Welcome to Conce

Cold.
That was my first impression of Concepción.
Arriving at 7am having spent all night on a bus, I was more than a little groggy, so on seeing the INACAP representative there to meet me, my initial relief gave way to mild irritation when I realised that this meant I had to try and understand him and make polite conversation.
Fortunately the flat I was staying in wasn't too far away so it wasn't long before I could finally get some proper rest.... for 2 hours before I would be whisked around the city to sort out admin.

My institution have kindly provided me with a week's lodging in a very pleasant studio apartment on the 22nd floor of one of relatively sparse buildings of this height, giving me a bird's eye view of my route planning. Handy. It's also pretty central, and I think I've more or less got the hang of the centre of the city now. After Monday's work, I'm now registered as a Chilean citizen - I have a social security number at least, from today I have a working phone and hopefully tomorrow I'll have a bank account (3rd time lucky). The only thing that isn't quite sorted is somewhere to live, and I'm working on that.

Hello Conce

I'm pretty grateful for the fact that Concepción is a bit smaller than some of the other cities I've been to. There's less night life and more nature. Ergo (hopefully!) more people who are interested in activities other than partying! Last night I went to a meeting with a group called "Welcome to Conce", and born of couchsurfing spirit, it's essentially a bunch of lovely people who want to be helpful to foreigners! It was their first meeting and seemed to be a resounding success - looks like I arrived at the right time. They promised to find me somewhere to live and help me get a bike. I'm gonna keep looking on my own just in case though... There was beer involved...

"Welcome to Conce"

My first 3 flat viewings have all been completely different, all with their ups and downs. The first was through CS, ergo couchsurfing friendly, but not so much of a sharing environment. The second turned out to be a pension, ergo, he makes his living from renting rooms and not couchsurfing friendly, but with 9 people in the flat in a healthy mix of internationals and nationals there was a great sense of community. The third was a 2 person flat with a very nice girl and her kitten, relaxed, simple and easy, but less conveniently placed and not so exciting. Hmm. Keep looking I think for now, one more organised for tomorrow and then we'll see I guess.

The most exciting thing that happened today was that I went to explore the local bouldering wall. And... STOP PRESS... ran into a guy who also lives in the pension! Eep, that adds a dimension to the house hunt... Living with a climber would be fun. The boulder wall here doesn't have any routes, just walls at various angles covered in holds leaving people free to make their own routes. Fortunately the guy from the pension had a couple to show me and another guy that I started chatting to showed me another. Looking forward to becoming a regular there! There's apparently a fair few outdoor spots not far away too which is pretty exciting!

As far as the city itself goes, it's not the prettiest in the world, but then it was ravaged by an magnitude 8.8 earthquake (let me remind you that the richter scale is exponential, making that more than 100x stronger than last week's quake) and a lot of the city was damaged. Maybe that's why there's so few skyscrapers... But regardless of this, it has quite a nice feel to it, surrounded by hills and will the enormous río Bio-Bio running just to the south. I'm yet to see it in person any closer than from the flat window but it looks pretty impressive. There's also a bay and lot of lovely looking coastline to explore as soon as I get myself a bike and can join some of the regular group cycle rides that seem to be pretty popular. The central square seems to always have some form of entertainment going on - live music ranging from traditional to samba, or yesterday there was a clown putting on an interactive performance, dancing with passers-by and playing with the traffic. A good place to kill time.

It also seems like my job is going to be pretty relaxed. I only work 20 hours per week and they've told me that if I want to travel then it doesn't matter if I skip a few sessions as long as I give them some notice. Classic Latin America. :p

Perspective is a magical thing

Also... Dulce de Leche... It's called Manjar here and the consequences are the same. Hopefully once I finish my first pot I'll be sick of it...
Not that that will take too long....