After a serially/seriously delayed flight from Dallas-Fort Worth, I finally got to Santiago on Monday night. Unfortunately, the night wasn't over then. Before leaving for Santiago I reserved a room in a private university residence, made a deposit to secure my spot, and gave the residence a rough estimate of when my flight was supposed to arrive. Then my flight got delayed because of ice storms in DFW, and instead of arriving midday Monday I was told I would arrive around 8 pm local time. I let the residence know by email, I even called them to make sure there'd be someone at the residence when I arrived to let me in...
Obviously there was no one there to let me in when I showed up. It didn't help that I had told the taxi driver the wrong address, and that I was getting in around midnight instead of around 8 pm, as I had estimated (delayed flight, again). To my great fortune, though, I had chosen a super nice cab driver, who helped me call the residence on his cell phone during the half an hour period while we searched for the residence. We finally figured out that I had given him the wrong address, and we made our way to the correct spot. By that time someone had been woken up to let me in; she vainly tried to help me carry my enormous suitcases through the narrow hallways, eventually letting me struggle with the bags by myself. She showed me my room (a closet, more or less), and I collapsed into bed.
The next morning I was awoken by a knock on the door. One of the residence employees was at my door telling me someone was on the phone asking for me. I picked up the phone to hear a woman saying, "James, I'm the agent who stamped your passport last night when you passed through customs at the airport, and I'm calling because I made an error with your stamp."
So that was a little disconcerting. It turns out, she had stamped SAL (salida, or exit) on my passport, instead of (ENT, entrada). Although Chile's computer system would show that I had entered the country legally, someone only looking at my passport might have reason to believe that I had entered the country illegally. She explained this all to me, and suggested that we meet so that she could fix the stamp, so we agreed to meet in a metro station half an hour later. Forty-five minutes later (or a Chilean half hour, I think) we found each other in a metro station. While I had expected she might bring a new stamp, she instead whipped out a ballpoint pen and doctored the stamp, writing ENT over the letters SAL. And while I had serious doubts about this "solution," I was able to register on Friday with Chile's International Police without this causing any problems.
If after reading this you're shitting bricks about going through Chilean customs, don't: my overall impression was that the system was effective and quick. And the fact that the agent who helped me made a mistake is not nearly as notable as the fact that she tracked me down (I didn't provide a phone number, so she had to look it up through the police) to let me know she had screwed up and then, after working all night, met up with me that morning (still wearing her work suit) to find me. Before coming to Chile I read a lot about how Chile's progress in creating stable institutions and reducing corruption; while I can't pretend to have seen much more than a small picture of Chile's government functions, what I have seen has given me confidence.
All of that happened within about twelve hours of my arrival in Chile. Throughout this week, I find myself looking back at what I've done that day and been exhausted at the thought. That's not to say I've been super busy: I've spent plenty of time reading for pleasure and perusing Facebook; rather, so many things are new to me, and it will still be some time before I can relax into any kind of routine. Slowly, though, I'm figuring things out. Food hasn't been easy: while I have access to ovens, stoves, and fridge space, that's just about it. Today I finally made my way to Líder (Walmart Chile) and bought a couple of pans, in addition to some basic ingredients like rice, beans, and pasta. These will go a long way to supplementing my current diet, which has been heavily influenced by wonderfully cheap Chilean produce (peaches and nectarines are especially good right now). I'll spend the next couple of days attending classes; on Wednesday I can begin registering myself permanently. In the meantime, I've found a small community of rowers in Santiago, located Calle Jorge Washington, and told every Chilean who will listen about how cool I think it is that we basically share the same flag. Most have at least feigned interest, bless their hearts.
That's a lot of text for just one post. I'll update with some more of what's going on here soon enough. Till then, here's a few photos of this week's wanderings, all part of my gradual quest to make Santiago home. Thanks again for reading.
Metro Santiago, Línea 5
Santiago's Plaza de Armas. It's undergoing restoration efforts, scheduled to finish in June
shitting bricks is what this aunt is doing. Holy bucket - what a way to arrive! More posts, please!!!
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