I was that mildly feral, long-ago ex-pat Santiago de Chile child you track on Twinned Cities...very different from the born-again Santiago de Cuba adult. Our lives were a map of Anglo-Chilean over-uniformed, under-informed private school (Santiago College,The Grange), Sunday outings (Plaza de Armes, the Zoo, the odd "18" riot), endless military posturing and noise-making (Sports Stadium), entertaining our own country's missionary priests down from their solitary mountain posts (Las Violatas), a mad juvenile running away to make a disgusting mess in the very muddy river (Rio Mapocho), being dragged to The Shop, apparently the only one (Al Precio Fijo), the great yearly summer escape to the Andes where we learned to box humans, flee pigs, eat sweetbreads and duck condors (Rio Colorado) and...the benchmark for blissful Santiago under-eight existence: The Sweden Freezer, Santiago's answer to heaven: the one and only "allowed" Ice Cream Parlour, circa 1960. Feature? a Giant Swedish Freezer, whatever that was... icy white steel, icier white ice cream, Nordic flash-frozen lips in the hot, bright, white Santiago sun.

Much like Durham really...