Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Parks and restaurants

I had some pondering to do the other day, so I decided to walk over to a park that is near the co-working space. Thankfully, it has an abundance of shade trees and benches, which I put to good use. Like the other nearby park, this one has a miniature library. It is basically a coffee shop with books, plenty of seating, and WiFi. One of these days I plan to take advantage of the latter two amenities.




I couldn't remember if I'd posted a picture of this before, but just in case, there is a restaurant near our apartment called "Louisiana". It makes me chuckle every time I walk past because of how stereotypically "American" it is.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Coffee Shopping

Jen and I wandered around a bit yesterday and ended up at a pretty nice coffee shop and roaster. This was an interesting experience, in part because Chile really doesn't have much of a coffee "culture". Despite being in South America, where quite a bit of the world's coffee is grown, Chileans seem to drink mostly instant coffee, or none at all.


Of course I fit right in since I don't drink coffee. But Jen was quite excited to have a good cup of coffee. You can see my delightful tea above.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Christmas in Santiago

We don't really have any Christmas plans (although we are going to have a tasty dinner tonight) but we are planning to go for a walk around Santiago since the streets will be pretty quiet. I thought I would take this opportunity to share some recent pictures.


This is Cafe Literario, a coffee shop and bookstore near the co-working space we use. I haven't been there yet, but the reviews on Google say they have good Wifi, so I will probably spend some time there over the next couple months. It looks pretty neat.


Amelia had been concerned that she wouldn't be able to find Skittles in Chile, but the Lider has a whole display of them. I sent Will the picture and he assured me that Amelia would be quite relieved.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Wine Tasting in Casablanca

Yesterday we went on a wine tour near Casablanca, Chile. Our first stop was Vinedos Emeliana, an organic vineyard and winery. They try to use natural methods as much as possible, even to the point of letting chickens wander around the vineyards to eat insects that would otherwise eat the grapes. I took quite a few pictures, a few of which are below.







Next, we went to a restaurant called Casa Botha. The food was delightful and the wine was just as good! The owner was kind enough to explain the food and wine as it was served. He even gave us a quick tour of the kitchen. The interior of the restaurant was fascinating being constructed and decorated with materials recovered from old buildings.






Our final stop was the Bodegas RE winery. In addition to wine, they make and sell olive oil and balsamic vinegar as well as various fruit liqueurs (that are very, very strong). Jen and I bought some oil and vinegar, partly because of the nifty bottles. One of the most interesting characteristics of this winery is that they age the wine in what amount to very large jars in addition to oak barrels. We got to wander around their cellar as well, making for some interesting photos you will find below.





Friday, December 19, 2014

So Much Work

I worked from 8:30 until 18:15 today. It was pretty rough, but we got a lot accomplished. As it turns out, our project might actually be cooler than we initially planned, so that's nice. We had pretty productive meetings and brainstorming sessions most of the morning, then this afternoon I worked on getting some of our infrastructure set up. Overall, a good day.

Tomorrow, we are going wine tasting to the west of Santiago. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the countryside. I haven't left the city since we arrived. We also get some kind of fancy dinner as part of the tour, so that will be interesting as well.

Short post today, so I will leave you with a picture of the upside-down restaurant. It is one of those rotating restaurants on top of a building, but the ceiling has mirrors on it so you can see the tops of the diners heads. Very weird. You might have to zoom in.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Walking Around

I left work early today so that I could get some work done on my thesis. This meant that Jenny and I had time for a walk. We wandered through a neighborhood we hadn't been in yet. It was more of a residential area, even though it was only a few blocks from the big office buildings. We saw some pretty flowers, a reminder that it is definitely summer here!



We also visited the grocery store and got some delicious fresh-baked bread. They have these rolls that are delightfully soft on the inside but crusty on the outside. While we were there we noticed that they had fixed the fountain in the square outside the small grocery store.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Work and Walking

Not much happened today. I spent most of the day coding. This evening, Jen made a delicious stir fry for dinner (she has clearly gotten comfortable with the kitchen and grocery situation, which has been a bit of an adjustment for both of us) and then we went for a walk. The neighborhood where we live is really very nice. There are a lot of interesting apartment buildings. I only took one picture, of a very large palm tree, so I will leave you with that.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Dining Out

Will and I went out to lunch today, it was my first experience eating at a Chilean restaurant. Although I'm not sure if calling it a restaurant would be entirely accurate. It was really more of a storefront with some food available for purchase. It was delightful, though! Here is part of the spread that was available. I had the item in the middle, which was some kind of seasoned, breaded, fried hamburger and was quite tasty.


As you can see below, I also had rice with vegetables and a lovely salad consisting of broccoli and tomatoes. The meal also included some tasty bread, some kind of juice, and watermelon for dessert (although one of the people we were with said she has never been served dessert before, so that apparently isn't normal).



The entire meal cost $3,300 CLP (about $5.50 USD), not bad for a full meal. The best part of the meal was that we were shooed out once we finished eating because there were only about five tables and a line had begun forming. Very amusing.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Our First Sunday

As it turns out, Sunday is a pretty neat day in Santiago. They close a bunch of the streets for bicyclists and walkers and everyone spends time outdoors.

This morning we visited a produce market. We were greeted in English at one of the stands, so we bought some strawberries, cherries, asparagus, and avocados there since we could communicate a little better. We also got some peppers at another stand.

Later, Jen and I joined in the outdoor fun and walked over to Parque Metropolitano, a large park that occupies a small mountain in the middle of the city. It was an extremely pleasant, if crowded walk with nice views of the city.

The park features a Japanese garden, which is as tranquil as one might expect. There were also quite a few mountain bikers, which was kind of interesting given how large Santiago is. Jen tells me that the people here tend to have a "work hard, play hard" attitude, which probably helps explain all the accommodations made for cyclists.


On our way back we saw an adorable dog. Jen told me it was a Chow.



Friday, December 12, 2014

Palm Trees and Snowcaps

Santiago has an interesting climate. In the summer (right now) the temperatures during the day are generally in the 70s and low 80s and, at night, in the 50s and 60s. In the winter it gets significantly colder, but rarely drops below freezing (at least during the day). This climate means that there are quite a few palm trees used in landscaping, the city parks are full of them. The city is also surrounded by fairly large mountains, many of which keep their snowcaps well into the summer. These two characteristics combine to mean that in the early summer you can see people wearing shorts and t-shirts, walking under palm trees, in the sun, with snow in the background. Pretty cool.

Jen and I went for a walk along the river today. I use the term "river" pretty loosely here, it is really more of a drainage channel. The riverbed has been paved and, presumably, optimized for flood prevention, so the current is fast and muddy. What the river lacks in beauty, though, the parks and the skyline compensate for nicely, as you can see below.



After our walk, we visited the underground grocery store which, as it turns out, is owned by Wal-Mart. I noticed a shelf of "Great Value" branded products (Wal-Mart's store brand) and checked the back of one of the packages to see if it was just a coincidence, clever rip-off, or actually a Wal-Mart product. Turned out to be the latter. I feel a bit worse about shopping there now, but maybe I'll get over it.


I took a picture in front of the store this time. Feels very weird being in a hole in the ground, but it is kind of interesting as well.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Nose to the Grindstone

I finally got to spend a full day working today. We went over to the co-working space around 9am and came home around 5:30pm. So a solid day. Or whatever. For those of you who care, I spent most of the day writing Java. I must say that it has come a long way since just a few years ago. I actually found the experience to be quite pleasant. Though, I think this is partially explained by my growing appreciation for statically typed languages.

More exciting were the places I got to explore. On the way home Will and I stopped by the Lider, a medium-size grocery store. It is in an underground shopping center attached to the metro station near our apartment. The place actually looks a bit like a set from a Star Trek episode, I should post a picture at some point.

This evening, Jen and I went for a walk. We visited all six or seven (I can't remember) floors in the local mall. So many stores. The top floor is literally the largest food court I have ever seen. Basically every American chain is represented, along with dozens of things I'd never heard of. The other floors were as-expected, lots and lots of stores. There are quite a few stores that sell hiking and camping gear, which was kind of cool to see. Chileans also appear to love their consumer electronics and computers.


In other news, it was pretty clear today (smog is an issue here) so the view from our balcony was quite nice. Hence, I braved the balcony (very scary) to take a couple photos, the best one of which is above.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Bureaucracy: Round II

Another day spent dealing with the ins and outs of the Chilean immigration system. Since the ID card office was closed by the time we got there yesterday, we tried again this morning. The wait was only about 20 minutes since we got there a few minutes after the office opened.

Of course all didn't go smoothly, though. But first, the good news. The people at this office were relatively friendly and the woman who helped me actually fetched an English-speaking employee when she realized things were amiss.

Now the bad news. Apparently the immigration police entered my name into the database as "George", when it should have been entered as "George Thomas" (Thomas is my middle name). I almost lost my mind when the woman told me this. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait in either line again (I got to line-jump since I'd already waited and was having an error corrected). The man I spoke with at the immigration police office even seemed to find the error mildly amusing, it felt like we shared a moment of thoughtcrime.

But after a lot of walking and nervously watching people study and stamp forms, I have successfully applied for my ID card!

In other news, we actually got some work done today, so that was nice. The co-working space is quite nice. It is crowded, but comfortable, and the Internet is satisfyingly snappy. Will and I took an ussie this afternoon, I've included it below.


Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Bureaucracy

We got our first real taste of Chilean bureaucracy today. Waited in line for over four hours to do some sort of registration with the police. Then they skipped Jen's number and we had to argue with / beg one of the officers to let her go.

After we got our paperwork from the police, we had to walk a couple miles to some other office to get ID cards, but they were already closed for the day (well, not closed, but they weren't accepting new people in the line any more). So I guess we're going back tomorrow.

The experience was pretty awful and made me really feel for immigrants in the US, especially those who speak Spanish and therefore face an extra level of hostility. The officials with whom we interacted weren't terribly friendly (for the most part) and most didn't even attempt to communicate in English (not that they should necessarily have to, although they do work in a visa processing office).

It is terribly frustrating when you are subject to the rules and dictates of a system but can't actually understand what they are because you don't speak the language. I already supported printing signs and official paperwork in multiple languages, but now even more so.

Hopefully I'll get some work done tomorrow...

Monday, December 8, 2014

Arrived in Chile

We arrived in Santiago, Chile today. Fun fact, we were apparently on the inaugural flight for the United Airlines Houston-Santiago route. This meant that when we arrived in Santiago the plane got a water salute, which was pretty neat.

Once we arrived at our apartment, I took a couple photos from our balcony. We have some nice views.



Tomorrow we go to get our Chilean ID cards and I'm going to check out the Startup Chile co-working space. Then, in the afternoon, Will and I are going to get to work.