A Brief Visit to the Coast and Other Weekly Going-ons (Oh! and Birds!)

Hello all!  I am sitting here quite shocked to find that it has been over two weeks since my last post. I kept thinking about it because I have taken quite a few photos in the past two weeks, but I think that was part of the downfall!  Anytime I'd think about writing a post, I'd remember that I needed to go through my photos first.  I always have such a hard time narrowing down which ones to share! So what finally made me cave today?  Well you see, I should be working on some Coursera stuff.... :-D

So last Thursday Will and George needed to take a trip to the coast to meet with their padrino (mentor) and I was able to tag along!  It was an early morning and a long day, but it was lovely!  We took a bus from Santiago to Concón, where Camilo lives.  When we arrived, it turned out that he actually had an interview, but told us to eat some breakfast and feel free to explore until he returned in the afternoon.  We walked to the beach, then took a coastal bus to nearby Viña del Mar. We did some more walking and exploring there and eventually ended up at a Starbucks where George and Will worked for a short while.  While it's sunny in Santiago pretty much all day everyday, it's generally cloudy on the coast in the mornings.  It was nice and cool before the sun came out!

The sunrise!  I wasn't kidding about the early morning part :-)

The ocean near Concón

A beach in Concón

We walked along the coast a bit looking for sea lions.

Turrets anyone?

After exploring and visiting Starbucks, we headed back to Camilo's for an asado (barbecue).  They talked business and I watched the meat cook! Meat (food in general) in Chile tends not to be heavily seasoned, so all that went on the large hunk of beef was some salt. As an appetizer we had Choripán (Chorizo y pan: sausage and bread) and some wine. The little sausages in the picture below were similar to a breakfast sausage (noms), and the larger red chorizo was a bit spicier, but still very mild. The main meal was plain rice and some greens with the beef.  After eating, we caught our bus back to Santiago.

Meat!

On Sunday, George and I explored Parque Bicientenario in Santiago. It is a newer park, so there weren't quite as many big trees as I would have liked (it was hot!), buuuut I think it was my favorite park that we've been to so far.  It was quite large, offered some nice views, and at one end there was a pond with flamingos, a snowy egret, black necked swans, koi, and I'm sure a few others that I'm forgetting.  Also there were flowers, and we all know how I feel about flowers!

The view from the park back towards where we live.

Black Necked Swan: the largest waterfowl native to South America

That is a large creepy looking Koi....

Resting in a shady spot

Flamingos!

Snowy egret:  Wikipedia tells me that plumes of the snowy egret were at one time in great demand by market hunters as decorations for women's hats, which caused a drastic fall in their population, but the bird's population has now rebounded.

I believe this is a yellow-winged blackbird, but I could be wrong.  In any case, the flowers are quite lovely!

Aside from heading to the coast and exploring yet another park, I have been busy working on my Coursera class, planning Missy's visit, practicing Spanish, cooking, and reading.  In the past two weeks I read American Gods by Neil Gaiman, Horns by Joe Hill, and yesterday I began Les Misérables.  Admittedly, I might be reading a tad more than I should, but I am thoroughly enjoying it!

As for the cooking, I have fallen into a bit of a rut, but I blame George.  He pretty much only ever wants stir fry, pasta with red sauce, tacos, or fajitas. I gave him a goal of finding one recipe a week that he'd like me to try making, so we'll see how that goes! Here are a few new food photos:

Salad with chicken and balsamic strawberries

Chicken fried rice.  I love me some chicken fried rice!

Black bean and lentil tacos with guacamole

Cerro Santa Lucía

Hola amigos! It was another hot weekend, but George and I woke up early on Saturday for an adventure in Santiago. It was still cool out, so we walked from our apartment to Cerro Santa Lucía (Santa Lucía Hill).  Cerro Santa Lucía is a small hill that is a remnant of a volcano, and in 1541, Pedro de Valdiva, a Spanish conquistador and the first royal governor of Chile, officially founded Santiago from the foot of this hill. After the founding of the city, the Spanish conquistadors used Santa Lucia hill as a lookout point.

The Route:

Approximately 3 miles

Along the way, we made a dog friend.  He actually followed us for over a mile and a half... and we didn't feed him or even pet him.  I'm beginning to think George might actually be right about the fact that dogs just seem to like me.  There are many stray dogs in Santiago, but they all seem to be pretty well fed and content.  They all seem to get along with each other and with the pet dogs that people bring to the park.  In fact since being here, there was only one dog that seemed to have a problem, and it was a small yappy dog that an old lady had on a leash.

Our loyal dog friend!

For awhile we had two dog friends.

So I think when you're from Illinois Lincoln haunts you...

Our dog friend also very much enjoyed the morning sprinklers. He had such a great temperament. I think if I was going to be living here permanently I would end up taking in many many dogs...

He followed us all the way to Cerro Santa Lucía, but he decided to visit other dogs at the entrance rather than walking up all the stairs with us.  Pictures from Cerro Santa Lucía:

The entrance!  So many nice Palm Trees!

Pretty

City views

Nice fountain and view of the lookout on top of the hill.  It was quite busy at the top so we did not get any great photos from up there.

Statue of Pedro de Valdivia

Beautiful!

Ok, so this is actually my favorite photo... doesn't it look like a portal??  FUN.

Aside from our Saturday walk, we just did our normal weekly things.  Here are a few extra photos from the week:

Dinner!

Dessert!  I have been cooking dinners, and so George has been supplying desserts :-)

The city from our balcony at sunset.  Happiness.

How has it already been a month?!?!

Hola amigos!  I can't believe we have already been here for a month!  The holidays really made the time fly.  This week I have been:  running (yo corro!),  cooking (yo cocino!), walking about and exploring (yo camino y exploro!), DuoLingo-ing, Statistical Inference-ing, reading (yo leo!), and Project Euler-ing!  I'm also learning a new hobby, but more on that later (it's a surprise!).  I don't have many words today, but here are some photos from walking around and dinners this week.  Oh!  I made burgers last night!  Specifically, I made brown sugar balsamic burgers.  They were very good, though I did cook them a hair longer than intended (I hadn't made burgers from scratch before... weird, I know).  Next time I will try to take a photo before we devour them... :-)

Love all of the flowering trees!

Iglesia de la Divina Providencia

It really is such a beautiful church!

Pedro de Valdivia has lovely lights all along the street!

I have mostly forgotten to take photos of the salads that we have been eating, but since purchasing the Balsamic Vinegar from Bodegas RE, I have been making Balsamic Vinaigrette for salads! 

Ok, this was just leftovers, but the originals were eaten before photographs could be taken!

Many noms.

Hanging out in Santiago

Sunday again!  I really do love Sunday mornings in Santiago! The sun woke us up pretty early, and we walked to the produce market.  Although it is going to be a hot one today, it was still very lovely in the shade!  We picked up a kilo (2.2 lbs) of strawberries, 1.5ish kilos of peaches, a large bunch of bananas, and a huge bag of green, yellow, and red bell peppers for approximately $15 usd!  I am seriously loving having a second summer of fresh produce!

So, what have we been up to since New Year's Eve? Well, we were lazy on New Year's Eve, but we did have some wine and managed to stay up until midnight!  Glad we did because otherwise the fireworks definitely would have woken us up anyway.  The city was very alive with fireworks and drunk folk.  We were entertained. On New Year's day we did a lovely hike up to the Virgin Mary statue on Cerro San Cristóbal.  It was hot, but enjoyable!  Below are two of the pictures I took! 

Santiago! We live near the tall building!

Stray dogs everywhere!  This guy was beautiful!

After the hike, we just hung out and read/watched tv.  We were both very beat!  The sun really takes it out of you.  On Friday we did some grocery shopping and caught up with Will, Amelia and Cindy when they returned from their trip.  On Saturday George had work to do, so I did some reading and spent a little bit of time down at the pool. Aside from that, George and I did the first three Project Euler problems.  I'm using R to do them, just to keep working on my R skills.  I'm sure there are better languages for some of the problems, but it's really good practice! I'm thinking I'm going to try to work on at least one per week.

Which brings us back to today!  It's going to be a billion degrees.  Well, 95... with no humidity... so to my family in Florida and Texas, I know, that's nothing, BUT for George and I it's going to be rough!  Also our place doesn't have air conditioning... so there's that.  Goals for the day?  Hit the pool and get a cono!

So you can get two conos for 600 pesos, which is just under $1.  I see many conos happening during the next two months!

 

Happy New Year's Eve! And other stuff!

Hola! I promised myself that I'd write another post within the week, so here I am!  This week has been pretty lazy.  We have done some wandering around, some shopping, and I've been keeping up with cooking. Though I hate to admit it, since it's been warmer this week, and because I have been sleeping in later, I failed to run on Friday and on Monday.  Admitting it here is the first step to motivating myself to get out there today! I am beginning to think that perhaps I should give up my aspirations of ever being a morning person and instead commit to running in the evenings.  Hopefully that will also discourage overeating at dinner and excess dessert/wine consumption... :-)  Aside from exercise, below are some topics that have been on my mind!

Spanish

I did well this week using Duolingo (username jenkc04 if you want to add me!).  I would say that Spanish (language in general probably) has actually been the most difficult subject I have tried to learn.  I took four years in high school and a semester in college, but it was always a struggle. In fact, come to think about it, the only class I ever dropped in college was intermediate Spanish II.  I'm pretty sure I chickened out after the first week.  That being said, I am living in a country where only 9.5% of the population (as of their 2012 census) speak English, and so I am going to do my best to be able to fumble my way through some Spanish by the time I leave!  Duolingo is a great start/refresher for me, but it's not great for stuff that is actually useful immediately.  One example:  El perro negro bebe vino en los sabados (The black dog drinks wine on Saturdays). This is not yet helping me at the market or grocery store.

Data Science

Next Monday I will be starting back up with my Coursera Data Science specialization.  I'm glad that I took a break with the holidays and moving, but I have to say, I'm also glad I will be getting back into it.  This was a project that I finished for the last course I took, Reproducible Research.  I looked at the health and economic impact of US weather events between 1996 and 2011.  Nothing too sophisticated stats-wise, but I am definitely becoming more comfortable with R.  It is a bit overwhelming knowing how much room there is too grow though!  I've been meaning to go back and try a few different projects with that dataset (like looking at tornado deaths over time).  Next week I'll be back at it! Statistical Inference here I come.

Reading

So in a desperate attempt to meet my GoodReads yearly goal of 50 books, I have been doing quite a bit of reading since arriving in Santiago.  It looks like I will fall 5 books shy of my goal (so close!).  While I think the goal should totally be total pages or words (the Wheel of Time series really put me behind), I am glad that I spent more time reading this year than I had the previous year.  I'm also glad I read some books that I had really been meaning to (looking at you Wheel of Time).  The worst of the year goes to Divergent.  I did not enjoy that book... the second two in the series were redeeming, but I would not put myself through that again.  My favorite reads of the year were Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fears by Patrick Rothfuss (respectively #1 and #2 of the Kingkiller Chronicles).  They hooked me right away and I am very eagerly awaiting the third in the series!  I am super excited about the Barnes & Noble gift cards that I received for Christmas!  I have big plans for this year... I promise to post my "To Read in 2015" list as soon as I finish it!

Cooking
 
It has been tricky adjusting to frugality, availability of ingredients, and not having a stocked pantry.  A few of my favorite homemade items (my "birdfood bread" and granola for instance) won't be happening because the ingredients will be expensive if I can even find them all.  Also the kitchen is not super well stocked... I am going to be seriously excited when I finally get back to my kitchen items!  I think I will be working on recipes that include more beans and lentils, which I had never worked with much from dried. We will also undoubtedly eat plenty simple meat and veggie dishes, which are always easy!  Some meals I made this week and other photos:

Christmas dinner:  Pork (cerdo) tenderloin medallions with brown rice (arroz integral), and onions (cebollas), green peppers (pimientos verdes), carrots (zanahorias), and pineapple (piña)

Leftovers from the vegetarian tacos!  Black beans (frijoles negros), lentils (lentejas), and brown rice (arroz integral) with avocado (palta), tomato (tomate) and cilantro (cilantro!)

Mooore leftovers - similar to above but with lettuce (lechuga)

Providencia’s Santa Maria Market - Where we go on Sundays (los domingos) for fruits (frutas) and veggies (vegetales)!

As mentioned previously, some streets are closed on Sundays for pedestrians and cyclists. Super awesome!

Spaghetti (espaquetis) with homemade green pepper and tomato pasta sauce and chicken (pollo) and zucchini (calabacín)

Well, that's all for now.  I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year's Eve!  We hope to be in bed before midnight so that we wake up early for hiking tomorrow... Since South Korea rang in the New Year about an hour prior to me posting this, I'll just pretend I'm with Missy... HAPPY NEW YEAR! Does that mean I can have a glass of wine now?

Feliz Navidad!

Merry Christmas!  In keeping with the norm so far, I've taken longer between post creations than I intended.  Oooops :-)  Well here goes:  The Wine Tour! Kylie at Chile Wine Trails is awesome and the day was great.  I definitely recommend doing a tour organized by her if you are ever in the area!


We left Santiago around 10 am and headed to Casablanca Valley.  The plan for the day was to visit Emiliana Organic Vineyards, Casa Botha Restaurant and Wine Shop, and then end the day at Bodegas RE Winery and Vineyard.  I did not add info on specific wines we tried, buuuut you can see which wines I have tried in Chile so far through my vivino profile.  Vivino is a neat app which can be used to track wines tried!  I'm by no means a wine connoisseur, so you may want to completely disregard my ratings, but I would definitely recommend the app!

So first stop was Emiliana!

Emiliana!  Very enjoyable tour!

Emiliana is an organic and biodynamic vineyard.  The tour we went on there was absolutely fascinating.  The idea is that the vineyard should basically be a closed environment, so they do not have to bring in any outside resources for wine production and they do not use any synthetic chemicals.  They use the animals and plants on site, and even the moon cycle, to give the grapes the nutrients needed.  Interestingly, they have found that this also creates a much heartier crop.  A few years ago there was a very bad frost, and it cost them either 40% or 60% (I can't quite remember) of their crop, but other vineyards in the region lost everything, including the vineyard that was just across the road.  

Chickens help minimize pest damage to the grape vines.

Alpacas! Their manure is used in the compost for the grapes.  They keep alpacas instead of llamas because they are less cantankerous.

Rows of vines are alternated with compost rows and rows of flowers.  The flowers provide extra nitrogen to the soil.

The buildings on the site.  It would be a beautiful place for a fancy function!

Certain herbs are also used to supplement the compost and animal diets.

Finally!  The wine and cheese!

Now for the wine story.  So, I'm not exactly graceful, but this was particularly terrible. The chairs at the table were very close together, and there was a step down behind them, so just getting front of the seat was awkward.  While worrying about not tripping, I managed to forget that my camera was hanging around my neck.  So when I finally got in front of the seat, I bent to sit down, and my camera swung forward knocking down not one, not two, not even three, but all four of the wine glasses in front of me, as well as the glass of water (you know, for good measure). Miraculously no glass was broken, and only my place setting and the one across from me was affected, but it was super embarrassing.  I managed to set a record for most glasses knocked over and without a drop of wine in my system.  Everyone was very nice about it, but I will not be living it down any time soon (ever).  Hopefully that was my clumsy moment for the entire stay in Chile... but then again, I am related to Jimmy :-)

Moving on. My favorite part of the day was the visit to Casa Botha!  I loved pretty much everything about it.  The food was awesome, the wine was my favorite of the day, and we even got to see the kitchen!  The owner David is an expat from South Africa.  He retired to Chile, built his workshop and house, and then decided to build the restaurant.  He used all reclaimed materials (everything had a previous life), and it was easy to see how passionate he is about the restaurant.  The restaurant doesn't have a specific menu; the menu is set each day based on what is in season and good.  So the "menu" just basically says "meat", "fish", etc.  His relationship with the local vineyards and wineries ensures that he gets the good stuff on the wine front too!  Missy, I am going to do my best to make sure we go here when you visit!  

Lovely building!

David, the owner, actually built the restaurant himself using all reclaimed materials!

Meet Jude... super cute!  Very interested in food also...

Four cheese gnocchi! Super tasty!  This was part of the main course... I failed to take a picture of the appetizer course, but it was great!

I was too excited to take a before picture... There was a fish that is only found in the southern hemisphere (yes I should have remembered the name), gnocchi, a super tasty lasagne, and some delightful sirloin steak served with mushrooms and potatoes.

Cheesecake, passion fruit-lime mousse, ice cream

Apple tart/pie, panna cotta, and more ice cream

Finally, we ended the day at Bodgas RE.  They produce wine, liqueurs, and balsamic vinegar.  It was raining just a bit by the time we arrived, so we did not get to see the fields, but the tour guide assured us that the storage and fermentation processes are the interesting parts of what they do anyhow!  The wine production was in the cellar of the building, which was also where the tasting was.  It was nice and cool, and also super neat!

The RE is for Revelation, Recreation, and Revolution.

They make fruit liqueurs:  Strawberry, Blueberry, Peach, Grape and others.  Very strong and meant as a digestive. Aged for 4 months (I believe).

Strawberry!

They make balsamic vinegar.. We were able to smell these... very vinegary (shocking!).  Each barrel is a different type of wood, which imparts its flavor.  Aged for about 4 years (I think..).

A unique aspect of this winery is the way that they create their wine... the wine is first allowed to ferment in the large clay containers on the right, and then further aged in the barrels on the left. Super neat.

mmmmm cheese and olives!

This was part of my treat from Bodegas RE.  Olive oil and balsamic vinegar!  Aren't these bottles beautiful?  We also purchased a bottle of the 2013 Syragnan, which we enjoyed on Christmas eve!

Since the wine tour on Saturday, we haven't done very much.  It was overcast here on Saturday and Sunday, but when it cleared on Monday we were treated to some extra snow in the mountains!  The cooler weather on Monday was awesome for running!  It warmed up the rest of the week, but it has still been cool in the mornings.  I finished up Christmas shopping on Monday and Tuesday and yesterday George and I had a lazy TV day and I baked some cookies. Below are a few more pictures! 

Not a great shot, but this is as white of a Christmas as we will see!

Lentil and black bean tacos with veggies! Also some Chilean beer!

Adult playgrounds:  They have these "playgrounds" of exercise equipment throughout the park that I run in!  Very cool!