Life in Chile: Update 1

I've now been living and working here in Santiago for several weeks, and things are starting to go more smoothly. (At last!) A lot has happened since the first post I wrote since moving here, and so I'll be writing about all of that today...

Our New Apartment!

The most important thing that's happened is that Claudio and I have finally found an apartment! And we've now moved in and have mostly furnished it, though we've still got a bit of work left to do to make it perfect.

It has been a really long and tough process for us to get to the stage where we're at now - first we had to find somewhere to rent, which took ages, and since then we've had to furnish it completely, in addition to sorting out problems with the internet connection.

But we're really happy to have our own place at last. The apartment is starting to look really good, and what makes it even better is that it's in the Ñuñoa district of Santiago, which was our first choice in terms of the area where we wanted to live.

We've faced a lot of challenges over the last couple of years, so it feels like a big milestone for us to finally be able to move in together as a couple, and especially to have such a nice apartment just for us. I know that a lot of other people reach this stage earlier in life, and I certainly expected it to happen sooner for us, but the fact that we've had to have so much patience and perseverance to get here makes it feel even better. ❤

Parque Araucano

For obvious reasons, we haven't really travelled much lately, but we did spend a evening in Parque Araucano, one of Santiago's nicest parks. It was the evening after we'd applied for our apartment, when we were waiting to find out if our application had been approved, so we wanted to do something to take our minds off it.

Parque Araucano is actually known as Santiago's version of Central Park, as it is in a rectangular shape surrounded by skyscrapers, just like the famous park in New York City. It is a very picturesque place to walk around, and it also has some food trucks if you want to have dinner there. We ordered a delicious curry from an Indian food truck, which I enjoyed a lot, because I'd been missing the curries from back home!

Indian Box

Speaking of Indian food, we visited a very special Indian restaurant last night, called Indian Box. We had driven past it a couple of times, and had been impressed by how it looked like the Taj Mahal, especially when lit up at night. Then I looked up the menu online and found out that the restaurant was 100% vegan! So we decided that we would go there to celebrate once we finally had our apartment.

And last night we were able to do just that! We had a really great evening there; the food was amazing, and the décor really gave us the feeling of being in India. We'll definitely go back in the future!

Our Travel Plans!

So far, my time in Chile has mostly been filled with necessary tasks that needed to be done in order to set up my life here, meaning that my plan of having a year filled with travel hasn't quite been put into action yet. But that's going to change very soon!

Next week, Claudio and I are going to spend the Easter weekend in Iquique, a city in the far north of Chile, not far from the border with Peru - in fact, it actually used to be a part of Peru prior to the War of the Pacific. So it's going to be kind of like a trip abroad without actually going abroad. (One of the best things about Chile is that it has basically every time of landscape and climate imaginable, so you can go on almost any type of trip you like, without leaving its borders). We're very excited to spend Easter sightseeing in a new city and relaxing on a tropical beach!

As for the rest of the year, I really want to see as much of Chile and South America as possible. In Chile, I most want to visit Torres del Paine and several other areas of the south of Chile. And regarding the rest of South America, I'm very determined to make it to Machu Picchu and Rio de Janeiro this year. I would also like to spend time in the Galápagos Islands and Cartagena. My work is currently online, and I'm hoping to keep it that way, so maybe I'll be able to fit in a couple of "workations" in exotic locations, as well as making the most of bank holidays and time off.

At the moment, leaving and coming back to Chile is a bit tricky due to all the Covid restrictions, so any foreign trips might have to wait for a couple of months. But I'm hoping to go to the south of Chile next month, and after that, we'll see what the situation is like.

But of course, first of all, we've got our trip to Iquique to look forward to! I'm so excited to go there, and I'll be writing about it very soon!