It’s our last full day in Santiago on this trip, so there’s
lots to do.
We’re up early to find the place that sells enamelling
supplies. Turns out it is not too far
from the hotel – walking distance in fact.
It’s an entertaining walk, watching the crazy traffic. We cross the Mapocho River into Bellavista(?)
and soon find the shop. Warehouse is perhaps
a better description, with a shop inside it.
The building is old, lined with asbestos sheeting. One of the storemen wears a full canister
dust mask, while his mates in the same area are blissfully free of safety
equipment. In the sales area, there are
a series of “posters” showing the range of pottery glazes and enamelling powders. There’s a surprising range of effects
possible, so we take some time to work through them. The biggest surprise is the range of
materials that identify as having lead in them – we steer clear of those!
While we were perusing, one of the storemen came into the
showroom to ask who was driving the Subaru outside. When the driver finally owned up to it, she
was asked to move it as someone wanted to leave. In typical fashion, she said that she was
just about finished and she’d be out shortly.
She was clearly not close to finished and continued to stuff around for
at least 5 minutes more before a somewhat agitated lady, the person who wanted
to leave, showed up and asked (remarkably politely) if the annoying lady would
mind moving her Subaru as the patient lady needed to go. Oh yes, of course, no problem at all, right
away, replied Stupid Lady. So, off she
trotted to move her car, jabbering about how she was just about finished.
The subtle and not so subtle classism here is still
surprising and rather grating. Stupid
Lady had no intention whatsoever of doing anything when she thought it was
merely the storeman who wanted to move something. When it was a ‘peer’, she was all apologies and
rushed off to move the car.
Next, we split up to do our own things today. I was off to catch up with a friend from last
night and meet one of his Australian colleagues, who is also a mate of another
former colleague of mine. A ride on the
metro and wandering in circles looking for Parque Titanium led me to having to
ask a local on the street how to find it.
Being a bit flustered, I used the worst Spanish I could have to ask for
directions. Fortunately the lady was
nice and kindly pointed me in the right direction. On arrival, it turned out some meetings had
come up and I only had about 15 minutes to chat with Peter. Not to worry.
Turns out it left me with more time to visit Mundo del Vino,
my favourite booze shop in Santiago.
Within the first 30m of entering the store, I had no less than 6
attendants ask if I needed help. The
last one even thought to ask if it was my first time there. When I replied no, I’d been many times
before, he grudgingly left me alone.
After getting back to the hotel and replenishing my water, I
headed off to wander around a neighbouring suburb called Lastarria, which
appears to border Cerro Santa Lucia on the east side. The eastern part is a nice collection of
relatively quiet residential streets, along with some small collections of
trendy café’s and boutique shops. There
is a small ice cream shop which is alleged to be one of the best 25 in the
world. I asked for a strawberry milkshake. They were out of strawberry icecream… The girl then proceeded to indicate the other
flavours they did have that were somewhat similar. The first one was frutilla, at which point I
asked “Isn’t frutilla the word for strawberry?”
Yes she confessed, but turns out she meant raspberry (fresa). Good enough, so I had one of those. It was nice enough, but not especially great
or memorable. Probably should have stuck
with a couple of scoops of vanilla in a cup!
Back to the hotel to meet up with The Two before heading out
for the evening to have dinner with other Chilean friends who we had met in
Perth but were now living permanently in Chile.
It was a good evening – empanadas, humitas and salad, some wine and a
couple of nice dogs.
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