In Chile

So, I´m in Chile right now writing a post to my blog.  I arrived in Santiago, Chile yesterday at about 7:30am.  We took a bus to my sisters apartment and dropped all our stuff off.  I walked around with Rebecca and ran a couple errands while my parents took a little nap.  After that, we hit up my sis´ friends´family´s restaurant.  Traditional Chilean food was not at all what I expected it to be.  It was good though, and very cheap. The entree with a salad and a drink cost the equivalent of around $3.50 (not sure about this, my monetary conversion skills aren´t great.  regardless of the exact price, it was very inexpensive).  We walked around the city some, took another quick nap, ran a few more errands and then it was off to dinner.  We ate at a Peruvian restaurant that was AWESOME!  The food was excellent, as were the drinks.  The national drink here is something called Pisco.  It has a flavor reminiscent of a light tequila and it is made using grapes.  We had pisco sours as an aperatif, and considering that I don´t like mixed drinks, they were pretty good.  The Picante Camarones I had were reminiscent of a creamy mild orange Indian curry.  The flan I had for dessert has got to be some of the best I´ve ever had in my life.

This morning we jumped on a bus that took two hours to get us to Valparaiso.  Valparaiso is a coastal city, the second largest city in Chile.  The city´s layout reminds me a little of Seattle (as does the fog), the streets near the dock parallel the water and are surrounded on all sides by hills.  The neighborhoods on the hills are littered with narrow, windy, cobbled roads.  We are staying at a quaint bed and breakfast on Cerro Alegre, which means ¨Happy Hill¨.  We had a traditional Chilean breakfast of goat cheese, bread and fruit (I also had brewed coffee which is very NON-Chilean.  In fact, it seems that brewed coffee is quite rare).  We had empanadas for lunch while we had a boat tour of Valparaiso, and a dinner at a good semi-expensive (for Chilean standards) dinner at a place on the hill that had a view of the harbor.

My sister and I are currently in an internet cafe in Valparaiso reserving a trip to the north of Chile that we will be making at the end of this week.  I´m going to get going so that we can finish up and then go out and have a few drinks.
Have a good night all!

Well, that was fun...

Just got back from Austin yesterday.  The new EB labs are a lot roomier than they were when I was there, which is great for them since they have 6 teams over the summer instead of the 3 they had while I was there.  Boy did I miss Texas BBQ alot!  I got to hit Rudy's for some brisket and hot links, but I forgot to buy a bottle of their sauce while I was there.  I also had some Stubb's BBQ before the They Might Be Giants show I caught while I was there.
 
I caught a few movies while I was there.  I caught I Robot with Aaron, Elfred and one of Elfred's friends from UT. It was much better than I thought it was going to be.  However, as I suspected, it has almost nothing to do with the Asimov book by the same name other than the three laws of robotics.  According to the credits, the movie was "Suggested by Isaac Asimov's 'I Robot'".  Right...  I also hit The Drafthouse with Elfred to catch Fahrenheit 9/11.  The Drafthouse is the best movie to hit movie theatres since the motion picture.  They remove (or don't install) every other row of seats in the theatre.  Instead of the seats, they install a bar.  They have servers that help you throughout the film to beer, wine, food, etc...  Great idea!  The newer Drafthouses show the new films and blockbusters.  The old Drafthouse shows art, indie, cult films etc...

Regarding 4th of July and also my travels

So the fireworks display on the 4th was interesting. I was in my sister and brother-in-law's back yard, which is on a hill overlooking San Bernardino. This was the first time I've been in San Bernardino for the 4th in years. I expected seeing the usual big shows, which didn't happen. I'm not sure where the big shows were supposed to be at this year, but I missed them. However, I was not dissapointed since about 1/2 of San Bernardino had purchased an inordinate amount of illegal ordinance. And I'm not just talking about things like M-80s. I mean big ass, high flying, colored spark shooting, awe-inspiring fireworks. These were no bottle rockets. I had a 270 degree view of the show that blanketed all of San Bernardino. There was one house that was probably about 3/4 of a mile from us that seriously had to have lit off close to a hundred of them. I didn't hear a single siren all night either! It was kind of amazing.

So on to my travels. I said last post that I probably wouldn't be going anywhere other than Chile. Well I lied. Actually, I believed myself when I typed it, so technically it wasn't a lie... Right? Anyways, I just booked a flight to Austin for next week. Leave on Wednesday and return on Sunday. Should be a good time. I'm hoping to be able to hang out with the everyone from the Exreme Blue labs, as well as Aaron from Cal Poly (who is an EB co-op right now) and Elfred (who was an EB co-op with me last year). I've been thinking alot about the last year or so recently (I have enough time to), and I've realized that I like Austin alot more than I initially thought I did. Maybe I'm just remembering the good and forgetting the bad, although god knows I'll never forget _ALL_ the bad (but that's not a story I want to get into here). I guess I'll find out in a week.