Day 17 - Helado Happiness

A lot of the time when we go out to get dinner at a restaurant, it's usually pretty empty and later on fills up with a lot of people. An example of this would be the place we had dinner at last night. We got there at the normal time we have dinner and less than half of the tables were in use, but by the time we were leaving, there was a big line of people outside.

Our theory is that people come out to eat dinner later than normal because it's too hot during the day so they wait until night before eating dinner. Another eating trend we have discovered is in the afternoon at around 5 - 6 pm, we have seen lots of people at ice cream shops and bars. There are lots of ice cream shops, you don't have to walk far before running into an ice cream shop. The Spanish word for Ice Cream is Helado

There are so many ice cream shops that Leah was given a list of some good ice cream places. We have tried out, Rosa's and Fragola,  Most of the flavors we can understand, but some of them don't translate in google translate. I stay away from those, but the rest of my family have tried flavors that they don't know what they are. My favourite flavour is menta chips, which is spearmint or peppermint with chocolate chips in it.

Day 16 - A Chilean Christmas

Today I will tell you about Christmas in Chile. We have been seeing lot of Christmas decorations starting to pop up everywhere recently. Whenever we go anywhere, we see Christmas trees, Christmas light and stalls on the side of the road selling Christmas stuff. My mum keeps saying we should steal a Christmas tree when no one is looking.

Yesterday we got a "Christmas tree" and we wrapped some lights round it. Our "Christmas tree" is just a side table and lamp with an angel on top. The lights hurt my eyes because of how fast they flash, so we need to make sure we put them on a slow flashing setting. At our hotel, there is a big Christmas tree in the main room and it touches the roof. It is surrounded by a bunch of little presents.

At the Costanera center, they have a huge Christmas tree. It is 5 floors tall. It starts in the bottom floor that in 1 floor below ground and goes all the way to the top of floor 4. In the bottom floor there is a sled and you can get a photo with Santa. Yesterday we went to a restaurant called Johnny Rockets in the Costanera center and the people that worked there had Christmas hats on and started dancing (they did this twice while we were there).

Day 15 - Everything Is Closed

On Sunday, we found out why the Costanera center was closed on Saturday. The Costanera center was closed because of the presidential election that was the next day, on Sunday. It was closed all of election day as well. We could have probably guessed it was closed because there were no movie sessions available on election day.

In the morning, we took the metro to the station on the end of the line Los Dominicos. In Los Dominicos we walked to a market that was right next to a church. The problem was that it was closed, the gate was locked. On the gate however was a piece of paper that said that the market was closed because it was election day.

We thought that we would just go back to the art gallery because last time we didn't finish looking at everything. We took the metro there and when we got there we found out that the art gallery was closed as well. We had a look around for a bit but everything was closed and it was already afternoon, so we decided to go home. On the way back we stopped and got some ice cream.

Day 14 - Movie Time

On Saturday, we walked to the Costanera center On the way we passed the Plaza Nueva Zelandia. We got up to the 6th floor (which is the top floor of the shopping part). The reason we came to the Costanera center was because we were going to the movie theatre called CinePlanet to see Star Wars: Episode 8 The Last Jedi!! We got there quite a bit before the movie started so that we had time to mess around trying to buy tickets to the correct session because we don't speak Spanish.

The options for the movie were subtitled or folded. We chose subtitled because we felt like actually understanding what the characters were saying (folded is dubbed). When we got there, we didn't see any people selling tickets because we were so early but after a while waiting some people came out to sell tickets. We sat in the furthest back row because the other good spots were already taken. It was a really good movie in my opinion.

Later on, we came back to the Costanera center for dinner. We had been there before for dinner, and we had been to dinner later than we did, but almost every shop was either closed or waiting for people to leave before packing up. We had to go find another place outside the center to eat dinner. It was called Route66 and was quite nice - I had chicken tenders and Fanta.

Day 13 - A week at work

Last week, we didn't really do much so I will just summarize the week (from Monday to Friday). Every day we went into work. But we didn't walk very much because my dad had a sore toe and couldn't walk. Instead we took an Uber taxi to work most days. My dad has the Uber app on his phone so when we are about to leave our apartment, he calls an Uber. The Uber driver meets us outside our hotel and then they drive us to work.

For lunch we have been getting sandwiches from the really nice sandwich place right next to ESO. We aren't allowed to eat in our office so we eat in the kitchen or on the sun deck depending on how hot it is. There is a water cooler in the kitchen with super cold water and it's really nice on a hot day.

On Wednesday, we got given our own office to work in, so we are finally out of the guest office. Leah and I hang out in the library a lot though. On Friday, ESO had a science day (even though pretty much everyday for the people here is a science day). In the science day, they had people giving talks about themselves, their science and their hobbies (with just 3 slides) and they were each about 5 minutes long. 

At lunch-time ESO had a barbecue and we went to it. It started with an alcoholic drink called Pisco sour, or water, and standing up and talking to people. A bit later they brought round snacks and finger food. Then we sat down and had the real meal. They brought round multiple different food and you grabbed what you wanted. The first food was blood sausage and it was really crumbly. The second food they brought round was a regular sausage and the last thing was steak. After that they had desert, which was carrot cake, my favorite part of the cake was the icing.

Day 12 - ART

On Sunday, we decided to explore the bohemian area of town. The area we went to is close to the Santiago funicula and is part of the same Parque Metropolitano series of hills which had the gondolas and big statue. It is too far away to walk to so we used the metro to get there. Once we got to the Baquedano station, we walked around for a bit and found a market. At the market they sold hats, drinks and food. There was also a llama there that I got a photo with it.

After that we walked around for a bit more and found some shopping arcades. Most of the places sold things to do with copper and lapis lazuli or food. There were some shops that sold clothes and there was a couple shops selling stuffed toys. We continued on walking and we crossed a road that was blocked off for cars, because of some sort of bike race that was going on.

We walked a bit further and ended up at an art gallery called the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. The art gallery was split up into sections. The first section was in a big room and was filled with sculptures. The second section was off to the side of the first one and was filled with art made out of fabric.

The third section was off the side from the first section, but opposite from the second section. The third room was filled with photography and it was very strange in my opinion. There was one where it was a bunch of pictures of belly buttons. The final section was paintings and it was huge. It was as big as all the other sections combined. Some of the paintings were a bit strange as well. My dad found a metro station called Bellas Artes that was a lot closer to the art gallery than the other one so we went home on that.

Day 11 - Spectacular views from Cerro San Cristobal

On Friday, it was a national holiday in Chile. The holiday is called the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and it is to celebrate. On Saturday we took a walk to a hill called Cerro San Cristobal and it is just past the Costanera Centre.  On the way we passed a river that was completely brown.

Once we got to the hill, we had to stand in line and wait to buy our tickets for the gondola. After we got the tickets, we walked up some stairs and got in the gondola. We took the gondola up the hill to a place called oasis. There they had a drinking fountain and a swimming pool. We went to the drinking fountain but not the pool.

Next, we got back on the gondola and headed to the top of the hill. At the top, there was a really big statue of Mary, a gift shop and a shrine thing that was of Mary as well. At the entrance of the shrine, there was a cardboard cut out of the pope and I got a picture with it. The views from the top of Cerro San Cristobal were really spectacular - we saw the very tall snowy Andes mountains in the distance and the city of Santiago seemed to go on for ages. It was really hot so we got some really nice ice blocks (Mum's was cucumber, and mine and dad's were raspberry and Leah's was cranberry) and then headed home.

Day 10 - Metro to visit Marcio at the PUC university

On Thursday, we didn't go into work because both my parents were visiting another astronomer, Marcio Catelan, at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santiago and both giving talks there. The university is too far away to walk so we decided to use the metro. To uses the metro you need something called a BIP! (pronounced "beep") card, which you scan at the entrance to the metro. Next you you have to find the right place to wait for the metro or you will end up in the wrong place.

Then you have to wait a few minutes for the train to arrive. The train always seems really full, so we were squeezed against the sides. You have to pay close attention to the map so you know when to get off, otherwise you will get lost.

Once we got off at the university, we needed to find our way to the right building. We passed some sculptures, other buildings, a statue of Jesus and lots of trees. When we got to the building we had about an hour of free time before we went out to get lunch.

I had spaghetti, but there were other things like rice and corn fritters. After lunch my parents gave their talks. My mum's was on stellar pulsation and my dad's was on microlensing. Then we had a walk round the grounds with Marcio.

We looked at a building made out of copper that was filled with information about copper (Chile has lots of big copper mines and produces lots of copper). Outside the building is a pathway with different types of rocks, including rocks filled with copper. After that we went home on the metro.

Day 9 - ESO

On Wednesday, we went into the place we will be working while we are in Chile. The place is called ESO (European Southern Observatory). To get here we needed to walk, and it's a half an hour walk! It is across the road from the United Nations building.

When we got there we had to talk to the security at the gate to get them to let us inside. Just past the gate they have a garden with lots of plants and trees. We walked across a path through the garden and I got a bunch of stones in my shoes because I was wearing sandals.

Once we got inside the building, we talked to the people at reception to ask for an office. The person my parents are partnered with here was away so today we were in the guest office. They have a kitchen here with multiple coffee machines, microwaves, sinks and fridges. We got our lunch from this sandwich place that is right next to the building.

Day 8 - Arriving in Santiago

On Tuesday, we took a one hour minibus ride to Balmaceda. Coyhaique doesn't have an airport because there are too many mountains in that area. The closest town with an airport was Balmaceda, which is very close to the border with Argentina. It is a small town with not many people, but the airport is quite busy because everyone from Coyhaique goes there to fly places.

The plane took two and a half hours to get to Santiago (the capital city of Chile). We flew over lots of mountain and fjords, some of the mountains were volcanoes. Once we were flying over the city of Santiago, I looked out the window at the little houses and almost all of them had pools (it was rare to see a house without a pool).

At the airport we were picked up by another minibus and taken to our apartment (it seems like everyone uses minibuses in Chile). We are on the fifth floor and we can look out and see a great view (of the hotel next to us). We are very close to a shopping centre called the Costanera Centre that has the tallest tower in South America. We can see it from our apartment balcony - we can also see the New Zealand embassy building which has a helipad on top of the building.

Day 7 - Big Boy Birthday

On Monday we didn't really do much because we took a day off. We took a day off because the conference ended a few days ago, we were tired from the weekend trips, but most importantly IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY!

There is a bakery near our house and we have been getting our lunch from there most days. They have lots of bready thing but we got caramel filled croissants and a little chocolate cake. 

In the afternoon we went out and got ice creams in waffle cones - they have lots of really good ice cream shops in Chile. One astronomer from the conference wrote down a list of good icea cream shops in Santiago to visit. For dinner we went out to this pizza restaurant called "Mama Gaucha's". They had really nice food, but it was quite filling. I had Pepe Rony pizza and fanta. On the way to the pizza place we passed a hawk eating a pigeon.

We had a lot of spare time in the day so we decided to watch some movies. We decided to watch the Star Wars prequels (episodes 1, 2 and 3). We watched the first two before dinner and the last one after. We had many breaks in the middle of the movies to get food.

Day 6 - Queulat National Park

Last weekend on the Sunday, we went on another day long trip. This one was to Queulat National Park, and it also took 4 hours. We had to wake up at the same time because it was at 7:30 am. Sebastiano was our driver again and he arrived about 20 minutes early to give us seats at the front of the mini bus. However, we were not ready at this time and we told him to pick up the other passengers.

Once we were on the bus, we started driving. On the trip yesterday, we were driving on gravel roads most of the time because there was no pavement the way we drove. But on this trip we were only on gravel for about 40 minutes.

We stopped at a field of lupins (which is a type of plant) because we saw a fox really close to the side of the road. We watched it for a bit, but then it ran away. Once we got to the national park, we had a toilet break as usual then we regrouped. Then we went on a walk through the bushes and across a wobbly swing bridge that was over a rushing glacier-fed river.

At the end of the walk there was a lake with a boat that would take you to the hanging glacier that was there. However, the wait for the boat was at least one and a half hours so we couldn't do that.

We walked back along the trail and had a picnic lunch. There was sandwiches, eggs, cookies, salad and juice. After lunch we headed back and got home at around 8:30, much earlier than yesterday.