August 4-5, 2015: Taking It Easy

When Garv and Lindsay decided to move to Chile, I was very excited because I knew it would give me an opportunity to spend an extended time in a different country.  Staying two weeks (like last year) or three weeks (like this year) would be too expensive if I was staying at a hotel.  Staying an extended time appealed to me because I wouldn't have to sprint through a city or country like a few of my trips. The opportunity to participate in mundane daily activities provides a fuller understanding of a culture than simply by seeing the tourist sites.  For example, I can visit New York or Washington, DC or Paris, but that is not the real New York, Washington, DC or Paris.  Also, I like spending a full three weeks in Chile because we can have a very leisurely (and Chilean-like) schedule.   (And according to my sister, spending three weeks here gives me time to "bond with your sister").

My first day in Chile (Tuesday, August 4, 2015) was a perfect example of the leisurely schedule.  Day 1 consisted of unpacking, napping, going out to lunch, grocery shopping, planning the rest of the week, dinner and bedtime.  

Garv and Lindsay live on the 20th floor of an apartment building in the Las Condes district of Santiago.  It has a stunning view, too.  

The view from their apartment

They truly live a city lifestyle.  They have a vehicle, but they usually only use it on the weekends.  So when they conduct their mundane business that most Americans (except those who live in Manhattan, downtown Chicago, or a few other city centers) would use a car for, they walk.

Since they can't just go to Hy-Vee, Fareway, or Wal-mart, they have five main ways of acquiring groceries.

1. Bring items from the states:  This picture is a sample of the items that they brought back to Chile.

2. Have someone do the shopping for her: There is a business called La Vega Delivery in which the customer submits an order and someone from LVD goes to the market, buys those items, and delivers them.  She simply filled something out online on Tuesday and this was waiting for her on Wednesday.

3. Order their groceries online, which sounds a lot like La Vega Delivery.  But they can't do that because they need a Chilean credit card, which apparently is very complex...

4. Go to the Jumbo supermarket, which is a Wal-mart sized grocery store.  To do that, she walks or takes the metro to the store and then takes a taxi back home with all of her groceries.

5. Go to the Unimarc grocery store, which is a Majere's Foodtown (the grocery store in Remsen) sized grocery store.  To do that, she walks a few blocks with her cute blue (obviously, they didn't have pink) cart, which is what we did.

LG walking with her empty cart

The grocery store really isn't that different, but it is a strange phenomenon to walk six blocks or so to the grocery store.  For example, I live four blocks from the Estherville Hy-Vee and five blocks from Fareway, but it would never cross my mind to walk to the grocery store.  But then again, I don't have a cute, blue, flowery cart with which to transport my groceries, which I'm doing in the picture below.  And that little cart has $90 worth of groceries; food is expensive in Chile!

Despite ordering groceries and going grocery shopping, we still didn't have anything to eat that night.  Garv went right to work on Tuesday so he didn't feel like going out.  So we did the most logical thing--pick up LG's favorite, empanandas!  So we bought three of these, each for $2 (it's the best food value in Chile), and enjoyed them that evening.

My second day (Wednesday, August 5, 2015) in Chile we did some site seeing from 10 AM-1 PM (which I will discuss in a subsequent post), but once again it was filled with mundane tasks.  We met Garv for lunch, I used some Spanish to buy postcards, did some writing, worked out, and ate at the apartment.  The evening concluded with a visit from some of Garv's and LG's friends, Rob and Melissa.  They came over for a couple of hours to hear about Garv's and LG's time in Okoboji and to catch up.  Rob is Canadian and Melissa is Australian, and like all Canadians and Australians I've met, they're a lot of fun.  It was also nice to meet some of their friends because when I visited Chile last year, they didn't know anyone outside of Garv's work.  It was very relaxed and very enjoyable and just the type of experience that I could only have if I was spending an extended time in Chile...