Station

I rise at 8:06 after a fairly decent night's kip. For the first time in a few days, I don’t feel totally knacked when I get up.

Breakfast is the same as every other day. Alexei gets well stuck in. Andrew eats like a finch. I'm somewhere inbetween.

The kids want to take a look at Estacion Central. So that's where we head. It's just two stops on the line 1.

It's quite an impressive building. And pretty busy, despite it being Sunday. There aren’t really any intercity services in Chile. Santiago does, however have commuter rail. As the Americans would call it.

We looked for somewhere to eat nearby, but couldn’t find anything suitable. Alexei wants some Chilean food. Which is fair enough. I’m fine with that.

There do seem to be some places in the station with the essentials. Which are beer and chips. We plump for one of those, Schopdog.

As the name implies, it specialises in draught beers. The kids order litres (just 5 euros), while I plump for a pisco sour (1.99 euros). But the waitress says we have to have food to buy drinks. We order a platter of things on sticks and cheese sticks. That will give us something to snack on.

“Not fancy a beer, Dad?” Andrew asks.

“It’s too cold for beer.”

“But not for a cocktail?”

“No.”

“Shouldn’t you be drinking something warm?”

“Fuck off.”

It's rather grand inside. I suspect this was the station buffet. It's pretty busy, too. With families coming in and ordering huge piles of food.

They have some cool old film posters. Including Some Like it Hot in Spanish.

Surfing the net, we see that Biden has stood down. Thank god.

“Dad, would you buy a gun?” Alexei asks.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“They’re fucking dangerous. It might kill someone.”

“Isn’t that thee idea?”

“I don’t want to kill anyone.”

“Not even Hitler?”

“He did that job well enough himself.”

Funny how quickly the conversation gets to Hitler.

The kids only have three litres each. As we slowly pick at our food. Then we return to our hotel to plan the evening's meal. Alexei is still up for Chilean. Which is fine by me.

We nip to the supermarket for some final provisions. Beer, rum, bananas. Got to keep the vitamin levels up.

After an hour or so back in my room, we return to Avenida Brasil in search of Chilean food. Which we find. In a large restaurant with quite a good selection of beer from Kross and Loa. Including Stout. That’s tempting. I order a pisco sour.

“Still not on the beer, Dad? You can’t say it’s too cold here’”

He’s right. There’s an outdoor gas heater in the middle of the room. Slightly weird. And maybe not totally safe. But at least it's warm. Nowhere seems to have any form of heating so people just leave their coats on.

“It’s my last chance to drink pisco sour.”

“There’s always a reason.”

Me and Alexei get a chorrillana to share. It seems to be a Chilean thing. A big pile of chips, meat, onions and a fried egg. Andrew gets quaesedillas.

The food is pretty good. Even Andrew manages to finish his.

Back at our hotel, Alexei has a bath and an early night. While Andrew and I watch some Youtube.




Schopdog
Exposición 32,
8370130 Santiago,
Estación Central,
Región Metropolitana.
http://www.schopdog.cl/