Santiago

"In Chile everything is centralized in the capital... If it doesn't happen in Santiago, it may as well not happen at all." (From "My Invented Country" by Isabel Allende)

Depending on the route of your flight from the States, you can count on it taking about 24 hours to land you a birds eye view of the Andes - snow capped and endless - before your descent into Santiago de Chile. I arrived without my bags which had not made the connecting flight in Buenos Aires, and was therefore thrown back to the Spanish 3 unit on travel vocabulary. One thing I will say that has come through loud and clear on this trip is thank GOD for Lola Danielli. That woman is an absolute saint for being so wonderfully stubborn and demanding about the three uses of "ser", five uses of "estar" and all the differences between "por" y "para" to a bunch of entitled high school brats who wouldn't try hard enough to meet her standards. Well when they lose their baggage somewhere in Latin America, the joke is on them and the few of us who stuck it out with her will have enough to draw from to explain "the plane was late, the baggage didn't make it, it's not checked through to SCL, it was on a different airline, I'm wearing sandals in the middle of winter and really need my bags, here is the address and phone number where I can be reached now please please find my bags." (And indeed they were found and arrived at 268 Merced, Santiago Centro only a few hours later much to my satisfaction and relief.)

And Santiago... I think much of Latin America can best be described as Europe-like but with grit. And I like me some grit, so it suits me quite nicely. Of course the United States has weaseled its way into some of the infrastructure here - McDonalds and Starbucks are a universal certainty now I think. But they are not so omnipresent as in other countries and are in fact difficult to find amongst the cafes, churrasco/completo shops, and of course the bookstores which are more plentiful than any other commercial venture. A country whose bookstores outnumber anything else is my kind of heaven.

Santiago is remarkably centralized for the tourist and although the metro system is fantastic, I prefer to walk through the bohemian graffitied streets of Bellavista, the curved refined Lastarria, the crazed Huerfanos, the distinctly Spanish-style Plaza de Armas. I'm surprised by the number of street dogs in such a progressive, modern city but they don't seem to bother anyone else so I am trying to withhold my judgement. I'm confused by the main drag being named "Avenida O'Higgins" instead of something more "latin" sounding, but it doesn't seem to bother anyone else so I am trying to withhold my judgement. But the parks, the plazas, the occasional cathedral and old ornate buildings make Santiago feel like somewhere people go to live.