i have come to accept may happen, i only hope they are nice enough to give me my memory card back) and so i will post them regularly and i will update on here as best i can. I will also be on facebook etc and hopefully i can find Skype somewhere.
Now all i need to do is pack and I'm off...