boristhemonster

[boristhemonster]

Santiago, Chile: 20 tips for young players...

So living in Santiago now, I have acquired a few little learnings about life in Chile... Dunno who reads this but hopefully it helps someone!

1. Laundry card requires online top up - they didn't accept my Australian credit cards so I had to go find a laundromat somewhere (there are a few nearby).

2. Buying groceries in Chile - when you get bread, fruit, veggies etc in plastic bags, there are weighing machines in the store before you take them to the counter.

3. If you're not Chilean and/or don't speak Spanish, then when the people at the supermarket cash registers say something really fast to you as soon as they start scanning your items, just say "no tengo rut" (rut pronounced "root"). It's like a social security number.

4. Same old adage: “Don’t Look Rich, Don’t Look Like A Tourist”.....Watch your personal items all the time when out. I mean ALL the time. It'll happen faster than you'd believe, and your stuff is gone forever.

5. CorreosChile is the national ‘Australia Post’. They are ....less than efficient. Hardly anyone speaks English so prepare yourself. Go with FedEx or DHL instead for sending stuff.

6. Uber is far safer than cabs. They also have 'Beat' which in my experience is also safe and reliable. UberEats, Rappi and PedidosYa are really good. PedidosYa and Rappi do not accept my Aussie credit cards, but UberEats does. If you wanna use the other two, I know PedidosYa at least accepts cash (”effectivo”) on delivery.

7. "Tiene (Tee-ehn-eh) Wifi?" means "Do you have Wifi?". Most places have free Wifi. Go along the street when you first get there and do a pub crawl or cafe crawl (whatever your preference) and sit down, order a drink or something and ask for their wifi. Before you know it you’ll have ‘collected’ wifi from a whole heap of places across this beautiful city. REALLY handy if you don’t have a Chilean SIM card.

8. The metro system is pretty straight forward - you buy a Bipi card at an actual pay station at any metro station and charge it using credit or debit (although please note, again, Aussie credit card worked, Aussie debit card didn’t).

9. If you want to buy a Chilean SIM, I went with Entel. I’m still not sure if it’s the best, but it definitely is easy to top up - go to any “OXXO” stores (like little 7-11′s) and you can top up via credit card. Like the laundromat card, I tried to top up with an Aussie credit card but it just won’t accept it. Also, it seems to only recharge with phone ‘reception’ (like texting/calling capability), not actual internet data....There are a few other options so maybe explore a bit? Dunno. Waiting for my visa for work to actually supply me a phone.

10. Haven’t had any issues getting cash (or “effectivo” in Chilean Spanish) out from Santander Bank or Banco de Chile yet. But have had zero success trying to use debit card for any outright payments.

11. Chileans speak incredibly rapidly, have a lot of slang, shorten/slur their words, and drop consonants. It’s like another language. Be prepared. You will always be a gringo/gringa. But it becomes easier! “Bacan” (Ba-kaahhn) means “cool”, and “Carrete” (Kah-(tongue-roll rrrrr)-eh-teh) means “party!”

12. In Santiago, I’ve found tap water is very clean and safe to drink. Have only tried in one other place (La Serena) and it was safe and clean as well.

13. Street vendors sell fresh orange juice, fresh cut fruit, bread rolls, boiled eggs, veggies, etc. They are, in my experience, all very safe to consume. The vendors work very hard so I think it is pretty important to support them as well as going to restaurants etc - my fave thing about walking the half hour to and from work each day is stopping at a few of these vendors and getting fresh orange juice, a cup of watermelon or strawberries, and some eggs and ‘jamon y queso’ (ham and cheese) rolls for breakkie.

14. The Chileans are lovely - they quickly start to take up a very special place in your heart - even if they do walk like lost souls and just wander in front of your and cut you off while your busy-ass Western-culture self is trying to power-walk to work each morning...!! They love their beer and soccer and if you make friends with Chileans you pretty much have friends for life.

15. The customary greeting when you meet someone or see an established friend (male or female) is a kiss on the right cheek and a simple hug. It is super normal.

16. BBQ’s!!!! God they love them!!!

17. Be aware that water, education, roads, public transport, and a bunch of other resources are pretty much all privatised, and cost a lot.

18. For the best cheapest eats, talk to the locals - ask for “the 3 B’s”: Bueno, Bonito y Barato (Good, nice and cheap). Make sure to say ‘por favor’ and ‘gracias’ (please and thank you) with everything, and smile a lot. They’ll point you in the right direction. And they won’t be lookin’ at you like such a gringo anymore...!

19. Be patient. They work on their own time. Shop attendants easily get side-tracked if a co-worker or someone comes up and asks a question. Just smile and continue your order/request.

20. Learn Spanish. Can’t stress it enough. Chilean Spanish is realllly different to ‘normal’ Spanish, so it’ll still be a challenge. But if you learn a bit of Spanish, it’ll go a long way. I haven’t come across many people in Chile who speak any English - in fact even the younger generation generally don’t even know a word. I mean, they know “no”, but it’s the same in Spanish, so really doesn’t count...

PS: visa process....

You used to be able to come and stay in Chile off-the-cuff for like 90 days as an Aussie. Like around $120 USD was payable in the airport before you went through customs. Now as of the 16th December there is a requirement that you pre-apply for a visitor visa online (link below).

https://tramites.minrel.gov.cl/Solicitudes/visa.aspx

Buen viaje!!!

[boristhemonster]

Bad-ass? Well...that’s open to interpretation...

Life as an engineer whose work involves blowing shit up on a regular basis is quite apt for a girl like me; an intermittently virtuous science nerd who gets a little too excited when she sees a detonator and finds no sound more comforting than a perfectly timed open-cut blast. Historically I’ve been strung like an abnormally high pitched violin and handled stressful moments with the finesse of a cranky two-year-old, but now I seem shrug and giggle and get entranced into a ‘solutions’ mode over two glasses of wine. That which began as a wrathful little tyke permanently on edge is now able to hold a conversation without dropping the F-word or trying to convey that “I didn’t choose the thug life”.

Think that sums me up the best. I think age has helped me relax a bit.

Raised on a robust diet of political incorrectness, Monty Python and an impressive array of choice words, I like to think I’ve achieved a level of reasonable wit and badass-ness. Not badass by international standards, of course; I’m yet to reach any sort of Vladimir Putin level, predominantly due to a lack of nuclear weapons or assassins at my disposal, nor enemies requiring poisoning. I don’t dislike my ex-boyfriends that much...

But I did have a cat called ‘Vodka’ in high school, and I work with commercial explosives for a living. I have a coffee mug that assures me every morning that I’m a total badass, endorsed further by the adjacent mug that reminds me that coffee keeps me going until it’s ‘wine time’. There’s also an ‘Angry Birds’ one ostentatiously perched on my desk at work. I received second-class honours in my engineering degree because I substituted ‘study-and-behave time’ for ‘wine-and-oysters-with-my-bestie time’ a little too often to have first-class bestowed upon me. Then there is this weird thing I have for painting pictures of dead trees while practising Russian with my fridge (if it ever talks back I’ll have to reassess some life choices).

My favourite ‘group’ of ‘things’ is a ‘murder’ of ‘crows’. I love ACDC and Korn, and I can pretty much recite Eminem’s The Real Slim Shady at the drop of a Snoop beanie (now that’s gangsta). I shot a can about fifteen metres away with a rifle once and I look like a Columbian drug runner on my driver’s licence. While writing this, I slaughtered three tiny fruit flies and made a batch of banana and blueberry muffins when the recipe explicitly said ‘banana and pecan’. I even found a picture of my Mum smoking while wearing a grey hoodie and made a ‘Thug Life’ meme out of it.

Aged seven, I brought home my one and only ever gold star, impressing and confusing the hell out of my parents. They were an unsettling blend of proud and disturbed upon discovering it was because I didn’t hit anyone at school that day (in my defence, those other kids always coloured outside the lines, so in my opinion they got what was coming to them). The jubilation was short-lived. The next day I copped a ruler over the knuckles for writing three of my favourite choice words in my Year 2 exercise book.

Somehow my Year 3 teacher managed to suppress the anger in this ireful little cherub and I went on to be very uncool in high school. I’m almost proud of how uncool I became because I think it set a benchmark for all nerdy kids out there. All the math, chemistry, reading and Star Trek binges afforded little time for things like friends, boys and personal aesthetics. My parents surely were pleasantly surprised. Dad realised he wouldn’t need to buy a gun or hire bikies while I navigated puberty. Mum let me have a lock on my door. I stayed in my room mostly to hide from the world, so there was little to spark any fear that I’d climb out the window or do anything other than my homework, read the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy, or gaze into the mirror wishing I was pretty.

I distinctly remember being called a ‘slut’ when I didn’t kick a ball back to a school boy on the oval one time and as I stood there on a grass mound like a stunned mullet, my first thought was, how ironic. It was well-known and, to look at me, entirely conceivable, that I hadn’t even kissed a boy. That didn’t change until I was nearly nineteen and at University. It started off with my left leg being dry-humped at a party.

Seven years, a graduation, four failed relationships, many wines and a bunch of inadvertent ‘social suicide’ attempts later, I was literally smashing it out as a drill and blast engineer in Queensland.

My career blessed me with four years in one particular tiny mining town in Queensland cattle country, around a hundred kilometres inland from Bundaberg, and it taught me a few things. Firstly, one does not go to the ladies’ room. One takes either a ‘slash’ or a ‘horse-piss’. Second, worship your coffee baristas like they are gods because they are nowhere to be seen out in places like that town. Thirdly, orange liqueur won’t cure a cold, no matter how much vitamin C you believe it contains.  On that note, that drunk stockman at the local pub who tells you that a pint of straight Bundaberg Rum with a squeeze of lemon, followed by ‘sweating it out’ overnight in a swag out in a paddock somewhere will cure your cold, is lying. Finally, try not to strip down to a bra and short-shorts and sing a drunken Happy Birthday to an out-of-towner Council road worker, or dance with the diesel mechanics on the pool table singing Hotel California and drinking straight Jack Daniels. Confining one’s beverage appreciation to the comfort and privacy of one’s own couch is paramount to maintaining a respectful image when one must work and live amongst the same, single group of small-townsfolk.  

Gosh, did I learn the hard way. Now my life is based in a large coastal town north of Sydney, where there are those glorious things called ‘coffee shops’ and ‘anonymity’. And if my dear, well-wishing colleagues ever ask what I have planned for the weekend, I will fight my honest-to-Buddha badass-ness, which would ordinarily propel me to inform the enquirers that I will be savouring red wine, from the bottle, on my couch, in my pyjamas…which kind of need washing because they’ve acquired an odour reminiscent of stale piss and milk that is three weeks past expiry… and I will be ordering two Margherita pizzas on the Friday night so that I have Saturday’s breakfast covered, too.

Instead, I graciously impart that I will be busy with yoga, running on the beach, drinking my own body weight in green tea, and diligently working on that trial report that’s due in two weeks.

Next time we shall discuss how I didn’t learn the above lessons very well, the ‘bad drag’ dress-up party and how I lost my motor skills and lost one of my guns, the weekends bat-caving with the RAAF-ies and finishing off the remaining tequila while watching Team America and Animes, and my personal favourite: when I sat open-chested in a tee-pee in front of ‘nipple-readers’, dressed up in a space suit and a blue-green wig.

Werrrrd.

AK