Progress: Moving into a house in Vitacura

Things seem to be improving with “Mission Chile”. Since my last post, we moved out of the tiny apartment hotel and into a really nice house in a beautiful area of Santiago, called Vitacura. Like most comunas (communities) in Santiago, Vitacura is quite large and includes a number of different neighbourhoods, so it is more accurate to state that we live in Vitacura Antiquo (Old Vitacura) in Jardin del Este. This part of Vitacura is walking distance to William´s school, coffee shops, bakeries, grocery stores, restaurants and public transit, which fits our lifestyle perfectly.

The neighbourhood was built in the 1960´s and is famous for the architectural style of the homes. The house itself is a spacious bungalow, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and a lot of windows and walk-outs into a large walled garden with remote activated electric gates, which is typical for Chile. The house was renovated right before we moved in, so it seems fresh and new despite its age. The owner lives next door to us and will be making a few additional improvements in the coming weeks, including new windows and the installation of a pool (with a safety fence to keep the kids out). Hopefully the pool will be complete in time for the summer weather.

Another major breakthrough that came along with moving out of the hotel was getting Hasso back from the kennel.

With progress comes complication. Most rentals in Chile are completely unfurnished, which also means that they have no appliances. Knowing this, we spent the weeks leading up to the move buying furniture from Expats leaving Santiago and ordering appliances from a local retailer, just so we would have the basics when we moved in. Unfortunately 6 days after moving in (and four service calls later) we have only just gotten our stove and oven working properly. Like everything here, something as simple as connecting an oven to the gas line in the house ends up being super complex. We are also without some key pieces of furniture, so we have spent the week having picnics on the floor with the kids and have recently brought some patio furniture inside the house to act as a make-shift table. While all this was happening Jeremy had to go on a business trip to Copiapo, followed by a trip that didn´t happen (due to an unfortunate stomach flu that he acquired after drinking tap water in Copiapo) to Toronto.

The next tasks include getting the internet, phone and cable connected, which are also proving to be extremely bureaucratic exercises. I think we will also need to have the house fumigated and the carpets cleaned because Hasso picked up a lovely case of ticks in the kennel and brought them home with him.

This coming weekend is a long weekend in Chile as well. The kids are bored out of their minds from staying home all week waiting for service men to fix our cocina (oven) and we´re all about ready to kill each other, so I think we may go stay in a nice hotel for a night to take a break from all of this!

We´ll be thinking of you all enjoying your turkey dinners this weekend!

Week Three Success Stories

In addition to the stories about our house set-up woes, I thought I’d let you know about some of the success stories.

1) Conquering the Bus System:

Living in Vitacura is beautiful and safe, but the downside is that the comuna is not on any metro lines (which is one of the reasons it is not the target of “opportunistic crimes” like some of the other easily accessible neighborhoods in Santiago).

Fortunately Jeremy can walk to Kinross’ Santiago office in less than 30 minutes, but I need to navigate my way on the transit system to mid-town, in Providencia. On my first workday morning in the new house I decided to test out my new commute, on the bus (which is an entirely different class of transportation than the subway).

I experienced a welcome nugget of Chilean generosity on this first morning when I got on the bus and presented the driver with a metro ticket. Unlike the TTC, the buses do not accept cash or tickets, only a swipe from a BIP card. In summary, the Santiago transit system is far more advanced technologically than the TTC and has chargeable touch-cards (BIP cards) that you can use to ride the entire system. In any case, when I tried to give the driver the ticket and he said something in rapid Spanish in response, I said I didn’t understand and he just shook his head in disbelief and waved me onto the bus. This is how I learned to ride the bus system in Santiago. In 5 days I’ve become an experto on the 405 bus route from Providencial to/from Vitacura, and have figured out the tricks of minimizing travel time by avoiding busy times on the wicked traffic circle that is enroute to my office.

Bus drivers in Santiago are the cowboys of the city. They drive like maniacs, but know exactly what they’re doing and navigate through the busy streets during rush hour with cunning speed. We were warned about driving near buses in Santiago, because they think nothing of side swiping cars that get in their way, particularly in the crazy traffic circles. They also seem to have free reign to decorate their buses as they wish (with their names embossed with stickers at the entrance, frilly curtains across their front windows and other trinkets hanging here and there) and select their own music to blast for their patrons to set the mood for the white-knuckled rides. I thought the King Street car had character, but the 405 bus takes the cake!

2) My first Deloitte Chile Learning Day:

Today was my first Learning Day in the Deloitte Chilean firm, and the theme was “Industries” and the day was hosted by Clients & Markets. It goes without saying that the entire day consisted of presentations in Spanish, so I had my work cut out for me trying to a) piece together what each presenter was saying, and b) try to absorb the valuable content on the Chilean marketplace.

Although I dreaded going, the day turned out to be great. The combination of Power Point and speakers made most of the content a lot easier for me to understand, and colleagues made themselves available to answer my questions after each session so I could fill in any “blanks” in my understanding. The presentations on the economic situation in Chile, water scarcity and telecom industry were extremely interesting and gave me some really good background of the business context in which I am now working.

3) Jackson is Wearing Underwear:

Although the non parents reading this will think it is really lame, I am pleased to declare that Jackson (age 2 years, 2 months) has renewed interest in toilet training and has decided that Spiderman underwear and his Tomas potty seat are super cool. We have had quite a few little potty successes over the last few days and see a small glimmer of hope that we may rid ourselves of diapers in the near term. Fingers crossed that the successes continue! (oh, and Jackson now calls Hasso "Haho" instead of "Papa" too, which is a major break through in his pronunciation of H's!)