A different kind of journey...: Chilenismos 1

I thought that I'd blog about some of the things I've noticed during my time in Chile. There are a lot of interesting things, and some of them are quite small or subtle. For example, when you cross a busy street the walk light is either a red circle like a stop light or a green guy that I call the amigo verde. Even the dogs are clued in to look for the amigo verde. He starts to flash when it is about to change to red and pretty much every street I've seen that translates into "run or you aren't going to make it" because it only flashes for a few seconds. Since the streets may be 4 lanes each direction, run means run, not walk fast.

Most restaurants, apartments, and homes are not heated. One explanation given is that you really can't run gas lines with all the earthquakes. In our apartment we have two small electric heaters that you plug into the wall. This was our "heated" apartment. We paid our first month's rent and utilities. The gas bill was about $1.75. Ok, I haven't cooked much - perhaps 4 or 5 meals a week, and some are things like Erin heating soup from a can. I can bake a mean salmon and make pretty decent tacos, but haven't found it easy to find ingredients for things I know. The apartment is small, the windows let in quite a draft, and the walls are paper thin. We had a small water bill and some apartment grounds "dues" as well. The thing that pretty much knocked me over was the electric. Our utilities came to about $375 for the month, and well over $200 of that was electric. It isn't like we are running the electric and all the lights and appliances all day - so I guess we figured out why few places are heated - electricity costs so much. This is one of our two heaters...

When you go to a restaurant it costs money for water - often more than a beer or something else. The usual charge is about $3 to $5. If you want something boxed up to take home it costs about a $1 for that.

Many of the sidewalks are covered with tile.

It costs about $1.25 to ride the subway.

Chile is the most expensive Latin American country.

Rush hour seems like it is an hour later than in the US.

The dogs in Chile are smarter than in the US - very street smart.

A large percentage of people have a dog, and together with the street dogs you can frequently hear multiple dogs barking.

There are police - carabineros - on most corners on the main streets, usually in pairs. Perhaps I'm getting old, but many of them look like they are teenagers.

The carabineros have vans that are mobile processing centers. They are parked outside of things like malls and events. Someone does something wrong and it is out to the van.

Many of the carabineros ride motorcycles - they look like dirt bikes, not road bikes.

About every female carabinero I've seen has been pretty (just ask the male carabineros that stopped to make sure they got out of the car safely).

Police cars are green.

Taxis are black with a little yellow.

A far higher percentage of people smoke than in the US.

There are guys that are out on the streets every morning with brooms sweeping up trash and cigarette butts, so the streets for the most part are quite clean.

There is no such thing as a wood house. Everything has a cement or stucco exterior.

You can find a Ferris shirt even in Santiago...