Bienvenida a Santiago, Chile!

I arrived like a thief in the night…on a Sunday in the middle of a ghost town. The airport was deserted and the streets were quiet. Everyone must have been napping and preparing for that night’s fiesta. It was the weeklong independence celebration for Chile…200 years to be exact.

My boss picked me up and drove me to my apartment in Nunoa neighborhood. Its #3 place in Santiago to bar hop and party…so that’s exactly what we did. I had “churrasco” for dinner which is a thin sliced steak on a hamburger bun with avocado, tomato and mayonnaise. Not sure how I ended up also drinking 3 pisco sours because I heard 2 was the limit for foreigners not used to drinking it. But with 3 pisco sours I enjoyed the lively music and people dancing around the plaza.

My apartment is amazing, more than I could ever dream of in South America. I have my own room and bathroom and balcony with a fantastic view of the snow capped Andes Mountains (see pics above). Lots of hot water for showers, tv with cable, wi-fi, clothes washer. The apartment has a mini gym, event room, pool table room, pool and garden plaza. I share the place with a 29 year old pharmacist named Daniela. She is awesome and a lot like me…..works a lot, always busy and almost never home. Past roommates would get resentful that I was never home for tv hour and family dinner so this set up should work out great.

Santiago is an extremely safe city in comparison to Buenos Aires and New York. Here laws and rules are respected, and so is the police, which happen to be on every 2 blocks. There is always a guy at the front desk of my apartment too interrogating people he does not know…even if you are leaving the building. I have been interrogated by 5 of the workers so far…..my name, contact number, room number, where I work, how long I will be staying, etc. Protective and very nice people. They even offered to help find me a used bike.

My first actual day in Santiago was a holiday…declared by the female president to extend the festivities. So I marched into town to start exploring the city. Problem was I had no map…there’s actually a shortage of maps in all hotel/hostels/apartments I asked. We all know I get lost WITH a map so I made sure to note the streets names I was walking on and some landmarks so I wouldn’t get lost.

Santiago reminds me a lot of the United States. Most old buildings have been crumbled from past earthquakes and Chile decided to use blue prints from the US to build the city of Santiago. Narrow streets, sidewalks, family houses with yards, there is a business district with shiny sky scrapers (see pic above of view from my office), most people drive American cars and there is a subway. I think there is more action going on in Orlando, Florida than here. The only difference is Santiago is very clean. If I dropped a hotdog on the street, I’d still pick it up and eat it. Also, unlike Buenos Aires, cars will not run you over on the street. I have had numerous cars stop at green lights to let me walk across the street. But maybe that’s because I am “gringa”- a white girl.

The downtown part of Santiago is the only place where there are still some historic buildings, large parks with statues and monuments and a few impressive cathedrals. Unfortunately I have no pics to share….I did not know what I was going to be walking through so I left money, camera and ipod at home. I’ll look for a weekend tour so I can get the history of the city soon. I did run into a huge city fair with folklore music, dancing and people gathering for a special light show at the La Moneda (maybe that’s the government building?)

It took me another 3.5 hours to figure out where home was. Apparently Santiago is not designed in a grid like Buenos Aires, and the Mapuche Indian sounding street names didn’t help me either- “Irarrazaval”, “Zuazagoitia”, “Huentelauquen”. I cant even pronounce the street I live on so I just started asking people which direction my neighborhood was located. Chileans are notorious for not knowing directions but still being polite and sending you off on any path…so I made sure to ask someone else every 2 blocks. It was a great way to break down any kind of nervous feelings I had speaking in Spanish to complete strangers. I definitely speak in Argentine with “shhh” sounds and “vos” form. Chileans speak like a gushing waterfall without emotions in monotone. I don’t like it. But at least I can understand 9 out of 10 words said.

I finally found some young tourists, two Americans and a Britain, who had a detailed Santiago mapbook! They are teaching English for a year because they couldn’t find a job in the USA. I walked with them for 30 minutes and am now looking forward to beer and Monday night football with them next week. Yay, I now have 3 friends for when my brain explodes from working all day in the Spanish language.

Hours later I arrived back at home and in search of something to eat. Everything was closed for Independence Day except for American restaurants. In a 2 block radius from my apartment there was KFC, Burger King, Dominos, Subway, McDonalds and Pizza Hut. That is way too much American influence for me and I had no idea how much the Chileans love the USA and dislike Europe and Argentina. One day I am going to have to try a burger topped with avocado and a side of mini empanadas. It’s interesting to see how businesses adapt to other cultures to become international.

My second judgmental observation- most people are Indian tan, chubby cheeks, dark eyes, short black hair, chunky in general and don’t really care as much as Argentine’s do about appearance. Yes everyone dresses business professional for work, but the hair/jewelry/makeup isn’t a part of that. I don’t fit in at all like I did in Buenos Aires. My clothes are not professional enough (I only brought 3 suites), I am white after 3 months in Argentine winter, I have long American brown hair and bright green eyes. Guys creepily stare at me for long periods of time….even if they are sitting next to me on the metro. And no one wears sunglasses. I do because at 8am walking to work its 70 degrees already with blaring sun. I feel like a rockstar because everyone watches me cross the street….and its an hour walk to work so that’s a lot of attention!

Daniela organized a spectacular welcoming house party for me (see pic). I met all of her friends, who are between 26-30, I am the baby in the group. They are all intelligent with great careers in psychology, engineering, law, etc and have invited me to their birthday weekend bashes in various cities outside of Santiago. We ate seafood for dinner, which is cheap here. Oysters for $3. They of course had pisco sours but they also shared with me another traditional drink called “piscola”- ½ coca cola and ½ pisco rum. We partied Chile style from 11pm to 6am! Adapting to Chile lifestyle I slept until 2pm, put in laundry, went grocery shopping and then to Catholic Mass. I didn’t understand a word, but neither did my roommate! Now if I can only figure out what I am supposed to be doing at work…