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Santiago: Day one

The taxi without a speedometer is how the day started, I just hope to hell the plane has more instruments. That’s South America for you, never be too sure.
* * *
Andrea my wife padded around the house naked this morning, checking the taxi for me and offering coffee; it was still dark outside. The phrase used for pregnant women "she is starting to show" does not cover it anymore. Last night when I came home she looked so alive, alert, happy and of course so beautiful. This morning she looked the same, but with a mask of sleep. She had grown so much, sorry, the baby and Andrea have grown so much over the past week. I still find it amazing.

It was looking at her this morning and seeing her naked and pregnant that I had the thought that she and our unborn baby gives me so much to live for; it would be quite inconsiderate if I was to be snuffed out now. You think these things when you take taxis in Chile. Once up in Iquique after a taxi ride I actually kissed the ground on finally surviving what was a most hellish experience.

The plane is almost coming into Santiago I must switch off now.
* * *
Planes; you always come off them with a certain smell. First it's on your hands then eventually in your clothes on the longer trips. On landing a bloke crosses himself, does he do that in every taxi as well?

Santiago is so different to Antofagasta; there is no real comparison. Of course there is a comparison, I just can't right now think of one, or more appropriately cannot be bothered. First the weather; it gets a lot hotter here than Antofogasta, today walking to the foreign office I was sweating buckets, but then I was dealing with Chilean bureaucracy, not easy in the cool of winter.

Things run a lot faster, the taxis included, things also seem to work as well. But lets not carried away it's not all rosy. Santiago has the un-pleasure of being one of the most polluted cities on the Earth. Santiago is literally a bowl with about 5 million people living and worse all driving in it. The bowl catches all the pollution; perhaps Santiago is an example of the whole of the Earth in the future.

The mission in Santiago is two or even three fold. Firstly to get the marriage of Andrea and I legal here in Chile; we are trying to do this ahead of Juniors birth. Secondly to get my sad and sick iBook mended. On all these fronts so far all is going well, iBook is in the hospital and our wedding certificate is being translated as we speak, I hope.
* * *
The news is,
1. The day has gone extraordinary well. Things should not be this simple. It makes me think am I in the “Better than Life Game” (people who know Red Dwarf will be the only people to understand this reference.)
2. Ian has found a good pram, by Graco. It does everything except feed the baby. I am sure its high tech especially so compared to any prams Andrea and I had as babies.
3. My iBook has a bad logic board. This is the second iBook to go in two years, I dare say they are not as school bag hardy as Apple would like us to believe. Get AppleCare is my advice.
4. I saw a nun with two mobile phones this morning in a taxi, why did she have two? She was a secret agent of course; she probably had a gun and sexy lingerie below the get up. Hmm, been on my own to long already.
5. I saw a taxi man in a traffic jam mopping his brow; maybe learning to hate his car.
6. I found my first hotspot today. Parque Aruaco in Santiago, somewhere near the Mac shop. Very civilized, I read my email, downloaded some rss feeds and sent a photo to Andrea. I did have this sudden urge to buy chalk and draw a strange shape on a nearby wall or floor, I held back though.

Posted by iwsmith at November 21, 2003 10:31 PM

Comments

Took the day off and was just reading up some blogs and thought I would post here

Posted by: Loryn at August 8, 2004 11:16 PM

Posted by: casino at August 26, 2004 04:06 PM

Interesting, but how can I be sure?

Posted by: play poker online at August 26, 2004 10:31 PM

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Santiago: Day one