busy times

I have been pretty busy lately, doing a bunch of things for the newspaper, or for my own entertainment.

Right now I will just make a list of what I have been up to, and maybe in the future I will add some accounts of my journeys.

Last week I went to the Tesoros Humanos Vivos event, or in English "Living Human Treasures". This was the launch of a search for more "treasures". I did a short interview with the Minister for Arts and Culture, Luciano Cruz-Coke. The week before I had gone to an event with British minister Jeremy Browne, though I think I wrote about that already.

On Friday, I went up to La Serena. Actually I left on Thursday night and got there about 1am. I was thinking of just wandering around the town until I had to head off again, but decided to stay in a hostel. There was a HI there, so I stayed there. Unfortunately my "I used to work in a HI hostel" fell upon deaf ears. Always worth a try though...

The next day I went to the "Big Bang" event at Las Campanas Observatory. They are beginning the process of building the Giant Magellan Telescope, which is going to be a huge thing. I met many astronomers, the Australian ambassador and some other important people. There was also a free lunch, which is important :)

The hill behind me is Cerro Las Campanas, which they exploded in order to begin the building. While the explosion didn't make much of a dent in the mountain, they will be making 70 more blasts.

Here is a picture of me inside the current Magellan Telescope. This was pretty cool to go and check out, though it would have been even better to go at night, when the stars are in full force. The Atacama Region (where the telescope is) and much of northern Chile is renowned as being the best place in the world for star gazing. I would like to spend much more time getting outside of Santiago, and doing things like that are a good chance.

We have also been working on the next edition of the I Love Chile print newspaper. That should be out next week, I wrote a bunch of stories in there. I reached one of the goals I set myself a while back, and have written my 200th article on the ILC website. Here you can see all of my articles. I have been writing a lot less articles lately, as I have many more administrative tasks to do, but hopefully I will get back in to the writing mode again very soon.

I am also back to my studies, I have two more subjects to go until I have apparently Mastered the Art of Writing. By midway through the year I should have myself a Master of Arts (Writing). We are currently talking about practice-led research. To be honest I don't really know what I am talking about, but I am getting some good feedback from my tutor in the weekly discussion posts.

The best news story this week though, has been the similarity of former Energy Minister Rodrigo Álvarez, who quit on Monday. The guy looks exactly like George Costanza, and Jason Alexander even agreed on Twitter.

The worst news story was the case of Daniel Zamudio. That is not a pleasant story at all, and I don't know why there are neo-nazis in Chile. That's not something I am so interested in going into in my blog, you can read any news to know more about that.

Late yesterday afternoon I got an email from the boss asking if we could cover an "exclusive event" at Concha y Toro. They are a well renowned wine company, so of course I said sure thing. We had a full degustación, then some food afterwards. I got to meet some other writers and some of the people who run the company.

They have a sponsorship deal with Manchester United, which is very interesting from a sports management perspective. It also got some wheels turning in my head about some grand ideas involving world tours, footbag, freestyle football and a match between Man U and La U.

Speaking of La U, I went to the game (Copa Libertadores) on Tuesday night. They knocked Penarol from Uruguay out of the competition, with a goal in the final minute. The other team were not so happy and there was a bit of heave-ho at the end.

So that sums up pretty well what I have been up to. The next adventure: this weekend is Lollapalooza, and I have a press pass. Foo Fighters are playing a 2.5 hour set, that should be awesome. Unfortunately there are very few other bands on the lineup I actually want to see, but it should be fun to go along.

The Mistake: A Mixup

So my "career" as a sports journalist is taking shape- almost. I am doing an internship at the moment, and I've gone to a tennis match (Gonzalez vs Monfils) and sat in the front row, and yesterday attended the presentation by the magazine "El Grafico" of the Botín de Oro (Golden Boot). It was presented to the best player in the Chilean league- which was no surprise, Eduardo Vargas, mainly for his tournament record 11 goals in the Copa Sudamericana.

So I had this plan to do something kind of cool- to make a presentation of a Footbag as a farewell gift (he signed a multi million dollar contract with Napolia in Serie A- the old team of Maradona).

The night before I was thinking of how I could make my presentation. Our niece Magdalena was staying here with us and I asked her if she could draw a picture of a soccer player. Despite her claims that she drew like a kid- (she obviously hasn't seen any of my "works of art")- she drew an awesome picture.


I filled in the rest of the card with a little message and things were looking good. So we got into this ceremony, and I really had no idea what to expect- but it was pretty packed. The Primera Division is a pretty big deal in Chile. There were media from all different places in there, and they had lots of food and drinks for everyone.

So a player comes in, and the media scrum forms. I had never seen a media scrum up close and personal, but they are all pretty intense about getting the best sound clip, photo or video. So I look at the guy, he's got his hair in the spiky kind of haircut that is very common for players to have- and he's got a couple of tattoos on his arm.

Lots of kids were getting his autograph, so I thought- this is my man.

I went up and made my little presentation, and we took a photo.

There was just one problem that I realised not too much later. That was Estaban Paredes, striker for Colo Colo- mortal enemies of "La U". It's like making a presentation for a Manly player to a Norths player- except Colo Colo don't play in the Primera B.

The young, and not so young were readily awaiting the arrival of Eduardo Vargas. People had begun arriving at 12, and Vargas arrived at about 2pm, just before the ceremony started. Unlike the other players that arrived, he didn't make any time to sign autographs, he was rushed in to get a press shot with plenty of sponsorship banners in the background. Interestingly enough, a lot of the media had gone inside the Teatro to get a good position there- they must have known there wouldn't be much to get from his rushed entrance.






The presentations begun, Vargas got the "Golden Boot" for his efforts- funnily enough, he got a red card in the previous match where they lost 2-1 against Universidad Católica, and won't take any part in the finals campaign, so he has played his last game in blue.

Just like his rushed entrance, Vargas had to leave almost immediately after collecting his prize. They then announced the "team of the year"- which was dominated by Universidad de Chile players. After all they won the Apertura already, and the Copa Sudamericana- doing that without registering a loss, then they are into the final of the Clausura tournament. This week's loss was the first time they lost during that tournament. I'm not exactly sure of their streak- I have seen different reports between 34-36. Unbeaten you have to say, as there were a number of draws.

Their opponents, Cobreloa did not have any players to show for their efforts, whilst Paredes was the only player selected from Colo Colo.

We left the ceremony a bit early, as we still had more things to do, and they had a whole lot of sweets lined up. I took a chocolate from a jar and was reprimanded by a lady, although I didn't have a clue what she was saying. They were preparing a fountain of chocolate, so Francisca wanted to stay, but I wanted to escape the wrath of the lady, so we left on the promise that I would buy an helado.

I mentioned the word "career" in inverted commas as I am currently doing an unpaid internship. Hopefully it will lead onto something more, because being a sports writer is definitely one of my dream jobs.

Chi Chi Chi Le Le Le, Universidad de Chile

"La U" won the Copa Sudamericana last night. Whilst I went to one of the earlier games, the quarter final with Arsenal from Argentina, I thought tickets would be at a high premium, so settled to watch the game in a bar.

I went to the Charleston in the Suecia district. We had to fight for our table, but ended up with a great spot. We didn't have to wait too long for action, with the regular cry throughout the tournament of GOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL, GOAL VARGAS coming through just 3 minutes after kick off.

We watched the game with Jeremy and Yousef from Jogabo. That was the first time meeting them and they were nice guys. Midway through the second half the bar was having some transmission problems so we went to the California bar where a couple of other people we knew were.

The atmosphere there was a lot louder, but I think maybe the whole scene was a bit "put on". I'm not so sure about that. Anyhow, in our walking we missed a goal, but just before full time there was yet another GOOOOOOLLL, GOAL VARGAS, meaning Eduardo Vargas became the record holder for the Copa Sudamericana. Universidad de Chile 3- LDU Quito 0. "La Liga" really never even looked like scoring.

I wrote an article about it on the I Love Chile website- http://ilovechile.cl/2011/12/15/la-road-victory/42188

Thousands of people gathered in Plaza Italia after the game. I'm not really one for huge crowds, so we gave that a miss and walked home. You could hear honking horns all through the streets, to the sound of CHI CHI CHI, LE LE LE- UNIVERSIDAD DE CHILE


This brings "La U" to 32 games without a loss this year.

Universidad de Chile 2- Vasco de Gamma 0

Last night I went and met up with a French guy, Julien. I met him at the hostel last year in Canberra. I'm pretty sure he was wearing a Ruiner shirt or something, so we got talking. I can't remember exactly but I think we went to see I Exist play, maybe with The Abandonment. I think Antti, one of the Finnish guys I made good friends with also came that day.

Anyway, Julien is travelling in South America now, he's been in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and now in Chile. We met up and got some dinner first. Of course it was some kind of sandwich variety. I tried to mix it up a bit, and should have learned from the last time, to just go for one of the usual options. This one wasn't too bad- but the previous time, I ordered what was basically a gherkin sandwich, I bit into, thinking it was covered in melted cheese- but that was actually artichoke- I hate artichoke.

This time around in was something like ham, Camembert cheese and a couple of other things. I also thought it would be a hot sandwich, but wrong again. No big deal though, it was cool to hang out and talk about our respective travels. He went to the World Cup last year in South Africa. I am going to try and go for sure in Brazil, maybe even try and get some kind of job on it.

So I told him there was The Match on last night- La U were playing with Vasco de Gamma from Brazil. We walked around a while, and I was actually surprised not to come across more places. We ended up going to the area around the street Suecia, which is mainly for gringos- we went to a place around the corner a bit, but there were actually no gringos to be fan, just abajos, the fans of La U- the underdogs.

This was the semi final, second leg of the Copa Sudamericana. The first leg in Brazil was 1-1. We were talking earlier about how teams, national teams, like Brazil and Argentina are on their way down- it's becoming much more even through South America, and it seems to be similar for clubs. I think normally you would think "team from Brazil vs team from Chile, Brazil will win. Not the case this time.

I thought Vasco de Gamma looked pretty solid to begin with, they had some good long passes that went straight to the blokes down the front- but then they took a free kick which practically went out of the stadium, and the fortunes changed from there.

La U went in with a 1-0 lead in the first half, the first goal was greeted with a mild celebration, but with one of the Vasco players receiving a red card for an elbow to the face, which looked more like it belonged in UFC, rather than on the field, it was time for azul to put the finishing touches on. I had remarked earlier that our UFC fighter, number 23, had looked like he had packed it in earlier in the game. The ball went out, he didn't chase it at all- and the TV zoomed in on his scowl on the face, which said "I hate losing, I want to go home". So he took the early exit, and La U scored practically immediately afterwards, capitalising on his absence down the left wing.

One noticable difference to the TV coverage was that when the goals were scored, there was no GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLL. The commentators just stayed silent, probably knowing the crowds around the TV would be celebrating.

And straight after that goal, most of the people in the pub got up to the feet, raised their fists in the air and shouted-

CHI CHI CHI, LE LE LE, UNIVERSIDAD DE CHILE!!!!

The game was as good as over by then, though Vasco had a couple of shots on goal, there was no comeback on the cards. U de Chile were through to the finals for the first time ever, everybody clapped at the television.

I walked home, which takes about 45 minutes. All through the city you could hear horns honking to the tune of (Chi Chi Chi, Le Le Le). Not just for the walk home, but of course, throughout the night.