Archive for the ‘Chilean Basics’ Category:
A big day walking to the mall
So, being that Holly is a graphic designer, and I’m a web geek with way too much love for hardware, we decided to bring an extra monitor down to Chile. Trust me when I say that I’m not sure that was a great idea, but we got it down just the same. However, not long after we got here we realized that Holly didn’t have the adapter she needed to use the monitor. Sweeeeeeeet. So, we set out to find one here in Santiago. The only problem is that there isn’t exactly a Mac store just around the corner (and when we did find an Apple dealer, they didn’t have it in stock). But, we went to the mall to see if we could find one.
On the way back from the mall, we were walking through a park when we found one of those “exercise circuit” things with stations every hundred yards or so. Holly and I, being the athletic and sporty people we are, decided to take some photos. Here are a few that turned out. As I think you’ll be able to tell, I had to teach Holly a few things about fitness.
We’ve Landed in Santiago
As of Thursday morning, at 4:00am, Holly and I landed in Santiogo, Chile. It was a fun and grueling 24 hours of travel by the time we arrived at our apartment building. Our friends Steve and Sarilyn Andes had been here for four weeks by the time we got here, and had rented us a fantastic little apartment in Providencia. It also happened to be only 11 floors above their apartment, in the same building. Did I mention we were in the top floor? The Penthouse? Yeah, the view is pretty amazing.
We spent the first few days just walking around and trying to get a feel for the city. It’s somewhat European, but I hear that Buenos Aires is much more so, which we’ll see in December. So far, we’ve found the food and coffee both to vary greatly in quality and expectation. For the most part, it’s slightly less expensive than in the U.S., however, that is changing daily as the exchange rate between the US Dollar and the Chilean Peso continues to fluxuate wildly. However, the past three weeks have been VERY good for us as a traveler, yet not so good as an investor. The other single largest factor is the price of wine. CHEAP is all I can say. I’m currently enjoying a glass of red wine from the grocery store, which I paid less than $3 a bottle for. And it’s as good as anything I’ve drank in Portland. We also drank some wine that cost $2 for a 1.5 liter (that’s twice the size of a normal bottle of wine @ 750ml). It was great. The wine here is just so abundant that it’s dirt cheap. But that shouldn’t tell you it’s anything less than great.
On Saturday we are going on a Habitat for Humanity build in the small town of Casablanca about an hour from here. We’ll help do some work on a low income home in what I’ve read is a very poor town. It’ll be very good to take a break from the tourist lifestyle and do something, even in a small way, that gives back to the community that we’re visiting.
Here are a few photos from our first few days here. Hope you enjoy. And more will come soon.
