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Rachel returned from the Observatory on Saturday evening and found me knackered after finding a pool and swimming more laps than i care to think about. My muscles sure knew about it next day.

Its great to have her back in Santiago! Being my Birthday on Sunday and the Church carol service in the evening, we enjoyed a leisurely day. Unfortunately, being a sunday, our plans to have dinner out to celebrate my birthday were thwarted because nowhere was open! We ended up settling for a Burger King (shock horror…. but even at £2.20, it was the best i’ve ever had!) before the service then stocking up on Pan de Pascua (Easter Cake, which, rather bizarrely, they eat at Christmas) and english tea afterwards. The service was fantastic, ending with a candle-lit procession out of the church to the carol “Silent Night”.

Monday was manic but fun- Rachel and myself volunteered (why?!!) to help out with a kids holiday club for a day. There were 22 5-12year olds to keep us on our feet and on guard! We decorated cookies with them and other craft activities, then happily returned them to their parents at 2pm before running to my spanish lesson!

Today, we’ve searched for flats again. Our criteria are rather tight… fussy, yes, but we’d like to be different to the other ex-pats we’ve met so far here in Santiago. We don’t want to advertise our wealth, live in overtly upper class areas with gated houses and condominiums. Or in the suburbs of the city, a 60mins drive to work, where the air is fresh for sleeping in but thats you’ll see of home. Our criteria included:

2 bedrooms & office or 3 bedrooms

Kitchen with deep worktops (many new flats here have worktops only 30cm wide to save space!

North-facing (for the winter sun and view of the mountains) with a balcony

Large balcony for growing plants

A flat in a block of less than 10 floors (potentially safer in earthquakes)

Garage cupboard large enough for 2 bikes

1 parking space only

Close to shops so that we can cycle/walk and not drive

Within cycling distance of Rachel’s work and cycling distance of church

Low communal charges (cost of Concierge/security/cleaning) over and above rental

Away from busy roads to avoid noise pollution during daylight hours (so Rachel can sleep)

Heated swimming pool/ sports club nearby

Sorry to bore you with that list, but Pauline, our relocation consultant has been a star and has patiently waited for us to find the right place to live. But today we found the flat for us! Wahey!

Anyway… tonight, we enjoyed witnessing mayhem on the roads outside our temporary flat as firstly, the traffic light sequence went wrong, giving roads in adjacent directions a green light to which everyone just honked their horn until movement occurred… and then, secondly, we saw a child being carried by her mother to answer the call of nature in the centre of the traffic island during a red light… again, causing mayhem when it turned green. Hilarious.

Right, enough. Good night!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 20th, 2005 at 11:52 pm and is filed under News from a long narrow country- Chile 2006. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.