Rich and Strange Aeons

This is skipping an evening, about Peruvian food and coffee strip clubs, because I'm too lazy to collect my notes just now.

Typically 33 out there. And who knows what in my apartment, which does not have air conditioning.

Yesterday finally went to Cerro Santa Lucia, a park right near me. It's mostly a steep hill with terraces and some private building, capped by an old castle with a great view. Scary old stone staircases, especiallyc onsidering that they originally probably didn't have railings...

The view of the city and surrounding mountains also included a building-top swimming pool nearby and below us. A couple of standard scene-viewing telescopes were at the top, 100 pesos per whatever time; the one that one could point that the pool had had the label 'chica' added to it. For the record, I did not take advantage.

Walked through the theater district again, ate at Cafe Geometrico, which advertised Chilean food. Ordered salmon with shimp (4 tiny) and vegetables (including shallots glazed in honey) and a strong olive sauce, plus milk with bananas, which apparently had added sugar. I'd think bananas pureed into milk would be sweet enough. Then again, I'd think that of orange juice. (Though the latter might be about diluting and stretching the orange juice, rather than being sweeter.) Table bread came with pebre, not as good (spicy) as the stuff in La Serena, and ají verde, avocado cilantro pepper garlic. I could only taste the avocado, and maybe the cilantro.

Checked out a bookstore, marveled at the high prices. $16 for a tiny paperback, $40 for a movie on DVD. $5 for a slightly better map -- still ignores the west and south of Santiago, but at least doesn't elide lots of streets.

Passed some band playing, liked it, bought a CD for 3 mil.
Bought a wire butterfly statue for 4. Now to transport it. May need a third bag...
A street vendor was selling soy burgers.
This is all in a nighttime walkway in the district.

Went to Bellavista, saw a big theatre, ran into where the nightlife is. Restaurants and nightclubs and such.

Netbook is getting fussy about charging, I need to squeeze part of the power cord, which I guess has gotten bent out of shape. Seems workable, but at some point I may discover I can't recharge and need to conserve the battery for emergency use. Smartphone allows e-mail and LJ, but not DW posting. Well, not app-enabled DW posting.

I flew back into Santiago Chile yesterday. I'm avoiding taking lots of notes on a visibly expensive smartphone, so you'll get what I remember in my room instead. 'room' is actually a small downtown apartment off Airbnb; it's good, though I've got some minor complaints, but I'm paying less for more than I'd get out of a hotel, so whatever.

($62/day for over a week, $75/day if shorter; other Airbnb places kind of bracketed that, from 40-90. Hotels seemed more like 90-150.)

Walk signals: they count down in red, telling you how long you have until you can cross, as well as in green. This was confusing at first, fortunately I hadn't taken the (red) numbers as a cue to step into traffic. Today I noticed that the cartoon figures are actually animations; instead of a green guy snapshot, you have a green guy actually walking. And walking faster and faster as the numbers approach zero. Seriously.

Like downtown La Serena, some of the downtown area has the walkway level with the streets, sans curb, and both in some sort of tile or hard plastic rather than the usual substance. I still have no idea why, though I wondered if the material might be more pothole resistant -- not that this climate seems good for them -- or just harder in general, and thus worth the investment for busy streets you don't want to disrupt.

CentroPuerto bus from the airport to Los Heroes station was 30 minutes, I think. Bought a BIP card from staff in the station, had a quick ride to Santa Lucia. So far I've just walked around downtown a lot. Small block, and mall arcades in the middle of blocks too, so there's quite a lot to keep one going in circles. Lots of Chinese restaurants, seems harder to find 'native' ones. I had an Ecuardorian dinner last night -- steak, rice, beans, plantain slices? The Ecuadorian bits were probably the spices and sauce of the beans, the presumed plantain, and the tangy avocado sauce for spreading on the appetizer bread. Also the table came with the world's lightest olive oil, if it was olive, and what seemed to be lemon juice.

I've seen the big central square, Plaza de Armas, and entered the Basilica de la Merced, which looks very impressive on the inside to someone who's never been in many churches. (Partly because I haven't done that much tourism qua tourism, partly because while I heard of people going to see churches, my parents never told me what the etiquette was so it still feels a bit foreboding. Foreign territory and all.) Mass was going on, a bit after noon; there weren't all that many people.

There was what sounded like some big loud parade around noon, but I didn't find it when I finally got out to look for it.

Found a couple of comic stores and poked my head in. Both have all their material wrapped in plastic; no browsing! Wasn't sure about one, the other was clearly all native or translated material, not straight foreign import. Los Legion de Superheroes.