A blog update is overdue, so here goes.
I’ve been making steady progress with my research over the past week. I’m still combing through newspapers, which have been a very fruitful source of information on the musical activities of the 1875 Expo. Several newspapers had a daily or near-daily column dedicated to covering the exposition’s events. Unfortunately, the microfilm readers at the library are very old and I don’t have any ability to print from them, so I have to take photographs of the microfilm reader’s screen, which can be tedious since there are only two options for zooming in and out. However, I’m getting good images and trying to catalogue them all so that I know what I am looking at when I return. It’s rather funny to see lots of people taking pictures of microfilm readers in the library. Technically, you are not allowed to use cameras in the library but the staff all ignore it, so in practice it is fine.
Tomorrow I am probably going to take a break from the newspapers and head over to the National Archive, which should have some useful documents for me. I will hopefully spend a few days working there and then finish up with the newspapers before I leave, a week from Thursday. If I have time (and I really hope I will), I want to look in some of the bigger newspapers for coverage of the US and Argentinean expositions on my list.
This weekend I tried to keep myself busy, since I am still struggling with a bit of homesickness. On Saturday morning I went and explored a bit of Providencia, an upscale neighborhood east of where I live. Later I met up with my friend from the library and we explored a neighborhood in the city that neither of us had been to yet -- Barrio Brasil. We had a nice walk around, visited the old Mapuche train station, and had a late lunch (dinner?). On Sunday I went to visit Valparaiso and Viña del Mar, two cities (right next to each other) on the coast, about an hour and a half from Santiago. It was SO NICE to get out of this crazy, sweltering, noisy city for a few days. Instead of blistering 90 degree weather, it was a breezy 75 degree day. Valparaiso is an absolutely incredible city, with 80% of its houses built on hills that make San Francisco look flat and orderly. Next to Valparaiso is Viña del Mar, a more wealthy beach town where I got to stick my feet in the (frigid) ocean and eat some delicious fish for lunch.
I originally thought that next weekend I would go up to La Serena, a city about 5-6 hours north of Santiago, and also on the coast. However, I still have a few things I’d like to do/see here in Santiago, so I may stick around here, and spend one weekend day up in the (nearby) Andes. We’ll see.
I met with a very nice and very helpful professor at the Universidad Católica last Friday. The campus he works at is a little bit outside of the center, and was rather tranquil and nice in comparison to the frantic character of Santiago. Have I mentioned that Santiago is crazy? Yeah. One of the people in the building across from mine plays music at nightclub volumes (not an exaggeration) for a good hour or two every evening. At 2 or 3 AM each night I am woken up by all the stray dogs yelping and howling at each other. New York seems rather quiet in comparison to this place. :-)
Here are some pictures from the last week. Enjoy!
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| Thankfully, the cafe in the national library serves espresso (rather than instant coffee), so this is what I do at about 2:30 each afternoon. The lady who works at the cafe is super nice and friendly, too, which makes coming here even more enjoyable. |
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| This is the entrance to the campus I visited on Friday. I turned around after taking this picture to find two security guards chuckling. I had asked one of them for directions about an hour earlier so they already knew I was not a student there :-) |
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A church in Providencia. The inside was stunning but I am not sure what the etiquette is here for taking pictures inside churches, so I have erred on the side of being polite and respectful. |
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| Valparaiso |
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| Apparently there used to be over 40 of these in Valparaiso, but there are relatively few left (and even fewer that are still operational). |
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| One of Pablo Neruda's houses. I love how colorful Valparaiso is. |
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| On one of Valparaiso's many hills, overlooking the city. |
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| Valparaiso. |
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| The port at Valparaiso. |
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| Sticking my feet in the Pacific Ocean. It was just as cold as it is in California! |
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| Overlooking Viña del Mar |
