2009-2010 in Chile

Big Aftershocks Got Everyone's Attention - Info 2

2010-03-11T11:27:00.001-08:00

The University of Chile's list of feelable earthquakes reported so far today since the big aftershock and it's only 4:30 p.m. and we are in the midst of another good one!

Big Aftershocks Got Everyone's Attention - Map 1

2010-03-11T11:17:00.000-08:00

USGS map of the first two of the three big aftershocks today (11 March 2010), originally reported to be 7.2, 6.9 and 6.1 and later revised to 6.9, 6.7 and 6.1.

Big Aftershocks Got Everyone's Attention - Info 3

2010-03-11T11:15:00.001-08:00

Revised USGS list of the 12 aftershocks that we have had today, 11 March 2010 and it's only 4:00 p.m. local time!

Big Aftershocks Got Everyone's Attention

2010-03-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

Hi All;

We just experienced our first big aftershocks in our Santiago apartment. It was more than enough to get everyone's attention, bringing all the neighbors to their apartment doors just in case we needed to leave the building. The doors rattled, lamps swayed, glasses tingled, and it lasted quite a while - those tectonic plates certainly are readjusting themselves. We were fine, just nervous again! There were two really good size quakes with milder tremors in between...in fact, it was almost hard to tell where one stopped and another started....and then another moderate quake.

We immediately started trying to call our daughter, Skye, who is with her boyfriend on the coast in Zapallar today, but could not get a connection. It turned out that she could not get a connection through to us either. We finally got a hold of her 2 hours later. Skye and Todd didn't feel the quake, but were near the top of an almost island off the coast when the emergency siren went off for about 30 seconds at almost exactly noon. Skye thought it might be a noon whistle, but when they finished climbing to the top of the island they were able to see police cars and other emergency vehicles with lights and sirens. They quickly figured out that it had been a tsunami warning and began assessing whether they were on ground high enough to be out of reach of a possible tsunami. The police evacuated the restaurants along the beach and Skye and Todd sat tight. But when the police came back checking again nearly half an hour later, they sprinted down the island peninsula and directly up a nearby road to higher ground. A man offered them a ride and he took them up to a gas station near the main highway and well out of reach of any possible local tsunami. So Todd, too, is getting a full taste of the Chilean experience.

There were three strong aftershocks amidst intermittent and occasionally nearly constant mild tremors. They hit during the swearing-in ceremony of the new president, Pinera. The USGS originally listed them at 7.2, 6.9 and 6.1 (Haiti was 7.0), but Dick just said that they have now been downgraded to 6.9, 6.7 and 6.1. Way more than enough for me! Rest assured that we are all fine and thankful that we live in a quality building with anti-seismic design.

Take care,

Cheryl

Amazing Plate Movement and Other Interesting Facts!

2010-03-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

Some of the statistics about the big 8.8 earthquake and the plate movement associated with it are incredible. The city of Concepcion moved about 10 FEET to the west. Santiago (240 miles from the epicenter) moved 11 INCHES SSW and Buenos Aires, Brazil which is more than 1100 km (approx. 700 miles ) from the epicenter moved an INCH. For a great map of these movements, click on this map by researchers at the University of Hawaii. For more info, see the article in Science Daily.

This quake also slowed the earth's rotation on its axis and may have tipped the axis. See this article for an explanation and the numbers. The power of earth's processes is truly incredible, but then that is why Chile has such spectacular scenery - the high Andes mountain peaks, azure glacial lakes, snow-covered symmetrical volcanoes, deep fjords in the south, high desert plateaus in the north, majestic sea cliffs, etc.

To put the power of the 8.8 quake in perspective: at 15.8 gigatons of energy, it was 500,000 times bigger than the Nagasaki atom bomb (31.6 kiloton), 500 times bigger than the 2010 Haiti quake (31.6 megatons), 16 times bigger than the 1906 San Francisco quake (1 gigaton) (thankfully everyone has learned a lot about construction since then!), and 11 times smaller than the 1960 Valdivia, Chile quake (178 gigatons) which released about 20% of the earth's energy in the last 100 years. For some interesting comparative charts including one of the damage caused by earthquakes of various magnitudes, to Wikipedia's article on the Richter scale.

Aid for Chile

2010-03-06T19:46:00.000-08:00

Many have asked what they can do to help. The outpouring of support has been heartwarming. Hillary Clinton visited on Tuesday, bringing 25 satellite phones and promising additional aid in the form of field hospitals, pontoon bridges, etc. Chile Ayuda a Chile, a fundraising telethon, has surpassed their goal to raise $15 billion pesos ($7.5 million USD) with much international support, especially from artists and musicians. If you are able, please contribute to any reliable international aid organization with a program to help Chile. Chileans are a hard working people and it is remarkable how they are already moving forward.

Santiago Recap

2010-03-06T19:33:00.000-08:00

Facade pieces still hanging six days later from a big department store on our street.

The damage in Santiago reminds us that earthquakes are fickle, with the damage depending largely on the quality of construction, the geology below a structure, and the angle at which the waves arrive. Several overpasses in Santiago collapsed, while others that appear identical, remain standing and in use. A major new tunnel less than 2 miles from us collapsed and two new apartment buildings near us were structurally damaged and will have to be torn down. People in Chile generally buy their apartments, so the loss will be felt by individual families, rather than big corporations. Many people near the epicenter are now homeless with a rough road ahead of them. We hope the recovery goes well. Our girls are helping a school effort to collect blankets and towels to send to the south and Sterling's workshop is packing up soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and shampoo care packages.

School has been cancelled for the week and will restart in Santiago on March 8th. Santiago will be well into recovery by next week, but Concepción and much of the south will take years to recover. After seeing the devastation here, it makes a winter storm in Binghamton seem quite manageable. In spite of the earthquake we plan to remain in Chile until next August enjoying this beautiful country with its friendly people and appealing culture.

Personal Traumas

2010-03-05T19:25:00.000-08:00

Our concerns now are for the dead, missing, and injured. The death toll is officially about 800, but will surely rise. The daughter of one of our friends was pulled unconscious, but alive and well from the rubble of a discotheque where over 900 Chilean young people were celebrating the end of summer (Chileans party late). The son of one of our friend's friends, however, lost both arms in the discotheque and is now in a medically induced coma while the swelling in his brain goes down. Doctors were able to reattach one arm, but won't know how successful the operation has been until he recovers. "It puts the loss of our wine in perspective" our friend told us.

One of the professors at the Universidad de Santiago where Dick works was not so fortunate. He called his daughter, a graduate student doing research in biology on the Juan Fernandez Islands off the coast of Chile, immediately after the quake to tell her to get to higher ground. She checked with the navy station on the island and was told that there would be no tsunami, so she didn't take her father's advice. She hasn't been found, but is assumed drowned in the tsunami that devastated the islands.

The wife of one of Dick's colleagues was staying at her mother's house in the small coastal village of Curanipe about 10 miles from the epicenter. Being the wife of a geologist, and a geologist herself, she had the family loaded in the back of a pickup headed for high ground even before the quake stopped. The tsunami, which hit her village just a few minutes after the quake, stopped a mere two feet from their house. Many people farther from the epicenter did not fair as well. Tsunamis are difficult to predict precisely. A false report was issued after the quake saying that there would be no tsunami causing some people not to evacuate and others evacuated but then returned before the tsunami hit sometimes as much as 2 hours later depending on distance from the epicenter and the angle of the beach.

Near the town of Constitución, 300 teenagers and young adults were camped on an island celebrating the end of summer. Only the eight who where able to climb trees and hang on, survived.

Aftershocks & Chile's Plate Tectonics

2010-03-04T13:00:00.000-08:00

The aftershocks we have felt since the big one are too numerous to count. Each day brings a couple of stronger ones - 6+ magnitude and several smaller ones (5+). The initial quake has been reported as an 8.8 magnitude that would make it one of the top ten in the last 100 years. For a complete list, see Latest Earthquakes in the World - Last 7 Days and its archives. Scientists estimate that it was 500 times stronger than the recent earthquake in Haiti. For those interested in why this quake happened where and when it did, see Chile’s Plate Tectonics.

So Grateful - It Could Have Been a Much Closer Call - Text

2010-03-03T10:00:00.000-08:00

We feel very blessed that harm did not befall us. We could have been far less fortunate. In early February we stayed with friends on their family's blueberry farm near Santa Barbara about 140 miles from the epicenter. The brick and adobe guesthouse where we slept for a week was completely destroyed in the earthquake. In the second week of February we stayed in a small, single-story hotel near the beach in Dichato, while our jeep was being repaired in Concepción. Dichato was almost completely destroyed by a tsunami, and Concepcion, Chile's second largest city and only 100 miles from the epicenter, was among the hardest hit. One 15-story apartment building was reduced to 5 floors, and another was lifted from its foundation and fell over on its side. Miraculously, many residents walked away from it uninjured. The Concepción area suffered a triple blow, not only from the earthquake and the tsunami, but also from uncontrolled looting. Initially we, and perhaps the police, were shocked by the looting in Chile, a conservative country we have come to know and respect. But we have come to realize that many looters in the most affected areas were driven by fear, anger, and frustration after everything they owned, including their homes and their jobs, were suddenly ripped away from them. We don't know if the repair shop that did a great job fixing our jeep is still standing or not, but all the bridges out of Concepción were destroyed. So we were very relieved to see army caravans of all terrain vehicles and bridge reconstruction crews headed into the hardest hit areas.

So Grateful - It Could Have Been a Much Closer Call - Pictures

2010-03-03T09:58:00.001-08:00

The guest house near Santa Barbara

where we stayed for nearly a week

and which is now in ruins.

The beach front at Dichato where a three tsunami

waves (up to 20 feet high) washed ashore destroying

80% of the community. We spent two nights in a

hotel about a block from the beach.

The battleship Huascar was

the world's second ironclad

ship and was captured from

the Peruvians during

the War of the Pacific (1880's).

Fortunately it was not hit

by a 25,000 ton ship that

smashed a nearby

pier and ended up on

the shore.

Arrival Home - Tuesday Night

2010-03-02T15:00:00.000-08:00

We finally arrived Tuesday night back in Santiago, 240 miles NNE of the epicenter. We were among the very lucky - a little shaken up and nervous, but no injuries. Our apartment building is still sound and damage was limited to half a dozen broken glasses, closets having disgorged their contents and numerous small cracks in the floors, walls and ceilings. The elevators and gas both came back on just in time for our return. Frequently interrupted cell phone service is now available (Friday) in Santiago to about 80% of the phones. Internet connections are relatively good, but cut out from time to time. Most stores are up and running with the exception of many liquor stores whose stock was decimated by breakage. Our local full service supermarket was nearly half empty of merchandise on Wednesday, but most of the shelves were full on our visit to a bigger one yesterday.

Traveling through the Earthquake Area - Part 2

2010-03-02T13:00:00.000-08:00

In Talca on Tuesday morning we saw gas lines several miles long at every station and people lined up for close to two blocks waiting to enter the supermarket. Window glass was out in many buildings. We had enough gas to go on so we skipped the long lines, and found a station just 10 miles north of town with no lines where we were able to fill up. There was no phone service either by cell phone or landline in Talca, so no one in town knew that gas was available just 10 miles away. We saw numerous industrial sites with damaged supplies, cascades of barrels oozing unrecognizable goo (possibly brown sugar syrup for the candy factory), lumberyards where stacked lumber looked like recently thrown pick-up sticks. We passed a winery south of Rancagua with ruptured stainless steel tanks - the scent of wine was strong even 100 yards away. Several grain elevators failed as well and the people we thought were clean-up crews turned out to be looters costing the industry additional losses. Most dramatic were the downed overpasses and snapped bridges.

Earthquake Area - Part 2 - Pictures

2010-03-02T12:50:00.000-08:00

The old bridge over the Rio Claro - little rebar

showing...fortunately we were on a newer bridge,

but one couldn't help but wonder how safe even it

really was with so many damaged, closed or

restricted to one vehicle at a time as a precaution

Crumbled winery tanks south of Rancagua.

Even 100 yards away, the smell of wine was overpowering!

Neatly stacked barrels tumbled by the quake -

they contained brown ooze - perhaps sugar

syrup for making candy or dogfood?

Waiting in line to cross the bridge, one vehicle at a time.

More Earthquake Pictures - Overpasses

2010-03-02T12:45:00.000-08:00

The power of nature dwarfs man's unified attempts to tame it.

One Family's Resilience - Text

2010-03-02T11:00:00.000-08:00

When I took this picture of a rock fall, by the side of the road, several people emerged from a dirt path close-by. The found it a bit odd that we were photographing the rocks, so I explained that my husband was a geologist. They then invited us to walk back in to see the real damage. I met a family whose adobe home on top of the hill that generated the rock fall had been severely damaged. Amazingly they had all gotten out with only minor bruises. The lady invited us to climb the hill to see the home. They had built it 14 years earlier, but already four days after the quake, the front looked mostly like a home under construction. The entire interior had collapsed – see bathroom picture. Saturday morning they had built a lean-to out of bedspreads and had wrapped up many belongings in plastic in case of the rain that is sure to come, though thankfully it hadn’t yet. She gave me her address because she really wanted a photograph of her children which I will send shortly. Human resilience is very inspiring!

One Family's Resilience - Pictures

2010-03-02T10:58:00.000-08:00

This family narrowly escaped their adobe house in the early moments of the quake before the roof and interior walls collapsed inwards leaving them with minor bruises.

The makeshift lean-to where they will live for the next few months. They built it Saturday morning, wrapping many of their possessions in plastic sheeting for protection from the rains which fortunately have not yet come, but surely will.

The house, finished 14 years ago, is already under reconstruction four days after the quake.

Traveling through the Earthquake Area - Part 1

2010-03-01T15:57:00.000-08:00

We waited until Monday to return to Santiago when the most severe damage to the roads had been identified usually with one or two red cones and there was some gas available. At the first open gas station we found, we waited in line for 45 minutes to get 10,000 pesos worth of gas (about 4 gallons), but they ran out with the car in front of us (actually they had orders to save the remaining gas for arriving military crews and turned off the generator to insure that it was done). We then waited at another station and got our 4 gallons. That time we sent Kalindi, one of our adopted Indian daughters who speaks good Spanish and doesn't look like a Gringo, in separately with an empty gas can to tell them that her dad had sent her to get gas. That worked, but only because she was wearing a Colo Colo shirt (a popular local soccer club). It took us over 21 hours to drive 575 miles to Santiago, a trip that shouldn't take more than 10 hours. After 15 straight hours on the road with numerous very slow detours, we camped Monday night by the light of the full moon next to the highway not far from one of the many tollbooths, all of which were empty or had signs indicating free passage. Lots of bridges were out, so detours ranged from lane changes to avoid large cracks more than a few inches tall to missing pavement often a lane wide. In places, half the highway had slid down several feet. As a precautionary measure, many bridges deemed usable were reduced to one lane of traffic with northbound traffic alternating with southbound vehicles. Some detours were as long as 40 miles. Along the main highway (Ruta 5) we saw many homes still standing and many that had been reduced to rubble, Traditional tile roofs within 200 miles of the epicenter frequently slid off and ended up as piles of broken fragments along the sides of the buildings. Rock falls were a common site on the roadway. We traveled inland which avoided the worst of the damage along the coast. All along the way, we were reminded that Chile's spectacular natural beauty directly results from these sometimes harrowing geologic processes.

Earthquake Area - Part 1 - Pictures 1 & 2

2010-03-01T11:00:00.000-08:00

Waiting in gas lines fully loaded.

Earthquake Area - Part 1 - Pictures 3-6

2010-03-01T10:59:00.000-08:00

Camping at a highway exit under a full moon in Maule, a heavily damaged area with no electricity, services, etc.

Pavement Damage

Earthquake Area - Part 1 - Pictures 7-10

2010-03-01T10:58:00.000-08:00

Ooops! It got the wrong end.

Truck off the Road (Hope they were okay!)

Ceiling Tiles down and piled up at Copec Gas Station

Collapsed House - Traditional Style

Chile's 8.8 Earthquake Report

2010-02-28T19:00:00.000-08:00

The February 27th earthquake struck at 3:34 AM local time, and although we were nearly 300 miles SSE from the epicenter, we awoke to a severe shaking that seemed to go on forever. It felt as if someone had grabbed the end of your bed and was shaking it as hard as they could, keeping you from being able to sit-up and get out of bed. The quake lasted over 3 minutes, and we knew immediately that it must have been a big one. We had felt earthquakes in Chile before, but none lasting more than 30 seconds. Most of these were nearly over before we realized that they were happening, so our usual response was to say "was that an earthquake?" This earthquake made it hard to tell the children sleeping nearby not to worry because it was "just an earthquake", as we held on to the bed posts for the next three minutes riding out the rollercoaster-style waves.

The house got a good shaking, but only minor damage. A few new cracks appeared in the beams, but everything remained structurally sound. We were lucky that most of the dishes were in the dishwasher - next door, nearly all were broken as they flew from the cupboards. We lost water, power, and cell phone coverage. Water and electricity returned late Saturday, but we didn't get cell phone service again until we returned to Santiago on Tuesday. With no phone or Internet, we couldn't easily get messages out. After about 6 hours of trying, Skye was able to get one short text message out to her boyfriend who called our parents to let them know that we were safe.

The night before the earthquake, we had packed the car with everything but our tooth brushes, so that we could return to Santiago on Saturday. After the earthquake, however, there was almost no gas available in the south due to the lack of electricity to pump it, so we waited in Lago Ranco two extra days huddled around our radio and trying to call Santiago to find our friend's three older children who had stayed behind to work and/or to attend end of the summer parties. Fortunately, they were all ok. Although our friends had a small battery TV, there were no channels operating until Sunday night, when we saw the first harrowing pictures of the damage.

Summer Update

2010-02-26T19:55:00.000-08:00

The Naslund family has been spending the year in Chile, while Dick, a geologist, is on sabbatical leave from Binghamton University and Cheryl, a librarian, is on leave from UE High School. We arrived in August with four adolescent children in tow, and rented an apartment on the fifth floor of a new 19-story apartment building just east of downtown Santiago.Our younger girls (Neelam, Kalindi, and Cambria) are in a local Spanish language high school, while our son (Sterling) makes alfajores, a Chilean caramel-filled cookie dipped in chocolate at a sheltered workshop near our apartment.Our older daughter (Skye) arrived at Christmas after graduating from SUNY Geneseo in December.

January and February are the summer months in Chile, so we took advantage of the school vacation to take a camping trip up first to the desert in the north (more on that at a later date), and then to the Lake District in the south where we spent the last week of our vacation with friends in their post and beam summer home on Lago Ranco.

Happy New Year Update

2010-01-31T04:10:00.001-08:00

List of Photos

Top 1 - View west from roof top of our building

Top 2 - View of Sunset over the Andes from our balcony

Lower 1 - Sunset view from our balcony reflected in glass door

Lower 2- Our living room with balcony to left

Hi All;

Greetings after a long while. We are having a wonderful time here in Chile and I have had a hard time finding time to write other than for my dissertation which is my main job while I am here.

We found a lovely apartment in Providencia, a "comuna" of the capital city, Santiago after spending three nights in a hotel. We are on the 5th floor of a 20-story building and have lovely views of the high Andes from our rather small balcony. We had huge terraces in a penthouse apartment last time, so this feels small, but by adding plants - a lemon tree, cala lily, bougainvilla, window box of herbs, and a large pot with floating plants and small fish - it is quite pleasant and wholly ours. We are about 8 blocks south of the metro stop "Los Leones."

Every other day I hike up the stairs...yes, all 20 floors and by early December I am able to do it two and a half times - 50 floors total without stopping - great exercise.

Our fall was filled with getting settled, buying a set of wicker furniture and a desk to flesh out the apartment offerings, getting the kids back into school and/or daily activities and trying to get all the services that one needs...cell phones, Internet, TV, etc. It's not easy as a foreigner and it took us until mid-January just to get a bank account. Thank goodness we have good friends here who helped us get the services at the beginning. The first week you run on adrenalin and the second week you try to catch up on the energy you lost getting ready to move an entire family for a year. The third week it all catches up with you - the extra effort required to do everything in Spanish, the comfort of a new home - and so we found ourselves sleeping alot! I rarely go to bed before midnight or 1 a.m. and we were all crashing between 9 and 10 p.m. Our brains need sleep to process new information.

But before long we were adjusting to the Chilean schedule which generally runs about 2 hours behind the U.S. schedule - arrive at work 8-10 a.m., lunch at 2 p.m., a snack "onces" between 5 and 6, leave work between 7 and 8 p.m. and dinner anytime after 9 p.m. Dinner parties start around 9 or 9:30 with dinner itself served around 10 or 10:30 and often break-up around 1 a.m. For the teens, it's even later...parties start between 10 and 11 p.m. and wrap up around 3 a.m.

We have enjoyed renewing friendships made the last two times that we were here for a sabbatical year (14 years ago and 7 years ago). It is wonderful to be able to speak Spanish reasonably well...noone asks me to repeat everything that I have said the way they did 7 years ago and 14 years ago we arrived not speaking a word of Spanish. So this time feels pretty easy! I am, of course, envious of my kid's ability as they speak Chilean Spanish almost like natives having learned it so young.

Three of the girls are back in their old school from our past trips, Colegio John Dewey. Because the school year runs from March to December (instead of Sept. to June), the two younger ones (Kalindi and Cambria) jumped from the end of 10th grade in the states to the middle of 11th grade here and finished out the school year in December. (They will do 12th grade when they get back to the states). Neelam is taking a leave year from school and working as a volunteer aide in a kindergarten classroom with the teacher who had her in pre-school in 1995/1996. She is also taking an art class and a music class. So all three girls will graduate in June 2011, the year after we get back. We found a wonderful workshop for our son, Sterling. He takes a transition class for developing life skills and works making "alfajores," a Chilean sweet made from 2 cookies filled with a thick "manjar" aka "dulce de leche" (Mexico) aka caramel cream, and then dipped in chocolate. They are beautifully packaged and sold for big events, conferences, weddings, etc. All the kids have made lots of friends and are enjoying it here. Cambria has a Chilean boyfriend who graduated this year and both she and Kalindi attended the school-organized graduation party - quite similar to our proms except that they don't do corsages or boutonnieres. Shopping for party shoes was a big challenge as it is very hard to find women's shoes over size 9 here as the people are generally rather petite.

My fall was more harried than I had hoped. My husbank, Dick, was back in the states teaching his geology students face-to-face for a total of nearly two months in two stints at Binghamton University. Mostly I worked on my research, but I did manage to find time to attend a very interesting conference on the national educational technology project that underlies my dissertation research. With a Chilean colleague, I also gave a 2-hour workshop for 50 teacher-leaders here in the Santiago about the use of educational technologies in the U.S.

Over the Christmas holidays we had family friends visit from Binghamton and I refer you to my older daughter's blog for the details as she has had time to write and I have not. http://skyechile.blogspot.com

We are so proud of her as she graduated in December from SUNY Geneseo with majors in Geography and International Relations and joined us Christmas Day for the next few months. She is applying to graduate programs in Medical Geography, a relatively new field that studies the distribution and spread of diseases. She is particularly interested in infectious diseases in Africa. I hope she doesn't pick ebola!

We are now off on summer vacation...January and February are the heart of summer...yes, it was a bit weird to have Christmas in December with 80 degree temperatures. We spent two weeks in the north of Chile and are now headed to the south for a month. I'll catch up in March when we get back.

We wish you all a Happy New Year and much happiness, success, and good health in 2010.

Cheryl

A Wonderful Chilean Welcome!

2009-10-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

Wednesday August 19, 2009 - noon

After traveling all day and all night, we were thrilled to shower, contact a realtor to help us find an apartment, and get ready by 2 p.m. to go to our friends' house for lunch. Mary-Anne served us our favorite typical Chilean appetizer - erizos (sea urchin) marinated in lemon juice with a hint of onion and cilantro (fresh coriander). Our main dish was coq au vin (lots of French influence here) and we had wonderful chocolate-covered pastry shells filled with fresh fruit or bananas drizzled with manjar, a delicious caramelized milk cream that is Chile's equivalent of dulce de leche. It was a real joy to catch up with Mary-Anne and Diego's and their eight children (ages 4 to 22). We met them 14 years ago when we first came to Chile.

At 5:30 p.m. we saw our first apartment...lovely, but a bit small and with a view of a basement parking area - let's hope it gets better! My daughter, Cambria, accompanied us and was thrilled to discover a Starbuck's just around the corner - could be dangerous living so close!

We returned to Mary-Anne and Diego's to recoup the other kids and after an early dinner, headed back to our apart-hotel for a badly needed good night's sleep.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Slow start to our morning, but already we are adjusting to the Chilean eating schedule - breakfast anywhere from 7:30 to 11 depending on the day, lunch from 2-3 or 4, onces between 5 and 7 (the origin of this term is hotly debated, but it is a great excuse to eat tea and anyone of the delicious European-style pastries that are in show cases everywhere, and finally dinner which never starts before 9 and may not start until 11 or 11:30 p.m. on a Friday or Saturday night. So we went to lunch at 2 at a place called Media Luna (Half Moon) which is a new and very popular food here in Chile - namely croissants. We sat outside in one of the many public areas that adorn all public places from shopping malls to city streets and office buildings. I loved listening to the Latin music group playing nearby... a guitar, a double bass, and an accordion - very Chilean (muy Chilena)!

We began our search for cell phones only to discover that my husband's RUT (Chile's national identification number required for all transactions) was inactive - more on that later. At 4:30 we headed off to see what turned out to be a rather used apartment with small rooms, but it was well worth the visit as it was a 13th floor penthouse (top floor) apartment with a spectacular view of the snow-covered Andes. It would never pass OSHA requirements in the US as the rails were only about thigh height. Afterward we headed back to the realtor's apartment for drinks and appetizers. We were treated to pisco sours (Chile's national cocktail and similar to a whiskey sour, though pisco is actually a form of brandy made from white grapes) and a delicious fish pate.

The kids were looking for a taste of home by evening, so we ordered Domino's Pizza - ubiquitous here. The pizzas now look the same as in the US and most of the ingredients are the same, but they often include corn, hearts of palm and anchovies and would never dream of including broccoli or garlic. Fourteen years ago when we were living here, the pizzas had only cheese on the whole pizza with all the other ingredients divided into individual pie-shaped sections - a section for ham, another for corn, another for chopped hardboiled egg, another for tomato, another for anchovies, etc.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Off to another apartment - a garden apartment with very nice artwork, some antique furniture and a delightful pond and fountain, but I doubt if the lady could move out in a month, let alone a day or two.

Safe Arrival in Chile

2009-08-31T20:38:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, August 18th, we left home in a blur! How can one house hold so much stuff? It seemed as if no matter how much we packed, there was always more...but somehow my husband managed to make most of it fit in the basement. He will have a bit more to do in September when he is back for a few weeks teaching the face-to-face portion of his geology courses. After 4 hours sleep on the floor Sunday night and a sleepless Monday night, we left with what we hoped were only a few stray boxes for our kind neighbors to cart downstairs. Hopefully the cleaning crews put the finishing touches on before our renters moved in.

We hired a van to take us to Newark and left less than an hour late on Tuesday morning leaving our mini-van with yet a new problem in the SUNY parking lot (yes, we have permission) and the Mustang convertible in Grandma's garage. My husband has his work cut out for him when he gets back. The van was the best idea we had had! The traffic was awful, but the driver knew his job well - and much to our surprise, even to the point of driving up on the grassy strip to pass a long line of cars stuck just before our exit at Newark. We all got a few minutes rest before negotiating our way onto our flight with 18 pieces of luggage (6 more than our allotment) - wish I had take a picture of the whole pile! As if that wasn't enough, Sterling's suitcase popped open as the baggage handler tossed it onto the conveyor belt, much to Sterling's consternation as you can imagine. Thankfully, we have traveled enough to know to have our roll of duct tape at the ready.... so within a minute or two, the suitcase was ready to travel. The airlines tagged several bags as HEAVY, but treated us well as we paid a modicum of excess baggage charges. WHEW!

We negotiated the security check with only mild angst on the part of some of our children..."throw out the food bag" ("doesn't matter that the web site said you could travel with one - the security guy says you can't")...off with the shoes, out with the computers, oops...forgot one, "what is this?" (holding up a plastic bag)...oops again....forgot the baggie of fluids and gels, back on again with the shoes, and my goodness, how did this all go back together again? Hey, Sterling, ....come back and get your bag, ....but we made it and in time despite the heavy traffic and a later than anticipated start.

Our flight to Miami was uneventful and we had recovered enough to handle the longest airport walk I have ever had between gates.... seemed like a full mile! We grabbed a quick dinner, made our last phone calls, and ordered some thank-you gifts for our dearest friends who kept us sane with brawn and brains through our departure. Our flight to Santiago left the gate uneventfully, only to return to the gate a minute or two later when they discovered that none of the toilets on the plane were working. Thankfully, they fixed the problem in less than an hour and we were off!

We arrived about an hour late after our 8 hour flight and then spent nearly 1.5 hours buying visas and going through immigration for us and customs for our baggage. We had to answer a few questions about the contents - a small printing press for artwork, a computer printer, some vitamins, the kid's speakers, and my dissertation papers, but they seemed content to know that we were just an odd lot and gave us no further hassle. We were greeted by three of our closest friends with two cars and a trailer. We headed for an apart-hotel in a nice section of the city with wonderful views of the newly snow-covered Andes mountains and a long-awaited hot shower!

One Week to Go

2009-08-12T20:10:00.000-07:00

The house is rented and I've found nice homes for both our dog and cat for the year...that's the good news! The bad news...it seems as if we've been packing for days, but there is always so much more to do. We've gotten rid of lots of stuff, but we've decided that we will have to work equally hard for twice as long when we return to really get organized. SIMPLIFY, ORGANIZE, and then MAYBE we will be rewarded with RELAXATION. Thanks to all our friends for your support and well wishes.

Getting Ready

2009-07-21T05:56:00.000-07:00

This month finds me tying up loose ends here at home as I get ready to spend the 2009-2010 academic year with my family in South America (Santiago, Chile). I have a sabbatical leave from my position as librarian at Union Endicott High School (Endicott, NY). I will use this year to finish up my research on Chile's national educational technology project and write my doctoral dissertation. More to come after we get there in late August.