The highlight of being in Santiago

To say I love traveling is an understatement. There is only one thing I love more than exploring a new city and that is meeting good friends that live in that city.

I first came across Kyle's blog, Just Married Chilean Style, through another favorite blogger of mine, My Guey, (fka Mexico Way), a young Canadian woman who was living in Mexico at the time and who one day back in 2007 posted the link to the blog of this expat gringa living in Chile who "tells it like it is......swear words and all! Spanish AND English"! ... Of course I had to go check it out.

From that day on I was hooked on JMCS and through Kyle's incredibly funny, insightful, well written and informative posts on life married to a Chilean, living in Santiago and going through all the highs and lows of expat life, I slowly got sucked into the whole Chilean-Gringas blogging world. I could relate to a lot of what these ladies were writing about because I grew up in a similar society being often treated as a foreigner gringa myself!

Another of the girls who's blog really hit home for me not long after that was Emily's Don't call me gringa blog (don't you just love that name?). As Kyle, Em is also permanently (for the time being) living in Santiago and through her posts she gives us an awesome glimpse of life in Chile with her boyfriend Rodolfo and their pup Lola. Her posts always seemed to have me nodding vigorously and leaving lame, totally unoriginal, comments on her blog like "I TOTALLY AGREEE!!!" or "YOU READ MY MIND!!".....

So when Hubby and I decided we'd be going to South America and that Chile would be on the itinerary I emailed them both asking if they wanted to meet up, crossing my fingers they wouldn't take me for a stalking psycho (which I think Emily did in the beginning, -ejem- quote "who the crap is F**** Ned******?" unquote, LOL).

On the first night we arrived in Santiago, we met Kyle, Emily and Rodolfo at the lobby of the apart-hotel we were staying at (which coincidentally happened to be Emily and Rodolfo's old apartment building!) and went to have drinks and dinner at a nearby restaurant.

I know a lot has been blogged about meeting other bloggers in real life.... I myself have been lucky to real-meet a few of the Parisian Gringa bloggers who have become my friends, so I wont go into the obvious description of the process ("I was nervous they weren't going to be like their blogging selfs / I felt I'd known them w/o really knowing them / what were we going to talk about?... blah, blah, blah")...

I will say this: Kyle and Emily are two of the most easygoing, kind and welcoming blogging girls out there. As soon as we stepped into the street, the five of us were off talking about how our trip was going so far and how Emily and Rodolfo's holidays in the UK had gone, and Seba's (Kyle's hubby) crazy working schedule and Papito's (Kyle and Seba's puppy) encounter that day with a menacing dog twice her size, etc... There was no agenda for the night, so we let the conversation take whatever direction it wanted and by the time we were settled at our table at the restaurant with our mojitos in front of us, the conversation was in full throttle mode and taking us through student politics in Chile, banking in Santiago, Elote vs. Choclo, working in Paris, etc.

I think we yapped until 1am when we finally realized we were almost the only ones left at the restaurant!





The next morning we (Hubby and I) met up with Rodolfo for one of the best guided tours we had during the entire trip. You see, Rodolfo is a guide at La Bicicleta Verde, a bike tour company that takes you off the beaten paths in Santiago and shows you all the little hidden jewels this city has to offer..... all while riding a cool green bike! So when we asked Rodolfo the night before if we could squeeze into his group the next morning he smiled, opened up our map and pinpointed the meetup-spot.

Rodolfo took us through the Bellavista barrio with its artistic graffitied walls and La Chascona house (on of late Pablo Neruda's amazing homes) then on to the Patronato neighborhood with a stop at the great Mercado Vega for a stroll among the fruit and veggie's stands and a delicious, freshly made, strawberry smoothy at one of Rodolfo's secret juice spots. We then peddled our way across the river Mapuche to visit the beautiful Mercado Central with all its fish stands and sea-food restaurants, and from there on to the Plaza de Armas for some final sight gazing inside the amazing Cathedral. The entire time Rodolfo had us on our toes telling us funny anecdotes and interesting facts on the history, culture, places and people of Chile. It was a great morning and by the end of the tour Hubby and I were itching to go back to some of the places Rodolfo had showed us and spend more time exploring them.





Our last night in Santiago, we all met up again, this time at Kyle's place for a last carreta(?) or get-together. Kyle had made a kick ass guacamole with Palta, which unbeknown to her, solved a little argument Hubby and I had been having the entire time we were in Chile on whether Palta and Aguacate tasted the same. He claimed yes, I said no way ("aguacate is mexican, you hear me? MEXICAN! and a proper guacamole is ONLY made with aguacate!")... but after tasting Kyle's guacamole I had to concede... Yes, people, Palta and Avocado are indeed the same fruit, only named differently (so now you see why it's important to travel kids? so that you don't go through life making ignorant statements).

We had an amazing time at Kyle's, again talking the night away into the wee hours of the morning. But hands down, the main entertainment of the evening was watching Papi and Lola play like the hyperactive puppies they are. Those two had us laughing the entire night and made Hubby and I wished we could secretly smuggle one of the hundreds of stray doggies we saw in Santiago back to France with us.

Spending that last evening in Santiago with Kyle, Emily, Rodolfo, Papi and Lola was, as we say in Mexico, closing our vacations with Broche de Oro. I didn't feel they were blogger friends of mine that lived in Chile, I felt they were friends, period.

In retrospect, I've come to the conclusion that, yes, blogging does do a lot of the work of having people "get to know you" before they actually do know you in real life and lets you establish great friendships online... but sometimes, if you're lucky, there's an additional "click" when you meet someone from the web in real life. And that "click" goes beyond relating to each others' writing style and personal experiences portrayed on the web... that "click" means there's been a connection in personality, character, temperament and sense of humor and that, bottom line, you've just made a new good friend!

I think I heard that "click" go off a few times while I was in Santiago! ;)

The Kyle Guacamole that saved a marriage

Papi and Lola, starlets of the night!

Hard to say who's pooped out the most!

Hands off Papi, that frenchie is mine! ;-)

Hurry up and come to Paris you guys!!!

Fned.