Got to find a home ...

A glorious day in Pelluco, and a fine view from the window of Teresita's dining room:  yellow azaleas at the wall of her house, a gallery of rhododendrons and a snowball tree (copas de nieve), a whole park full of trees reaching down to the coastal road, the towers are apartment buildings in Pelluco, and the cityscape in the far distance is Puerto Montt.  Tere served us a quiche-like spinach pancake cut into appetizer sections (spinach from her own invernadero.  She also served a delicious ceviche made with salmon and vegetables, with her muy especiale mixed berry compote for dessert.

When she visited us in Bellingham this past summer, Tere had a good time washing, chopping, and cooking vegetables from our garden and greenhouse (invernadero) in between sessions of practicing her English.

Now, we do our best to converse in Español with our elegant hostess.  

She would love to have us move in with her right now, but we'll wait till January when one of her two rentals will become available.  In the meantime, we're staying at the Hostal de Los Navegantes, across the road from the marina, where we have a room with private bath, breakfast served downstairs, wifi, and a very nice fire in the stove on days like today, when the spring storms roll in one after the other and the rain showers alternate with hail showers outside.  I like the warmth and openness of the upstairs lounge, here, where I have the big table all to myself for writing and reading.  Don Pedro, the owner here, has an apartment in town he is almost ready to rent to us.  Not as high-toned a neighborhood as we had last year, and not as close to Centro, either, but we'll get to learn a whole new set of buses and collectivos, as well as a different group of vecinos.  The apartment we had last year is available once again, but there has been a 25% hike in the rent.  Don Pedro's place, with all utilities included, rents for what we paid last year.  Is it a 25% less attractive spot?  I guess it all evens out.  Maybe we can move in by Tuesday.  He's been retiling the bathroom, repainting, etc.  He's told us if there's anything missing as far as furniture or dishes, all we need to do is let him know and he will provide.

Richard is off in Puerto Varas today for lunch with the ROMEOs.  Did I tell you about them last year?  An adjunct to the ladies' English-Speaking Book Club, the Retired Old Men Eating Out might bring Richard into contact with someone who will know someone who will want to buy the boat.  If nothing else, he'll have a fine time talking economics, politics and etc with men from Oregon, Scotland, New York, and I don't know where all else.

I attended the ladies' book club meeting this past Tuesday, tho it had been transformed into a baby shower for the newest member, due to give birth next week.  I brought the books they'd requested from the States:  The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window & Disappeared, by Jonas Jonasson; and The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais.  I also brought two copies of The Women, by TC Boyle, even tho I hadn't read it yet myself.  Now that I've almost finished that one, I'll prepare a recommendation of it for the club.  The novel is about Frank Lloyd Wright's various wives and mistresses from the point of view of a Japanese architectural apprentice who lives and studies with Wright for nine years in the Thirties. "The stress and challenge of living with a genius ..." 

Before I leave you, let me add this little story:   

Soon after Richard and I got home to Bellingham this past spring, I met my friend, Dianne M, downtown for a pleasant reunion over Mayan Coffees at the Adaggio Café. In answer to one of her probing questions, I babbled about the ardent wave of love for my home I’d felt on re-entering my front door, stepping back into my own living room after having been away in Chile for almost six months.  The warm colors and cozy textures, shelves full of books, art on the walls, the carpet, the couch, the lamps and rocking chairs  … all so comfortingly familiar!  I hadn’t missed any of these things consciously, and that rush of happiness at being back amidst these objects and articles surprised me. 

Dianne had been rereading  The Wind in the Willows, probably preparing to share it with her grand-daughter one day soon.  Surprised that I’d never read it, she told me that “The warm sense of home” is beautifully drawn in this storybook.  Curiousity about what that is, that sense of home, and respect for my friend’s recommendation, soon led me to a delightful read.  And The Wind in the Willows brought me another sweet wave of surprise:  Mr. Rat, Mr. Badger, Mr. Mole and Mr. Toad deliver in their very different ways the spirit of deep satisfaction they enjoy in their homes.  But it was the migratory birds that best described my own feelings of connection with home!  You can read the whole story on line at www.gutenberg.org … but here’s a bit from Chapter 9 to show you what I mean. 

                                                                                       

Mr. Rat is feeling restless towards the end of summer.  He notices there are fewer and fewer birds in the neighborhood.  While walking his usual rounds one day, he spies three sparrows, talking together and “fidgeting restlessly on their bough.”

“'What, ALREADY,' said the Rat, strolling up to them. 'What's the hurry? I call it simply ridiculous.'

“'O, we're not off yet, if that's what you mean,' replied the first swallow. 'We're only making plans and arranging things. Talking it over, you know—what route we're taking this year, and where we'll stop, and so on. That's half the fun!'

“'Fun?' said the Rat; 'now that's just what I don't understand. If you've GOT to leave this pleasant place, and your friends who will miss you, and your snug homes that you've just settled into, why, when the hour strikes I've no doubt you'll go bravely, and face all the trouble and discomfort and change and newness, and make believe that you're not very unhappy. But to want to talk about it, or even think about it, till you really need——'

“'No, you don't understand, naturally,' said the second swallow. 'First, we feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest; then back come the recollections one by one, like homing pigeons. They flutter through our dreams at night, they fly with us in our wheelings and circlings by day. We hunger to inquire of each other, to compare notes and assure ourselves that it was all really true, as one by one the scents and sounds and names of long-forgotten places come gradually back and beckon to us.' …

“'Ah, yes, the call of the South!' twittered the other two dreamily. 'Its songs its hues, its radiant air!’ and, forgetting the Rat, they slid into passionate reminiscence …

“'Why do you ever come back, then, at all?' he demanded of the swallows jealously. 'What do you find to attract you in this poor drab little country?'

“'And do you think,' said the first swallow, 'that the other call is not for us too, in its due season? The call of lush meadow-grass, wet orchards, warm, insect-haunted ponds, of browsing cattle, of haymaking, and all the farm-buildings clustering round the House of the perfect Eaves?'

“'Do you suppose,' asked the second one, that you are the only living thing that craves with a hungry longing to hear the cuckoo's note again?'

“'In due time,' said the third, 'we shall be home-sick once more for quiet water-lilies swaying on the surface of an English stream. But to-day all that seems pale and thin and very far away. Just now our blood dances to other music.'”

Now, ain't that a fine depiction of the migratory spirit! 

May all your homes be blessed with the wheelings and circlings of sweet memories.

The Autumnal Migration: Smooth, Tho Exhaustipating

Challenges here, challenges there ... It's a good thing we're both patient, persistent, and resilient.  Last week I captured photos of my yard in Bellingham, where Richard had been working hard to get all the garden beds put to sleep for the winter.  Now, can I load one of those photos to this blog?  No!  Something has changed ... the photo link doesn't give me access to the photos on my Ipad anymore.  Google wants me to go thru Picasso?  Sheesh!

Tuesday morning, while checking thru the Canadian border crossing on our way to the airport in Vancouver BC, the customs agent asked me to tell him what had happened in New Orleans in 1975.  OMG!  I had no idea that raggedy old business might show up ... those charges were supposed to have been "expunged from the record."  Maybe that particular customs agent enjoyed flustering me.

And then there's the migratory flight itself.  Ours began on a beautiful new 737 that carried us over the Cascade Mountains and the Wind River Range and south over Pueblo, Colorado to Texas and a smooth landing at Dallas-Ft. Worth.  We had a brisk walk around the loop of E-Gates, and then a glass of wine at Pizza-Vino, where our waiter used my Ipad to take a photo of us.  (I'd post that photo here, if I could.  I tried to start this blog entry from that restaurant, in fact, but Google seemed concerned about security and I couldn't get in.)
The flight from Dallas to Santiago de Chile boarded at 9:00 pm.  An old plane ... none of those wonderful video screens at each seat, with nearly endless choices of movies or games, etc.  But the crew eventually served us tortellini and wine, and the overhead-mounted tv screens delivered Angelina Jolie as Maleficent.  By the time they started the movie over again, a little after midnight, we'd discovered that we could hear it in English on channel 11.  Then ensued some long dark hours of hip and spine and shoulder pain as we bent and stretched and tried to sleep.  But HEY!  Think of how the birds must feel after using their OWN wings to fly all those miles.  I guess we had it easy.
After a few hours wait in the domestic terminal at Santiago, we flew on down to Puerto Montt, where our lovely friend, Teresita, met us and drove us to the Hostal de Los Navegantes, near Marina Reloncavi.  ( Imagine a photo of Tere, here )

Abrazo floats peacefully at the dock ... and the Hostal's bed was warm and comfy.  At breakfast this morning we met a couple from Seattle who have also just returned to their boat here.  Their boat is on the hard, so they'll be polishing up the fiberglass and arranging to have her put back into the water with plans to sail south to the Beagle Channel and Cape Horn.  We'll be polishing up the For Sale sign, and getting Abrazo's galley operating, while we look for an apartment or a house to live in.

Soon I will study the new photo protocols; maybe my next entry here will be more colorful.  It was great to be "at home" in Bellingham this past summer, but you know ... I'm happy to be back "home" to the warming spring season here in Puerto Montt, now that the transition trip is done.

You have transitions of varying shapes and sizes every day, no doubt.  We wish you smooth shifting and plenty of endurance!

Tender Torteloni in Capitan Pastene

Sunday, the 19th of January, Richard was enjoying his usual Skype call with Brother Bob, when Bob mentioned a travelogue about Chile's Lake District that had captured his attention.  A certain town in the hills, founded by colonists from Italy.  Hundreds of prosciutto hams hanging from a ceiling; long tables where Italian-speaking women rolled pasta strips, dotted them with filling and cut raviolis and tortelinis.  Bob had not held on to the NAME of this special town, but Richard was able to find it on the internet:  Capitan Pastene.  We had to go!  Over the next few days, R searched the net for maps, hotels, etc.  We decided to go on Monday, the 27th.  So on Saturday, the 25th, we hiked downtown to buy our bus tickets.  From the Costanera we could see 77 sailboats milling around in the bay, awaiting the starting gun.  This bi-annual Regatta is five days of races, with parties at the stopping points in between, south to the island of Chiloe.  The fastest boat are the Soto 40s, with their 10-12 person crews and their carbon-fiber sails.  

Buses Jac has a five hour ride north on Ruta Cinco to Temuco, for $14 a piece.  We'd rent a car there and drive almost 2 hours thru the hills to Capitan Pastene.  To get there before the lunch service closed, we bought tickets for the 7 a.m. bus.  Sheesh, I hadn't been up that early in months! We were excited to get out of town, though, and as it turns out, my Ipad has a delightful alarm clock. 

Comfy seats, especially when the air-conditioning works.

Beautiful landscape viewed from the car ... lots of golden straw ready for baling, huge John Deere and New Holland combines and balers working ... in some fields the grain stubble is disked ... trees embroider the drainages ... very pretty territory.

We drove west, but could look back to the east where the volcanoes rise.

Made it to L'Emiliano Restaurant right around 3 pm. Genny, the owner, came out to greet us as we parked, and her son, Patricio, the manager, welcomed us in English and made us comfortable at a table on the outside porch.  First the wine, with an antipasto tabla of prosciutto, copa, and local cheese.  Then Torteloni stuffed w spinach & walnuts, in Alfredo sauce, and Gnocchi dressed with Pesto. (Go to L'Emiliano Restaurant for a great tour.)  We finished with espresso and limoncello.  In bliss.

The only info Richard had found about staying in Capitan Pastene was very expensive, so he'd booked us a room at a place in Los Angeles:  El Rincon.  As it turned out, this wonderful hostal is some 10 miles north of Los Angeles.  We chose to take the scenic route up thru Angol and Coihue, and what with pot holes, traffic jams, and a lot of really slow logging trucks, it took us almost three hours to get there.  Vale la pena, sin duda.  Roland and Wendy welcomed us to their green oasis, where clusters of grapes hang from the pergola and burbling waters flow in hand-dug channels throughout the grounds.  They've sailed all over the world in every kind of boat, and promised to connect us to a broker in the British Virgin islands.  They'd never heard of Capitan Pastene, but we made them salivate with our stories.  And after the quietest night's sleep since we left Bellingham, we decided it WOULD be smart to keep our reservation for a second night despite the long drive.   

In the morning after breakfast, we walked the paths outside the hostal's cabins out to the river, across a channel to the huge vegetable garden, greenhouse, and berry patch that provides the basics for El Rincon's cuisine, and up the dirt driveway a stretch, just for exercise.  We told our hosts we would not sign up for dinner with them, since we intended to eat our fill in CP again.  They asked us to buy them a stock of prosciutto and copa, and maybe a pan of fresh pasta if possible!

Don Primo's is famous for his prosciutto, which we found to be indeed delicious.  His pasta was not as special as what we'd had the day before, however.  Just not as tender as at L'Emiliana.  (We went back to Patricio to buy a take-home for Wendy & Roland.)

At Don Primo's, however, I really liked the sign about a smile changing the world.  And our waitress, Marivella, was generous with her own pretty smiles.
Once stuffed again, we strolled around town snapping pictures.  There are large investments being made in new construction, improvements to the town plaza, widening of roads, refacing of sidewalks.  One side of town has recently bulged with a new burb in that awful-looking form we are seeing in many places here:  small identical boxes packed together on a flat spot.

Some still resist the trends.

Montecorone has great gelato.  We had such fun talking with Mabel, who owns the place, that we bought souvenirs and more prosciutto here, too.  Will have to go back another time to try her pasta, or pizza, or other treats.  

Before driving back to Ruta Cinco, thru forested hills and golden fields we learned that there are some normally-priced accommodations in this wonderful town.  Mabel will let us know the dates for the next Prosciutto Festival, and we'll make our way here again to stay a few days. 

Our last night at El Rincon was another pleasure.  Wendy & Roland have invited us to consider taking over for them sometime while they take a couple weeks' vacation to include Capitan Pastene themselves.    

¡Bandera Chilena!

Abrazo flies the Chilean flag at last: 

Richard took down the US flag, and then moved the Chilean flag from the "guest" position to its new place on the boat.  

The Chilean Customs bureaucracy has officially accepted the valuation of Abrazo as calculated by the tasador from a certain prestigious empressa out of Viña de Mar.  We’re specifically grateful to the tasador, himself, a young man whose Chilean ancestry traces back to the northern Italian area of Milan/Lago Maggiore from whence Richard himself descends.  This appraiser admired Abrazo immensely, inspected her thoroughly, required scans of her original plans, took the book I wrote about her construction in Bellingham, as well as the For Sale flyer (posted in an earlier blog), and also understood that R was going to have to pay a tax of 20+% of the boat’s official value.  We’re grateful to the Agente de Aduana, Sr. Arturo Bello, for his shepherding of the flock of papers through the Customs process.  He charged plenty, si.  Valió la pena, esperamos.

Several bankers played their parts faithfully as the thousands of US dollars were transferred across the country to New York City, and thence over the wires into the Chilean system.  Richard has complied with every request made by his chosen bank here in Puerto Montt, but they are not quite ready to let him have a checking account yet.  So when the money came in from the US, he had to take it en efectivo, cash ... and the largest bills available were 10,000 peso notes.  There must be a better way than taking a six-inch deep stack of paper pesos from one bank and having to carry it four blocks to the bank where the Agente de Aduana has HIS account … but that’s what we did.  I went along as bodyguard.  All's well.    

So, now:  Richard will adjust the sales price to reflect the fact that a buyer will NOT have to pay the 20% IVA.  The dollar is highly valued down here right now, around 540 pesos per.  Pricing is the new challenge.  Right around $56,000 US is the target, I believe.   

But it's not all work.  We had a wonderful time last weekend at a gorgeous performance of Mozart’s opera, The Magic Flute, La Flauta Magica.  

Neither of us knew anything about this work, but our Pennsylvania amiga, Nancy, has infected us with her enthusiasm for the opera, so we jumped at the chance to experience this music in the “world class” Teatro Del Lago in Frutillar.  You can't just call in your credit card number to reserve seats here.  You must call to reserve tentatively, then look for the email from the theater giving you their bank account info.  You email the theater when you've made the deposit, and they ask you to send a photo of the receipt!  Then you've got reservations.  What a system.  

Main floor ... we arrived early.  

 The pic I took of Richard in his balcony seat did not turn out well, but here he is, outside the theater, dressed for the opera.

We enjoyed the sopranos immensely, and the great bass voice of Sarastro impressed us.  It took me a week, after the performance, to read the program and understand the story, finally.  I just loved the way the two young men, Prince Tamino and the bird-hunter, Papageno, each followed his own path to success:  one by the righteous road, supervised by the wise old men, and passing thru hard trials, tests of character; and the other by the natural, winding, happy path of instinct, holding to pursuit of pleasure above all things!


Ah, there's more to tell of that trip to Frutillar:  a delicious lunch at the Lavender Casa de Té, where Kristina, the owner gave us a walking tour thru her blueberry grove and then up into the horse pasture to meet the studs and geldings and enjoy the view of hayfields, woodlots, acres of lavender a-buzz with honey bees, and the beautiful lake, Llanquihue, sparkling across to the volcanoes.
We stayed in a great farmhouse built by German colonists more than a hundred years ago, far on the other side of town from the theater.  Our transportation funds mostly went to a young man named Javier, who delivered us back and forth 3 of the 4 trips.  He brought his wife and two small sons along on Friday night when he met us outside the opera house for the 6 km drive along the lake shore, under the full moon, to our lodging.  And I'm sure he was sorry to hear that our last ride with him the next day was to the bus terminal so we could get back to Puerto Montt.

Next adventure, well, besides selling the boat, is north on Ruta Cinco for about 5 hours on the bus to Temuco, where Richard will rent a car.  We want to go to the tiny town of Capitan Pastene.  Brother Bob saw a PBS documentary about this town and told us about it last week.  The colonists who started the town in 1904 came from Modena, Italy and have made themselves famous for their Italian cuisine in the mountains of Chile's south-central region.  We hope to feast on prosciutto and pasta.  Then we'll get down to the business of marketing Abrazo.

  

 

¡Atropellada! in Frutillar

El Museo Aleman (the German Museum) in Frutillar inspired all kinds of sense memories for both Richard and me, including some from past lifetimes, I think.  

What a fine way to lay out a display!  The millhouse with its waterwheel sits well above the entrance gardens, yet far below the family farmhouse at the top of the hill. A spring house up there, outside the family home, where Mama kept her butter and her cottage cheese for cooling, marks the place where the water starts, in a stream that falls downhill thru green channels and rocky patches till it's channeled into a wooden chute to turn the water wheel. 

No está functionado ahora.   But the various millstones that used to grind the grains lay about.  Coarse meal, fine flour ... the miller could do it all.  

In the Perkiomen River Valley, where I grew up, at least three mills once worked the waters near my home.  Leidy's, Clemmer's, and Pennypacker's water wheels had ceased to function by the 1950's, but their names and their powers continued into modern commerce.  

Richard, born with a mechanical turn of mind, to a father who built dams for hydropower in the great Northwest, saw the power of the turning wheel clearly enough to recognize that this contraption was a lathe:  

No doubt the lathe was used to turn the banisters for the stairways inside the family home ... and what else, we wonder? 

On the way up the trail to the main house, we had a sweet view of the eucalyptus trees on the border of the museum property. These trees always connect us to Richard's Auntie Marian, whose home in Los Gatos, CA was surrounded by them.  

The eucalyptus also links us to our first visit to Chile in 2005 when we learned that Isidora Goyenechea de Cousiño introduced the tree to Chile because she'd discovered that its wood was really good for bracing the coal-mining tunnels in Lota.  Eucalyptus beams gives off a loud creak when moved or strained ... an appropriate alarm method in Lota's underground mining shafts that go for almost a mile below the ocean floor.   

Inside the Casona, many warm interior scenes of family life are easy to imagine.  The kitchen, for instance:  

Is that a bread-slicing device on the counter at far right?  I like the cast iron waffle iron on the table.  We had one of those on our boat, for cooking waffles atop the wood stove.  

I love the clean and sunny look of the "bath room" ... .  Can't help wondering, now that I think of it:  How did they get the used water OUT of those tubs?  With bailing buckets?  Throw the water out the window?  

Each room has special features; each has fine views from the windows.  I would love to have stepped into the nursery to have a better look at that castle/doll house!  

The view from the porch at the back of the house, face to face with Volcan Osorno across the lake. 

 Hedged gardens adorn the lower acres, with a blacksmith’s house and a barnful of ancient farm equipment on either side of the winding creek.  One more photo:  I'm only standing there for scale, so you can appreciate how big that agave plant is.  

Our tour thru the German Museum came at the end of our day in Frutillar.   

We'd enjoyed a delicious lunch of smoked salmon salad, and pork tenderloin with sauteed veggies at the Bistro in the Teatro del Lago ... where we made plans to return mid-month for Mozart's La Flauta Magica. 
In the shade of a huge tree on the lakeside, we enjoyed a free performance by the youthful orchestra from the town of Mellipuhue.  They warmed up with a circus theme from Strauss, and then enchanted us with their version of  El Pantero Rosado by Henry Mancini.

And now for the title story:  ¡Atropellada!  

When we first arrived in Frutillar, by bus from Puerto Montt - about an hour's ride - we walked a long ways around the lake, beyond where the sidewalk ends.  Richard wanted to see the marina, where 12 or so boats were moored, including three J-24's, the kind his buddy Carlos likes so well.  We had a good time talking about what it might be like to live in this lovely town on the very pretty lake, Llanquihue.  What might lake sailing be like?  

On the walk back towards the main attractions of Frutillar, we crossed the road at one point because maybe there was a little more of a grassy shoulder on that side.  I'm sure I MUST HAVE SEEN that broad, big, dark green road sign up ahead.  Maybe my mind registered:  big road sign - must be high enough for a normal woman to clear, walking underneath?  Or, maybe my mind was too much focused on watching the narrow, uneven ground.  Maybe the sun would have been in my eyes if I'd been looking up.  Maybe my sunglasses were smeared with sweat that blinded me.  Whatever!

I was marching along behind Richard, eyes on the ground, head tilted down, when that road sign, a billBOARD, knocked me down.  Crack went my skull against the sharp aluminum edge at the bottom of the sign, and down I went on my butt and left elbow.  What a shock!  And even more shocking:  the hot blood dripping and then flowing down the left side of my face!  Richard was very kind.  He sloshed water from his private stash, fished in my pack for the packet of kleenex I always carry, and swabbed my head wound - an inch wide gash at center scalp, two inches above my hairline.  He had me hold a wad of kleenex on the torn spot, while he dabbed away the blood on my face and hands, and even flooded the bloody spots out of my blouse while I recovered equilibrium.  Never a word of ridicule about not watching where I was going.  In fact, he tried to take the blame.

All's well.  Good to have these humbling incidents now and then, as long as we survive them, right?  

May your own focus on where you put your feet never distract you from what might whack your head!  

Mortars, Luck, Lentils & Loros

2014! 

                          

Imaginations firing in full color at the turn of midnight from the Old to the New Year, Richard and I lay abed, eyes closed.  We'd been awakened by the mortars of Puerto Montt exploding their first loads of los fuegos artificiales out over the bay.  Shouts of approval rose from the gente outside our building, cries of delight emanated from the balconies and windows above & below us – still we did not get up to look out the windows.  For twenty minutes, ¡muy forte! the blasts continued. I’m sure it was a glorious display.  The next day's newspaper confirmed what my mind had fully enjoyed.  

What a miracle that the cold rain that had been threatening since late afternoon did not begin to pound the town till three minutes after the last blast! 

Surely that’s a sign of luck for 2014. 

Forgive me:  I did not know that it was NOT good luck to say Felice Año Nuevo before midnight.  When I returned from the Jumbo with my last minute groceries on Tuesday afternoon, and wished the conserje who let me into the building a Happy New Year, he wagged his index finger at me and said “No, no, no.  A las doce, o a la manyaña!” 

Whoops!  ¡Por favor, disculpa me! 

That bad luck error probably caused whatever cold germs I'd exposed myself to at the grocery store to develop into the sore throat and sniffles that have plagued my 2014 so far.  Life is better today, now that I’ve been BACK to the Jumbo for some real Kleenex, and don’t have to blow my nose in rough paper towels. 

It’s all relative, right?   And there are different kinds of luck.  We had lentils for dinner on New Years Day, and thanks to a Skype chat with Cousin Davide of Ternate, Italy, we know that's a recipe for economic fortune in the New Year.

Our friend G came up to our place for dinner and conversation on NYE, and Richard's excellent risotto satisfied us well.  I'd neglected to take my lemons out of the freezer ahead of time, thinking I could simply grate the frozen fruit for the pisco sours G wanted to make.  (Have you seen that Facebook post about using the WHOLE lemon to get full benefit of its amazing vitamin power?)  We didn't give the grated lemon a fair chance, in my opinion, and ended up thawing the darn lemons till we could juice them, by which time it was really too late for pisco sours!  Who knew G was such a traditionalist?

Speaking of tradition:  the week before Christmas we'd walked to the plaza and captured this view of Puerto Montt's manger scene, all carved from wood.
 Something's missing, though.

Our Christmas Day entertainment was most enjoyable.  Chris and Margi of Hobart, Australia, left their cozy boat in the marina to join us for a midday feast of champagne, hors d'oevres, garlic-roasted chicken (only slightly overdone), spinach pie, green beans almondine (or, more precisely, green beans with blackened almonds, as I left the toasting almonds on the gas burner at a crucial moment to show Margi the Christmas cookies our neighbor, Yolanda, had given us), delicious wine.  We also had perfectly boiled potatoes:  Richard managed to conjure his Grandfather Edwards, who would mash the potatoes just so on his own plate before distributing them onto the grandkids' plates.  We talked religion and politics without any grief, shared cruising tales and harbor gossip, and sight-seeing plans.  R rolled out his charts of the Guaitecas Islands, south of the Gulf of Ancud, to point out places where he'd anchored, as well as places where he'd given up trying to anchor.
Chris and Margi had prepared their traditional Christmas treat:  an authentic English Plum Pudding with Brandy Sauce for our dessert.  What a delight! - and a totally new experience for us.  Please test your imagination and share a spoonful of this warm, spice-flavorful, fruit-rich (yet delicate!) elaboration, drenched in buttery brandy cream.  May it melt in your mouth, bring radiance to your throat and flow caloric bliss through your bloodstream!  

Margi commented that the Christmas creche at the marina had finally been completed by the addition of the baby in his manger.  The gate guard there confirmed for her that Chileans do not expect to see the Baby Jesus until AFTER midnight on December 24th.

Back at the plaza, on the day after Christmas:  sure enough. And there's an angel on top of the "tree," now, too.

Also, couldn't help capturing this chica puertomontina with her Navidad presents on display:  

The local loros are sleeping a little later now that the year has turned.  A certain gang of these green parrots live in the trees just below our windows.  The loro's screech regularly pierces the densest dream in the dark of night. Don't know what had been setting them off at 4 a.m the past few weeks ... hungry baby loros? ... But maybe the trend has passed.  I didn't hear them this morning.

Who knows how this New Year will turn out for all of us?  We hope your good luck outweighs the bad.  Or at least, as they say in Panem, at the start of the Hunger Games, "May the odds be in your favor."  

Socialists, Social Events, and Associations

Sunday, December 15, 2013: “ Michelle Bachelet Easily Regains Presidency”…

Today was the run-off election.  None of the 11 candidates who ran on Nov 17 had a certain majority.  Chileans have now re-elected Bachelet, the center-socialist, and maybe she'll use her position wisely.    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/12/15/michelle-bachelet-chile-presidency/4033693/

Recent Social Events in Puerto Montt: 

Frauenverein

Our neighbor in the apartment next door is Yolanda, a lovely woman of la tercer edad, who gave me a ticket to the traditional Christmastime Onces party by the Frauenverien of Puerto Montt.  Women of German descent, they do good works in the community, and hold these parties a couple times a year to raise money for their causes.  We gathered in the large hall of the Club Aleman, where thirty big round tables were set with plates of petit four sandwiches, cookies, and cakes of every kind.  Champagne glasses of freshly minced strawberries topped with sparkling soda, marked each place, and every table had a big bowl of Nescafe instant coffee, a pitcher of hot milk and a thermos of hot water.  (Photo is from the Club Aleman website ... there really were 30 tables, each set for ten, and every seat held a lively, lovely woman!) 

Yolanda sat me next to an English-speaker named Ursula, a young woman who told me she's known most of the women in the club since she was a child. She was attending with her mother, and many tables, she said, included three generations of women from the pioneer German families of Pto Montt.  During the first hour of chatting, sipping and nibbling, club members circulated among the tables selling tickets for the raffling of prizes.  You wrote your name next to whichever numbers you wanted on the offered page, 500 pesos per number, probably 20 numers per page. Other club members carried trays of more cake for those who weren't quite satiated yet!  I'm sorry I didn't figure out a way to wrap a sticky-creamy sweet slice or two to take home to Richard.

During the second hour, once all the tickets were sold, cut apart and folded, club members conducted the raffle.  What a scene!  While women with microphones stood in the front of the room by a long table loaded with prizes, a tiny, beautiful, white-haired mujer carried the big shopping bag full of tickets around the room, choosing someone here and there to pull out the winner of the next prize.  A red-faced runner carried the chosen ticket to the front, where it sometimes took two or three to decipher the handwriting and call out the name.  Prizes included donated store-bought treasures like a hair-dryer, and a crystal platter, as well as hand-made items like an afghan, and a set of embroidered towels ... plus a couple of cash prizes, some gift certificates to various restaurants, and a huge cake that would do any wedding proud.  I didn't win a thing, but thoroughly enjoyed chatting with Ushie about her work as a psychologist at the local prison, and her family's preparations for summer vacations.  

Almozar

Richard and I went together to the next event, when Marlene, of RePacMar, invited us to her home for lunch.  We walked about a mile and a half to her Angelmo office, arriving at the appointed hour (1 pm.  Not a half-hour late, the usual tiempo Chileno). Marlene drove us to her lovely casa, up on Puerto Montt’s fourth terrace.  She's a flower-gardener with a fine collection.  (I am a giantess in this country!)

Can you see that the centers of these daisies are blue?!?

Inside, Margarita, the live-in cook, served us pirotas con longaniza, a typical Chilean bean soup with sausage …delicious ... with tomato salad, homemade rolls, and a wonderful dessert of frozen blueberries atop a melange of shredded orange and banana.   

'Twas fun to talk about the language.  I made my usual complaint about how hard it is to understand, when I can’t see the words I’m hearing.  Harina / arena … Vas hacer /  Vas a ser  … ai yi yi!  Marlene understood completely, and gave another example:  Se pare / separe … the first means he pairs with someone, the second means he separates!    

Richard got onto a story from his voyage in the south of Chile … about trading fresh-caught tuna for a certain shellfish harvested by local fishermen.  “Puro” – he recalled, a bright red oyster-like flesh extracted from rock-like shells.

Marlene corrected him:  Piure  … She talked in Spanish about what an important source of yodo, this particular shellfish is.  Yodo, she said, the essential life ingredient.  ¿Que?  (photos from internet) 

Yodo was NOT in my dictionary. 

Back home later:  Google translate explained.

Have you guessed? 

yodo = iodine 

English-Speakers' Book Club of Puerto Varas

During a very lucky momento at the grocery store not long ago, a woman named Lia overheard R & I talking in English about how to ask for the cheese we like (from Wisconsin … lo siento … we haven’t found a Chilean cheese to compare with Monterey Pepper Jack, or with U.S. Cheddar.)  Lia introduced herself,  offering to help with our request if we needed some Spanish.  She’s Columbian by birth but has been living in Chile for decades, since she married the gringo, Thomas, who came to Chile 20+ years ago from New Hampshire to work in the salmon industry and is now building homes on the 30-acre farm he purchased in Pelluco, just outside of Puerto Montt.  We were satisfied more or less with the grocery store clerk’s answers about our cheese (“maybe next month") but Lia was so friendly we just stood there in the cheese aisle chatting.  While Richard and Thomas discussed their sailboats, Lia asked if I’d like to attend the English-Speaking Book Club in Puerto Varas with her the next day, Friday.   Yes, please! 

She picked me up outside my building at about 10:30 next morning.  We got stuck in traffic in downtown Puerto Varas as one of the elementary schools was celebrating its five year anniversary with a parade thru town.  But the book club group runs on Tiempo Chileno, so even tho we were 45 minutes late, we were not the last to arrive. 

The book, The Good Doctor, by Damon Galgut, is set in post-apartheid South Africa, in the almost-deserted hospital of the former Bantu homeland.  I’d Googled it the night before the meeting, so was not completely ignorant.  But what a pleasure when Vanessa arrived.  She and her husband had emigrated from South Africa some three or four years ago, so she was able to provide a lot of background for the story.   

I will ramble on about the various women of this group in future blogs, as I’m sure to be attending future book group meetings.  Next book:  The Dalai Lama’s Cat… which, I don’t know, doesn’t sound like my cup of tea, really, but I will look forward to hearing Sonia and Doreen and the others discuss it.  Doreen, Chilean, lived in Seattle for 40 years.  Sonia, Chilean, and widowed now, worked at UCLA for years before marrying a retiring American prof and moving to Texas.  He was quite a bit older than she, and told her that one of the good things about her country was that she should be able to live well there on their savings after he was gone. 

Filosofia with the Nueva Acropolis
A poster I kept seeing around town intrigued me, so last Wednesday night Richard and I walked about a mile across town to the house on Anibal Pinto where the local branch of Nueva Acropolis holds its meetings.  The advertised lecture:  
La Personalidad Como Máscara de Yo Interior. 

Interesting topic … who knew if we’d be able to understand more than 10% of the talk, but it would be a good chance to immerse our ears in Espanish, si?  

A very good speaker (he enunciated, spoke slowly and distinctly, and enhanced his presentation with gestures and tidy printing on his white board) delivered a review of basic concepts of filosofia:  the personality is comprised of el cuerpo fisico, el cuerpo energetico, el cuerpo emocional, y el cuerpo mente-deseo.  These temporal layers are all supervised by the a-temporal alma.  Sign up for the full course to learn more about Greek, Chinese, and Egyptian interpretations of the meaning of life! 

We did not stay for the coffee and chat afterwards, but might go back for another session one of these weeks.   

Asociaciónes

Two more things this week:
First:  My friend Beccy commented that my addiction to the soap opera is a legitimate way to learn to hear the language.  Thank you!  I have to add that Avenida Brasil has also been a great spark for good posture.  Every one of the women in this tempestuous telenovela set in Rio de Janeiro holds herself wonderfully straight, erect, long in the spine, breast bone held high, shoulders back, neck lifting the brain to the sky as if to affirm that her body is a conduit connecting her heart with the celestial spirits above. 

That’s an image of Life Force more accessible to me than yodo.

Second:  The cruise ships are delivering tourists to Puerto Montt on a regular basis again, now that the weather is warm and the sun is shining most days.  ¿Quien sabe quien puede aparecer?  Cat Stevens is scheduled to be in Santiago sometime soon.  Maybe he'll stop in down here, too?
Richard took this photo from the end of the waterside tourist pier just outside El Mall Costanera.  Those little boats actually deliver the tourists to Angelmo, almost two miles from the Mall.  The tourists have to ride the buses, or take taxis or collectivos, or WALK like we usually do, to get to el plazo central in Pto Montt.