The First Day

January 03, 2019

Almost like the HOLLYWOOD sign ;)

At 9am I touched down in Santiago de Chile on the first day of my green card awaiting exile. After 16 hours in transit I wasn't feeling great but the sun was shining and I was feeling good about it. And the risk of turbulence was finally gone after 9 hours with the seatbelt sign on - have I mentioned I hate flying? I wish I could take a bullet train everywhere.
On exiting the airport my bag was tagged down by a sniffer dog, and I was very excited about how adorable he was about being such a good doggo and jumping over my luggage to tell his partner my backpack still smelled of mandarins that I gulped down two minutes before passing exit security (you're not permitted to bring in any foreign meats, fruitse or vegetables into Chile).

Following an easy transfer I arrived at my Spanish school homestay flat, where I was greeted by a sweet older lady. Unfortunately I was less excited about the state of her flat, let's just say we have different standards of cleanliness. I might (just might) be a bit of a germophobe so I'm currently still freaked out and I'm trying to see if the Spanish school will let me cancel at least part of the stay here.

After spending a considerable amount of time freaking out about hygiene and 2 x hour long naps I felt surprisingly alert, considering I had a sleepless overnight flighf behind me. I decided to walk around a bit and hunt down some food since it had been 12 hours since my last meal.

The area around the flat, Providencia, turned out to be decent, but not really a pleasure to walk around in. I passed by a few nice parks, including Parque Forestal, on my walk, but unfortunately their experience was spoiled by being surrounded by a net of large, busy roads.
Normally I try to eat local food but I craved something familiar and comforting, so I ended up having a pad thai. This must be one of the greatest dishes ever invented by humanity, right next to pierogi ruskie.