Becoming santiaguinos

We’ve been here a week now and we are starting to fall into a routine. It seems like we should feel like tourists here, but there’s something about forging out the semblance of a normal life and routine starting on day one that places us firmly outside of the sightseeing realm.  I’m used to bombing into a city, exhausting all the major sites within the first few days, and feeling like I’ve “seen” the place.  Here we haven’t seen much of the city yet, but we’re getting into the groove of our little area.  

Here's our 'hood (Bellavista) on a Thursday night....  (5 min walk from our house)

  It's a happening place!  Believe it or not, just about half a block from this exact spot is the trailhead to a fabulous hike.  I took it first thing this morning and here are some pictures from the top. As the sister statue to Rio's "Jesus"--here in Santiago we have Santa Maria stretching her arms out over the city.

Santa Maria

Overview of Santiago from the Santa Maria statue.  The stage you can see at close range is in fact an outdoor sanctuary/church.  There is a covered altar at the front and the congregation sits on the terraced hillside just below Santa Maria, La Virgen, and looking out over the city.  Our apartment building is backed up against the base of this mountain.

When we leave our house to go almost anywhere, we walk by this fountain.  We can often get a bit of a misting to alleviate the crazy heat.....

Our new grocery cart!!!   I can't begin to explain my excitement over this particular purchase.  Now I can go to the store and buy all the things we need in one trip, meaning we can eliminate those daily trips to the store and maybe only go twice a week.  If I had to label one of my possessions as "the most life-altering" it would be a contest between this object, and my SmartWool socks for winters in Pittsburgh.  The jury is still out on that one--it is very, very close.

Starting yesterday the girls went with their new babysitter/tutor Antonia for several hours in the afternoon.  She took them to the library and got them ice cream.  They love her and it's going to be fun for them to have time with her.  She has plans to take them to the zoo, to the movies, the art museum, and a bunch of other stuff.   It looks like it may be more of an opportunity for Antonia to practice English than for the girls to learn Spanish, though.  We'll see.  

However, the really big break-through is happening today at this very moment.  The kids at the pool downstairs have befriended the girls and they are "in like flin" down there.  I'm so excited to see this happen, as THIS is the way they are going to actually learn some Spanish.  The other kids speak a very tiny bit of English, but there's a lot of sign language going on, so I think there will be a good bit of mutual learning happening.  Yay, yay, yay!!  We've been swimming there every day for a whole week now and it didn't seem like the other kids were going to interact with the girls (and the girls were too shy to do the approaching), but today it finally happened.  They all hit it off earlier this afternoon.  The pool closes every day between 3 & 4 so the lifeguard can go to lunch.  At 4:00 the group of kids who had played with the girls earlier actually went to the concierge and figured out how to call our apartment to ask if the girls could come back down to the pool.  So cute!  I couldn't be more thrilled!

We were also invited to dinner a few nights ago this week at Becca's house.  Becca--a friend of our friend Emily in Pittsburgh--is American and has lived here in Santiago for quite some time, but will be moving back to the States soon.  The girls enjoyed getting to know her kids (who speak Spanish and English with equal fluency)--that is, after they recovered from the torture that I inflicted on them of walking the 3.5 miles to her house.  I'll admit it was a bit warm, but I was so glad that we walked because we discovered a bunch of new places along the way that will help us manage our life here; one of them was a vegan/vegetarian market & cafe that actually sells tofu and a bunch of other stuff that we use on a regular basis.  We were able to go back today and buy some things we needed.  Hooray!  And hooray for Becca for making a splendid dinner for us--wonderful food, wonderful company!

We also finally got our internet fixed today--it has been extremely spotty and unreliable since we arrived, but a guy came out today and resolved the issue and it seems to be working brilliantly now, thank goodness.  I deem WEEK ONE a success!!