Chile So Far

It's been three days since we landed, and boy have we explored a lot already. There's so much to share!

I'll start by talking about where we live. Matt and I live in a neighborhood of Santiago called Providencia. It's been compared to Brooklyn. It's got lots of restaurants and shops, it's close to metro stations and bus stops, and its population is fairly young. We're sharing a large apartment with two other couples.

Here's the kitchen. You can see that it has a regular stove top and oven, just like in the US.

Here's one angle of the living room. It's got a TV with cable. We found some of our favorite shows, including the Simpsons in Spanish (one of my all-time favorite shows), Law and Order SVU in Spanish, No Reservations in English, and the Big Bang Theory for Matt. Our wi-fi is super fast, which is nice. We've been able to Skype and FaceTime with our families very easily. And SnapChat has worked great, too.

Here's the entrance to our building. It's got great historic doors. There's a lot of character and charm.

Not pictured is the bathroom. A lot of people had questions about how the bathrooms worked. I'll start by saying that our bathroom is beautiful. Beautiful might sound like a strange word to use to describe a bathroom, but trust me, it is. It's large with white tiled walls, stone tiled floors, and an enormous mirror. It's got a shower with hot water, a large sink, and a cool toilet. One thing that's different about the toilets here is that you can't flush toilet paper. Bathrooms - in homes and restaurants - have a small wastebasket beside the toilet where you put the used toilet paper. Yes, it's sanitary, and no, it doesn't smell bad. Not flushing toilet paper keeps the pipes in good working order. As I understand it, much of Central and South America operates like this. 

Onto a more appetizing subject, most of you know that one of my favorite things to do is cook. I love going to the grocery store, and I love being in the kitchen cooking all the food I bought. I've really been looking forward to tasting and trying my hand at Chilean cuisine!

In Chile, the biggest meal of the day is lunch, unlike the US, where dinner is the biggest meal of the day. Chileans like to eat lunch at home if they can, but of course they can pack a lunch or go out to eat if they'd like.

Sandwiches are very popular here, and so is sushi! I feel like every side street has a sushi bar, which is great news for me! Most streets have some sort of small bakery as well. I really love walking by the bakeries and smelling the bread. 

There are familiar chains as well. I've been keeping tally! We've seen: Popeye's, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Domino's, KFC, and Burger King. Touches of the US are everywhere! (In fact, one of the grocery stores near us carries Walmart brand items. Imagine that!) 

Continuing with the food, Matt and I have been eating lunch at home every day around 1:00. We both really love avocado, which is great, because here they're super cheap! In most Spanish-speaking countries, the word for avocado is aguacate, but here in Chile, it's called palta.

Chile has a lot of words like that.

Instead of muchos for many, they use hartos.

Instead of hombre for man or guy, they use tipo.

Instead of trabajo for work or job, they use pega.

Instead of autobús for bus, they use micro.

They also use the word weon a lot. Weon sort of means dude, but it's used for both men and women (and there's no need to add an -a for girls).

Here it is graffiti'd on a guard rail. 

It's been tough learning all the new vocabulary, but it's been interesting, too.

So far my favorite things about Chile have been:

• the lifestyle - It's nice to walk several miles around the city every day, and I enjoy the eating schedule. It makes more sense to have a big meal in the middle of the day, then enjoy a light dinner.
• the people - I've enjoyed meeting the people here.
• the accessibility - There are metros and buses to just about anywhere you want to go. I'm not a great navigator, so it'll take some getting used to, but in general, it's nice to have access to all areas of the city, even without your own car.

the architecture and landscape - I love the juxtaposition of old and new in Santiago. There are really beautiful old churches that are painted all kinds of colors right next to towering modern business centers. In the background of everything is the mountains.

This was the view from the Bilbao neighborhood of the city.

So far, this has what's been challenging:

• the cold - It's winter here! If I had to compare it to one of our months, I would say it feels like January. It's quite chilly. These homes do not have central heating, and they have lots of big windows, which though gorgeous, let in a lot of cold air. We have gas heaters to use in each room, but you can't leave them on for extended periods of time. (And no matter how beautiful that bathroom of ours is, it sure is cold walking on that cold tile and sitting down on a porcelain toilet seat when it's 50 degrees inside the house!) 
• being away from family - I miss everyone back home! Technology makes it so much easier to stay in touch, but I still miss my family, friends, and cat a whole lot.

I think Matt and I are going to make a run to a grocery store now, but I will post more this weekend! Hope y'all are all having a great summer. Stay safe - I hear there's a storm coming! 

P.S. Remember how I said I would miss American Netflix? Forget that - South American Netflix is awesome. It's got all kinds of new horror movies, in English and in Spanish, more documentaries (my Spanish IV students will remember that I love documentaries), and some of my favorite British TV shows.

P.P.S. As of right now, we're in the same time zone, so there's no wonky time difference going on between us! Oddly enough, Santiago is east of Richmond (and, of course, much further south). But there's no time zone difference here. Once you all go into daylight savings, we'll be an hour off, but otherwise, we're on the same time! 

P.P.P.S. Expect a post soon about Chilean fashion.