There are a lot of street dogs in Santiago. In the beginning, I took a tour and they were talking about street dogs. Usually, they are on the street for two reasons – one is sad, and one happy.

Let me start with the sad one, which is the least likely scenario. People buy a little puppy. From a puppy becomes a dog and is too big or as the tour guide said, not as cute, so people just kick the dog out of the streets. It is a little bit ironic, because Chile has very strict rules about hurting animals. It is very strictly against the law to do anything to any animal. Actually, my friend got brought to the police station, because he was sitting on the bench and this street dog kept coming at him, so he pushed him away. In Chile you cannot even do that, which is how the law is strict. It is ironic because they have such as strict rules about hurting or even touching dogs when they are on the streets, but not punishment for people that kicked the dog out.

The second reason is a little happier. Many times you can see a street dog, which is very well fed and taken care of. In this case, the owner usually has a small flat or he wants the dog be happy, so one let the dog out on the streets. That being said, many times you can see a little door or a whole in the main door, so the dog can come back anytime and drink some water or eat. Sometimes even the owner leaves bowls of water and food outside, on the street, so the dog can get it anytime. It is like letting the dog on the backyard, except this backyard is the city of Santiago.

In most of the post Communistic countries, an ID of citizenship is required for every person. People in the United States are not familiar with this. This ID of citizenship works like driver’s license in the United States (it works like, it is not driver’s license.) If police stops you or at hotel they need to proof your identity, so you show your ID of citizenship. Also, if your country is in the European Union, then you can fly and travel only on your ID of citizenship, but why I am telling you all this?

In Chile you need an ID of citizenship even if you are not a citizen like me or other 150 foreign students that I am having classes with, in order to leave country. If you are staying in Chile for longer than, I believe 120 days or 4 months, in order to leave country you need to get Chilean ID of citizenship. So if you are just visiting for 6 weeks or so, you do not need apply.

So one pretty cold day in August, I and group of other 15 students from my program woke up in the morning at 6:00 a.m. to get on the line at 7:15 a.m.  The office did not open until 8:00 a.m. but the line was really long already at 7:15 a.m. You can probably tell that this was a long day for all of us, when I am saying times.

The office opened at 8:00 a.m. and actually, everything was smooth. We waited only an hour to get our names start calling because our group were right next to each other. Unfortunately, my last name has a special symbol, which they could not type. This was a turning point. I waited extra 50 minutes for them to figure out how to type my last name because this document is essential for the office that we went after. If my last name would not be same as the one in my passport or Visa, I would have to do it all over again. at 10:00 a.m. we were finally out and heading for the next office.

We entered the room and wow! There was a lot of, I mean a lot of people. We got our ticket number. The personal was calling people with ticket number 182, and I had 224. The next three hours I was in line. I made a friend from Columbia, who was in Chile because he was taking TOEFL. He wanted to apply to a U.S. university, so I was giving him some advice. I read a lot, too. Moving forward, I finally got called and in four to six weeks, my ID of Chilean Citizenship will be in Santiago.

Santiago as a city is absolutely beautiful. The city is illustrates long history, modern world, nature, parks, sports or arts.

Santiago is very historic city. It was found in 1541 by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia. Without any knowledge of orientation is he founded Santago right in the middle of future Chile. In the beginning the original Santiago was build like a Chessboard, which is very interesting.

Santiago is also the financial center of Chile. All significant companies have headquarters in Santiago like LATAM, Banco de Chile, or Transbank. It is not surprised that the tallest building of South America is in Santiago.

People can see the nature everywhere in Santiago, from a lot of trees to Andes, which are right  behind Santiago. The mountains do not only provide an extraordinary view, but also a lot of tracks for hiking or skiing, which is very popular Santiago.

Parks. Parks are very popular in Chile. Parks are not only for recreation and relaxation, but also it is a place where Chile celebrates independence day, people exercise, play soccer or even go for vacation. In Santiago some parks function as camping sites, so people can go camping there.

People in South America love sports and Santiago is not an exception. When I say sports, I mainly mean football or how people in U.S. would refer soccer. In Santiago there is Estado National – the biggest soccer stadium in Santiago. Also, Santiago also has a lot of outside gyms.

Santiago shows a lot of signs of arts. People can see it in historic architecture of buildings. Statues, museums, galleries, theaters, but I think the biggest cultural attraction is a house of Pablo Neruda. I have personally visited house of Pablo Neruda and I will talk about it later.

Until I was 15 years old I lived in the Czech Republic, a country that in my opinion is still recovering from communistic regime. Since I was 15 years I have lived in the United States, a country that has never experienced communism. Actually on the contrary, United States were based on idea capitalist system, which probably cannot be more apart from communism or socialism. Right now, I am studying in Santiago, Chile, which is a country like the Czech Republic, they also recovering from socialism.

In the Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia during that times) experienced communism under the Russian invasion that lasted for about 21 years. On August 21, 1968, Soviets troops took over Czechoslovakia until the Velvet Revolution of 1989. During Velvet Revolution, the communist regime was overthrown.

Chile had communist regime under the dictator Augusto Pinochet, who took over Chile in 1973. He was in power for 17 years, until 1990.

So, when I arrived in Santiago, I was fascinated how similar some things and mentality is in Chile and Czech republic despite they could not be further apart.

Communistic “gray”.

In both countries many building are painted in gray, but it is not modern gray. This type of gray is specific to countries who were impacted by communism.

Secondly, the mentality of wanting to have nice, functional and world class things or services, but for free.

Everything has to be for free, but top quality. People in both countries complain about many things. To be more specific, in Chile people complain for public transportation system, education, and health care. In Czech people complain about educational system and health care.

All these institutions, both Chile and Czech, are public government owned. That means there is no fee for health care or education because it is payed by the government from the people’s taxes. In Czech people went almost crazy when government set a fee 30 CZK (1,2 USD) for a person every time ones visit a doctor. Similar thing with education. In Czech people would want to have excellent education with possibilities like in the Western World countries, but when they are asked to pay a tuition or contribute, they do not want to pay for anything. They want to have the best quality services for free. In Chile, specifically in Santiago people complain about the public transportation system being awful, but they also complain about being too expansive. 1 ride = 1 USD. The public transportation system is awful, dirty and unreliable (except subway), but they cannot charge more for a ticket, so they can improve the service because people in Santiago already complain about 1 USD having too much to pay.

It is not fault of the people, but this is one of many examples to what happens to mentality of people, when they experience communism for a long time.

As I said in the previous post, one of the greatest arts attraction in Santiago is house of Pablo Neruda. I personally visited with the organization that I am studying in Santiago and I thought that it was enough interesting to write a post.

Pablo Neruda, officially named Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, was a Chilean diplomat and poet. He was born on July 12, 1904, in the city called Parral and died in the capital of Chile, Santiago. Pablo Neruda derived his name from Czech Poet (Yeaah Czech! – I am from the Czech Republic) named Jan Neruda. For non-Czech speakers, Jan means John in English. Neruda was famous for multiple things. He won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971, Lenin Peace Prize in 1953, and International Peace Prize in 1950. Regarding his work, here is an example of his most famous poems:

Always, A Dog Has Died, Walking Around, Morning (Love Sonnet XXVII) or A Song Of Despair

Before I get to picture tour of Pablo Neruda’s house, I just want to point out an irony that he was associated with. Neruda was big fan and supporter of communistic regime, but he owned three houses in Chile, which is not really “communistic” way of life. Also, I should add that his house is more like compound of 5 different building with a little parquet in the middle.

A little bit continuing with my previous article about fast foods, DHL works very differently in Chile as well.

As you know my iPhone got stolen. Adding to that my ship one of two debit cards, I have here broke, so my family send me a packing, more like a thick envelope with SIM card, debit card, and 2 (100g) chocolate bars from the Czech Republic. This is what happen.

My family sent the shipment on August 15. It got into Chile on August 18, only 3 days later. Since August 18 the package was at the customs for 10 days. After we called them, I had to go the airport to the DHL station, where I found out that my package is not there, but it is at Private Broker, which was close for the day. So the next day, I had to go again to airport to pick up my package, which takes about an hour.

I came to the private storage office and they told that I need extra paperwork, so they send me to another office. In that another office I was told that because of the chocolate I need to go get more paperwork back at Santiago’s center Department of Hygiene. I said, that I do not want the two chocolate bars, so I did not have to go back to Santiago. I and other two workers from that second office went back to the warehouse. They gave me a safety helmet and brought my package. They opened and took out the Chocolate. Then they put the two envelopes with the cards back and told me to pay the fee. From DHL, I was told to pay fee of $7 USD, so when the private storage told me to pay $50 USD, I was surprised. The $50 USD was for the private storage that I supposedly was asking, which obviously is not truth.

In the end, I do not have my package and I am still paying a “private storage” at some Chilean warehouse. Form the bright side, I got to really practice my Spanish and experience Southern American culture with everything it has, which is the reason of me studying abroad.

The bus drivers in Santiago are a case for itself. I am a person who always grew up in western world, so my view could be little bit tilted, but judge yourself.

If a person wants a bus to stop then one has to “stop” it like when you are getting a taxi in New York.

In Santiago it is not normal for bus drivers to stop because there is a bus station on one’s route. If nobody presses the stop sign in the bus and nobody is showing off hand with a thumb up on the bus station, the driver will not stop.

If bus driver does not want to stop at a station, they do not stop.

Have you heard saying; “it is your world, we are just living it”. Well, that is a kind of a life of a bus driver in Santiago. It happens to me many times. If a bus driver just do want to stop, then he (I should say one or s/he, but most of the drivers are men) does not stop. He just passes the station.

A bus driver can kick you out off the bus anytime for any reason.

This happens to me once, but I saw it multiple times. If bus driver thinks the bus is full, he can just show you a hand gesture “go out” or “leave” and you have to go. Because he will not drive away until you leave the bus. Or if you are talking to him about the way he drives, which is another story and my next point. You cannot say anything. I was not saying because my Spanish is not good enough to get in an argument, but multiple times I saw a verbal argument between a passenger and a driver. It ends up by driver kicking the passenger out.

The way a bus driver drives.

Really, really, fast, this is the answer. For the first time, I was standing in the public transportation bus and a bus was waiting to for a green light. We were the first in the line, and bus driver transmitted natural, but the gas pedal was all the way down. You could just hear to engine going full speed. The same thing race drivers do on the start of the race. Lastly the drivers often just speed up even they see there is not space.

Not always, but more than once, bus driver left the door wide open during the ride.

I cannot even imagine what would happen if in Western world civilization if a person would get injured because the driver left the door open. Well, look at my video that it really happens here.

Since my 3 out of 4 classes at the university are all in English, I am not improving my Spanish, which is one of main reasons why I came here. I must live with a host family, so I am pushed to speak only in Spanish.

I arrived to Santiago on Monday, July 18, and the following Wednesday, we were meeting our host families at 3:00 p.m. The host families came to the hotel where we were staying, and this what happened the Wednesday afternoon after my host mother picked me up.

She picked me up and we went to her car that was parked in front of the hotel. On the way to home, which was roughly 20 minutes by car, we stopped by at a grocery store called Líder, which by the way is owned by Walmart. She explained to me that she was making a cake and she forgot some ingredients, so she went to buy. I waited for her in the car. When she came back, we wanted to leave the parking slot, but she forgot where she put her parking ticket that you have to scan and the exit to open the parking gate. Luckily, after awhile she found it, so we left the parking spot. Then we came home. The apartment was very nice. I asked her what is her phone number, so we can communicate. While she was telling me her phone number, she forgot it the rest of it. I asked her about the password for the Wi-Fi and my host mom forgot where did she put the notebook, where the did she put the notebook.

Then we head to mall, because I had to have a Chilean pre-paid card. Just to help you realize the mall is in the tallest building of South America. It has 150+ stores in seven floors and it has four floor underground parking. We went to the store and to get the sim card. It was not the easiest process, but in the end I had a sim card. We were about to head to the Parking lot, when my host mom forgot a case from glasses somewhere, so we went look for it. We find it, so we finally head it back to the parking slot, when my host mom looked me, grabbed her head, and said: I forget where I parked my car.

The result was that I was for 45 minutes looking for her car in the tallest building of South America.

So we came back home and my host mom took while to open her own door. We entered and I just wanted to go to bed, when she told: I forgot to ask you, what do you want for breakfast when we were in the store earlier. I said greek yogurt, so at 10 p.m. she went again to the store.

Next day, I asked for a host family change and the organization that I am with here was fantastic. The same day, I moved to another host family, which I am right now and she is great!

It was pretty eye-opening experience the very first day, but that is why we go study abroad and great example of how respect and communications are crucial.

In the U.S. people eat burgers and hot dogs, in Chile people eat empanadas. Empanadas are very popular, cheap, and delicious. I do not think that in U.S. we have something, so similar to empanadas, like dulce de leche to manjar (only in Chile). Probably the closest thing would Calzone Pizza, but I do not like to use word close, because they are not close at all. It is only same idea of putting some sort of ingredients into a “packet”.

Mainly there are two types of empanadas, and so you can guess both are unhealthy, but delicious. Empanadas are ether baked or fried. Both kinds come in very different shapes.

And as you can probably guess, there are all sorts of empanadas even though a fried empanadas contain usually cheese only inside. Actually, I have never had a fried empanada with cheese. But the baked ones have all types of ingredients like, cheese and championess, meat and onions, chicken, championess and tomato sauce etc.

Lastly they are really cheap. You can buy four empanadas for 1990 Chilean Pesos, which is about 3 U.S. dollar (1990/650). One USD equals to 650 Chilean pesos.

If you get a chance you should definitely try empanada!