General Thoughts about Santiago

Hola, Santiago is a nice city. For the last week I have been walking around all over the place and have found the people to be friendly and the area to be relatively safe. Here are a few random thoughts:

• Almost no one speaks english here fluently and the people who do speak english do so at a very basic level.
• There are few chain restaurants around here, most of the restaurants here are unique. In the central part of Santiago's Downtown I only saw one Burger King and one KFC, this place has not been spoiled by fast food.
  
• The seasons are reversed here, summer in the southern hemisphere is during our winter. January and February are the summer vacation months.
• The traffic in the city is light, even during peak hours there is not much congestion on the roads.
• Public transportation here is excellent. The Metro (Metro de Santiago) goes almost everywhere of interest. Here is a current map. The bus system also uses the same RFID cards and you can connect directly to a bus at the last terminal on the Metro.
  
• To have dinner in a restaurant costs between $8 to $16 for a plate of food, no more than this and no less.
• Food quality is ok, Santiago is not the place if you travel exclusively for food. So far the best restaurant I have been to is called El Otro Sitio, they specialize in Peruvian fare.
• Chilean people like beer, particular the 40oz is quite popular, even in bars.
• Credit cards are not popular here, everyone uses Debit cards. The first day I was here, prior to getting some Chilean Pesos, I spent about 10 minutes trying to pay for some water and other essential goods at the grocery store.
• For whatever reason, cold water is not served in restaurants, they keep trying to give you a glass with ice in it.
  
• Cola (CocaCola and Pepsi) is predominantly sold here in glass bottles, just like they used to sell in America 25 years ago. Only a handfull of restaurants have soda fountains, they just bring out the bottles. Cans are available but they are really small.
• There are many large buildings being built in the denser population areas, however, even in downtown, there are lots of old buildings that dont excede two or three stories.
• There is decorative graffiti everywhere, I will post some pictures later.
  
• Lots of young people here.

If I can think of anything else interesting about this place I will post later...