Some Like It Slimey
7 December 2005 (Wednesday) – Valparaiso, Chile
I headed out to Valparaíso late in the morning and walked down the entire length of the town. Skinny Chile is really so interesting. On the one hand, you can see the crashing Pacific ocean, and on the other hand, the land turns into little hills everywhere.
I figured since I would be eating meat once I cross into Argentina, I should really take seafood today. I reached the huge ancient hall of the mercado (market) of Valparaiso and checked out the numerous marisquerias (seafood restaurants) on the second floor. Wow, everything looked great. I settled for one restaurant and as the lady explained the various orders to me, the raw seafood appealed to me most. Argh, yesterday I had already burnt US$15 for a damn taxi ride. I am so going down with the ship! US$6 for a bowl of raw seafood? Sounds great, hit me!
I had no idea which planets they came from, much less what they were. Just all orange, pink, purple, translucent, yellowish… I scooped all the slimey and slippery bastards down my throat. Hmmm… delicious. Although I admit that after about 3/4 of the bowl, I felt a little woozie and the remaining seafood looked a tad disgusting to me. But I was determined to finish up everything. Ha!
There were nice colourful old buildings built along the edge of the little hills along the length of Valparaiso. Several ascendores bring you to the top. I happened to jump into the ascendor for Cerro Concepcion and found nice and very expensive cafes with amazing views (which I did not enter, I do not wish to go down that fast with the ship) near there and a lovely mirador called Mirador Atkinsons. People do live in the beautiful houses along this mirador. What a view!
That evening at home, we celebrated Fabiola’s birthday with a cake and some once. Gosh, the Chilean accent! I might as well be in Hungary! I could hardly understand a word! I was fine in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia and suddenly, in Chile, I felt like I was a born-again Spanish-Lesson-1-student!
In La Serena, I know Claudio made a conscious effort to speak slowly for me. However, I could not understand a single word uttered by his brother. Claudio realised that as well, and translated everything (from his brother’s Spanish to his own Spanish) for me. But when I heard him talk with his housemate, I was stupefied. I could not follow a single word at all! Alejandra is a teacher in a German school, and she had been through diction classes. So, I understood everything she said. She was pitch-perfect. Jessica… well, I guess, I could make out 60-70% of what she says. But with the rest of the family together, bye-bye… I give up.
Yes, sure they have an accent, but not only do they drop all the ‘s’ and ‘z’ at the end of words, they have a tonne of invented words that are not used anywhere else, or at least, absolutely not known to me and they speak really really fast. Although I was with them, they still used these words. So, half the time, they were laughing at me, as I stared at them blankly. I so did not get it. By the time they explained, or chose a different word, well… joke’s over, haha.
Tags: 10) It's Chile Here, Valparaiso
swesn
December 10th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Hi…
I was looking in google for Chilean accent and I found your blog…
I was a bit boring watching the chilean TV. They were talking about Pinochet death and they showed some foreing Channels which were talking about the same new (Pinochet death). At that moment I wondered What foreing people think about our accent. Well as I told you before I found your blog and it was funny to read that you could hardly understand the chilean accent…jajaja…
Also I read you visited La serena, I live in La Serena. well what I wanted to tell you is that was very interesting to read your impressions about Chile, they make me think that chile is very different to Perú or Bolivia…
Finally, I guess you enjoyed your trip to Chile…
bye…
good luck