Mood:
not sureTopic: Chile
I arrived in Santiago last night over the Andes 
for a three month stay. Breezy and summery and cool, the contrast to freezing Virginia was welcome. We traveled down newly built highways bypassing rush hour traffic to my apartment hotel in Las Condes, a five minute walk from my office. It is also a neighborhood I have come to know well on many previous stays, though none of them had exceeded three weeks.
On the way my guide Alina told me that the Xian terra cotta warriors are also in Santiago until the end of April, downtown at La Moneda. We had just seen a collection at the National Geographic Society in DC; the contrast will be interesting. With about ten at each exhibit, we only have 350 exhibits to go to see them all.
The apartment is nice, but is within earshot of the busy Presidente Riesco thoroughfare. Small houses, remnant of the neighborhood a decade or so ago, alternate with skyscrapers, such as the one my apartment is in, on the eighth of 18 floors.
I am next to the elevators, but the sound doesn't seem to compete with traffic. On the right as one comes in is the aisle kitchen. Gas cooktop--good. Oven, microwave, pretty well outfitted though the place settings for four show some missing pieces so one could only seat three. Breakfast items prestocked in the fridge--nice touch--yogurt, bread, juice, water, candy and a bottle of Syrah on the sideboard. Very nice. Living room has a table for four, well-cushioned couch, chair, stereo and a generous balcony running the length of the unit with a pair of wicker chairs and table. A view toward the Andes through neighboring skyscrapers gives way to the pool below, a long dive down. 
Double bed and TV in the bedroom, where the internet cable is, though there is no desk and no outlet there for my laptop. Onbed computing I guess, or on the floor, or on the balcony. Walkin closet with ironing board and iron, and laundry basket, seven shirts, underwear, undershirts washed once a week but not pants (?). No safe. Bathroom small but whirlpool tub and nicely outfitted with hair dryer and mirrors. No washcloths or nasal tissues. All in all, quite nice though not quite the Boulevard Suites, where I have stayed before (but it is a 40 minute walk away--though the metro has now been extended so that it is not that far now).
I know well the restaurants here, though there are always changes. I walked down Isadora Goeyenechea to a cluster of restaurants. It is always a great walk, past the nicely lit church at El Golf. 
I passed by TGIFriday's and went to the place next door, where I was one of two tables and three diners. Had 'Ecuadorian shrimp risotto', which was fairly tasty, and cheap enough at $13. In bed shortly after ten.
Sunny again this am. I moved into my cubicle at the office and settled in to a day of reading proposals and attending telecons, ended by a great colloquium in Charlottesville, brought to us realtime by the internet--we could even question the speaker!
