Restaurant Tip: Mestizo

Typically when you've got visitors from home, they say:"We want to eat something typical for this region"... Unless you don't chose the fast food version and take them to Domino's, I can highly recommend Mestizo for this purpose! To start with: the classical aperitif Pisco Sour is a hit! And the Menu with predominantly local ingredients is pretty nice, too! On a warm summer's day you should reserve a table on the terrace with view on the bicentenario park. Love it!!!

http://www.restaurantes.emol.com/ficha/index.asp?id_restaurante=6300

Need a Haircut?

In Santiago you can get haircuts from CLP 3.000 to CLP 15.000. There are a lot of hairdressers, but not all of them can deal with European hair. My favourite hairdresser is Alexis Garrido: haircuts are a little bit more expensive, but this man's got style and talent...

http://www.alexisgarrido.cl/

Find a place to live in Santiago

Looking for a place to stay, you have to make several choices like which district, sharing a department or living alone, furnished or without furniture etc...

If you plan to live only for some months in Chile I recommend the homepage of Contactchile, which has a pretty good assortment (You can even choose to live in a family, if you're afraid of missing mom and dad), this service is not free of charge, but the fee also includes support in any problem concerning your renting. Another service free of charge is Compartodepto.cl.

If you plan to stay longer in Chile and want to live alone, you can find appartments "El Mercurio", which has an insert on saturdays and also a special homepage: http://propiedades.emol.com/_portada/index.aspx
and the homepage of Portal Inmobiliario: www.portalinmobiliaro.com.

A good district to live for younger people is Providencia, I don't recommend Bellavista( even though you might feel like in the heart of Latinamerica there), since it's very noisy on friday and saturday nights. Another good place to live is Las Condes, which is more like young couples, families and less party, but has very good public transport connection to everywhere. Last but not leastthere are the districts of Ñuñoa and La Reina, but I've never lived in any of those, so I couldn't tell what it's like to live there.

National Heroes: Allende versus Pinochet

Unlike conventional wisdom in Europe and the US, Chile's history is not as black and white as it's sold in the newspapers. Twenty years later chilean population still is extremely split: You can find those who still bemoan that socialism simply didn't work out for Chile and there are those who wish back the times when Pinochet ruled with iron fist forcing progress and civil obedience.

Disclaimer: I didn't live in Chile during any of the two regimes. The opinion expressed in this article is based on personal observations and narratives of people I got to know in Chile.

Salvador Allende Gossens:
This man definitely had a dream! He dreamt of a nation politically, socially and economically independent, of liberating the underdogs and defending the defenceless. This is a respectable thought, however he was way ahead of the times and had to run for president four times until he finally won the elections in 1970. Unfortunately Allende hadn't thought about how to make his dream come true and still be everybody's darling. To live socialism as sermonized by his party he decided to disappropiate and socialize land and companies, which turned out to be not his best idea, since land- and company owners got very angry at him. In addition he was a doctor and not an entrepreneur or farmer and couldn't run all this socialized land and companies in an efficient way, either; which led to shortages in food and upset the rest of the population. Finally there was international pressure of the US, who never liked Allende and would do anything to see him fail (even supporting a military putsch...) . When in 1973 his government finally was violently ended by the putsch of Augusto Pinochet, Salvador Allende showed to be a man who dies for his principles and committed suicide.

Augusto Pinochet Ugarte:
Augusto Pinochet was working for the military since 1936. During the government of Allende he became comander in chief of the Chilean army by the fortunate coincidence that his antecessor was forced to resign (...or was it all planned?). Since he knew that nobody would vote for him he decided to get into power without delay by a military putsch (the US also were involved somehow, but that's another story). So how do you run a country without the support of the population? Right, Dictatorship! There were a lot of people killed or "recommended" to leave the country in order to not jeopardize the new government. Pinochet declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew and prohibited meetings of more than five persons in one room. But he did sort of good things, too: For example he pioneered the Chilean economy as it is today. Convinced that Chileans would have already forgotten how many of their relatives had been killed and only see the benfits of his government, he decided to chance a referendum on if he should stay in power for ten more years in 1988. Unsurprisingly to me, the answer of the majority was "NO" with 55, 99%, but after all 44,01% voted for "YES", which aknowedges the statement of my first sentence, that chilean history isn't black and white at all!

Nicknames

Nicknames in Chile are a sign of affection. Everybody has a nickname here, generally showing preferences, physical attributes or other outstanding caracteristics. Watch out, not all nicknames are for public use: I have a friend whose nickname is "Piscola" because of his preference for that very drink, but his wife shall never find out. Here are the most typical nicknames:

Pelado (only male version): Baldhead

Guaton (only male version): Fat

Gordo/Gorda: Fat

Negro/Negra: Black

Flaco/Flaca: Slim

Chico/Chica: Small

El turco: Man with oriental background

El Gringo/La Gringa: Person with European or US-American background

Since these caracteristics fit a lot of persons, they are generally used with the given or family name of the person, in order to distinguish one baldhead from another, like "Pelado Insulza" and "Pelado Zaldívar".

And another little anecdote I don't want to deprive you of:

In 2005 the finance minister being asked a question about the acting president Michelle Bachelet, referred to her as "Mi gordi... ", which caused polemics and indignation in the feminist section. Later he made clear that this nickname was the expression of friendship and respect. It's open to dispute whether it was an expression of affection or a demonstration of male predominance, I personally find it cute and like the idea of all politicians being friends, working as a team, not arguing all the time like they usually do.

Coffee

I bet you think that Chile has great coffee because of its splitting distance to Brazil and Colombia. WRONG!!! Chile is Nescaféland, oh yes, the instant the better, sorry guys! But you can find coffee from colombia and brazil aswell, it's just that nobody drinks it. You better get used to it or switch to tea or get your coffee from Starbucks...

Motels

Motels in Chile are rather a love den than an acommodation, and they are quite popular, most of all among younger people, offering student discounts in several establishments. "Why is that so?" you might ask. I tell you: Young people in Chile tend to live longer at home than in Europe and Chilean parents are generally more conservative, not allowing their children (even if they are already approaching thirty) to receive visits of the opposite sex over night. So teenage love and passion is a pretty expensive issue and goooooooooooood business for the motel-owners; as well as cheating, but that's another story.

Hotel Valdivia is a classic, even if you don't go for that special purpose you can have a great time there with sauna, jacuzzi, feeling like an egiptian or rock star etc.: http://www.hotelvaldivia.cl/site/