Mom and I had a fantastic dinner last night with the Chile Agfa people. Here a couple of pictures. The other pictures are from the outing mom had with the entire Strello family (except Maurcio). We're off to a cook out tonite with the whole crew! More to come........
Waiting for Christina to pick me up to go to the Pre-Colombian Art Museum. It´s collection of pre-Coklombian art rivals any in he world and I am looking forward to seeing it - Chileans are very proud of it and Jaime is looking forward to the excursion.
Lovely day for me yesterday with the whole Strello family at home. I met Pablo, Carolina and her husband Juan Caros. Also Pablo´s fiancee Pamela. All were very lovely. Pablo is an up and coming architect of Chile and he designs HOSPITALS of all things. He and his fiancee have a studio together that also does some residential design. She is an architect also.
Juan CaRLOS AND cAROLINA OPERATE A HOSTEL IN sANTIAGO AND i HOPE TO VISIT THERE TODAY. SORRY ABOUT THIS AWFUL switching back and froth on caps but - OOPS CHRISTINA IS HERE MUST GO BLOG LATWER
Hey All!
I´m blogging from the hospital. The project here is going well, some slow time this morning but all should be ok by the afternoon. Mom went off to church with Christina this morning after breakfast. Breakfast was way different for us today. My colleague Lucas took us to his favorite restaurant called ¨Mozart Cafe¨. It was more like a bakery than a restaurant, and served mostly sweets and sandwhiches. I had a roast beef sandwhich for breakfast while mom had a ham and cheese sandwhich. Lucas had his ususal which was a LARGE piece of some several layer cake. Coffee for me, was a cappicino belgium style, which meant, LOTS of heavy cream and a large amount of belgium chocolate. I´m certainly glad we won´t be dining there EVERY morning. Emma, you would LOVE it. Mozart stuff everywhere. I´m told the reason for the Mozart motiff is because Mozart was a chocoholic. Go figure!!
As mom said, the concert last nite was fabulous! I said, isn´t it wierd that we´ve come halfway around the world, to another continent and end up at a high school concert! Although it was nothing like any school concert we´ve ever been too. I´m bringing home a couple of cd´s that are bagpipe music. One is a cd of my friend Lucas´s band, and the other from the band we saw last nite , Celtic Dancer, although in Spanish it is completely different and I won´t even try to type it. I am going back to work now, pictures will follow later today-tonite! Oh, i´m working on changing our flight on friday from atlanta to dc. I´ll try to change it to Saturday. I´ll let you all know soon. If you want to try to call me, here is Lucas´s cell phone. 5699171159. I am usually with Lucas, but if you call and i´m not, he´ll get the message to me, and i´ll try to call you back.
Well, last night we had a very unique cross-cultural experience- Celtic music in Chile and all with a Spanish accent!
Dad´s friend Lucas is a bag pipe player and an enthusiastic one at that. He invited us to his lovely apartment for a pre-concert recital and showed us his bag pipes and played some for us. He says hehas he largest collecion of ba pipes in Chile and
After the meeting at his home we went to a concert at a local high school and had a two hour concert that was absolutely wonderful. First young people, teenagers of about 15 to 17 years played and hey rivaled any professional production of Riverdance that we have seen. FANTASTICO! Then a group of Lucas´ friends played and it was an hour of the most enthusiastic and rousin Celtic music you can imagine. Jaime was absolutely beside himself with delight and excitement! Rolando and
In the morning I went to the Fine Arts Museum and it was lovely. Christina and I had a great time and we have really become fast friends. The The English-Spanish thing is working well with me trying to speak in Spanish and her answering in English. She is a lovely woman and we have our families in common.
Must sign off now to go to breakfast with Lucas. Meeting Christina here at the hotel a 11:30 to go to church together. Blog later!
Another fabulous day. The Strellos are absolutely the PERFECTO hosts and have knocked themselves out to do everything for us to see Chile and know their family and culture.
Cristina has taken off from work for the entire time we are here to be with me and escort me wherever I want to go. She has also made some extraordinary arrangements for us. Yesterday she had a private "City Tour" arranged.
At 9:00 a.m. the tour guide, driver and interpreter came here to the hotel in a very comfortable small van to meet Cristina and me to take us on the tour. It was really wonderful! We got to see so much and with three people attending to our needs (really four people doting on me as Cristina is so very attentive) it was very "customized" as the interpreter said. I have never had so much attention - I really feel like visiting royalty!
The tour was great and really gave me a good look at several different "sectors" or "zonas" of the city. Commercial district, historical sites, University area, and we had plenty of opportunity to get out and walk, seeing the sights. I have pictures and post cards of the sights. We were standing nearby when the Vice President of Chile arrived at the government office building where the Executive Branch including President and First Lady have their offices and officially receive foreign visitors. That was impressive!
Children here are beautiful and they are all over the place on school outings. They are easily identified in their clumps of colorful school uniforms, notebooks in hand, chattering and active. Field trips are a very popular educational tool right now, according to our guide who was a chemistry teacher before his retirement into the tour business. Several times a week the children go on some sort of outing for their lessons.
The interpreter on our tour was actually a tour guide in training and he was a lovely young man. Speaks four languages and was formerly a cruise ship steward. He is making a career of the hospitality business and will be very successful, I am sure.
Chileans are incredible people. Naturally warm, polite and they love their country and want everyone to have a good experience here.
Today (Saturday) I am going to the art museum with Cristina and Dad is going to check on things at the hospital - just a quick visit there. I think his friend Lucas will take us this afternoon to a handcraft market. Tonight may be very exciting - Lucas is trying to arrange for us to go to a place that has authentic Chilean/Celtic music! It is quite complicated to explain but apparently the Irish have a strong history and influence in Chile and the Celtic culture has mixed in some interesting ways! If it works out we are hoping to take the Strellos along too.
Oh! One of the highlights so far - Jaime's oldest brother Mauricio joined us for dinner the other night. He is absolutely delightful (as you woul imagine, of course). His wife and son (remember nephew Andrew) are on a school trip in Brazil but will return in time for our family event on Sunday! All the Strellos together - I cannot wait to meet them all!!
Jaime and Christina have kept me at a steady trot since I got here.
Yesterday morning Christina picked me up and we went to the "megamercado" (supermarket). Very impressive and much nicer than anything in Winchester or even outer suburbs of DC. The fish department was FANTASTIC! I have never seen such fish anywhere much less a supermarket! Interesting to see the fish selected and then cleaned and filleted on the spot. A busy, busy counter of the store.
After the supermarket trip we went to Jaime's house and Jaime was up and ready to get going.
We went to La Chascona, the Santiago home of Pablo Neruda (the Poet of Chile). Fascinating house built like stair steps just outside the fence of the Santiago zoo. It was a wonderful tour but the tour guide was a bit impressed with himself and a bit condescending. When we first met him, Jaime nudged me and said quietly in my ear, "He's French, Mom", knowing that would explain everything. I had to chuckle - Jaime is such a character. As it turned out the guide was Chilean but Jaime insisted very seriously, "But he seemed like a French guy".
La Chascona does not have near the character of Neruda's other houses but it is the headquarters of the Foundation and actually has his medals and awards on display. I have never seen a real French Foreign Legion medal or a Lenin Peace Prize before - Jaime and I were both quite impressed to view such artifiacts in person.
La Chasconas is in the Bellavista district which is the Bohemian area of Santiago and utterly charming. We walked a bit in that area and shopped in some small lapis lazuli stores.
Meals are constantly being prepared here. We have a fabulous lunch every day at Jaime's house. It is a full course meal each time including white wine- no quick sandwiches here! Then at 5 or 6 p.m. we have "tea" time and it is another meal with sandwiches of several kinds, tea breads, jams, fruit (2 or 3 varieties) and cold cuts along with other stuff that I cannot even remember. Tea is the beverage for that meal.
Dinner is yet another full course meal complete with two kinds of wine, meat, fish, veggies, salad etc. It is served at 10:00 p.m. Then after dinner Christina serves after-dinner drinks - aperitifs.
I hope Dad and I can keep within airline flight weight limits for the trip home!!
More about today's tour later...
I'm back from my first day of work here. It's going to be a cake walk (try explaining THAT to a Chilean!). Mom is out with Jaime and his mother and I'll call them in a little bit. I wanted to get a couple of pictures up on the blog since it looks like you all are enjoying it! The pics are from the beach area that the Strellos visit. We walked down to the beach to take these shots. You can't imagine how beautiful this place is. As mom read in a book here about Chile......"Chile is not on the way to anywhere.........one must want to come here to get here......." it is so true, and to beautiful for words. The Agfa guy that I'm working with here plays the bagpipes!!! he has the largest collection of bagpipes in South America and has a Celtic band that he plays with. I'm bring his cd home too. We are going to try to put together a "jam" one night while i'm here. It should be a hoot! fiddles, russian guitar, bagpipes, tin whistle, and bass!! More to follow...
News From Browntown
Welcome to the blog, Jared!! Enjoy the trip report and have a good time in Thailand. You can post some pix of your trip too, if you want. It is great seeing where everybody is!
Beth
News from Browntown is ... we're not in Browntown anymore!!!
What a beautiful country! Today Rolando, Christina and Jaime took us to Valpraiso, a stunning city on the side of a cliff that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. It is a port city - the oldest city in Chile dating back to circa 1560. The architecture is spectacular, the mix of old and new, etc. Unfortunately I ran the camera battery down before we got there so.. no pix. Will find post cards, though.
We had lunch at an old, traditional type restaurant overlooking the harbor. Wide open windows, beautiful views, good sea food...fabulous.
We visited the home of Pablo Neruda (at my request), the most famous poet of Chile. He is a Pulitzer Prize winner, Nobel Prize winner, patron and colleague of Frida Kohla, Chilean diplomat and stateman. He is a fascinating personality and his three homes in Chile are historic and artistic attractions. The home in Valpraiso is fascinaing! Dad and I just loved it! Full of art, collections, interesting architectural stuff and specacular views of Valpraiso and the harbor. A breath-taking place.
We took a long route to Valpraiso in order to go through a coastal area where Jaime's family vacations. Two years ago they built a country home there and it is beautiful. Remember Jaime's brother Pablo who was studying architecture? He designed the home and it is a beautiful contemporary house with lots of light and spectacular views of mountains all around.
The light here in Chile is different - I cannot describe it but Jaime says maybe it is because the sun is at a different angle in this hemisphere - may be right. The air is also very clear and that contributes to the difference, maybe. We passed through beautiful countryside on the trip today and passed through a fertile, farming valley called Casablanca. It was so beautiful to see the terraced hillsides and the valley floor - all cultivated in wine vineyards, fruit orchards, etc.
One of the most striking things I noticed even on the trip in from the airport is the vegetation. It is so lush here and the flowers are beautiful for early spring. The actual climate seems to be somewhat like northen South Carolina here in Santiago. There are several varieties of palm trees that grow here as well as cactus. Also colorful, bright alpine-type flowers everywhere. Geraniums seem to grow wild - several varieties - and bigger than any I have ever seen. The city is filled with green, lush vegetation eveywhere.
Of all the sights though, the most truly awesome is the view of the Andes out our hotel window. I have never seen anything like it anywhere, even in the Alps. The view out our window is simply a sight of several snowy peaks that look like they have been drawn on the sky. Only snow, no darker section underneath or anything else - just a ghostly tracing of snow peaks in the sky.
The Strellos are absolutely wonderful as you all know. Jaime has not changed one little bit - he is exactly like he was when he was 17! I love that he is so much the same - a dear, sweet boy.
I am also learning Spanish - believe it or not!
So much to tell but not enough room or time here. Let the pix tell the rest of the story. Love you all!
Mom
Just in from dinner with Jaime and his parents. What a feast! It was great being with Rolando, Christina and of course Jaime. We're off to Valpariso tomorrow to see the coast and some historical points. Here are some more pics.
Ok, nap time is over! Time to see what's outside this hotel. Mom has decided she likes this place, because just a minute ago, a nice person knocked on the hotel room door and offered her chocolate! It's a little after 2pm and we're rested and waiting for Jaime to call. We'll hook up with the Strello's sometime today. In the meantime, here's another picture taken from the car ride from the airport to the hotel.
At Dulles, early on Monday. We are excited and can't wait to get going!
We enjoyed our layover in Atlanta. Last minute shopping and a great send off dinner prepared by Emma! thanks honey.
Our first look at Chile from the air! Wow, the mountains just rose up thru the clouds, beautiful! We'll have more pics later............I'm going to take a nap. Mom is going to give commentary of the street pictures she took.
Watch out Chile... here come Mom and Dad. We had a nice visit this afternoon while they had a long layover before the big flight tonight. Here they are relaxing at the house before they left for the airport. We are all anxious to see pictures of the trip and hear tales of Jaime!!! Be safe and have fun! 
There is a reception here in Atlanta on Froday for local Shepherd Alumni, that unfortuantely I wont be able to get to, due to work. I spoke with Dr. Robert Holmes today, who is the organizer, and it turns out he wantsme to join him as well as David Dunlop, the Shepherd University President for a beverage on Friday around 9, when get off work to discuss trying to get an Alumni chapter off the ground. I was surprised to hear from him, but it may be kind of cool to get some Shepherd folks rounded up here in Atlanta every so often. Dr. Holmes tells me the University has a list of about 30 or so people who are here in the area, so if people want to d it, it could be a decent size group, who knows. Dr. Holmes actually sounds liks a pretty cool guy, he was a Georgia State senator, and was the director of the Southern Center For Studies Of Public Policy at Clark-Atlanta University. Anyway, should be kind of interesting, I'll keep an update on here after we meet...
News From Browntown
The news from Browntown is that we have more eggplant! Four are ripening now and will be gone by the time we get back from Chile. Grammy will have eggplant Parmagiana coming out of her ears! They are beautiful growing things - really a lovely vegetable.
I think October will be "Hoop House" month. I will get started on laying the groundwork for the greenhouse and then be ready to put it together in early Spring. Just in time to give the tomatoes, eggplant, herbs and squash a head start. It is going to be out back between the pool garden and our garage. Just beyond where the basketball net used to be.
I had to take my first "proctored writing assignment" last night since I am going to be gone when the rest of the class has it. I had to write a 750 word essay describing a process so I wrote about how to construct a hoop house and about the value to gardeners. It was way more nerve wracking than I thought it would be!
Got an e-mail from Rolando. They are such lovely people and I cannot wait to see them!
I just noticed that if you click on the "pencil" icon down in the corner, you can post directly to the Blog and NOT just a comment. That way you can see your post without having to open up the "comment" thing.
You can even make the text different colors! Pretty cool, huh?
Well, Highland 5 is now complete, we are no longer 4. As of Sunday, our new oboist is Brendon Bushman. He is going to join us for our rehearsal on Sunday, and we are really going to do some serious planning for the group. Nicole is going to be working on our website, so check for updates www.highland5.org. We are going to do a photo shoot and record some audio clips so that she has something to work with. We are all big fans of Imani Winds (www.imaniwinds.com), we really like their look and their music. Check out the website, it's very cool. Check this piece out, it is awesome, we hope to play it in the future: http://www.zephyrosquintet.com/ZQ%20sound%20samples/SchifrinSample.MP3
It is called "La Nouvelle Orleans" (we wanted to do it long before Katrina), it's by Lalo Schifrin, the guy that scored Dirty Harry and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Here is the itenerary for our trip to Chile:
Carrier Flt# From To Depart Arrive
Delta 855 Dulles Atlanta 08:40am 10:28am
Delta 147 Atlanta Santiago 10:10pm 07:30am
Coming Home:
Delta 146 Santiago Atlanta 08:35pm 06:25am
Delta 544 Atlanta Dulles 09:07am 10:46am
NOTE: all times are EST. Santiago, Chile is on the same time zone as the Eastern USA. Mom and I will check in via the BLOG while we're gone.sts. The wonderful anniversary gifr (camera) will be put to good use. Look for updates and pictures while we are away!! *Note: As of now, we won't' have Cell Phone access. I'm working on that. Until then, the hotel phone number is: 1-800-811-8829 I will confirm this number when we arrive at the hotel.
dad
News From Browntown
The news from Browntown is that we talked to Jaime on the phone!!! Our Chilean family member has checked in! He sounded great - the same as when he was a high school kid actually. We cannot wait to see him and his family. I am excited about the trip now that we have spoken to him and it is getting close to departure. We asked what he wanted us to bring and the first thing he said without hesitation was PEANUT BUTTER!
I was asking Dad about the possibility of getting some sort of hook up where we could call you all and have some kind of video thing and talk all at the same time while we are there. He said we have to have web cams or video cameras or something. Win, is that possible??
I am going to try to get around town sometime this week to take some pictures of things that Jaime might remember like the High School, soccer field (Emma's suggestion), Union Hall (site of the old United Way office where I worked when Jaime was here - seems like a long time ago), Main Street, etc. Any suggestions for scenes he might be interested in seeing?
We will load the pix onto Dad's laptop and then sort through them and make a CD while we are on the plane. A good activity to keep us occupied during an EIGHT HOUR flight!
In case any of you are interested in what the Agfa training room looks like in New Jersey, here it is! Back in the day, I had a hand in designing this room. The computer stations you see all have 3 monitors, with a total of 2 stations (6 monitors) on each desk. If you really want to know why there are 3 monitors per station, I'll be happy to tell you. I'm pretty sure you don't want to know :) The people in the picture are colleagues (Note to Andrew & Emma: The lady with blonde hair lives in Atlanta, a couple of doors down from Michael Robey). Anyway, I just thought you might be interested in seeing where I work from time to time.
dad
Well, Highland 5 auditioned our last oboist tonight, and we are in a quandry. We have narrowed it down to two choices, both seem to be very good choices. Now we are struggling to decide between the two. I hate turning somebody so good away, but we can only use one of them. ??? We are all at a loss. What a situation to be in!
The news from Browntown is that all is quiet. I sure wish I had some people around to give me tech support though! I have put off submitting my assignment for two days now because I am afraid I will do the submitting part wrong. Guess I better suck it up and DO IT. "After all", I keep telling myself, "the computer won't eat it" - "ha!" I answer my self, "could happen".
Mom
Well I just got off a conference call with the Governor's office, and it looks like a real possibility that we'll have 132 refugees here at the 4-H Center in the next few days. They're being transported from Houston to Fort Pickett, where they'll stay temporarily and get oriented as far as unemployment, etc. From there, the 4-H Centers in Front Royal & Smith Mt. Lake as well as us will begin taking them in, possibly for up to six months or more. I'll know more tomorrow, keep you all posted.
Press release about what Virginia is doing:
Press release
So i got home from work tonight and decided i wasnt going to stay glued to the television like I have for 10 hours a day this entire week. Emmalee and I hit up the Mac for a cerveza and some chips and salsa....avoided the topic altogether actually, and it was nice. I was also forced to watch some horrendous movie tonight too, which helped with the whole "not watching the news" thing. I did however tune in to the tvnewser blog, as I always do, and Geraldo is an absolute embarassment to television news, to say the least. It's been a long week, and people at work are getting pretty testy and short tempered, as is understandable....so Im going to spend my saturday cleaning my room, maybe fiddling with my harmonica some more. Im tuning it out some more, but I guess on some level it's pretending like it didnt happen, who knows....Anyway, thats just my thoughts, and with all that said, Id go down there in a heartbeat if work would let me. Oh well, that's the way it goes....Good work Winner, opening the doors to the Center-So if anyone hears any news, let me know. Im surely going to try and stay away from the tv this weekend. Although I dont know, I have a tendency to slip back into it.......
News From Browntown
News from Browntown is that all is quiet here in paradise where we are always surrounded by "higher ground", rich people, poor people and all people in between live side by side in relative peace, THE (one and only) "trailer park" is a quiet, serene place in the shadow of the most beautiful place on earth - The Shenandoah National Park - and everyone who lives here has the luxury of some measure of self-determination.
Grammy reports she has spent a lot of time on her knees these past few days and I guess I may be taking up that same practice on a more regular basis from now on.
So today is the opening day of the great 4-H Center/Washington County Farm Park Corn Maze. It's been quite an ordeal getting it together, and while I would normally call it a disaster, I don't think it's the right time to be throwing that term around lightly.
This morning, Sam and I were talking about the maze and what's been going on, and both of us said that it's been difficult to see what's going on in NO and still have any concern for what we're doing here...there's just too much of a disconnect between what we see and hear on the news and what we're actually experiencing here. It's hard to feel any concern or urgency for anything else right now. As a result...I think we're going to offer all the beds and living space in our camp cabins as shelter for refugees. The offer has been made to the local emergency personnel, if anything comes of it I'm certain we can rally support for food & volunteer work (for preparing & serving, etc.) from the local community. If we can provide the space, I think there are people who will provide manpower and consumable resources. I'll keep you all updated on how that goes.
Edited to add: RL Burnside died today. Not hurricane related, but still sad. Another blues legend gone.
News From Browntown
Well, today's news from Browntown features our little BP station on Royal Avenue that is run by the Indian people. The front page of the NVD has a story entitled, (can you believe this??), "Terror at the Pump"!! Not too dramatic or over-stated, 'ya think?! Quite a story about how a Clatterbuck woman had to pay "a gut-wrenching [yeah, they actually used that term in a story about high gas prices] $2.919 per gallon for the pricier" gasoline. Maybe somebody needs a reality check about real hardship - just a minute or two viewing CNN during the past few days should do the trick. I love Dennis Lynch's growling comment about the NVD notion of news...". The NVD wouldn't know news if it bit 'em in the a--".
Anyway, gas is up to $3.11 at the 7-11 at the bridges and in Browntown we have a full truck, a full Lincoln (old school model/big tank), a full Jeep Grand Cherokee, two partially full mowers, and two full gas cans. Plus there is some gas in the tractor although I don't know how much. ALL THAT GAS TO MAINTAIN THREE PEOPLE!!! No wonder the rest of the world thinks we are all crazy here - I'm beginning to wonder myself!
News From Browntown
Had a great dinner with Dennis (Elizabeth's friend) she didn't show up, but we had a good time anyway. Training is going well here in NJ and I'll be headinghome on Friday morning. Fortunately I topped off my tank on Monday evening and haven't had to drive much since then although I'm sure I'll suffer "sticker shock" when I drive home on Friday. I'll post more when I get home. Meantime, congrats to Win on finalizing his job. I'm glad thats over with! Be well all.............see you soon!
Nice pics Winner, looks like the staff was into it...And yes, Kelsey is wearing some rather foo foo shoes, like yourself. How about these gas prices, huh? So tonight, before I crash out, I decided to go out and get some gas. First try, place was out of gas. Second try, plce was out of gas. Finally, the third try, gas for 2.99 a gallon. But it got worse, because the jack-o-tron behind the counter tells me "Sorry, only premium" SHOCKER, I CAN ONLY GET THE MOST EXPENSIVE STUFF THERE IS....So I spent 15 bucks, got a quarter of a tank. Good times. I put my two cents in. "How does it feel?"" I say. "How does what feel?" he says. "How does it feel gouging the living daylights out of people and causing widespread panic (bada bing Win) all over the place. So I had to get my two cents in. Anyway, thats my rant before I go to bed. Rack em.......Im out.
Whew! Finally home from a grant-writing party. I have been working all day on a grant to fund training for NGOs in Kenya on program management for more efficient HIV/AIDS treatment. My team is great, lots of experience in grantwriting and Africa specifically. Making great contacts! There are several parallels here with LOEP, the in-country and follow up training, sustainable train-the-trainor, etc... It's a federal grant we are writing, asking the CDC for money. Mom, how come we haven't looked at federal funding? There are BILLIONS of dollars out there!
I'm pooped, and going to bed. Back in class tomorrow, but we get out at 6:00. Then I'm going to volunteer in the Call Center at work...
Night all!
