Christmas in Santiago

... well, it was pretty different from a UK Christmas! There was still a certain amount of pre-Christmas hysteria (not that much fun in 30-degree heat), but markedly less than there would have been back home, and it was pleasantly surreal to go for a midnight stroll on the 24th - to give Father Christmas a chance to drop by and leave presents for the little´uns - and then to spend most of the 25th outside in the garden.

No one so far has managed to give me an adequate explanation of why everyone calls it "Pascuas" (which also means "Easter", bafflingly), instead of "Navidad" (the actual word for Christmas). The tiramisu never happened in the end (difficulty finding the ingredients) but we managed to rustle up some treats for both sides of the family all the same, and they seemed to go down a storm - the chocolate fudge in particular was scoffed in about two minutes flat (mostly by the same person, it must be said!!)...

Brilliantly enough, my cousin Caíto was playing in an AC/DC tribute band on the 25th as well, (Ballbreaker - who cleverly have two lead singers in the ranks, both a Bon Scott and a Brian Johnson!) so a few of us headed out to catch that. Much to my glee there was also a Kiss tribute band on first, though the Pantera tribute band that followed (and played a seemingly endless set) dampened the mood slightly.

The next morning, after a few hours´sleep, and with the inevitable hangover, I decided it would be a good idea to get up and watch Spurs playing at Fulham, though to be honest I would have been far better off staying in bed - which is where I went straight back to at the end of the match...

There´s an election run-off going on here at the moment, between Frei (centre-left, was in power a few years ago, not very popular) and Piñera (right, multi-millionaire, slick campaign), it seems the latter is going to profit from the "let´s try something new" mindset that will probably see David Cameron as the British PM by the time we get home... That´s one face neither of us have been missing!! Hilariously, the table of six and seven-year-olds at the Xmas party on the 25th were overheard discussing whether they thought Frei or Piñera would emerge victorious - they seem to get into politics early here! (For the record, they don´t fancy Frei´s chances). Though some seem unconvinced - we enjoyed this bit of graffiti the other day ("`Las promesas de Piñera...mas falsas que amigo de Facebook"):

We´ve managed to get to grips with Santiago a bit better now, but still, I must say Buenos Aires tops it in pretty much every way (except of course for the fact that my family is here!). It´s hard for me to have to admit this, but I also reckon that on the whole I prefer Argentinians to Chileans...!! (Shock, horror) It seems I´m not alone in this thinking either, my uncle Ricky has dared to express this contentious opinion as well. It seems now we´ve become "the economic miracle of South America" we´ve become everything we used to slag off the Argentinians for, sadly... And hearing the casual racism towards Peruvians that seems so prevalent has been a bit depressing as well. We have another week left here for me to change my mind on this one...!