TV Sunday

Sunday 6th April

After doing the Tiger Caves steps, or the Tongariro Crossing, I woke up the next mornings expecting to feel sore legs, but feeling fine. Showing how steep Valparaiso is, I woke up a bit sore this morning. I got up early to watch a Manchester United match on TV (against Middlesboro) which I was pretty sure the ad on Tv said would be on live, but instead I got Saracens v Ospreys in the Heiniken Cup. I guess the Fox Sports schedule is set in Argentina. I did get delayed coverage of the ManU match, but by then I had been texted the scores from home.

My plan today was to go to Vina Del Mar, a few kilometers away. It is a beach resort, and is connected by a metro train ssytem to Valparaiso. Well they call it a metro, but with the frequency being one train every 18 minutes its about as metro as the DART. I was going there because being a Sunday a lot of things are closed in Chile, and I felt it was better to hang around a beach resort with nothing to do than a port.

But when I got tot he station they informed me that I could only go on the train by a prepaid ticket, and it would cost me about 5 times what one trip would cost just to ge the card. So I didn´t bother going. I knew I could get a bus, but I figured that by the time I figured out which bus to get and got there on the slower bus system, the one place I wanted to go, another museum, would be closed (it closed at 2 on Sundays). So I decided to hang around Valparaiso.

Actually the Sunday shut down wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. A number of the shop chains were open, and about half the bars and restaurants. So it was fairly easy to get a dinner. Internet places were also open, but in the end I decided to go back to the hotel and watch some films on TV. TV is quite watchable here, there seems to always be a CSI or Law and Order (or most other current shows, List, Housewives, ER etc) on that is subtitled (and they are very up to date - generally a week or two old.), and about half the films are subtitled rather than dubbed. Sometimes they are shown in both ways, I saw a bit of Anger Management subtitled on Friday, and it was dubbed today. I actually hadn't seen the films Doom or Flightplan before, so I watched them. There was also some other rubbish comedies on. In other words this Sunday was actually like one at home, watching TV.

I did pop out in the evening to get a softdrink and it was noticeable that there were fewer people on the streets. There was a bit of an edge to the town, judging by the shirts, it had something to do with a football match.

One other thing, in the evening here it gets quite chilly (pun intended). Although the days warm up, if there is a fog as there was on Saturday morning, it is also cold. It was amazing to think that we are on 33 degrees South of the equator, and on Saturday until about 1pm, I had to wear a jumper, as if I was in some town in the West of Ireland.