Housing and Rent

Rent

In this post I am going to talk about mostly my experience of finding and renting a flat in Santiago for the duration of my stay. The most sensible thing that I could do was rent a place as I could not crash at a co-founders place for that long and staying at temporary accommodation like a  hostel for 6 months would not make sense.So finding a place is challenging in Santiago for a couple of reasons. Most places for rent are unfurnished as most people take their furniture with them when they move to a new flat, for reasons unknown. So if you have furniture with you great, but for travelers such as I this isn't the best. The prices vary on the area but anything more that 270.000 per person a month is really overpriced.

Santiago

Looking for flats can be exhausting and long. So if you don't want to personally explore all the different flats available you could always ask estate agents and agencies that deal with all the landlords. If your Spanish is poor as was mine this is one of the best ways to do it. The charges can be quite steep but it's worth it, if you are lazy.

The nature of accelerators is that people stay for a varying lengths of time in the city/country. So  you have to figure out what to do with that empty room once someone leaves. Which means searching for room mates. This can prove to be difficult.

Areas to live

Santiago is a large city and there are many places to live. The most expensive areas tend to be Las Condes and Providencia, however these areas are very nice and close to town and a lot of places to go out for drinks.

Work and Language

Commute

Being a Londoner I thought I was fully equipped for any sort of daily commute. I was wrong. So wrong.

The transport system in Santiago is quite similar to London (Oyster Card) in the way that there is a touch based pass system called a Bip! (Yes, the exclamation point is included) card. Which to be honest makes much more sense than an Oyster card. Travel is also significantly cheaper than London and with a lot less delays. However, if you happen to go to the metro station or the bus stop at the wrong time...

The crowds are the worst I have seen people tend not to be so careful with personal space as in London (hard to believe) and it is very easily possible to miss your stop because people refuse to move out the way no matter how much you say 'Permesso' which is the equivalent of excuse me.

Work

What am I doing in Chile I imagine I hear you ask me? I am part of a Start up program that kick starts businesses. Each business gets $40,000 dollars to spend on their business. I am the programmer for leadership evaluation website called Rankmi. You can find our site at  rankmi.com.  This program is funded by Corfo which is a financial branch of the government.

From what I have gathered  and seen things are definitely a little more relaxed here on the work front. People tend to be a bit more relaxed about the time they spend on breaks and lunches. You tend not to see people rushing around too much going to and from work.

Language

No one really speaks much English here, so the language barrier does exist. The language has it's quirks too with the occasional 's' being missed from the end of sentences to the addition of  'po' at certain points. The speed in which Chilleans speak is definitely faster then in other Spanish speaking countries such as  Spain and Argentina. Some other colloquial quirks include 'wayon' and 'bakan' however these can be definatly considered slang. I will delve into this subject a bit more deeply in later posts when I have grasped a better understanding of the language.

Food and Drink

Food

So currently my experience of food has been going out with the guy I am staying with and a few things I just noticed from walking around the super market. So the first place I went to when I arrived was a sushi place. You might be thinking  'Ah that's pretty standard around the world the way it is made.' This was not so the Chilean sushi all had it's own twist on it. For one they used avocado in almost everything which I thought it was a great idea. Sometimes instead of wrapping the nori in seaweed it was avocado.

sushi with avocado wrapping

They also had a lot of a local food called 'ceviche' with the sushi. Ceviche is raw fish marinated lemon juice with onions and big pieces of sweetcorn. Oh there is sweetcorn in everything and I mean everything. There are sweet drinks called 'mote' which are drinks made from sweetcorn or wheat grains and conserved apricots in a sweet liquid.

Ceviche

                  mote

Other than sweetcorn there is a way of cooking called al a pobre. This is usually a dish which is served with sauteed onions, fried potatoes and some form of an egg. There is dispute over whether the eggs should be fired sunny side up or be scrambled. This dish is a usual accompaniment to large portions of meat.

A la pobre

The country is also famous for its seafood, however this is a whole different kettle of fish. As the topic is so large I will cover fish and the seaside culture in another blog-post.

 Alcohol

The main alcohol of the country is probably a hard liquor made from Pisco. This hard liquor is made from grapes and most commonly drunk with either coke or lime. The liquor is deceptively easy to drink even on it's own but be warned it is just as potent as any other liquor.

Pisco

If you are a beer person the country isn't particularly great for beers. The cheapest drinkable beer is a Chilean beer called Escudo. The rest are quite expensive compared to all other alcohol which is significantly better.

Escudo

 I am specifically speaking of the wine which is very affordable at  £3 for a decent bottle of red. Their love of wine continues with a sangria like drink which is called Borgona which is red wine mixed with strawberries and Clerico which is white wine mixed with peaches.

Borgona

There is one drink that I should mentioned that stood out as a liver destroyer is called a Teremota which translates to earthquake. The concoction is a cheap pint of wine mixed with red berry sauce with a huge dollop of pineapple ice-cream. It as potent as it is delicious, which is very.

Teremota

First and one of Many

Intro

Welcome to my blog about foreigners working, living and getting by in Chile. Temporarily or not. I'll mention the things I'm doing, the people I'm meeting and what is considered day to day life. Some posts will include photos and videos all to do with living in Chile. 

Map of Chile

A bit about me

I am living in Santiago for the next 6 months. I have joined a program called Start-up Chile  and I am an entrepreneur/developer. Being part of the program basically means we get some initial funding for a business idea from the government of Chile.

Banner from the site

Other than these topics I'll cover what I hear about the history and culture of the greater country in general.

Enjoy!