I fly out tonight, Tuesday December 23, to Houston, then Austin, then Denver on United Airlines. Later I added the Frontier flight to Chicago from Denver (poor planning on my part). If all goes well I will be with the family on Christmas Eve night.
What a great trip this has been. I have visited so many beautiful and interesting parts of Chile and only a little of Argentina, but of course there is more I would like to see. Although my Spanish has improved, I still have to think hard to carry on normal conversations. But the immersion has been a jump start and I'm happy with my progress. I only wish these Chileans said their s's. Instead of buenas dias, you hear buena dia. Easy, except when every word is missing s. Then it is really hard to understand what someone is saying!
Spanish in Argentina is even messier so I won't ever go there to study Spanish, but everyone says Buenos Aires is fabulous and I should visit.
Some observations. .. Santiago is clean and really beautiful with mountains all around and so many flowers and flowering trees right now. Parks and beautiful historic buildings are abundant.
Younger men wear colored pants like Dockers in red, gold, orange, green, etc. Women wear platform shoes and high heels and show a lot of skin. Just walking down the street, you could be in any city in the U.S. although more people have dark hair but not dark skin.
Street dogs are sleeping all day all over the place and you walk around them, but many people do have pets on leashes.
I only encountered good and helpful people. Chileans are big on greeting strangers and friends with a lot of social niceties and small talk before they get down to business. They are not prompt about time. If you invite someone to meet at 8:00 they may be there before 9:00.
The standard greeting for all is one kiss on the right cheek (your head goes left as you face the person you are greeting). This happens even if you are meeting the person for the first time and men kiss men too.
When driving, lane lines are just suggestions. If you can fit 3 cars across when it looks like 2 lanes, you just do it and no one gets upset.
Drivers are good about stopping for pedestrians but if they can scoot by in front of you or behind you within 12 inches, they do. Many people ride bikes with traffic which seems suicidal to me.
Motorcycles and bicycles are expected to go between cars to get ahead while on the road if they can squeeze through.
The line of people at Starbucks never ends and most people buy frapuccinos. It is obvious there is a problem in Santiago with people having some extra pounds on.
The city has building projects going on everywhere with lots of cranes building apartment and condo high rises. There are a few new and huge malls and lots of business plazas. The economy is strong.
I thought their food and clothing prices seemed pretty comparable to ours, but their minimum wage is at $3 per hour. There is a poor side of Santiago that I did not see. You can buy foods and goods cheap at so many outdoor markets instead of grocery stores and malls. I enjoyed those.
I have one more post from the past week to put up here. Until my next travels....Adios, que les vaya bien, and buen viaje.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. :)
Pictures: me with friends Claudia and Tere
Group at Claudia's for typical Asada or bbq cooked on charcoal.
Santa was at the mall and also at a big outdoor park!
Beautiful huge arbor of grapes over a long walkway in a park
Santiago in evening and at Sunset
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