This newsletter covers a 2-week assignement I did in Santiago, Chile I was doing some database design work and training for CTC Mundo, but I can't remember when!		Monday 2nd Hola peeps... A quick note to say "Hi" from Chile and to pass on my initial reactions... Got here OK after a llllloooooooonnnnnngggggg flight... no chance to get off and walk around during stop-over at Rio... also Chile is currently 5 hours behind UK - net result was around 19 hours on the areoplane.... aaaarrrrgggggghhhh!!! actually it wasn't too bad for the last bit from Rio to Santiago - hardly anybody on the plane so chance to stretch out a bit. Spectacular approach to Santiago skimming over a few Andes and dropping down into the valley with pretty high snow-capped stuff either side.. weather here is a little cooler than London right now (it's early spring) and sunny but hazy (basically smog-bound!). From the sublime to the ridiculous... the taxi ride from the airport into town takes a route through some of the poorest shanty towns I've seen in a long time...(At this point I was thinking "oh-oooohhhhh.... what I have let myself in for this time...??") - however it turns out that the town centre is a strange mix of 'decaying grandeur' and modern glass-fronted office blocks. There's a good clean and efficient metro system and spectacular views of the Andes (when the smog clears....) - these are so huge they appear to be almost overwhelming the city. At sunset the snow-capped peaks glow pink as the sun goes over the horizon - very pretty! Met up on Sunday evening with the resident IECI project team - Fernando & Francisca (she's from IECI but normally based in Rochester New York!). They've been here since July and are starting to show the strain, but were very friendly (and appreciative of a new pair of hands to share the load). We had dinner and I got updated on the lastest info.. Been into the office today - in at the deep end with a full morning of presentations - I won't bore you all with the gory details... (there's a separate 'official status message' going out to work-related folks) Not much else to tell right now - hopefully this will get to you OK -  did the usual 'first time in a new country' ritual of trying all my different phone plugs before giving up and taking the phone apart to get the comuserve link up.. Of course the power plugs here don't match ANYTHING in my (previously comprehensive) stack of adaptors... and there's 2 different formats in the office... Never mind - should be an interesting few weeks... I'll be in touch with more gossip as I go along Cheers for now D. Wednesday 4th Hi peeps... slowly getting settled in here and so time for another quick update.... Starting to get my bearings and find fun places.. though it'll be the weekend before I really get chance to wander around the place.. It kinda feels European somehow.... reminds me a bit of Lisbon (except for the surrounding mountains forming the eastern horizon looking like a frozen tidal wave ...!) Food & drink here good and cheap (unless you go to one of the 'trendy' places...) was initiated tonight into the local favourite poison - called 'frisco sours' these taste very much like Margaritas... (what a shame!). Also discovered a local bar near the hotel which has live jazz - the bar's called (wait for it...) 'Brennigans'... wherever I go in the world these days there seems to be a bar around the corner called Brannigans or Bennigans or B'niganz or something similar..  perhaps it's a subtle invasion ploy by alien beings (certainly the staff in all of the one's I've been to fit the bill...) looks like I may be able to get away early (IF I can change my cheapo, 'dissolve on the touch' very cost-effective plane ticket...) There are several national holidays imminent and the folks here apparently use this as an excuse to take a week's holiday around them - consequenty I could fly out on Saturday 14th arriving Sunday around 9:30 am at Heathrow... will grovel with the travel chaps here tomorrow and try to fix it! Have also discovered the 'Cafe do Brasil' coffee shops... here you get excellent coffe in various forms, but served by VERY curvy ladies wearing extremely tight clingy mauve mini-dresses.... Fernando and I go there most mornings on the way to the office for 'coffee with legs'.. One other thing I'll report now before I finish... The buses (and drivers!) here are just crazy.. the busses are de-regulated and it seems any Tom, Dick or Harry  can get enough dosh to buy a minibus and he's instantly in business - consequently there are way too many busses which get overloaded but they're all bound by law to stop at whichever stop the passenger wants Great system, huh??? WRONG - what happened here is that the bus drivers have worked out that the faster you do the route, the more likely it is that you'll get more fares... hence a very hotly contested race between bus stops - ( probability that folks will be killed/injured.. very high! - each bus stop becames like a formula 1 pit lane..) .  It's scary! That's all for now... Will be in touch again soon D. Friday 6th Hi again gang... As it gets to 6:30 pm there's the usual amazingly pretty sunset over the (equally amazingly grubby) Mapocho river and downtown area to the west. The last few days have been very pleasant weather-wise, clear blue (if somewhat hazy) skies with the breeze keeping all the smog to the west of us. We're living and working east of the centro, out towards the mountains and away from the worst of the air pollution. (Sure make for colourful sunsetsthough). Work's going well, and the natives are friendly... turns out that the normal business greeting/farewell is a handshake for the blokes, and a kiss for the girlies!!! (even total strangers like me get to do the biz! James is going to love it here!)... also noticed that the majority of the people here are about my height (or shorter!) - it's a bit like being back inJapan. Noticed a typo after I sent my last postcard - the preferred local aperitivo here is called 'Pisco Sour' which is quite apt... (also explains the typo). The beer here's OK - and the local word for draft beer is 'Schop'. Not much more to report at this stage - been too busy working!! It's the usual regime - i.e.get up around 7 to do e-mail and phone calls to London - quick shower & breakfast, 'coffee with legs' then down to the office via Metro - 'on parade' until around 6 with a shortish break for lunch.. then we've also been doing bits of work back in the hotel early in the evening before going out for dinner. Quick check of the e-mail when I get in then sleep and repeat until Saturday! Looking forward to the weekend - will be great to wander around and explore this place a bit - especially if the weather stays as pleasant as it's been so far. OK that's all for now folks Will be in touch again soon ======================================================================= Sunday 8th ---- Hi peeps... It's now sunday evening so I've got a bit of time to take stock and let you know what's been going on. Fernando, Francisca and I went out on Friday evening for a quiet dinner, then went wandering around the town centre for a while. Headed back to the hotel and Fernando suggested 'a quick drink'... well, you can probably guess the rest... finally got back to the hotel around 4:30 am, well and truly 'Piscoed'.  Long lay-in on Saturday morning... eventually emerged to find cold and overcast day... what a bastard! After a steady increase in temperatures and clear skies all week, the first day of the weekend is dull! Not really a problem, went browsing around one of the markets in the city centre and then up to Bellavista which is the 'Artisan's Quarter' where they have lots of craft shops & restaurants. The main souvenir of Chile seems to be jewellery (or anything!) made from Lapis Lazuli or malachite (booth of which are mined locally). Some really naff stuff, but not as much as usual and some of it was really good. Leisurely late lunch and then siesta time to catch up on sleep. Today was much better - bright sunshine, around 22 degrees and clear skies. Took a bus out to one of the suburbs where there's yet anothe craft centre... good to wander around, but the prices are actually better in the downtown markets. After shopping went 'Schopping' (ie drinking the local draft beer...) Didn't quite 'Schop till we dropped' but had fun anyway.. Getting around here is really easy and cheap - there's a set fare of 150 Pesos (25p!) on the buses and metro so you can get anywhere in the city for 25p. The buses are really crazy - I thought I was a fst driver, but these guys are something else. Crossing the street is dangerous - (if the buses don't get you the taxis will!) This afternoon took the cable car to the top of one of the 'baby Andes' that is in the centre of the city - spectacular views from the top, where you really get an appreciation of a) the size of the city (it sprawls for miles) and b) how the Andes dwarf it! Other random observations... they don't seem to have pushchairs or prams here - seen loads of young (and not so young!) babies, but without exception they are being carried around by their parents.. Also there are lots of men wandering the streets with what look like tea urns strapped to their chests - turns out they're selling coffee! TV is interesting here - around 45 channels in the hotel ncluding several English language channels (plus useful stuff like Bilko and I love Lucy in badly-dubbed Spanish). Guess that's all for now... Will be in touch again soon.. Rgds D. ======================================================================== Monday 9th ---- Hola peeps... Another diatribe from Llama-land... I learned 3 new Spanish words last night..  "Seismos" and "Tremblores" which mean 'earthquake' and "Madre de Dios!!!!" which I can only assume from the context means something like 'Oh f**k!!!'. We had a bit of a wobbler at around 8:30pm last night - a 5 on the Richter scale according to the newspaper this morning! we were up in Fernando's apartment on the 9th floor doing some preparation for this morning's meetings when it hit - it lasted around 25 seconds and was pretty impressive (I suspect being on the top floor of the building helped a bit..) - lots of rattling around, moving furniture and swaying lights.. apparently these things are fairly regular here, around 1 a month!! Also for you amusement... the name of the place I'm staying (according to all of it's advertising literature) is (wait for it...) "The Tempo Rent Apart Hotel".... Rent apart, huh? perhaps it's something to do with all those tremblores... Just returned from an interesting soiree in a place called the 'Phone Box Pub' this is an 'English Pub' (you get into it by walking through an old red phone box...) but contrary to previous experiences in these sort of places it's actually pretty good - good food and huge choice of beers... they were playing the Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival all night - I'd forgotten how much I like that old stuff... there is also a pub up the road from the hotel called 'The Beatles Pub' - not been there yet but perhaps I'll try it before I leave. Decided to call it a night when Fernando and I were finding it difficult to communicate -(on closer investigation it turned out that he was speaking drunken pigeon English and I was trying to speak drunken pigeon Spanish... but we didn't realise that at the time..) Not a lot else to tell you right now Will be in touch again soon ====================================================================== Thursday 12th Hola peeps... Time for another wobbly reflection on life here in seismic Santiago... The folks here seem fairly gentle and reserved, but friendly. Almost all are dark haired, brown eyed and beards are rare (that goes for the men too!). As I said before, most of them are around my height - the men are stocky, but most the women seem to be long-legged and slim... (except for the pneumatic ones in the mauve minidresses in 'Cafe do Brasil' who are long-legged and ...errr... curvy). There is an occasional glimpse of some taller blond haired, blue eyed person but inevitably they turn out to be visiting Europeans or 'Americanos'. Having said that, there aren't really many tourists here - which is probably good cos the place isn't really geared up for it. I decided to send some REAL postcards but had a problem finding where to buy them! There are some historical throw-backs around though... the main street which runs east-west parallel to the Mapocho (I think this is Spanish for 'open sewer') river and forms the focal point of the city is called Alemeda Liberator Bernardo O'Higgins (catchy, huh?)...turns out that old Bernardo was of Irish/Chilean descent (illegitimate son of Ambrosio O'Higgins, it says here...) and a hero of the struggle for  independence. The biggest local bank is also called Banco O'Higgins... (not quite as funny (to me at least) as the very common 'Banco Concepcion' - turns out that Concepcion is actually a place - and there was I wondering why Chile had so many sperm banks!). Found a place last night where they were playing what purported to be 'Peruvian Jazz'... I don't think so... but it was a laugh anyway. Lots of people here drink a strange sort of shandy - Schop plus Orange Fanta... yuck! Also, despite the fame abroad of Chilean wine, I've seen very few people here drinking it - Pisco sours, Schop, and various wierd herbal teas are the order of the day. After many abortive attempts to get through by phone to BA and change my flight for an earlier one (we'll be finished here on Friday and my return flight was next wednesday) I actually went along to BA Chile and grovelled in person. Mucho waving of 'BA Executive Club' cards and my best charming English accent worked! I'm now set to fly out on Sunday morning... 17 hours with a short stop in Sao Paulo...(aren't you envious??) So I'll be back home around midday on Monday.. there's probably not time for any more 'e-cards' on this trip - I hope you've enjoyed reading these things as much as I've enjoyed writing them! More when I next hit the road... Cheers for now - D. P.S. - LATE FLASH - just turned on the TV to see on CNN film of demonstrations and riots in Santiago centro... today was a national holiday to celebrate the anniversary of Liberation Day - seems Pinochet (he's still around!) was saying the other week that the army could take over again if they wanted to - hence lots of Chileans taking to the streets... 'quiet, formal and reserved, huh?' ... another triumph for my acute powers of observation.. © Copyright Cooke-Shuttleworth Enterprises 2001