Santiago

Hola amigos!! Como estamos hoy?

Finally a chance to post from South America!!

After a six hour flight from SFO, at last I arrived.....but not in South America.

That would be another flight of eight hours, after a layover of equal length in Miami, which included quality time spent: (1) asking the guys who, for $15 will "wrap" your luggage in blue plastic wrap, if anyone ever asked them to wrap up a friend or family member; (2) checking if it was possible to get the 10-minute manicure done in nine minutes (they called my bluff....evidently it was); (3) trying (rather unsuccessfuly) to learn Mandarin in 30 minutes on the 60-inch plasma demo of Rosetta Stone; and (4) losing a negotiating battle to re-turn-on the frozen yogurt maker at Haagen Dazs after it had been shut off for the evening.

Keeping in the spirit of posting food photos, here is a shot of some ropa vieja (literally, "old clothing," but actually a traditional Cuban dish of shredded beef with a tomato creole sauce accompanied by plantains and black beans and rice) that I enjoyed while waiting for my flight to Santiago. Also, looks like they are getting ready for Channukah early this year in Miami...



After finally arriving in Santiago at 6:00 AM on Wednesday, I had breakfast at the hotel, then slept for several hours before meeting up with Alice and Patricio (the bride and groom, pictured below) and some other friends from business school, for dinner. Since we ended up eating at Tiramisu, I will spare you the photos of our pizze, which, did not come close to any that I sampled during my stay in Italy.

On Thursday, my first full day in Santiago, I toured the town with some friends from business school, Peter, Chris and Ken. Our first stop was "La Moneda," or the fomer presidential palace (named "moneda," or "coin," because it had previously been a mint), and also the location of the U.S. orchestrated bloody coup d'etat of Salvador Allende by Augusto Pinochet in 1973.

Not a single mention of the coup anywhere near the palace, which now hosts a museum on the lower floors. We got to see a pretty cool Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo exhibit (though the artists were Mexican, not Chilean)

You can see Asian versions of the artists below (Diego is fairly convincing, but think that I'll stick with Salma Hayek for my Frida......sorry Peter).





For lunch, we headed over to the Mercado Central (central marketplace) for some good old seafood. We were not let down at a local favorite, "Donde Augusto," where we dined on congrio frito (fried white fish, similar to eel....but a bit tougher and meatier), corvina a la plancha con ensalada chilena (Chilean "sea bass" with tomato and onion salad...you can see how fresh the fish was, probably one of the best I sampled this trip), gambas al ajillo (shrimp with garlic) as well as a congrio soup, whose name I do not recall. All very delicious and reasonably priced.





























Check out the black corn being sold in the marketplace. Pretty cool, and apparently very sweet. I also purchased a small bag of coca leaves (street legal, and commonly used for high altitudes), but am disappointed to report that they had less of an effect that my afternoon espresso.















Well, that's about it for now. In a few hours, I am heading off to Buenos Aires for a week.

A two hour flight, so I will arrive late this afternoon. On the next post, I will tell you all about a chance meeting with my former (first) boss in Santiago, a (sort of) traditional Chilean wedding and a nice afternoon spent in Santiago with my friend Julio's cousin and wife.

Until then, for a sweet afternoon, here is a photo of a "chilenito," or a couple of wafers that surround the famous "manjar," aka "dulce de leche," aka "brown gold," aka "Santiago scrumptiousness," aka "boiled condensed milk," aka "pinnacle of caloric density," aka...alright, getting old....