Some news after a long long time...

Hi,

sorry for not writing for so long. The last two months were kind of crazy, and I spend most of my time in a plane traveling somewhere...

I remember I wanted to write something about the trip to Atacama, but I forgot what... I can tell you I made some new good friends, with whom I went out already in Santiago, and two very nice argentinian girls, which I hope I can meet some day soon.

General comments: very dry place, with a lot of sand ;) coming inside the shoes, cameras, food bags, etc. Temperatures varies from 30 degrees during the day, to 0 degrees in the night, and -12 degrees at 4000m, where we went to see some wonderful lakes and the Geisers.

Pictures of the trip are in the link below. Pay attention to the picture of Saturno! Yes, I got to see Saturno in an astronomical tour in the middle of the night.

http://www.pixum.de/viewalbum/?id=2535894

Below you can find pictures from my trekking trip to Parque do Caraca, close to Belo Horizonte, the best city in the world despite the quantity of female human beins living there... Actors: Gustavo, Valeria, my sister Kika and the guide I forgot the name... Next time we will spend the weekend there, and will camp on the top of one of those mountains I forgot the name (as always).

http://www.pixum.de/viewalbum/?id=2535721

That's all for now. Later on I will put some pictures I took from the Panama Canal this week (if I manage to download them from my phone...)

Kisses!

De Copas - Fiesta del Vino 2007

Hola,

my intention today was to write some words about my trip to the Atacama Desert, but something got on the way and this was postponed to some near future date. Reason is that I didn't upload the pictures yet, yesterday I got drunk and today I just don't want to do it. Want to lay in bed and sleep until tomorrow...

But, the reason I got the power to write today is that yesterday I got drunk in Chile for the first time! Yesssssss :)

Every year they promote a wine party at the end of the harvest season, to allow smaller wine makers to show their wines. It works like this: you buy a wine glass empty, and goes from stand to stand filling it up with the different types of wines. It is great, and I tasted some very good vines I didn't know yet.

So, if you are planning to come to Chile to visit me, this would be a good timing, just reserve one or two days to recover from the delicious wine tasting, and bring some warm clothing to stay outside in the freezing weather ;)

So long, Lu.

Chi chi chi, le le le Colo Colo de Chile!

Hi,

yesterday started as one of those very boring days, with a lot of work to be done. At Nokia we were invited to a farewell lunch, since it would be our last day as Nokians. Lunch was fine, with no surprises. Then we decided to continue the farewell party in a pub close to the office. This is where the big surprise began.

I got there later, because I had some work to finish, and for my surprise the pub where we always go, and is always empty, was full of men. Uau! Then I realized there was a soccer game going on: Colo Colo x Caracas, Copa Libertadores.

Everything was normal, people were behaving as normal polited chileans, with no big noise nor any dirty word. Until the first Colo Colo goal came. For my surprise, they started jumping and screaming like crazy! I have to say I wasn't expecting this reaction from the very polited and shy chileans.

The explosion of passion came when Colo Colo hit again, in the very last minute of the game (the clock was showing 93:xx). They shouted, singed, huged each other, just like any normal Brazilian whatching a soccer game. I felt home for the first time here, and adopted Colo Colo as my prefered team in Chile :)

Now I started liking this place more, seeing that the traditional, extremely polited chilean people can also show some passion, even if triggered by a soccer game. It means something is there, we just have to dig it out ;)

Carnaval: one of the things you have to do at least once in life

I finally I got some pictures from Carnaval. A crazy friend took his camera, and since we managed to meet there in the last day, he took some pictures and sent me this week. Not to mention that we were sleeping in the same house. We just had different programs...

And I say crazy because some things that happens there shouldn't be documented in any way... ;)

When I saw the pictures, the first thing that came to my mind was the winner song of this year:

"Quebraê quebraê, olha o Asa aê!

Quebraê quebraê, olha o Asa aê!"

(This is pretty much what I remember from the song, from the only song I can remember...)

You just has to imagine this music playing and all these people jumping like crazy behind a Trio Elétrico:

Just great!

We had 4 great days of partying, day and night, and this is one of the things that should not be documented: me at the last day of carnaval, before the last "bloco" started its tour, at 2:00 AM wednesday. If the camera could pick thoughts, you would probably see over my head a baloon saying:

"Please leave me alone. I just want to go home and sleep for 3 days, without having to stand on my destroyed feet!"

Do you believe me I was thinking this? Ok, ok, but I swear that when the bloco stopped 5 hours later I was thinking and feeling like this!

And I slept for 3 days...

Changing the format...

Hi,

my intention today was to describe my diving experience in Chile, but after someone said (very persuasive) that my texts were toooooooooo long and she was bored to read them, I decided to shorten it a bit.

So, resuming my diving experience: it was freezing. It took me some hours and pisco sours to get my brain working again, so I could drive back home. After all people there asked me why the hell I was going to dive in Chile if I could dive in my home country, I still had the courage to get into the water, because you know me: most of the things I have to test them by myself to believe...

But, now that I'm analyzing the situation, I can say that after all those scared faces of me going diving in Chile, having trouble to wear and take off the 7mm suit (I had scratches in both hands after the first try), jumping in a 10 degree cold see, having the brain frozen for a while, and a huge headache for hours, I can see that I will not do this stupid thing again... But for sure next year, if I'm still in Chile, I will have forgotten this and try it again in another city, where they told me the water could be 2 or 3 degrees warmer ;)

Ah, just one more comment, the other 2 tourists were asking if they dive all days all year long, and the instructor said that in winter they do it only on weekends. I (very innocently) told them they should not expect to see me there in winter, and the instructor just laughted and said: I don't really expect to see you here again, at any time...

Well, what can I say? :)

Kisses!

New year, new life, new beliefs

As a well known homeless, or cigano, jitano, zigeuner, nomade, as some of you like to say, I spent Christmas not in Brazil (my last known address), not in Germany (where I spent most of my latest Christmas), not in Chile (my newest "home"). I went to Peru, to spend Christmas with some Brazilian friends who are living there in the same condition I came to Chile. We did a very traditional Christmas party in Lima, with turkey, wine, kids... It was a very long time ago the last time I had such a Christmas party, without everybody getting drunk or dancing until the last drop of beer or wine is served. I got the turkey wing (huge, huge), and of course I will never publish any of the fotos they took of me eating it. Of course, I cannot forget to mention the two bolivian friends who were there because they are as lost in the world as we are, so it is the same, we understand eachother.

I came back to Santiago, worked two lazy days, and the visitors started arriving for the New Year's Eve. What a Party (details will come later)! First arrived Rô, and we spent two days in Re
naca and Vina del Mar. We did absolutely nothing but sleep and sleep in the sun and go to the night club, where we were really affraid someone would soon call us 'uncle' or 'aunty', and the only thing I got was cigarrete's ashes on my foot, which hurt for over a week. Ah, we also went to a friend's beach house and did a barbeque party, which was great and funny!

We "had" to head back to Santiago on saturday night, because we had to do the Christmas party shopping, sleep again and pick Ale and Cassio at the airport to go to the Rapel lake, to the New Year's Eve. We rented 2 houses there, for over 20 Venezuelans, 4 Brazilians (we), some Finnish, Spanish, Swedish and amazinly 2 Chileans! A big party was ahead of us, to start the new year with the right foot.

I don't have to say we had a nice time, nice people, bla bla bla. The important thing was that we invented a new tradition: to eat 12 grapes at midnight, but before eating them you have to put all of them in your Champagne glass, and fish one by one during the 12 bells of mid night. To make it easy for you to understand, here comes the whole story...

I (me, Luciana) saw 2 glasses of champagne full of grapes on the table. Then I asked someone what the grapes were for. A Venezuelan told me we had to eat one grape per bell at midnight, and this would bring luck. It was already almost mid night, so I started shouting at my friends in portuguese that they had to put 12 grapes in their glasses, and we had to dring them at midnight. They followed my advice and in a few seconds their glasses were full of grapes. At midnight everybody was fishing their grapes from their glasses, and eating them happily and drunkly. At some point in the night, I saw again the 2 champagne glasses with grapes on the table, at the same point they were before, and started asking whom they belonged to. Then one of the Venezuelans commented: what a nice Brazilian tradition, to put the grapes in the champagne glass! .................. You can imagine the other 3 Brazilians looking at me with question marks in their faces, and me looking at the person with the same question mark... Following dialoge followed:

Me: What? Brazilian? Are you drunk? Someone from Venezuela told me to eat the 12 grapes at midnight.

One Venezuelan: We eat the grapes, but not from a champagne glass...

Me: So, who put those grapes in the glass?

Another Venezuelan: You!

Me: NO! I saw it, and asked what the grapes were for!

Still another Venezuelan (there were more than 20...): Ah, those were my grapes, but some drunk person put champane in them, so I lived them there...

Another Venezuelan: Luciana, you stole my grapes to give your friend, now the other girl is fighting me because I stole her grapes and gave my husband! (I was overruled!)

And the discussion continued... Until now we can't agree who is responsible for the new Brazilian-Venezuelan New Year's Eve in Rapel tradition...

But I have the proof I was not drunk, and didn't invent everything:



After that my dear friends went back to Brazil, and I thought I would go back to normal life for a few days, when an aunt called and said she was going to arrive in Santiago two days later, just like that. All the mess started again, but I'm just used to it. I had some few days of 'tranquility' in Lima (working), came back, left my visitors at the airport, and slept for 3 consecutive days...

Last weekend I was awake againg, and had the amazing idea to go diving in Chile. Well, this is another story I will tell later, because I'm still in shock, and my fingers freeze everytime I remember the experience...

Kisses!

After a long long time...

Hi people,

after a long long time, I'm back... Since last time I wrote, many things happened.

First, I moved in my 'new' appartment. It is funny here... All the lamps were missing, and I had only 2 tiny wires coming out of the roof where a lamp was supposed to be. My next question as a tipical electrical engineer was: what am I supposed to do now? Shit... ;) But since I have very nice colleagues here, Gonzalo volunteered to fix all my lamps! Yeah!!! :D Beside that, his wife Ema went with me to the shop and helped me buy all the lamps for the ap. It was very nice. Then she and Gonzalo came to my appartment to fix everything. I bought food and drinks and was waiting for the party to begin. But that went a little bit different than planned...

They brought their son Lucas and a cousin, Carla. Very nice kids, indeed. They got chocolate, coke and cookies while we were doing the hard job. After a couple of hours, when I got in the room where they were, they were already doing the party, and the carpet was flooded with coke and smashed chocolate... Me, as a newcomer to carpets and kids (never had such things before), was astonished with the scene. I just didn't know what to do... But my hero Ema came and solved everything with toilet paper and some water. Amazing! And I started loving kids again ;)

Well, I got then a matress from another colleague and a sleeping bag from Lucas, to wait for my things to arrive in Chile. After a few weeks of waiting, living with a matress, heating system and one set of dish-glass-fork-knife, my things arrived and I could change clothes again. I bought the missing stuff like sleeping couch and bookshelf and started living again. Ah, before I forget, Ema also found in the Internet a fridge for me, and buying this fridge I got 18 litres of coke for free and a DVD player for 10 Dollars. Nice, don't you think? Such things happen only here... By the way, I still have 15 litres of coke left. From the 3 we consumed, about 1 is somewhere down deep in the carpet, but the important thing is that I can't see it ;) That's the view from my living room:

Now with the Sunset:

Well, that's it for today. See you soon.

Cheers, and a happy new year!!!

Chilean first impressions

Hi there,

I’m back :)

Now it’s been a month since I arrived in Chile. And I must tell you something. I found out that if I don’t like a city, I just have to move in, because this city is the place I will spend the less time than anywhere else. Since I officialy moved to Santiago, I spent more time in Rio than here, not counting the time in Peru. :O

Well, the first week I spent here I was invited to a beneficent event of a child care organization sponsored by Nokia. It was going fine, the spaguetti was great, unti a guy came to sing. Most probably he is famous here, but when I saw that guy with a look of the 70th decade going to the stage I started to think if I was in the wrong movie... But this was only the first event, and one day later I found out the right people to hang out with :)

In the office there are more foreigners than Chileans. You will find people from everywhere, including a few from Chile ;) They are nice, and helped me a lot in finding an apartment to live, the good restaurants, and including a car, thanks to the venezuelan guy moving to Peru! I bought his car, with the condition he would tell me everything I had to do and where to go, and he even took me to the places :)

Yesterday I picked up the car, and adventured myself in the city... Uau, it was great! I spent most of the times trying to find the right way to the shopping center and later to the hotel, but I'm still alive, and didn't kill nobody :)

Then I met the happy hour people, you know what it means... I also went skiing, it was great. It is so close, we can drive up and down the same day. And I do got down standing on my skies sometimes! I do intend to do it more often now :)

Last weekend I spend the whole weekend looking for an apartment, and as I said, I found one. Then I went to the notary to sign the contract, and guess what happened? The owner of the apartment lived in Brazil for 14 years! We handled everything in portuguese, and she was happy to practice it again :) Next week I'm moving in, and wait for all of you to visit me. But please, hurry, because you never know when I will be moving again... The ones who were planning to long to visit me in Rio will have to wait again ;)

Nothing really funny has been happening lately, beside the fact that my allergy vanished... Strange, strange.

Well, that's it for today. I will go to sleep and think how I'm going to survive in this country, where the main meal is made of fish, and not meat...

Here you have the links to the holiday pictures, as promised :)

Kisses,

Lu.

San Andrés

New York